Trump 2016

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I don't really expect Trump to pull a Perot and actually impact the election, but I can see him landing a slot in the debates and repeatedly making outrageous statements which his opposition will either fail to diffuse or try to phrase in a way so it sounds like they actually agree that all Mexicans are rapists or whatever other shit he says.
 
How many times has Trump gone bankrupt? People are actually taking him seriously? He manages money as well as Chris.
 
AnOminous said:
Ross Perot was actually a credible candidate with an actual platform, whose run actually influenced the actual candidates, as well as the actual outcome (although perhaps not how he would have wanted).

Drumpf is a joke candidate without even a joke platform, a C-list celebrity milking it to improve the plummeting ratings on his joke show Celebrity Apprentice.

Despite that, Drumpf hasn't even canceled Celebrity Apprentice. Because he isn't a serious candidate, and he isn't even seriously pretending to be actually running. Otherwise he wouldn't be renewing a contract to do a show that sucks and on top of that is in the ratings crapper.
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Dudeofteenage said:
Well, he's serious in that he's doing this for reasons that are presumably important to him and that he feels strongly about. In contrast to, say, Vermin Supreme.

Ultimately though I don't really have a problem with it, even if candidates are not seriously interested in contributing to the democratic process (either by winning, or by trying to air certain ideas/influence the candidates who do win), more perspectives are welcome. And I can't see any way, either formally or legally, to block candidates like Trump without blocking legitimate ones.

Besides, C-list celebs have toyed with Presidential bids for decades, and they never have any substantive impact. If Trump was capable of doing any damage, his predecessors would have done so already.
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Donald Trump is running for several reasons, most notably, his self-promotion and his ego. As someone who works in Republican politics, I can tell you firsthand that there is nothing that Republicans would love more than to tell Donald Trump to fuck off; he's going to embarrass the party with his rhetoric, turn the primary process (before, as I presume, dropping out in time for his show in the Fall, but he's an unpredictable loon, so who knows) into a circus, and take away a spot on the debate stage from a more qualified candidate.

However, the Republican Party can't tell him to fuck off, which leads us to Ross Perot. Perot, like Trump, is a billionaire with protectionist political views and an enormous ego (and, in the world of politics, you know I mean enormous). Donald Trump is currently polling in the low single digits in the Republican primaries. His support essentially consists of extremely low information voters (who almost make me question my belief in democratic institutions) and people who he is paying. Donald Trump, if he gets pissed off at the GOP, can afford to run an independent campaign and achieve ballot access in all fifty states; in a close general election, something like that could hurt the Republican nominee, much like Ross Perot did in 1992 (and, to a lesser extent, 1996). While I wouldn't expect Trump to do anywhere near as well as Perot, if the election is close enough, a few percentage points could make the difference. Because of this, the GOP has a no-win situation in front of it: pretend that Trump is a serious presidential candidate and risk his damaging rhetoric and him turning debates into sideshows, or tell him to fuck off (excluding him from debates and polling, publicly attack and denounce him, etc) and risk him getting angry enough to run a general election campaign and take just enough of the popular vote in a few key states to ensure that Hillary Clinton wins.
 
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I think in accordance with campaign finance law, Trump will need to disclose his financial records in nine days.

He probably won't still be running by then.
 
Picklechu said:
However, the Republican Party can't tell him to fuck off, which leads us to Ross Perot. Perot, like Trump, is a billionaire with protectionist political views and an enormous ego (and, in the world of politics, you know I mean enormous).
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Perot, unlike Drumpf, is actually a billionaire.
 
Picklechu said:
Donald Trump is running for several reasons, most notably, his self-promotion and his ego.
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I don't think anybody has said otherwise.

I have to say, though, Republican primaries have shown themselves quite capable of devolving into circuses without Trump's participation.
 
I caught a minute of him talking, and he's really trying to tell people that he's going to build a wall across the entire Mexican/USA border?

I'm no wall-building engineer, but aren't there, like, some logistical issues with that? That makes "round up every illegal and deport them" look like a feasible strategy.
 
dcisp said:
I caught a minute of him talking, and he's really trying to tell people that he's going to build a wall across the entire Mexican/USA border?
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There are massive issues, not least that you'd need more than just a wall. But this is not just Trump stupidity, this is Trump jumping aboard a more general wave of stupidity. Lots of Republicans and non-Republican conservatives believe in "building a wall" or "securing our borders".

Here's an example of the East German border fortifications:
System_of_gdr_border_fortification.jpg

As you can see, they had two walls, plus an inner patrol road. Imagine the expense of building that along the entire US/Mexican border (which, unlike the Inner German Border, contains several mountain ranges, and for extra fun a national park).

