Donald trump. what is your take on him?

[pucho812]

Trump was just declared the winner for Michigan bringing him a whopping total of 306 electoral votes.  Not much they can really do here... Like it or not and I am sure you don't trump is the president elect.
 

 

[mattiasNYC]

Not sure what the last sentence was supposed to say.

Technically he isn't elected president until the electors vote in December, so there still is time. Not that I think anything will change.

Are you going to back up your previous statements or acknowledge that they were wrong by the way? Probably not. Similarly, Trump forges ahead and renegs on the promises you guys bought as true before the election. I wonder how that feels.

 

[pucho812]

The last sentence I wrote,  says that the recount will not change anything. Trump is the president elect even though I know you do not like that. Yes the EC has not cast final votes but that is formality.

As for reneging  on promises, I can't think of a single politician who has not done that. Guantano bay is still open? Remember 8 years ago when President Obama said he would close it? Remember 4 years ago during re-election when he said the same thing.  It happens. 

 

[mattiasNYC]

I thought we were talking about Trump?

Did you want Obama to close Gitmo or not?

 

[JohnRoberts]

Not sure what the last sentence was supposed to say.

Technically he isn't elected president until the electors vote in December, so there still is time. Not that I think anything will change.

Are you going to back up your previous statements or acknowledge that they were wrong by the way? Probably not. Similarly, Trump forges ahead and renegs on the promises you guys bought as true before the election. I wonder how that feels.

I promised myself to avoid this thread but since you are pontificating about what trump voters "bought", something you cannot possibly know with any certainty unless you voted for Trump, which I doubt.

Speaking for myself and how I "feel", it was mainly the liberal media, and probably some low information voters that took the Donald literally.  All politicians lie (political speech). Trump embraced the campaign process to speak figuratively, not literally to voters. I have one neighbor who falls in the low information category and he is angry that Trump has walked back the "throw Hillary in jail" rants, while Sessions is unlikely to be very gentle on her if ongoing investigations turn up a smoking gun.

Since a number of his campaign pronouncements were not even legal, or possible, the only way to view them was as the beginning of a negotiation.  I am already up on two stocks I bought that are betting he won't completely crush Mexico.  8) I am pleasantly surprised by a number of his appointments. Some are just red meat for his base, but others seem very reasonable from a diversity standpoint, and clearly well qualified. He seems to have turned the other cheek to even embrace some who didn't support him. Many Trump insiders object to his consideration of Romney for State... we'll see how that turns out... interesting times.  I suspect Harry Reid would like to undo the "nuclear option" he enacted making it harder to block cabinet approvals in the senate.

The liberal media wasted a lot of time and energy picking apart Trumps every campaign utterance literally. How is that working out?

I still think he is a blowhard real estate promoter and reality TV star, but head and shoulders better than the community organizer we have now, and SCOTUS seems safe for another term. It appears the liberal biased media miscalculated by setting him up to be an easy kill for Hillary. Looks like he out-played the players. The vote outcome surprised me.

Unclear what Jill Stein (green party) is up to. Unlikely to find tens of thousands of votes in a recount... But this does give hope to the liberals still dealing with their grief and denial. My speculation based on how angry and abusive they seem on social media. Now they call me a white supremacist and misogynist instead of just a racist.  :

JR

PS: Do not assign me more homework... I have better things to do with my time than arguing pointlessly.

 

[mattiasNYC]

John, nothing matters any longer. That's what I've taken away from this election. Nothing matters.

One can have a conversation with a conservative of your kind and use ideology, and never convince you, because you're set in your ideology. You base it on religion or facts of life. It's tempting then to discuss politics using facts, but you don't care about those either. Your kind probably never did. Facts are now equal to opinions. Truth is irrelevant. Lying is the same as misleading is the same as opinion. Nothing matters.

Having a dispassionate conversation based in reality using evidence and fact leads nowhere. Using emotion leads nowhere, except for the accusation of abuse, which in turn is ironic seeing that it's the right who constantly whines about the left being "too PC".

So really we're truly left with nothing matters. Truth doesn't matter any longer.  Arguments don't matter. Doesn't matter what Trump says. Doesn't matter what Trump didn't say. Doesn't matter what Trump did. Doesn't matter what he didn't do. That's where we are John. Nothing matters.

Nevertheless,

It'd be illuminating to you yourself if you re-read what you wrote and noticed how in one section you cheer Trump's appointments of people that are qualified, yet below deride Obama as a "community organizer". Juxtapose that with Hillary being clearly vastly more qualified than the admitted reality tv host along with "everyone lies" as an excuse for Trump after disqualifying Hillary for lying (despite her not doing so in your own opinion - you know, after you did read her testimony.... which leads me to believe that you truly do prefer to remain ignorant so you can say people like her lied, literally, and not have to deal with the fact that apparently she didn't, in which case you'd have to revise your preconceived notion) and all we have is the usual conservative rightist non-thinking partisan ideologically inconsistent borderline hypocritical soup of politics.

