Analysis: was there any way the Republicans could have prevented Donald Trump? (1 Viewer)

[DocHolliday]

I do not see any winners here.  We now have Trump vs. Hillary.  How many times do we have to vote for the lesser of two evils?  I do not think I am going to waste my time to vote for either. 

 

[igbomb]

Good chance I sit this one out.

One thing I find hilarious is that the Republican Party was done in by a sub-set of their voters that are up in arms over things like illegal immigration and political correctness. And every bit of the hysteria over those very topics was manufactured by Republicans. Their politicians, Fox News and the radio personalities have spent the last 8 years stirring the pot on these topics and getting a bunch of mouth-breathers all worked up, and now that very group has nominated the very guy they wanted fronting their ticket the least. Ridiculous.

 

[Zegras11]

I do not see any winners here.  We now have Trump vs. Hillary.  How many times do we have to vote for the lesser of two evils?  I do not think I am going to waste my time to vote for either. 

No way am I going to vote for either also.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/04/politics/john-kasich-drops-out/

 

[Leroy Hoard]

The craziest part of this insanity is that Trump is a known far-left pro-amnesty anti-gun NY liberal.  He's basically a dumber, uglier version of Obama.  If he's somehow elected I will enjoy drinking the tears of all those that he disappoints.

Every vote for Trump was an acknowledgement of that voters ignorance and stupidity.  Don't try to defend it.  You're a terrible person that should feel shame.  You're a clueless person, probably married to someone even dumber than you, raising a smaller version of yourself to carry on your stupidity into the future.

Good info here.

 

[Leroy Hoard]

Well at least we were spared spending the next 4 - 8 years looking at Ted Cruz.

 

[tommyboy]

just remember the guy the Republican Party wanted to be the man was Jeb Bush.    That goes a long way to show how stupid and mentally bankrupt the leaders of the Republican Party are at this moment in time.

 

[Leeroy Jenkins]

This is not a thread about political issues, only the process. Donald Trump resoundingly won the GOP nomination tonight. 

My question is: in retrospect, could the GOP have prevented this? If so, how? 

By not allowing 16 people to run initially and be included in the debates etc.. 

 

[tommyboy]

yeah, this election is a vote for one of two Democrats by the way

 

[AAAll-Stars]

The GOP is committing suicide over the non-issue of political correctness, which mostly exists to boost Fox News ratings. The rubes have fallen for it and made it their rallying cry while the other side talks about expanding health care and educational opportunities. That may be enough to get Trump the nomination and one day it may even be enough to win the Oval Office. But that day ain't now and it may never come. 

Political Correctness is definitely an issue. I live in Cali and I see first hand how it's quickly creating a thought police environment. People are now considering laws to punish people for offensive speech. It's bad.

 

[igbomb]

Political Correctness is definitely an issue. I live in Cali and I see first hand how it's quickly creating a thought police environment. People are now considering laws to punish people for offensive speech. It's bad.

This is the non-specific stuff that people cite as evidence of the problem. 'People' are 'considering'. Either there is actually some legislation or it's nonsense. And if any legislation was as broad as your comment, it would get thrown out by the first court that got it's hands on it. 

 

[AAAll-Stars]

This is the non-specific stuff that people cite as evidence of the problem. 'People' are 'considering'. Either there is actually some legislation or it's nonsense. And if any legislation was as broad as your comment, it would get thrown out by the first court that got it's hands on it. 

Ya but people are now pushing for judges to support their anti-hate speech goals and in the corporate world, what is off-limits seems to grow by day. And it's inconsistently enforced. And considering our free enterprise world is everywhere, this is what people are concerned about.

 

[Mjolnirs]

How many times do we have to vote for the lesser of two evils?

Every damn election it seems.

just remember the guy the Republican Party wanted to be the man was Jeb Bush.    That goes a long way to show how stupid and mentally bankrupt the leaders of the Republican Party are at this moment in time.

Agreed.

