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2016 U.S. General Election


Pong Messiah
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If Trump wins, they will be ostracized from politics for the rest of their career

If Trump wins (low % chance) and is a popular president (0% chance) then they'd be ostracized. Even if Trump wins, the Republicans will still go on pretty much as they have, except there will be little party loyalty to the president as head of the party.

 

It takes more than just winning to co-opt a whole political party.

 

Whoa- it's Nelson Rockefeller, back from the dead!!

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The Rockefeller Republicans were replaced by something. It was a movement that gained a national voice with Goldwater's failed run and culminated in Reagan and later the '94 elections with thousands of dedicated people working to discover the edges of a governing philosophy and finding a person who could articulate it.

 

Trump represents little more than chaos and dark impulses. There's little policy coherence to be found, most disturbingly within the candidate himself who seems to have no regard for even giving himself a basic level of education on any issue and who doesn't even know, much less understand, the policy positions his own campaign is running on. If the Republican party becomes all about chaos as well, Democrats will simply enjoy an era of one-party rule, at least at the national level.

 

No one will benefit from following Trump into such a void. In even the medium term, it's a political dead end. Trump's success, what little he's had as a general candidate (he's polling in the 30s in most 4-way surveys), is unique to him and cannot be replicated. And what modest chance he has this year is based on the Democrats having chosen a truly awful candidate whom a majority of the country agree should have been indicted.

 

Bring in a copy of Trump that can't dominate the primaries via his antics, who doesn't have celebrity to bring them faux-credibility, and what little Trump stands for falls apart.

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There's nothing incoherent about Trump's policies. He's running on an 'America First' nationalist/populist platform. It's an ideology that's seeing a resurgence in Europe currently, and has a long history in the US, albeit it's been relatively dormant for decades and hasn't had many prominent politicians advocating for it lately, minus a few paleo-cons here and there.

 

Now, you may not like his platform, or may not think it's good for the US, or you may not think Trump has any idea what he's doing, but that doesn't make his ideology incoherent. "Incoherent" does not mean "stuff that you don't like." That's not what the definition of the word is.

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There's nothing incoherent about Trump's policies. He's running on an 'America First' nationalist/populist platform. It's an ideology that's seeing a resurgence in Europe currently, and has a long history in the US, albeit it's been relatively dormant for decades and hasn't had many prominent politicians advocating for it lately, minus a few paleo-cons here and there.

 

Now, you may not like his platform, or may not think it's good for the US, or you may not think Trump has any idea what he's doing, but that doesn't make his ideology incoherent. "Incoherent" does not mean "stuff that you don't like." That's not what the definition of the word is.

Thank you. You helped me with some perspective on this in your first paragraph. I still think not enough people fall squarely in that populist platform area to get him voted president but he's made it pretty far and spent a minimum of money compared to other candidates which I think is a huge kudos. This is nothing but win for Trump even if he doesn't make it to being president.

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There's nothing incoherent about Trump's policies. He's running on an 'America First' nationalist/populist platform.

 

That's a completely broad heading to describe the rhetoric of his speeches that aren't any deeper than his intention to get the loudest pop from his own supporters. That it sometimes falls in the realm of nationalist/populist is coincidental. I'm talking about actual policies. He's completely vague most of the time, and when he actually says something, he has a habit of contradicting his campaign or his own stated position.

 

 

 

Poe-- you don't have to answer if you don't, but I'm curious how somebody like you who will vote in November. You're firmly conservative, but don't like your candidate.

 

It's fine. Right now, I plan on a write-in for Romney. There's an outside chance Johnson can convince me though, but I find Libertarians to be rather simplistic. Either way, who I vote for doesn't matter so much as the fact that I won't vote for the Republican candidate as I normally would. So that's one less vote for Trump in a swing state.

 

If it weren't for down-ballot races and amendments, I probably would save myself the gas money to drive to a polling station.

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Right, it's completely coincidental. Never mind the fact that Trump has talked about and given interviews on protectionism and nationalism going all the way back to the 80s. If anything, trade may be the only issue that he actually cares about, but sure, it's all coincidental.

 

Look, I get it. You don't like Trump. I don't care. You feel anxiety about the fact that the party rank-and-file never really were Ayn Randians, much less fans of someone like Edmund Burke (or even knew who that was). You don't like the fact that they are persuaded by this ideology, that the establishment has lost the party. Guess what. I don't care. Your bloviating about all of Trump's deficiencies, which is basically all you've done in the past few posts (as opposed to offering something interesting to talk about), is neither remarkable nor will change anything one bit. You can say it all you want, but I do not, nor will I ever, care what you think about Trump. You will never succeed in either getting me embarrassed, ashamed, or even disappointed that Trump is the nominee.