No facts matter. No qualifications matter. Only gut-feeling.

And as for you being called a white supremacist: No, I don't think you think less of black people, I just think you don't care, or if you do care, it sure seems less an important issue to you than your two stocks that are up.  Trump took out a full page ad advocating the death penalty for five black children who were then exonerated after years in jail due to DNA evidence, and one of his appointees cheered that stance, while neither acknowledge the gross injustice done to these kids. Do you honestly think Trump would have done the same to affluent white kids? You don't care. Black Americans, Latinos and other people of color do. Americans will get what they deserve from this election. Anti-intellectualism. Instant gratification. Simpleminded simplicity for simpletons. Just don't come back whining when there's blowback.



PS:  AFTER Obama's work as a community organizer he:

- Earned a Law Degree
- Worked as a civil rights attorney
- Taught constitutional law
- Served three terms in the Illionis Senate

Yet you choose "community organizer", and then continue to bash the "biased liberal media"..... !!! Please tell me you see the irony here....  (though something tells me your objection may have to do with his legal experience, judging from Trump's appointees and statements, along with your own)

Fortunately we're back to the good old days now, where we get the best presidents ever, known from film or tv, white and male. Hurrah. Things are looking up, particularly the budget deficit. But, good for your portfolio no doubt.

 

[DaveP]

Matt,

There is obviously a lot of frustration in your post about the outcome of the election and your failure to convince several people here with logic, facts or any arguments you might bring to bear.

I don't know how old you are or how long you have been is the US, but at a good guess I would say you are considerably younger than me and JR.  Older people have seen more stuff.

There is always a cycle to politics, left, right, left right, etc.  We have seen this all our lives, both in the US and the UK.  In a sense, the logic of how people vote and the reasons are far less important to them than the ability to vote someone out and change the administration.  Bush senior, Clinton, Bush junior, Obama, now Trump.  Its like the tide coming in and going out, its kind of unstoppable and the details hardly matter really, much as that must disappoint you.

JR would not agree with me, but I thought that Obama was a good man and a great orator,  the contrast greater because of his predecessor, but I do not live in the US and have not experienced the fall-out of his presidency.  I believe he would have shut Guantanamo but in the end no-one would take the prisoners that are left without probably executing them.  He did try to repair relations with Cuba which was way overdue IMHO.  On the other hand, his reluctance to get more involved in the Middle East has not been a policy without some consequences, both for US influence and the innocents who have been slaughtered.

These are not put forward as facts, but they are my considered judgement from the observation of events.  This election looks like it is a reaction to the old left right zig-zag politics with an untried layman, it's an experiment that reflects the degree of desperation felt in much of the US the UK and France for that manner.  From my experience in the UK, the left has tried to shut down ordinary people who complained about the level of immigration by calling them racist.  This accusation has caused a lot of resentment in the people who were not racist which has come out in the Brexit vote.  A similar situation, but not identical, has arisen in the US and resulted in Trump.

I would put money on the fact that Trump will not do half the things he said he would, it was just salesman's speak, sorry if you thought he was telling the truth, it was obvious to me that it was never going to be a practical proposition.  What has surprised me is how quickly he has backtracked, he's not even in office yet!  I hope he finds a rapprochement with Russia and gets some more jobs for out of work Americans and gets your economy moving again.  I also hope he brings some more jobs back from China too.  I hope he back-tracks on the Climate pull-out too.

In the end, we just have to give him the benefit of the doubt, because the tide is on the rise, that it will recede again is beyond doubt.

DaveP

 

[Matador]

 

[mattiasNYC]

Matt,

There is obviously a lot of frustration in your post about the outcome of the election and your failure to convince several people here with logic, facts or any arguments you might bring to bear.

I don't know how old you are or how long you have been is the US, but at a good guess I would say you are considerably younger than me and JR.  Older people have seen more stuff.

I doubt you guys are more than a decade older than I.

There is always a cycle to politics, left, right, left right, etc.  We have seen this all our lives, both in the US and the UK.  In a sense, the logic of how people vote and the reasons are far less important to them than the ability to vote someone out and change the administration.

But see, that's the thing: Voting against someone by voting for someone else isn't illogical, one can do that based on facts. What's illogical is the basis for such a "protest vote" in some cases. Look, it's super simple:

JR says Hillary is a liar, with the implication that that disqualifies her for his vote.
JR then says the event at which she lied she didn't actually lie, and then says everyone lies, and that one can't really expect Trump to tell the truth.