 

[AAAll-Stars]

Alright I'll play the "Le Trumpz0r is a Racist game"

I did the research for you this time. I don't expect a thank you.

Here Are 9 Examples Of Donald Trump Being Racist (From Liberal Huffington Post now less). My answers in bold.
 

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump may have failed to disavow the Ku Klux Klan this weekend, but he’ll have you know he is not racist. In fact, he claims to be “the least racist person that you have ever met,” and last summer he pulled out the old standby about not having a racist bone in his body.

But he hasn’t given us a lot of reason to believe that. In fact, despite Trump’s protests to the contrary, he has a long history of saying and doing racist things. It’s not really surprising that he’s won the support and praise of the country’s white supremacists.

Here’s a running list of some of the most glaringly racist things associated with Trump. We’re sure we’ll be adding to it soon.

The Justice Department sued his company — twice — for not renting to black people

When Trump was serving as the president of his family’s real estate company, the Trump Management Corporation, in 1973, the Justice Department sued the company for alleged racial discrimination against black people looking to rent apartments in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.

The lawsuit charged that the company quoted different rental terms and conditions to black rental candidates than it did with white candidates, and that the company lied to black applicants about apartments not being available. Trump called those accusations “absolutely ridiculous” and sued the Justice Department for $100 million in damages for defamation.

Without admitting wrongdoing, the Trump Management Corporation settled the original lawsuit two years later and promised not to discriminate against black people, Puerto Ricans or other minorities. Trump also agreed to send weekly vacancy lists for his 15,000 apartments to the New York Urban League, a civil rights group, and to allow the NYUL to present qualified applicants for vacancies in certain Trump properties.

Just three years after that, the Justice Department sued the Trump Management Corporation again for allegedly discriminating against black applicants by telling them apartments weren’t available.

This was done by someone who was doing the direct hiring, not him. Also, he's running against Hillary Clinton, who was part of a White's Only golf club in the 90s with Bill Clinton. A Whites Only golf club. (This is going to be fun!)

TAYLOR HILL/GETTY IMAGES

Apparently Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) does not mind Trump’s racism. Sessions endorsed the GOP front-runner on Monday.

He refused to condemn the white supremacists who are campaigning for him

Three times in a row on Sunday, Trump sidestepped opportunities to renounce white nationalist and former KKK leader David Duke, who told his radio audience last week that voting for any candidate other than Trump is “really treason to your heritage.”

When asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper if he would condemn Duke and say he didn’t want a vote from him or any other white supremacists, Trump claimed that he didn’t know anything about white supremacists or about Duke himself. When Tapper pressed him twice more, Trump said he couldn’t condemn a group he hadn’t yet researched.

By Monday, Trump was saying that in fact he does disavow Duke, and that the only reason he didn’t do so on CNN was because of a “lousy earpiece.” Video of the exchange, however, shows Trump responding quickly to Tapper’s questions with no apparent difficulty in hearing.

It’s preposterous to think that Trump doesn’t know about white supremacist groups or their sometimes violent support of him. Reports of neo-Nazi groups rallying around Trump go back as far as August.

His white supremacist fan club includes the Daily Stormer, a leading neo-Nazi news site; Richard Spencer, director of the National Policy Institute, which aims to promote the “heritage, identity, and future of European people”; Jared Taylor, editor of American Renaissance, a Virginia-based white nationalist magazine; Michael Hill, head of the League of the South, an Alabama-based white supremacist secessionist group; and Brad Griffin, a member of Hill’s League of the South and author of the popular white supremacist blog Hunter Wallace.

Trump disavowed David Duke 9 times. Also these groups supported McCain and Romney. They vote Republican, you can't stop them.

CHRIS KLEPONIS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

President Barack Obama mercilessly ridiculed Trump’s birtherism at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in 2011.

He questions whether President Obama was born in the United States

Long before calling Mexican immigrants “criminals” and “rapists,” Trump was a leading proponent of “birtherism,” the racist conspiracy theory that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States and is thus an illegitimate president. Trump claimed in 2011 to have sent people to Hawaii to investigate whether Obama was really born there. He insisted at the time that the researchers “cannot believe what they are finding.”