 

I understand this must kill you. It may even particularly sting, coming from me, someone who's lived almost their entire life in Manhattan, who actually doesn't even live in the US anymore, who I'm almost certain made more money in my first job right out of law school then you've probably seen in your entire life, who doesn't even use the airport anymore when I fly back to the US (where you must interact with the masses), but in fact, was drove directly to my plane in an S-class.. a service offered by Lufthansa in first class which I'm sure you didn't know even existed... it must absolutely kill you that someone like myself isn't a little lapdog of the Jeb Bushes or Rubios in the party, tying myself to those obsolete sinking ships like the George Wills of the world... no, I prefer to watch and laugh at the complete humiliation of those campaigns, completely content to see those old neo-con bible thumper, house negros of the Democrat party be swept aside like the pathetic cuckolds that they are.. candidates that were completely content on selling this country away piece by piece... no, I am not shedding one tear for them.

 

So I get it buddy. You lost. We won. It sucks. Deal with it. Now be a good little wage slave and go pull the lever for your master Clinton. See, I'm going to be fine. I'm rich. You can keep up that fantasy that just one of these days you'll be in the club on K Street though. Just any day now.

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Here's the thing--

 

We've joked around, we've talked privately, we've sparred lightly-- I know you can be a real person, so I don't know if this is your gimmick, or if maybe this is actually how you are. I've jokingly called you Patrick Bateman and poked fun at your psychopath leanings, but I really assumed it was an act. If so, kudos for sticking to it all these years-- or maybe it's just an online thing... but I don't know...

 

You seem truly surprised at the ire you draw from Pong or Cerina sometimes so maybe it's possibly you don't see how you are?

 

I know you aren't stupid, so I assumed your pro Trump stance was a troll/lol for you. But the more I see how serious you are, the scarier it seems. You're clearly super intelligent, but there is something seriously lacking in you when it comes to empathy. The disdain you have for fat/poor people. The utter contempt you throw at people who don't agree with you. I have always found you to be hilarious, but lately it doesn't seem like a joke anymore.

 

A Trump Presidency makes you happy because he wants to shape a world where people like you (rich) stand to get richer. I'm making more money now than I ever have and frankly. it makes me uncomfortable. I bought a house (in freaking LA), but I'm still donating left and right. I can certainly understand being more fiscally conservative, but not at the expense of others.

 

You dismiss the truly scary aspects of a Trump presidency as SJW liberal nonsense that doesn't really matter-- but it does. And it kills me that you refuse to even consider it. Even when GOP legends and leaders all denounce Trump... you ignore the truly fucked up things he says and does and just don't care because why? His politics help your bottom line?

 

Admittedly, I am a Star Trek utopist California liberal, so I am obviously more moved by social issues than I should be. And maybe I am an idiot for falling for you trolling...

 

I am no lover of Poe Dameron's politics. In fact, I hate them, and we've been arguing about movies for a decade, but that doesn't make him a subhuman piece of crap like you just treated him as.

 

I liked your first statement to him, calling him out on never really budging in a debate-- but he doesn't turn ugly and try to make people feel as though they are worthless as human beings when he doesn't like what they say.

 

I truly like it when you're posting funny things, and making obscure burns pulled from history, or whiskey-posting abut Star Wars.

 

But when you post like you just did, it just showcases a major lack of human empathy and understanding, and I find it really sad.

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Oh man. I think you misunderstand me a little bit. :(

 

First off, the idea of a Trump presidency doesn't make me happy. No politician getting elected would make me happy- people that let politics have that much impact on their emotional well-being are unfortunate.

 

Second, to the extent I support him, it certainly isn't because he would make me richer. In reality, no matter who is elected, I will probably get richer. And in fact, so will you, especially if you bought some property in LA (congrats btw, house prices in CA are ridiculous right now and I expect them to keep appreciating, at least for some time).

 

The reason I dismiss some of the GOP complaints about Trump is because they are the death-throes of people that are losing power. They don't care about SJW stuff or anything, nor do they actually think Trump is Hitler or even particularly dangerous, they are just getting a glimpse of the world in which they don't have the same influence that they used to, and they're scared to death of it. Such complaints are rightfully dismissed. Let us be clear- many of these people are the same folks who were perfectly content for decades letting poorer folks vote against their self-interest while they took advantage of them. Now they're seeing what happens when these people actually do vote in their self-interest, and they're panicking.

 

My post was not intended to make Poe feel sub-human, and I suspect that he probably wouldn't let the yammerings of some random internet person have that effect, though I would apologize if it did.