I have no problem voting against Hillary, but if the reason for voting against her is that she's a liar, and if Trump too is a liar, then you didn't solve the problem by voting Trump, you just maintained a status quo. The solution, if we're to be honest here, would in that case probably have been voting for Bernie. Bernie has a far more solid track record than either on this issue.

  Bush senior, Clinton, Bush junior, Obama, now Trump.  Its like the tide coming in and going out, its kind of unstoppable and the details hardly matter really, much as that must disappoint you.

It's not the back-and-forth swing that bothers me, it's the reasoning behind it. There was a time when we had far less information available in the mainstream, far fewer opportunities to learn the truth, but it still to me seemed like there was a desire by the media to find what the truth was in a fair amount of cases and then also try to disseminate that truth. And more importantly, people seemed to care about the truth. Today that doesn't seem to be the case any longer.

Look, we didn't get this far as a species relative to other species due to our emotions. We got this far because of our intellect. Pretty much everything we've done that's been beneficial and has propelled us further as a whole has been intellectual and scientific endeavors. Neither JR nor I would have been here had it not been for boats and aircraft, the result of intellectual activity. Yet here we are, 2016, and it's as if anti-intellectualism is where it's at. Facts are opinions and everyone has them, so really, just because a vast majority of well educated specialists in the climate says it's warming and most likely due to human activities doesn't mean it's true, because your opinion matters too. Just because most well educated biologists acknowledge that evolution is real doesn't mean it's true, because I have to respect your anti-intellectual religious nonsense: Teach the controversy!

That's why we can't have discussions any longer. I said it before in this thread and another: There's one type of person who makes assertions, has them disproven, yet fails to even acknowledge that. That type of person will never reevaluate his position but instead just move on to the next claim. And that's not only now permeated our popular culture / social media, but it's no in the US government. And a large part of the US population doesn't care. "Truth"? Who cares? Everybody lies.

Like I said; at that point, what matters? I don't see that anything does.

(the "you" above was a plural general "you", not DaveP)

This election looks like it is a reaction to the old left right zig-zag politics with an untried layman, it's an experiment that reflects the degree of desperation felt in much of the US the UK and France for that manner.

Yet people didn't vote for Jill, Bernie or anyone else. Look at those two and compare to Trump and tell me he was less "establishment" than they were. It's not even close.

  From my experience in the UK, the left has tried to shut down ordinary people who complained about the level of immigration by calling them racist.  This accusation has caused a lot of resentment in the people who were not racist which has come out in the Brexit vote.  A similar situation, but not identical, has arisen in the US and resulted in Trump.

But it's possible to have a nationalist stance, one that favors tightening borders for example and expediting extraditions of illegal immigrants, without calling Mexicans rapists and criminals and equating Muslims with terrorists. Right? Again, just because some people are advocating too much political correctness doesn't mean that a bunch of people who feel they can't speak freely are actually not xenophobic racists. And they now got someone to cheer for. That was entirely unnecessary. Trump could have calmly announced the same policies using reasoning rather than advocate violence at his rallies and flirt with aforementioned xenophobia. One would think that was obviously a choice.

So again, whatever the risk was of him enacting terrible principles targeting Mexicans, Muslims, women, non-whites, non-heterosexuals, that risk was deemed to be of lesser importance than voting against Hillary, or for whatever other policy Trump said he'd implement but everyone apparently knew he might not. I mean, it's either that or it did matter.

And on that note I think part of the problem here is that - and forgive me for being presumptuous here - white heterosexual males actually do not understand what it's like to be discriminated against based on skin color or sexual orientation or gender. The reaction to electing Trump is tremendous due to this experience that we've had and due to the history of what our ancestors went through. Sorry to sound polarizing, but American white straight males just didn't go through this the same way. And now they're all confused about why the "losers" are so upset and can't admit defeat. Well that's why. It's the history of that with which Trump is flirting. The tremendous anger and disappointment is not a result of an entitlement sentiment or anything, it's genuine fear and worry about what's to come, and there's a lesson to be learned about it.

I've seen absolutely zero people learn that lesson though. Zero.

I would put money on the fact that Trump will not do half the things he said he would, it was just salesman's speak, sorry if you thought he was telling the truth, it was obvious to me that it was never going to be a practical proposition.

We still don't know exactly what he will implement and how however. The best case scenario is that it says something about the gullibility of the average Trump-voter, and the worst case scenario is something one doesn't even want to think about.

In the end, we just have to give him the benefit of the doubt, because the tide is on the rise, that it will recede again is beyond doubt.