Obama ultimately got the better of Trump, releasing his long-form birth certificate and relentlessly mocking the real estate mogul about it at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner that year.

But Trump continues to insinuate that the president was not born in the country.

“I don’t know where he was born,” Trump said in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday. (Again, for the record: He was born in Hawaii.)

After seeing Trump troll Cruz on the Canadian birth thing, this needs to be put to bed. Trump likes to pump his base and screw with a potential rival. It's football kids, get ready to get hit.

He treats racial groups as monoliths

Like many racial instigators, Trump often answers accusations of bigotry by loudly protesting that he actually loves the group in question. But that’s just as uncomfortable to hear, because he’s still treating all the members of the group — all the individual human beings — as essentially the same and interchangeable. Language is telling, here: Virtually every time Trump mentions a minority group, he uses the definite article the, as in “the Hispanics,” “the Muslims” and “the blacks.”

In that sense, Trump’s defensive explanations are of a piece with his slander of minorities. Both rely on essentializing racial and ethnic groups, blurring them into simple, monolithic entities, instead of acknowledging that there’s as much variety among Muslims and Latinos and black people as there is among white people.

How did Trump respond to the outrage last year that followed his characterization of Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists?

“I’ll take jobs back from China, I’ll take jobs back from Japan,” Trump said during his visit to the U.S.-Mexican border in July. “The Hispanics are going to get those jobs, and they’re going to love Trump.”

“The Hispanics are going to get those jobs, and they’re going to love Trump.”Donald Trump, July 2015

How did Trump respond to critics of his proposal to ban Muslims from entering the U.S.?

“I’m doing good for the Muslims,” Trump told CNN in December. “Many Muslim friends of mine are in agreement with me. They say, ‘Donald, you brought something up to the fore that is so brilliant and so fantastic.’”

Not long before he called for a blanket ban on Muslims entering the country, Trump was proclaiming his affection for “the Muslims,” disagreeing with rival candidate Ben Carson’s claim in September that being a Muslim should disqualify someone from running for president.

“I love the Muslims. I think they’re great people,” Trump said, insisting that he would be willing to name a Muslim to his presidential cabinet.

How did Trump respond to the people who called him out for funding an investigation into whether Obama was born in the United States?

“I have a great relationship with the blacks,” Trump said in April 2011. “I’ve always had a great relationship with the blacks.”

This is a guy who last night said "I love the Evangelicals". This is how Trump talks. So Trump Grammar = Literally Hitler?

He trashed Native Americans, too

In 1993, when Trump wanted to open a casino in Bridgeport, Connecticut, that would compete with one owned by the Mashantucket Pequot Nation, a local Native American tribe, he told the House subcommittee on Native American Affairs that “they don’t look like Indians to me... They don’t look like Indians to Indians.”

Trump then elaborated on those remarks, which were unearthed last year in the Hartford Courant, by saying the mafia had infiltrated Indian casinos. 

In the early 90s, people were just beginning to call Indians Native-Americans. This was a big shift at the time, and was part of the PC wave of the early 90s. He was also trolling to make sure they wouldn't compete with his casinos. If you look through history, Trump has played football with other groups to get his deals done.

JOE MCNALLY/GETTY IMAGES

In the 1980s, Donald Trump was much younger, but just as racist as he is now.

He encouraged the mob justice that resulted in the wrongful imprisonment of the Central Park Five

In 1989, Trump took out full-page ads in four New York City-area newspapers calling for the return of the death penalty in New York and the expansion of police authority in response to the infamous case of a woman who was beaten and raped while jogging in Manhattan’s Central Park.

“They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes,” Trump wrote, referring to the Central Park attackers and other violent criminals. “I want to hate these murderers and I always will.”

The public outrage over the Central Park jogger rape, at a time when the city was struggling with high crime, led to the wrongful conviction of five teenagers of color known as the Central Park Five.

