Trump runs for POTUS/ Trumped Up! Part VII

Fast Eddie B said:
...We watched the national debt more than double under Obama, to about $20 trillion. Is there a reason to suspect Hillary will rein in the exploding debt? Or will or continue it's geometric growth to perhaps $40 trillion while she crows about "cutting the deficit".
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This is a constant refrain I hear from Republicans. I wouldn't have a problem with it if it was accurate but it's not. The debt doubled under George Bush too (and skyrocketed under Reagan). Guess which recent president had the lowest debt growth during his term? When Bill Clinton entered office it was around $4 trillion, when he left it was near $6 trillion. When Bush left office eight years later the debt was $12 trillion.

But anyway, is Obama personally responsible -- is any president? -- for the national debt? What role does Congress play? If you want to say that Obama has not made debt reduction a major priority I'd agree. We've also had entire threads here devoted to discussing the national debt and I'm fairly certain it's not the big deal some people think it is.

Fast Eddie B said:
We've watched around 400,000 Syrians die with whatever our course is in that country. If Hillary continues on the same course, is 800,000 dead Syrians a few years from now acceptable?
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Are you aware that Syria is a true civil war? We may not like the Assad government but it is Syria's legal government. Are you suggesting it's America's fault 400,000 people have died? That we should have intervened the way we did in Iraq? :(
 
Elections are never about single-issues: those who make their decision based on a single policy of a candidate are locking themselves in a confirmation bias: as long as my man/women wants to do A, I don't even want to know about B-Z.
These are not informed voters, and their wilful ignorance of the other sides of their candidate doesn't absolve in the least: elections are not a buffet where you get to chose Trump on Muslims but please hold the Wall.
 
Foolmewunz said:
Politico's cover this week was an article on how when he's "up" he's dangerous to himself. That 2005 "when you're a star" crap and most of his crudest mis-deeds are all from those times when he was riding high. If he reads the polls as they are spinning them and hears those adoring fans, he's liable to say anything.
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Suddenly one of the conspiracy theories I've heard makes more sense.

via Imgflip Meme Generator
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
They need to stop thinking there is only one way to address the abortion issue. Passing a law against abortion did not work in the past and it won't work in the future.

If your goal is solely to have a law on the books, regardless if it is effective and and if an ineffective law is worth the tradeoff of having a mentally ill narcissist in the White House, ... hopefully that doesn't apply to very many people.

Use your head. If opposing abortion is the most important thing to you why not look for ways to actually decrease or end abortion besides an ineffective law against it.

In the meantime, voting for Trump is a very foolish thing to do.
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But passing useless laws against abortion curious two important considerations; reinforcing the law-makers sense of moral superiority and punishing those uppity women without having to address awkward realities like sex.
 
jimbob said:
There is still his history of racial discrimination - I know that things were different in the 1970s but his subsequent statements haven't exactly demonstrated a Damascene conversion.
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Things were a lot different in New York forty years ago. The Trump family did not invent segregated housing. Back then one of the first things people asked about a neighborhood was, "Is it white?" If you wanted to attract middle-class tenants to your building you had to practice racial segregation. The vast majority of middle-class families would not move into an building that was racially mixed. But times change. When I was a kid all the black kids I knew lived on streets that were all-black. All the white kids (like me) lived on blocks that were all-white. Things are radically different today. My block is thoroughly diversified. The family on my left is black. (They rent; the owner is Arab.) On my right, Portuguese. Across the street is a retired white cop. Next door to him is a Hispanic family.

But is that it? I'm certain Trump properties are not accused of discriminating on the basis of race today. Heck Trump wanted to have Mike Tyson speak at the Republican Convention. (He was talked out of it.)
 
newyorkguy said:
Things were a lot different in New York forty years ago. The Trump family did not invent segregated housing. Back then one of the first things people asked about a neighborhood was, "Is it white?" If you wanted to attract middle-class tenants to your building you had to practice racial segregation. The vast majority of middle-class families would not move into an building that was racially mixed. But times change. When I was a kid all the black kids I knew lived on streets that were all-black. All the white kids (like me) lived on blocks that were all-white. Things are radically different today. My block is thoroughly diversified. The family on my left is black. (They rent; the owner is Arab.) On my right, Portuguese. Across the street is a retired white cop. Next door to him is a Hispanic family.

But is that it? I'm certain Trump properties are not accused of discriminating on the basis of race today. Heck Trump wanted to have Mike Tyson speak at the Republican Convention. (He was talked out of it.)
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For that matter, a landlord who racially discriminates is not necessarily racist. If he does it merely for profit, then he is unprincipled, sure, but not racist.
 
phiwum said:
For that matter, a landlord who racially discriminates is not necessarily racist. If he does it merely for profit, then he is unprincipled, sure, but not racist.
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That may be a good description of Trump. He's utterly amoral. His sense of right and wrong is limited to what's right for The Donald.

I don't think most of his supporters are necessarily racist or deplorable. They are, however, gullible.
 
phiwum said:
For that matter, a landlord who racially discriminates is not necessarily racist. If he does it merely for profit, then he is unprincipled, sure, but not racist.
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In my view, a person who implements racist policies is the epitome of a racist.
 
marplots said:
But all you are saying is that "mentally ill narcissist" is a more important issue than abortion. It might be, might not. Abortion isn't my issue.