It is what it is, but if we need to give some old fart who says "Grab 'em by the pussy" in private, is either a sex offender or a liar both in public or private, speaks via Twitter on the level of an adolescent, whips up xenophobic and racist sentiments... if we need to "give him the benefit of the doubt" I'd actually like to hear where you think the line is drawn for where we no longer have to do that.

I'm genuinely curious about where the line is drawn.

 

[mattiasNYC]

Matador's cartoon nailed it.

(this short post brought to you by: I have my moments)

 

[JohnRoberts]

Matt,

There is obviously a lot of frustration in your post about the outcome of the election and your failure to convince several people here with logic, facts or any arguments you might bring to bear.

I don't know how old you are or how long you have been is the US, but at a good guess I would say you are considerably younger than me and JR.  Older people have seen more stuff.

There is always a cycle to politics, left, right, left right, etc.  We have seen this all our lives, both in the US and the UK.  In a sense, the logic of how people vote and the reasons are far less important to them than the ability to vote someone out and change the administration.  Bush senior, Clinton, Bush junior, Obama, now Trump.  Its like the tide coming in and going out, its kind of unstoppable and the details hardly matter really, much as that must disappoint you.

JR would not agree with me, but I thought that Obama was a good man and a great orator,

No I agree that president Obama is a great orator... That is how he got the gig. He was invited to give a speech at the democratic convention as a new up and comer and blew everyone away... the rest is fast-track political history (get your card punched for doing a stint in congress, etc).  I liked his early speeches (even his later speeches that I watched were good) and I thought this might not suck, until I experienced the disconnect between words and actions. In later years I would find myself yelling at the TV until I had to just stop watching. 

I will reserve my judgement about how good of a man he is, but he clearly cares for his family and did not embarrass the office like some other famous presidents have with their indiscretions. I wish he would have done even more to promote himself as a good role model for the community (he still can). We can't depend on Bill Cosby and the fictional Dr Huxtable for that idealized family model any more.

My brother who lived in Chicago and saw him coming up through the local political scene there warned me about him before he hit the national stage. My brother was far less optimistic than me (and IMO quite correct, but i figured it out eventually). 

the contrast greater because of his predecessor,

Bush 43 has a borderline speech impediment that leads people to underestimate him. Further he ignores public insults which in our political climate leads to even more piling on. Bush 41 was not as complacent about criticism with one very public incident with Dan Rather back in 88 where he pushed back. Now Dan strikes me as the kind of guy to hold a grudge and that anger toward the Bush family may have blinded him to the fake news story about Bush 43 that blew up in his face on 60 minutes. 

but I do not live in the US and have not experienced the fall-out of his presidency.  I believe he would have shut Guantanamo but in the end no-one would take the prisoners that are left without probably executing them. 

Gitmo is a bad solution to a worse problem (we try to be the good guys, so don't just summarily kill all the bad guys we capture). After multiple escapes and problems trying to house the incorrigible bad actors in the middle east, GITMO was the only slightly less bad solution. 

I keep listening for a better solution, but we seem to be in denial that we are engaged in a very long war with radical islam, and these are really bad guys.

Maybe we can recognize ISIS as a new nation and release all the GITMO detainees to them in Raqqa,  before we turn the dessert there into glass. (mostly kidding, but would that work?)

He did try to repair relations with Cuba which was way overdue IMHO. 

I know people whose parents had their businesses confiscated by Fidel. They moved to the US and started over from scratch with nothing.

I would be OK with easing sanctions on Cuba in return for some human rights concessions, but all I see is quo with no quid. Some sweet easy greenback revenue for an oppressive government with no apparent strings attached.

There is a Fidel Castro joke that he said he wouldn't die until America was destroyed, so now that Trump is elected he can die in peace. (now that's funny).

On the other hand, his reluctance to get more involved in the Middle East has not been a policy without some consequences, both for US influence and the innocents who have been slaughtered.

The first US soldier just got killed in Syria by an IED this week.  I am optimistic to see the progress in Mosul, but we secured Mosul once before at great cost of blood and treasure then just foolishly let it drift back into ISIS hands. We still have a military presence in Japan and Germany, but somehow thought Iraq would magically be fine after a full withdrawal.  : The excuse used then (no status of forces agreement) does not hold water with the thousands of US fighters re-introduced into the fight there, over recent years.  The strategy seems to be more about political expediency and kicking the can down the road for the next POTUS to deal with.

I am thankful at least that he didn't repeat the Iraq mistake by pulling completely out of Afghanistan like he promised he would, but Afghanistan is far from sorted. 

I kind of like that the General that Trump interviewed for a senior position who is nicknamed "mad dog". 