 

The point was rather, to strongly illustrate that those legions of GOP voters lining up with the remains of the old establishment really aren't any different than Trump voters in their social position/class, except that sometimes they read David Brooks or something. They are not really part of any establishment, and they certainly aren't going to be invited into it because they voted against Trump that one time. Whereas people like myself, someone that you would expect to be a complete establishment hack (and in fact, once was), has over the years come to the realization that a significant chunk of the party (starting at the top) had little to no interest in the well-being of the vast majority of its voters and was completely content on using them for votes while sapping out the economic life-blood of the country. I've been talking about some of these issues on this board for years now- depressed wage areas, trade deficits, the downfall of manufacturing and the decreased competitiveness of this country vs. foreign countries. These are real issues that needed to be addressed before the US turns into a banana republic and Trump, no matter how crude and amateurish his presentation may be, is the first person to talk about this in probably 20+ years.

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Thank you-- that does help me understand better. i really don't think you're a terrible person but sometimes... you're just sooooo cruel to people. But again, that just might be me. I'm highly sensitive, hence having to remove myself from political dicussions lest my brain explodes.

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Coming from a still different political perspective - being neither alt-right or "Star Trek utopist California liberal", I find the demise of the neo-con\religious right to be a glorious thing. I dislike the alt-right and the SJWs alike - two sides of the same stupid coin if you ask me, but at least they're honest, and in the case of the alt-right, there's some attempt being made at fresh thinking, or at least a reframing and rebranding going on.

 

There's no rung in hell low enough for the Jeb Bushes or the Rubios of this world as far as I'm concerned. Run for office on the same old shop-worn trickle down economics and milquetoasty religiosity that hasn't seen the slightest revision since the late 1970s, but 30 plus years of which has brought the US to the brink of banana-republicanism. Expensive and counter productive middle-east power projection. Caving in lock, stock and barrel to the Ivy League SJWs on cultural issues. Fattening the religious right like a cow to be milked for votes but sitting quite comfortably by and watching western Christendom's cultural and social decline beneath the backlash against its politicization, all the while leaving real issues afftecting both "marginalized" people and most white Christian males alike untouched for decade after decade.

 

They long ago achieved what they truly set out to acheive: decimate the power of organized labor. And we're all worse off for it, and we've been worse off for everything else they've done since Reagan was inaugurated. I'd be worried about Trump, but let's be honest here, how could he be worse than a Cruz, a Santorum or a Huckabee? At least Trump would not intentionally try to ruin the country. He'd at least have the common courtesy to do that by accident. At least Trump talks about issues that resonate with people. Not manufactured socially conservative non-issues (think "war on Christmas" or the like) that, along their shameless giving away of the store to wealthy lobbyists and pentagon contractors, have squandered their credibility utterly.

 

If decline into irrelevance in the face of a rising alt-right is the worst thing that happens to them, the GOP establishment should count itself lucky. Carrie Mathison was, if anything, far to easy on the neo-cons, and on their neo-liberal DLC lap dogs alike. Were it up to me, it would be full on Gulag, a-la the north eastern Soviet Union circa 1936, for the lot of them.

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house prices in CA are ridiculous right now and I expect them to keep appreciating, at least for some time).

 

I swear to god. I'm gonna be poor forever.

 

Just spend ten years working to be an over-night success story. That's what I did.

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Guest El Chalupacabra

HAHA this Poe VS CM argument is pretty awesome. Sort of like Trump VS Clinton; two jerks where you don't care which one wins because you don't like either one, but you love watching the train wreck anyway.

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Right, it's completely coincidental. Never mind the fact that Trump has talked about and given interviews on protectionism and nationalism going all the way back to the 80s. If anything, trade may be the only issue that he actually cares about, but sure, it's all coincidental.

 

Fine. He's consistent on trade. He still knows pretty much nothing about it, but, whatever.

 

That's one position that so happens to be populist. And he can make broad statements that appear populist or nationalist, but are really only coincidentally in those categories. Trump is no deep political thinker. He has no philosophy, just what makes sense to him at the moment. He's no populist. He's no nationalist. He's just a loudmouth saying whatever comes to his mind. Attempting to constrain that within an overarching philosophy is folly.

 

 

 

Look, I get it. You don't like Trump. I don't care.

 

What gave you the idea that I was looking for your approval?

 

 

 

You will never succeed in either getting me embarrassed, ashamed, or even disappointed that Trump is the nominee.

 

You already are embarrassed and ashamed. How do I know? Because absolutely nothing I said was about you. Not you, not your alleged fat wallet. Believe it or not, I gave exactly zero thought to what Carrie would think about herself when I wrote the above posts and your travel arrangements took up absolutely none of my mind-space. Yet, you immediately went about using them as a shield for your own ego.

 

You further deflect that embarrassment by trying to make me feel bad about myself because Trump is "winning" and what you think is my own political stand (you think I'm with Jeb Bush?) is somehow becoming extinct. If only the establishment were becoming extinct. Heck, if Trump wins, they'll be as strong as ever. More likely, Trump loses, and in the ashes the people in control remain in control. Nothing really changes either way except a wasted opportunity.

