Trump 2016

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TrippinKahlua said:
Trump will hand the Presidency to his friend Hillary!! - Friends don't let friends ruin their home.

I'm sorry, but I'm just getting really sick of that one. It's such a desperate claim.
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It's silly to claim, literally, that there's a scheming backroom deal between Trump and Hillary. However, it's much more reasonable to believe Trump actually doesn't give a shit about becoming president and he's just fucking around. If he knows that he'd lose to Hillary, which might be the case, then yeah, him wanting to bail when things get too serious sounds likely.

That doesn't sound desperate to me. That sounds downright reasonable.
TrippinKahlua said:
And if it was so true, what's so wrong about it? Don't you want Hillary? No, all you want is not Trump.
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?

I don't think I follow.
TrippinKahlua said:
40% in and he is still absolutely never getting the nomination, huh?
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Primaries are not direct elections. Also the kind of people who vote in primaries are not always the same kind of people who vote in polls, or really in general elections either. (That is, people who vote in primaries vote in general elections, of course, but not necessarily vice versa.)

The 40% support figure is interesting, but not at all confirmation of Trump's victory. He's definitely got an uphill battle ahead of him.
 
I don't think Hillary "isn't attacking" Trump because of anything about Trump. I don't think primary candidates generally attack specific candidates on the other side, until it's clear who their nominee will be. It's not gonna help you win your own primary any. It's time completely wasted if one of the several other candidates gets chosen. And even if you do attack the eventual nominee, it's not very effective, since people aren't paying attention yet.

In '08, I don't recall Democrats taking many shots at specific Republicans before McCain claimed it (which took a while). Nor Republicans taking many shots at one of Hillary/Obama/Edwards when it still looked like any of them could win it.

(This year, Hillary has always been the Democratic nominee. So Republicans have been taking shots at her.)
 
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I like reading the beginning of this thread to see just how everybody underestimated Trump's run. I don't believe he'll win but I do applaud him for making it this far. I do think he'll clinch the Republican nominee, but that Hillary will kick his ass.

Besides, "Trump vs. Clinton" seems awfully hilarious to me.
 
I have to say that a debate is truly saddening when Jeb Bush and Marco fucking Rubio are the voices of reason.
 
Asuka said:
I like reading the beginning of this thread to see just how everybody underestimated Trump's run.
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I'll cop to that, although I feel I didn't so much underestimate trump as much as overestimate the Republican primary base.
 
Dudeofteenage said:
I'll cop to that, although I feel I didn't so much underestimate trump as much as overestimate the Republican primary base.
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And overestimate the other candidates, who have been pusillanimous weaklings.
 
Yeah, I'm honestly not sure what the other candidates are supposed to do.

The other candidates are running for President because they have specific political goals that they want to sell to the public and achieve. Also, they care if they win.

To the extent that Trump has actual policies he wants to accomplish, he apparently either figures he doesn't need any allies to achieve them, or doesn't understand that it doesn't work like that in politics. It's debatable whether he even has any such causes or issues that he honestly cares about. If so, not many.

Trump wants to be President not to lead the government to do certain things, but because it's the "top job." He doesn't care if he wins, really. If he loses, he's still rich and famous (far more famous than if he hadn't run, actually.)

Because they have such different motivations, Trump can say whatever he wants, but other candidates can't come back at him in the same way. I don't know how that dynamic changes.
 
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AnOminous said:
And overestimate the other candidates, who have been pusillanimous weaklings.
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I'm not really a fan of the "weak/strong" analysis in politics. This is part of why I don't like Trump.

I'm kind of sympathetic to the other candidates - yes, they've all floundered to a greater or lesser degree, but they didn't see this coming either.
 
Dudeofteenage said:
I'm not really a fan of the "weak/strong" analysis in politics. This is part of why I don't like Trump.

I'm kind of sympathetic to the other candidates - yes, they've all floundered to a greater or lesser degree, but they didn't see this coming either.
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Electoral politics is a zero sum game. Any vote one candidate gets is a vote the others don't.

In that game, only aggression wins.