These are not put forward as facts, but they are my considered judgement from the observation of events.  This election looks like it is a reaction to the old left right zig-zag politics with an untried layman, it's an experiment that reflects the degree of desperation felt in much of the US the UK and France for that manner.  From my experience in the UK, the left has tried to shut down ordinary people who complained about the level of immigration by calling them racist.  This accusation has caused a lot of resentment in the people who were not racist which has come out in the Brexit vote.  A similar situation, but not identical, has arisen in the US and resulted in Trump.

yes, this is another example of the populist wave sweeping around the world. And US voters like to change parties in power every couple terms anyhow.  Looks to me like they don't really like either party.  ;D Trumps appeal was that he was not a real DC insider politician, but he played one well enough to win by turning the campaign into a reality TV series (something he is good at).

I would put money on the fact that Trump will not do half the things he said he would, it was just salesman's speak, sorry if you thought he was telling the truth, it was obvious to me that it was never going to be a practical proposition. 

only half?  obvious to most observant people IMO. My low info neighbor believed everything Trump said and we argued so much before the election about the numerous unlikely to impossible (illegal) promises, that he actually accused me of being a Hillary supporter.  8)

What has surprised me is how quickly he has backtracked, he's not even in office yet!  I hope he finds a rapprochement with Russia and gets some more jobs for out of work Americans and gets your economy moving again.  I also hope he brings some more jobs back from China too.  I hope he back-tracks on the Climate pull-out too.

Russia has value as a possible partner in the ME since we abdicated from using hard power in Syria. That makes Romney really interesting for Secretary of State since he is vocally anti-Russia, (but he was also anti-Trump.  )  The political joke is that Trump is considering Romney to be his personal secretary, not secretary of state.

In the end, we just have to give him the benefit of the doubt, because the tide is on the rise, that it will recede again is beyond doubt.

DaveP

Our constitution limits the power of the POTUS, so there is only so much he can do. While he looks like he is hitting the ground running.

I am just happy if he stops our veer into the ditch.

It looks like some possible low hanging fruit he can pluck easily, followed by a lot of really hard work that will take years. I doubt his honeymoon will last that long, so we'll see if he is as good at deal making as he claims.

Good luck to us all...

JR

 

[mattiasNYC]

No mention of the Batista dictatorship that Castro overthrew.
No mention of the multiple assassination attempts of a foreign leader (Castro) by the US.
No mention of the support of terrorism by the US (or  of "freedom fighters").
No mention of the decades long embargo.

All because Americans can't accept that other people don't want Capitalism. To Americans freedom = other nations do things that Americans profit from.

It's sad how uneducated the US population is on political issues..

 

[hodad]

The liberal media wasted a lot of time and energy picking apart Trumps every campaign utterance literally. How is that working out?

JR

Can I just say how tired of this rightwing claptrap about the liberal media?  Les Moonves(head of CBS) said, "Donald Trump may not be good for the country, but he's damned good for CBS."  Anyone who thinks Trump was given short shrift by the "liberal" media simply wasn't paying attention.  They gave exceedingly huge amounts of airtime to Trump (because Trump=big ratings), and they buoyed his campaign.  Trump is certainly cunning when it comes to issues of publicity, and he played it to the hilt.  If people on the right are too stupid to see this, then they are simply too stupid.  And the so-called "liberal media" simply does not exist--most papers bend over backwards to cater to their conservative readers, CNN constantly tries to out-Fox Fox, and even supposedly liberal MSNBC has Trump Tool Joe Scarborough as one of its biggest "stars."  Not to mention Fox and right wing talk radio, which are decidedly not "liberal" in any way, shape, or form. 

So no.  Trump got far more airtime than probably any candidate ever, and the "news" networks spent most of their HRC coverage on the pseudo-scandals of Benghazi and the email server--both of which were attacks ginned up by GOP congress idiots. 

So shut it.  Just give the "liberal media" BS a rest,  It's a lie.  You know it's a lie.  I know it's a lie.  Give it a bleeding rest. 

 

[hodad]

Oh, one last thing.  Back in the day, the Dan Rather/HW Bush dustup was rumored to be a stunt that Roger Ailes came up with to make HW look like a tough guy.  Sounds about right, and if you actually go back and look at the footage/read the transcript, you realize that HW's reaction was way over the top.  So it's possible that Rather falls into the "fool me twice, shame on me" camp, but he was just doing his job as a journalist when HW pulled his little stunt. 

 

[Script]

Gentlemen, please calm down a bit.

I sense a lot of emotion and anger in some of the latest posts (actually quite a few posts already). That's fine, but please do not walk the line to the offensive here -- no matter how well phrased.

And there really is no need to shout or swear across the web. All it achieves is self-deconstruction and that people will stop listening/reading. I know, it's the brewery here -- but still...