If you mean to say there is no True Scotsman, I have to agree. But it is a handy category, and I have chatted with people who answer every charge against a candidate (I think it was Huckabee) with something like, "That may be so, but he's against abortion..."

To be honest, I rather like the Brit system where you vote for a party instead of a person (at least that's how I understand it). At least that way we could (hopefully) set aside personalities and focus on agendas. It sometimes seems to me we've confused selecting a president with selecting America's Top Model or something.
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To be honest, we don't have the Brit system.

You insist on ignoring reality. No, an incompetent dangerous POTUS is not "an issue" it is a dangerous incompetent POTUS on every issue.

In addition, if the pro-life person thought their vote for POTUS was the only way to accomplish their single issue, that alone shows a lack of critical thinking.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
In addition, if the pro-life person thought their vote for POTUS was the only way to accomplish their single issue, that alone shows a lack of critical thinking.
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Not at all. For a person who believes abortion is murder, they mirror exactly the poster who paints everything in terms of racism. It isn't at all about what POTUS can or cannot do, it's a moral test centered on the voter themselves.

I cannot vote for candidate X because if I do, I support racism/murder (pick one, depending on which hypothetical voter we are describing). It doesn't matter who that person is, what they've done or what they might do, the only thing that matters is the referendum on racism/murder.

I cannot be who I am and vote for the thing I abhor.

In this way, the issue is extracted from the candidate. There is no possible racist/murderer who would ever qualify for president, no matter how disgusting or damaging the alternative may be. Moral voters are stuck in this trap. Pragmatists? Not so much.

ETA: This mechanism may have been the Achilles heel of the Moral Majority - an inability to compromise.
 
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To be honest, I rather like the Brit system where you vote for a party instead of a person (at least that's how I understand it). At least that way we could (hopefully) set aside personalities and focus on agendas. It sometimes seems to me we've confused selecting a president with selecting America's Top Model or something.
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We vote for a local Member of Parliament, in practice that means for a party.
Whichever party gets the most MPs forms the government if they have a majority.
Whoever is the majority party leader becomes the Prime Minister and appoints a cabinet of ministers.
Usualy you are voting for a mixture of policy as published in the party Manifesto and the personality of the party leader.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
We've watched around 400,000 Syrians die with whatever our course is in that country. If Hillary continues on the same course, is 800,000 dead Syrians a few years from now acceptable?
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I'm curious. On what non-U.S. country's then-leader do you place the blame for the deaths during the American Civil War?

varwoche said:
In my view, a person who implements racist policies is the epitome of a racist.
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I don't know about "epitome", but I'd say they are functionally identical and can be treated with equal disdain. ETA: I mean, that's a major point of mimicry, isn't it: to treat the thing doing the mimicking the same as the thing being mimicked?
 
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Captain_Swoop said:
We vote for a local Member of Parliament, in practice that means for a party.
Whichever party gets the most MPs forms the government if they have a majority.
Whoever is the majority party leader becomes the Prime Minister and appoints a cabinet of ministers.
Usualy you are voting for a mixture of policy as published in the party Manifesto and the personality of the party leader.
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I believe in Ye Olden Days the parties actually stood for something very distinct in England and it was a clear choice to vote for the MP of that party. In the last couple of decades, they're kinda boring and homogenized. Tony Blair was Labour?

In the US, the parties of old were a genuine battle for the middle/swing vote and thus were very similar. In the past couple of decades the distinction between the two has become very real.
 
newyorkguy said:
I think defining Trump voters is a good deal more complicated then just labeling them racist or okay with racism. In fact, as much as I dislike the idea of Trump serving as president, and as damaging as I think his campaign has been, I'm not sure I really understand the charge he is an overt racist. ....
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The evidence supports the conclusion he's an overt racist pretending his proverbial one black friend makes him not a racist.

But I agree with you that a lot of people are simply in denial of reality. They believe Trump's accusers are liars, they believe the charges of housing discrimination must have not been true because, as Trump says, he was never convicted. They believe the one black friend makes Trump not a racist, they believe the fact he hires women (provided they are not ugly) for top management positions means he's not sexist.

I'm not sure where to put those people in the basket of deplorables if they support a racist but don't believe they are supporting a racist.
 
newyorkguy said:
Things were a lot different in New York forty years ago. The Trump family did not invent segregated housing. Back then one of the first things people asked about a neighborhood was, "Is it white?" If you wanted to attract middle-class tenants to your building you had to practice racial segregation. The vast majority of middle-class families would not move into an building that was racially mixed. But times change. When I was a kid all the black kids I knew lived on streets that were all-black. All the white kids (like me) lived on blocks that were all-white. Things are radically different today. My block is thoroughly diversified. The family on my left is black. (They rent; the owner is Arab.) On my right, Portuguese. Across the street is a retired white cop. Next door to him is a Hispanic family.

But is that it? I'm certain Trump properties are not accused of discriminating on the basis of race today. Heck Trump wanted to have Mike Tyson speak at the Republican Convention. (He was talked out of it.)
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I wonder what the real reason was that Tyson didn't speak at the convention. It seems as though Trump doesn't listen to any advice from his advisors. Trump has defended Tyson and attacked the woman who Tyson was convicted of raping. Perhaps Tyson had the sense to back out of it knowing it might look bad having a rapist as a Trump promoter at the convention Trump himself hasn't shown that kind of judgment when dealing with such matters.
 
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