Generally, to counter other aggressive opponents requires some kind of strategy, but the fact that Donald Trump has managed to buffalo the opposition with literally nothing but blind aggression shows the importance of that in any strategy.

The other candidates have been afraid to go toe to toe with him and have been waiting for someone else to do it.

This makes them weak. They have not been doing what they need to do to counter Trump's aggression, and the only reason that makes sense is fear. They're afraid if they take him on, they'll lose.

Aggressive/passive will do just as well as strong/weak. A passive strategy only makes sense when you're virtually assured of winning if nothing changes.

It's also how Republicans are more likely to rate candidates, and it's those voters who decide the primary, whether or not that's a good way to look at it.
 
AnOminous said:
Electoral politics is a zero sum game. Any vote one candidate gets is a vote the others don't.

In that game, only aggression wins.
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Even if we limit our analysis to national-level American electoral politics, that's quite the oversimplification.
 
Dudeofteenage said:
Even if we limit our analysis to national-level American electoral politics, that's quite the oversimplification.
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Exactly. One of the most commonly agreed upon facts for would-be politicians is that a large chunk of Americans never vote. Meaning that often times the initial goal of swaying voters to jump to your side simply becomes about getting people who are all but guaranteed to vote for you to actually, well vote.

I mean that's why candidates or more likely to say "If we let the queers marry, God will smite us all and it's that fucker Obama's fault", as opposed to simply "we need to end gay marriage because sanctity of marriage or something."
 
Dudeofteenage said:
Even if we limit our analysis to national-level American electoral politics, that's quite the oversimplification.
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Anything you can say briefly about American politics is going to be a simplification. However, the fact that if you get someone's vote, nobody else does (except perhaps in Chicago) is a reasonable approximation.

Some things make it a negative sum game (negative campaigning drives down voter turnout usually essentially destroying those votes) and some cooperative strategies like partisan GOTV increases the number of votes available.

But in general, you have to seek votes aggressively if you don't have them already locked up and attacking other candidates is Trump's primary (perhaps only) strategy. What's genuinely surprised me is not Trump taking this strategy, but how weak and ineffectual his opponents have been in countering it.

I think we've seen signs of them finally starting to wake up to this, but I think it's pretty much too late for them, not to beat Trump in the primary, but to make it successfully through the general election after having been so badly damaged by not so friendly friendly fire from Trump.
 
AnOminous said:
I think we've seen signs of them finally starting to wake up to this, but I think it's pretty much too late for them, not to beat Trump in the primary, but to make it successfully through the general election after having been so badly damaged by not so friendly friendly fire from Trump.
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I dunno, we often hear that a gruelling primary hurts the candidate in the general, but is it born out by the facts? The Dems had a pretty nasty primary in '08 and it didn't seem to hurt Obama.
 
Dudeofteenage said:
I dunno, we often hear that a gruelling primary hurts the candidate in the general, but is it born out by the facts? The Dems had a pretty nasty primary in '08 and it didn't seem to hurt Obama.
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It was a hard fought campaign, but it certainly wasn't rife with the kind of incessant below-the-belt attacks and pure ad hominem slurs that have typified the last two Republican primaries. Hillary unreservedly threw her support behind Obama, whether or not that was for the returned favor of a prominent position in the subsequent administration.

Aside from a tiny (but very noisy) minority of what were called PUMAs, the party fell into line behind the candidate, as they will this time.
 
AnOminous said:
It was a hard fought campaign, but it certainly wasn't rife with the kind of incessant below-the-belt attacks and pure ad hominem slurs that have typified the last two Republican primaries. Hillary unreservedly threw her support behind Obama, whether or not that was for the returned favor of a prominent position in the subsequent administration.
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True, but at this point in the campaign, people speculated that the bitterness between Hillary and Obama supporters would prolong itself. They turned out to be wrong. It's quite possible that Trump's supporters will, except for a small minority, fall in behind whoever does win the Republican nomination. A recent focus group session suggested exactly that - I know, I know, focus groups are an imperfect indicator of actual voting intentions, but there is at least some evidence to support it.
 
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