/s

 

[lassoharp]

Oh, one last thing.  Back in the day, the Dan Rather/HW Bush dustup was rumored to be a stunt that Roger Ailes came up with to make HW look like a tough guy.  Sounds about right, and if you actually go back and look at the footage/read the transcript, you realize that HW's reaction was way over the top.  So it's possible that Rather falls into the "fool me twice, shame on me" camp, but he was just doing his job as a journalist when HW pulled his little stunt.

LoL.  Whether its was true or not, it sounds spot on target.  I wouldn't be surprised.  Their tactics consistently bear the hallmark of a total lack of imagination/creativity.  It is probably the No 1 psychological scar and shortcoming they bear.  They compensate by becoming rigid and "competent-reasonable" types = doing and saying things so robotically predictable it is sometimes frightening.  But the even scarier way they compensate is by buying and bulldozing their way through life.  Enough money will solve everything seems to be the motto.  And consistently, the polls show them to have the lowest popularity among voters . . . . . . and so desperation gives way to use of "legal criminality" ala the 2000 election.  Then desperation gives way to the just plain weirdness of figures like Sarah Palin . . . . . and then before you know it the effective white flag is up and in walks Trump, who proceeds to make a mockery of them on his way to the White House.  More than a little interesting.

But despite his eerily obvious sh*t lister picks from the hard Christian Right so far, I still think he is too much of the outsider, self made man from the fringe to sit in the pond for too long with those ducks.  He's just too unpredictable and rebellious in the extreme.  You probably won't see it at first .  Wait until the honeymoon wears off.

And isn't Ailes pretty much the figure head of this reverse tantrum of "Liberal media bias" that he has been on a crusade with for years? 

It's an effective strategy whether it's in keeping with reality or not.  There's few things more bonding than getting large amounts of people to agree that the true source of their troubles is some phantom entity that continues to dog and persecute them.    It's an appeal to lazy thinking and most of all, it provides a means of swerving away from the potential pain of having to take a good close look at themselves and come to terms with the facts of why people may not like them and their agendas.  And even worse, to have to face the pain of actually having to do something about it!    . . . . so sure thing - bring me a made up boogeyman! - That mean 'ol Liberal Media.  It's their fault your honor.  Same applies to the other side too so don't get a wrong idea.

 

[DaveP]

JR says Hillary is a liar, with the implication that that disqualifies her for his vote.
JR then says the event at which she lied she didn't actually lie, and then says everyone lies, and that one can't really expect Trump to tell the truth.

I have no problem voting against Hillary, but if the reason for voting against her is that she's a liar, and if Trump too is a liar, then you didn't solve the problem by voting Trump, you just maintained a status quo. The solution, if we're to be honest here, would in that case probably have been voting for Bernie. Bernie has a far more solid track record than either on this issue.

I agree with this logic (and would have voted for Bernie) but Trumps appeal was that he was an outsider, not that he was more truthful.

It's not the back-and-forth swing that bothers me, it's the reasoning behind it. There was a time when we had far less information available in the mainstream, far fewer opportunities to learn the truth, but it still to me seemed like there was a desire by the media to find what the truth was in a fair amount of cases and then also try to disseminate that truth. And more importantly, people seemed to care about the truth. Today that doesn't seem to be the case any longer.

What I have found to have changed most in my lifetime is the simple reporting of news.  It used to be that news simply reported what had happened.  Now, half of the programmes are devoted to "expert" speculation and interpretation.  The very latest thing we have to deal with is now fake news to complicate the issues, as if it they were not complicated enough.

Look, we didn't get this far as a species relative to other species due to our emotions.

  You have just alienated the female half of our species.

Yet here we are, 2016, and it's as if anti-intellectualism is where it's at. Facts are opinions and everyone has them, so really, just because a vast majority of well educated specialists in the climate says it's warming and most likely due to human activities doesn't mean it's true, because your opinion matters too. Just because most well educated biologists acknowledge that evolution is real doesn't mean it's true, because I have to respect your anti-intellectual religious nonsense: Teach the controversy!

This kind of problem is probably only found in the US.  The religeous right feel that if you stop taking the Bible literally then it can be slowly unpicked over time.  These reactions are born out of fear mostly.  Other examples are the Amish who want to stay in the pre-industrialised world and orthodox Jews who wear clothes from turn of the century Poland.  Climate change deniers, either have a vested interest in oil or coal production or think that humans are too insignificant to affect the planet or that the planet goes through cycles of warming and cooling without our input.

Re Trump red line?
I would  want to see him confine his activities to small government,  foreign policy and business growth.  If I were him I would want to make the US a world leader in alternative energy and to convince the established energy industries to change  their product, they certainly have enough industrial expertise for such a changeover.  I think he would be smart to leave things like abortion and gay marriage to local/state government to sort out, he will have enough on his plate already.