 

Thing is, I understand some of it. There are plenty of things about the GOP establishment I don't like. A lot of me wants to see some things get broken within the party so it doesn't stand so much for entrenched power. Trump even overlaps with a few of them. Does that mean I'm going to hitch my wagon to a racist conman? Heck no. Trump is not the answer to anything. Even if I did agree with everything the guy said and he fit in perfectly with my political agenda, he still can't be defended.

 

You accuse me of being in the death throes for losing a grip on power when, in truth, the only person whose posts resemble a primal scream are yours. Well, enjoy your scream. It will accomplish precisely nothing and in six months we'll likely all be looking at each other under a Clinton presidency with the establishment still firmly in control of the Republican leadership in the House and Senate and wonder what the hell that was all about or what the point of it all was.

 

 

 

HAHA this Poe VS CM argument is pretty awesome.

 

The weird part of it is how she keeps saying how little she cares about what I have to say, how boring I am. Yet all I've done are write some pretty dry analysis posts and she's singlehandedly turned it into something you would call a train wreck.

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So Jeb wasn't your guy this cycle. Who was your guy?

 

What are some of the things you don't like about the establishment? What things do you think need to get broken in the party? (keep in mind, of course- and this being part of the point of my previous post, that I am part of the establishment).

 

Do you think there's room for a nationalist in the party? Let's say someone ran on that platform (side note- no one did this year except Trump), but was less... for lack of better words... Trump-ish. You think the party would accept that?

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So Jeb wasn't your guy this cycle. Who was your guy?

 

Never fell in love with any of them this cycle. They were all flawed, so by the time voting came around I was just rooting for whichever non-Trump candidate had the best chance in any given state.

 

I ended up voting for Rubio, but that was because of where I lived. If I lived in Ohio, I would have voted for Kasich. If I lived in Missouri, I would have voted for Cruz.

 

 

 

What are some of the things you don't like about the establishment?

 

An unwillingness to fight, but a preference for show votes. Attacking anyone who wants to know why they're not doing anything about Obama running the country by executive decree. Pissing their pants and decrying it as the most worst thing evar if Obama shuts down the government because they refuse to give him what he wants (it's Constitutionally backwards). A willingness to go to the mat for their big donors' interests above their voters'. Calling anyone who thinks that illegal immigration should maybe stop and that people here illegally maybe shouldn't be here racists to bow before the demographics gods and keep the cheap labor flowing for the money guys. Basic smugness in the face of those who don't believe they should preemptively surrender. A willingness to work with Trump because they don't think he believes what he says and they can work with him (idiots), but attacking a true believer like Cruz because they know that he does. Lip service on the surface, but contempt for social conservatives.

 

Basically, they're mostly happy to let Democrats win on policy if it means they get to keep their seats and their friends are taken care of. Congress's power is being eroded steadily by the courts, executive branch, and their own willingness to give power to bureaucracies, and they're just happy about it because it means they can play the helpless victims as forces beyond their control play out. Instead of raising holy hell and trying to reverse this trend, they are assisting it, most obviously with their self-disarming of the power of the purse.

 

Put this in contrast to Democrats during Bush's term. They were apoplectic over the power of Bush. They made reigning him in a rallying cry. And they won.

 

 

 

Do you think there's room for a nationalist in the party? Let's say someone ran on that platform (side note- no one did this year except Trump), but was less... for lack of better words... Trump-ish. You think the party would accept that?

 

Depends on the definition of nationalism. If we're talking national interests taking precedence in foreign policy and immigration, than I'm open to it tempering the neocon tendencies that took root in the party after 9/11. I'm also open, in a limited sense, to skepticism on free trade. Though I believe it is, overall, largely a net positive, I can see that in some cases it's used to benefit certain people above the national interest.

 

Basically, if the paleocons took over the party, I'd be pretty okay with it. I'm not totally on-board, but I'm probably closer to them these days on foreign policy than the neocons. And, were they championed by a respectable candidate, I expect it'd be disliked among the elites, but not vilified by the party as a whole.

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You know, I think there are GOP people I would have voted for but they didn't run. Minus a few quibbles with Graham I would have gone for him but he just didn't make the primaries all the way. But the ones that I would have voted for didn't chose to do it. Condoleeza Rice would have gotten my vote.

 

I think this populist platform that Trump is running on scares me a bit. It's kind of ugly inside its crowd. Making America great again is fantastic as a slogan and we do need to bring more jobs back besides service industry and sales. I think people pining for Carson - my parents - make me wonder about the smarts in America though. You want to pine for a woulda coulda ask why Mitt didn't want to run again.

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