The men’s convictions were overturned in 2002, after they’d already spent years in prison, when DNA evidence showed they did not commit the crime. Today, their case is considered a cautionary tale about a politicized criminal justice process.

Trump, however, still thinks the men are guilty.

This is a guy who slammed Todd Akin for his "legitimate rape" line and ripped the US Military for the 26,000 rapes they have a few years ago. He has a long history of being tough against sexual violence.

He condoned the beating of a Black Lives Matter protester

At a November campaign rally in Alabama, Trump supporters physically attackedan African-American protester after the man began chanting “Black lives matter.” Video of the incident shows the assailants kicking the man after he has already fallen to the ground.

The following day, Trump implied that the attackers were justified.

“Maybe [the protester] should have been roughed up,” he mused. “It was absolutely disgusting what he was doing.”

He called supporters who beat up a homeless Latino man “passionate”

Trump’s racial incitement has already inspired hate crimes. Two brothers arrestedin Boston last summer for beating up a homeless Latino man cited Trump’s anti-immigrant message when explaining why they did it.  

“Donald Trump was right — all these illegals need to be deported,” one of the men reportedly told police officers.

Trump did not even bother to distance himself from them. Instead, he suggested that the men were well-intentioned and had simply gotten carried away.

“I will say that people who are following me are very passionate,” Trump said. “They love this country and they want this country to be great again. They are passionate.”

One of Trump's black supporters the very next day punched a protestor who was wearing a KKK uniform. Trump defended that guy too. Trump was acting like a tough guy and he shouldn't have done that. But he was consistent in defending his supporters from all angles.

SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES

Trump’s daughter Ivanka, second from left, converted to Judaism in 2009. That has not stopped Trump from bringing up anti-Semitic stereotypes.

He stereotyped Jews as good negotiators — and political masterminds

When Trump addressed the Republican Jewish Coalition in December, he tried to relate to the crowd by invoking the stereotype of Jews as talented and cunning businesspeople.

“I’m a negotiator, like you folks,” Trump told the crowd, touting his book The Art of the Deal.

“Is there anyone who doesn’t renegotiate deals in this room?” Trump said. “Perhaps more than any room I’ve spoken to.”

But that wasn’t even the most offensive thing Trump told his Jewish audience. He implied that he had little chance of earning the Jewish Republican group’s support, because his fealty could not be bought with campaign donations.

“You’re not going to support me, because I don’t want your money,” he said. “You want to control your own politician.”

Ironically, Trump has many close Jewish family members. His daughter Ivankaconverted to Judaism in 2009 before marrying the real estate mogul Jared Kushner. Trump and Kushner raise their two children in an observant Jewish home.

Ok I've defended the great negotiators shtick because Trump has also said that Hispanics are the hardest workers he's ever seen and he has also said that Persians are great negotiators. The not being paid off though is definitely by our modern definition a form of anti-semitism. But Jewish-Americans have been very energized in giving money to politicians for pro-Israel legislation and I can see what Trump was trying to say here. But I get the concern.

It’s maybe not surprising that Trump has brought so much racial animus into the 2016 election cycle, given his family history. His father, Fred Trump, was the target of folk singer Woody Guthrie’s lyrics after Guthrie lived for two years in a building owned by Trump pere: “I suppose / Old Man Trump knows / Just how much / Racial hate / He stirred up / In the bloodpot of human hearts.”

I'm sure I can whip up a musician calling CP Time Hillary a racist.

And last fall, a news report from 1927 surfaced on the site Boing Boing, revealing that Fred Trump was arrested that year following a KKK riot in Queens. It’s not clear exactly what the elder Trump was doing there or what role he may have played in the riot. Donald Trump, for his part, has categorically denied (except when he’s ambiguously denied) that anything of the sort ever happened.

So Trump's dad may or or may not have been involved in a race riot...in the 20s?! Everyone was racist then, c'mon man.