DaveP

 

[micaddict]

MattiasNYC wrote:

And on that note I think part of the problem here is that - and forgive me for being presumptuous here - white heterosexual males actually do not understand what it's like to be discriminated against based on skin color or sexual orientation or gender.

Yes, that is presumptuous and it's the sort of thinking that's at the root of the ideas you're fighting against.

Or we for that matter.

 

[mattiasNYC]

Gentlemen, please calm down a bit.

I sense a lot of emotion and anger in some of the latest posts (actually quite a few posts already). That's fine, but please do not walk the line to the offensive here -- no matter how well phrased.

And there really is no need to shout or swear across the web. All it achieves is self-deconstruction and that people will stop listening/reading. I know, it's the brewery here -- but still...

/s

Who is swearing?

I can't help but feel that there's now a significant portion of people who are upset about the tone of discourse but fail to see how they're actually holding the people discussing the election to a far higher standard than the president himself. Trump can say all sorts of things and yet here we are arguing that we need to be polite and not swear.

As a person who didn't support Trump I have to ask: "What difference does it make?", and "What does that tell you about the president?"

  You have just alienated the female half of our species.

Or, maybe you just did!  ;D

MattiasNYC wrote:
Yes, that is presumptuous and it's the sort of thinking that's at the root of the ideas you're fighting against.

Or we for that matter.

I doubt that it is. I partially include myself in the description I gave. I don't understand what it's like to be discriminated against for not being straight, because I am straight. I can't fully "feel" that discrimination. I can "feel" what it's like to be discriminated against due to my skin color however.

So, again, I actually stand by my statement until someone shows me otherwise. And it did not mean that people can't sympathize with minorities, that wasn't the point, the point was merely that because people haven't been in certain shoes they might be shocked at the reaction by the people in those shoes when things are perceived to get worse.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I doubt you guys are more than a decade older than I.

ageism? (kidding).

But see, that's the thing: Voting against someone by voting for someone else isn't illogical, one can do that based on facts. What's illogical is the basis for such a "protest vote" in some cases. Look, it's super simple:

JR says Hillary is a liar, with the implication that that disqualifies her for his vote.
JR then says the event at which she lied she didn't actually lie, and then says everyone lies, and that one can't really expect Trump to tell the truth.

I hate it when you put words in my mouth and don't bother to be accurate.

I clearly said that I voted against her to preserve the supreme court balance, and by extension the constitution.

I also conceded that she is a very skillful liar, with training as a lawyer and decades of practice. Her skills helped her avoid being caught in provable direct lies, and she dismissed the ones lacking hard evidence (like the mother of the man killed in Benghazi). The whole private email server is the nexus of multiple lies, a strategy to keep her work email communications shielded from FOI inspection.  I am surely repeating myself now so enough said.

I have no problem voting against Hillary, but if the reason for voting against her is that she's a liar, and if Trump too is a liar, then you didn't solve the problem by voting Trump, you just maintained a status quo. The solution, if we're to be honest here, would in that case probably have been voting for Bernie. Bernie has a far more solid track record than either on this issue.

Straw man or some other logical fallacy. I didn't say lying was the primary reason to vote against her. Surely not the most important reason for me.

It's not the back-and-forth swing that bothers me, it's the reasoning behind it. There was a time when we had far less information available in the mainstream, far fewer opportunities to learn the truth, but it still to me seemed like there was a desire by the media to find what the truth was in a fair amount of cases and then also try to disseminate that truth. And more importantly, people seemed to care about the truth. Today that doesn't seem to be the case any longer.

I suspect politics was always about what candidate XYZ can do for us? That's why the most common lie from politicians is that they can create jobs.  All politicians lie or else we (not me)  would never elect them. The voters force them to lie. Show me an honest politician who never made political promises, (s)he couldn't keep.  Rhetorical, you won't find one.

As I've also shared before, Hillary was projected to be better for the stock market (due to her cultivated wall street connections), as evidenced by stock market swings just before the election as her poll numbers ebbed and flowed. If I were to vote my self-interest (portfolio) I should have voted for her.  The Trump stock market rally was completely unexpected, as was his win.

Look, we didn't get this far as a species relative to other species due to our emotions. We got this far because of our intellect. Pretty much everything we've done that's been beneficial and has propelled us further as a whole has been intellectual and scientific endeavors. Neither JR nor I would have been here had it not been for boats and aircraft, the result of intellectual activity. Yet here we are, 2016, and it's as if anti-intellectualism is where it's at. Facts are opinions and everyone has them, so really, just because a vast majority of well educated specialists in the climate says it's warming and most likely due to human activities doesn't mean it's true, because your opinion matters too. Just because most well educated biologists acknowledge that evolution is real doesn't mean it's true, because I have to respect your anti-intellectual religious nonsense: Teach the controversy!