Even if we set aside the expense, the East German 'solution' might not scale. The Inner German Border was 1400km long, and manned by 47,000 border guards. That's about 33 guards per kilometre. The US-Mexican border is 3100km long, so it would need nearly 100,000 border guards. The current US Border Patrol has just over 21,000 troops.

And of course the East German border guards had the immense advantage of support from the East German internal intelligence community, which conducted extensive surveillance of society at large. They were also able to impose a curfew on everybody living within 5km of the border and prevent everybody else coming within 5km without a special permit.

And the irony is, even with these massive fortifications, huge border patrol and even larger surveillance apparatus, curfews and permits to even come near the border... the Inner German Border still wasn't "secure". People still got across.
 
*Asterisk* said:
I don't really expect Trump to pull a Perot and actually impact the election, but I can see him landing a slot in the debates and repeatedly making outrageous statements which his opposition will either fail to diffuse or try to phrase in a way so it sounds like they actually agree that all Mexicans are rapists or whatever other shit he says.
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I gather that's the point of primaries: wheel out the crazies, which pressures otherwise electable candidates to get a little crazy in order to compete, and deliver a candidate that appeals to only those who'd vote Republican regardless of the candidate. It's not something easily fixed as the parties become publicly very polarised yet really not that different when it comes to siding with monied interests.

I don't think Trump will get anywhere, but we do have to remember that Palin and Romney were serious contenders in prior elections. Santorum didn't too badly either, and he's someone who shouldn't be electable outside of Iran.
 
PantsOfDesire said:
I don't think Trump will get anywhere, but we do have to remember that Palin and Romney were serious contenders prior elections. Santorum didn't too badly either, and he's someone who shouldn't be electable outside of Iran.
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Palin was a never a serious contender in a Republican primary. By the time the 2012 primary rolled around her star had already faded, even among hardline Republicans. If Republicans had more introspection they would spend a lot of time nervously joking about "remember how we used to really like Sarah Palin?"

And Romney, to give him full credit, was not a nutbar. If anything he suffered from being a bit too bland for the wing of the Republican party that regards itself as an insurgency.
 
I'd take Santorum over Trump any day. I'd much rather have a deeply conservative man with some ethical principals as President than someone who states ideas I might lean towards to a greater degree but with a worse moral compass than a used car salesman.

Christopher Hitchens put it best: "A candidate may well change his or her position on, say, universal health care or Bosnia. But he or she cannot change the fact—if it happens to be a fact—that he or she is a pathological liar, or a dimwit, or a proud ignoramus. And even in the short run, this must and will tell."

The clearest examples of those traits running right now are Cruz, Clinton, and Trump.
 
*Asterisk* said:
I'd take Santorum over Trump any day. I'd much rather have a deeply conservative man with some ethical principals as President than someone who states ideas I might lean towards to a greater degree but with a worse moral compass than a used car salesman.

Christopher Hitchens put it best: "A candidate may well change his or her position on, say, universal health care or Bosnia. But he or she cannot change the fact—if it happens to be a fact—that he or she is a pathological liar, or a dimwit, or a proud ignoramus. And even in the short run, this must and will tell."

The clearest examples of those traits running right now are Cruz, Clinton, and Trump.
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Santorum or Trump? Seems like a choice between vomiting or diarrhoea. Santorum has principles from the 5th century - I'd really not want those governing the country. I suppose at least you know what you're getting with Santorum, but don't expect he'll be honest in how he supports his principles. Trump? Absolutely bonkers.

Fortunately neither Trump nor Santorum are likely to sit in the Oval Office.
 
I think it's a mistake to assume we know anything about a candidate's inner life. For all we know Santorum's political persona is entirely constructed. It doesn't matter, though, because whether Santorum truly believes in those things or has constructed a political facsimile of those beliefs as part of a cynical appeal to the electorate, he's equally boxed into them as a President.

If Trump got to be President - a huge if - he'd be in a similar position.
 
One thing to notice is that all presidential speeches are the same.

"Our country/economy is in trouble"
"Other countries are doing better"
"America is the greatest country ever/America can become better"
"Democrats/Republicans are ruining the country/economy"
[generic statement about an important issue] //take your pick on the issue
Terrorists are bad, mmkay?
"Things are made cheaper elsewhere"
"I can make a stronger America"
"Jobs are being shipped overseas"
"We need a leader"
"The last president was shitty/Could have done better"
[generic statement about helping veterans]

No substance just fluff.

On another note:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...olet-in-tokyo-we-looked-into-it-10324318.html
 
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