Lost me again? You speaking about "my" anti-intellectual religious nonsense, or someone else? Can't say I enjoy being made the personal target of your rants.

That's why we can't have discussions any longer. I said it before in this thread and another: There's one type of person who makes assertions, has them disproven, yet fails to even acknowledge that. That type of person will never reevaluate his position but instead just move on to the next claim. And that's not only now permeated our popular culture / social media, but it's no in the US government. And a large part of the US population doesn't care. "Truth"? Who cares? Everybody lies.

Like I said; at that point, what matters? I don't see that anything does.

(the "you" above was a plural general "you", not DaveP)

Yet people didn't vote for Jill, Bernie or anyone else. Look at those two and compare to Trump and tell me he was less "establishment" than they were. It's not even close.

But it's possible to have a nationalist stance, one that favors tightening borders for example and expediting extraditions of illegal immigrants, without calling Mexicans rapists and criminals and equating Muslims with terrorists. Right? Again, just because some people are advocating too much political correctness doesn't mean that a bunch of people who feel they can't speak freely are actually not xenophobic racists. And they now got someone to cheer for. That was entirely unnecessary. Trump could have calmly announced the same policies using reasoning rather than advocate violence at his rallies and flirt with aforementioned xenophobia. One would think that was obviously a choice.

So again, whatever the risk was of him enacting terrible principles targeting Mexicans, Muslims, women, non-whites, non-heterosexuals, that risk was deemed to be of lesser importance than voting against Hillary, or for whatever other policy Trump said he'd implement but everyone apparently knew he might not. I mean, it's either that or it did matter.

And on that note I think part of the problem here is that - and forgive me for being presumptuous here - white heterosexual males actually do not understand what it's like to be discriminated against based on skin color or sexual orientation or gender. The reaction to electing Trump is tremendous due to this experience that we've had and due to the history of what our ancestors went through. Sorry to sound polarizing, but American white straight males just didn't go through this the same way. And now they're all confused about why the "losers" are so upset and can't admit defeat. Well that's why. It's the history of that with which Trump is flirting. The tremendous anger and disappointment is not a result of an entitlement sentiment or anything, it's genuine fear and worry about what's to come, and there's a lesson to be learned about it.

I've seen absolutely zero people learn that lesson though. Zero.

We still don't know exactly what he will implement and how however. The best case scenario is that it says something about the gullibility of the average Trump-voter, and the worst case scenario is something one doesn't even want to think about.

It is what it is, but if we need to give some old fart who says "Grab 'em by the pussy" in private, is either a sex offender or a liar both in public or private, speaks via Twitter on the level of an adolescent, whips up xenophobic and racist sentiments... if we need to "give him the benefit of the doubt" I'd actually like to hear where you think the line is drawn for where we no longer have to do that.

I'm genuinely curious about where the line is drawn.

Line? I never experienced child birth either... we all have different life experiences.

This is another anecdote I've shared before. I briefly lived in a suburb of Atlanta that was predominantly wealthy black professionals (speculation from expensive cars and nice clothes). The white residents of this town were clearly from the lower socio-economic strata ( again speculation from them driving old pick-up trucks and shoddy clothes). It took me a while to figure out what was going on, I was surprised by the noticeably poor treatment I received while food shopping. In the few months I lived there I did not encounter any stressful interactions, but I didn't search them out. I do not pretend that this in anyway equals the discrimination so many experience. Just saying that prejudice and racism can cut both ways.  Dislike/distrust of people perceived as different from our own peer group is wired into our genes because it helped our caveman ancestors survive.

I hope you will be patient enough to criticize the new president after he actually becomes the president and does something untoward.  I'm sure you will have no problem finding stuff to complain about then.

JR

PS: Curious tidbit, Jill Stein raised more money for her vote recount effort, than she did for her entire presidential campaign. Maybe she should have led with that.

@ Hodad the anti-trump bias in media is well documented. The metric is not the amount of media attention but ratio of positive stories to negative stories. Trump made himself accessible to media while Hillary did not, so of course he got more coverage. Even after the election the NYT continues to run negative headlines about Trump. The latest media invention is that his transition is in disarray, it looks pretty orderly from outside. Media is angry because the Trump transition team is not leaking stories to the media for them to break, but communicating directly with the public.  Media's role is to keep government and politicians honest, not pick winners and losers by influencing public opinion.
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A president who communicates directly with the public needs more discretion than late night twitter rants afford. Words have consequences especially coming from the bully pulpit.  I wouldn't mind if he retired from twitter for a while, but I doubt he will. I hope he tones it down.