Donald Trump's company has a long history of hiring people who are minorities, he's good friends with Oprah, he helped Omarosa launch an African-American reality TV show when no one else would give her money, he fought to allow African-Americans and Jews to attend his resorts in the late 80s, the list goes on.

I really hate how the left keeps doing this. Crooked Hillary's racial record is far worse.

 

[roadkill1292]

Political Correctness is definitely an issue. I live in Cali and I see first hand how it's quickly creating a thought police environment. People are now considering laws to punish people for offensive speech. It's bad.

It doesn't make the Top 100 on the list of the country's problems. This is a complaint by traditionalists who get criticized for saying dumb things that weren't traditionally considered bad to say.

 

[AAAll-Stars]

It doesn't make the Top 100 on the list of the country's problems. This is a complaint by traditionalists who get criticized for saying dumb things that weren't traditionally considered bad to say.

I disagree. It impedes political/social/economic discussions because of how short fused people get about what they perceive to be hateful bigoted. It absolutely does create a chilling effect.

 

[Coeur de Lion]

They've been catering to the absolute bottom of the barrel for years now: birtherism, science denial, all of the religious BS, Palin, blind obstructionism on everything, pointlessly continuing the votes on the ACA, the attacks on women, the thinly veiled racism.  It just goes on and on.  And the orange moron and the upcoming trouncing are the end result. Hopefully the party will shed itself of the crazy and return to where it belongs eventually after the dust settles.  Ronald Reagan would be viewed as waaaaay too far left by the current batch of Republicans due to his stances on immigration, gun control, and separation of church and state.  A truly all time great President like Teddy Roosevelt would be reviled by them for his environmental and trust-busting stances. Let that sink in for a minute.

 

[Henry Ford]

Ya but people are now pushing for judges to support their anti-hate speech goals and in the corporate world, what is off-limits seems to grow by day. And it's inconsistently enforced. And considering our free enterprise world is everywhere, this is what people are concerned about.

Perhaps the right wing should reconsider the laws they've pushed for that allow workers to be fired at whim, now that it doesn't help the corporate folks who want to speak freely on their Facebook pages.

 

[roadkill1292]

I disagree. It impedes political/social/economic discussions because of how short fused people get about what they perceive to be hateful bigoted. It absolutely does create a chilling effect.

It only feels that way because the conservatives almost always lose those discussions for hearts and minds these days. That's a painful undertaking when positions that were considered mainstream in the past are now brushed aside by a new majority. It's not an accident that Trump's base supporter is a below-average-educated older white man.

 

[Skoo]

Sure there was.

But that would have started years ago with Fox News and right-wing radio not spreading fear and disinformation 24/7.

They created this monster by embracing these outlets and ideas instead of distancing themselves from them.

 

[jonessed]

It only feels that way because the conservatives almost always lose those discussions for hearts and minds these days. That's a painful undertaking when positions that were considered mainstream in the past are now brushed aside by a new majority. It's not an accident that Trump's base supporter is a below-average-educated older white man.

Base supporter?  Everything I have read show Trump pulling from a surprisingly wide variety of education and income background.  Where are you getting this from?

 

[roadkill1292]

Base supporter?  Everything I have read show Trump pulling from a surprisingly wide variety of education and income background.  Where are you getting this from?

Is this really the debatable point you've pulled out of this discussion? 

 

[jonessed]

Is this really the debatable point you've pulled out of this discussion? 

I guess so.  It was the last post and hadn't been commented on.

I read an article on where he was pulling support last week.   The takeaway I had was the diverse background he was pulling from.  Specifically, education level and income.

If you don't have it, you don't have it.  Just wondering if you were taking a potshot or had different information.

 

[roadkill1292]

I guess so.  It was the last post and hadn't been commented on.

I read an article on where he was pulling support last week.   The takeaway I had was the diverse background he was pulling from.  Specifically, education level and income.

If you don't have it, you don't have it.  Just wondering if you were taking a potshot or had different information.

Ok,  I'll try to find the piece I read, I think it was in the Atlantic. 

 

[Warsteinner]

Regarding this part, the Democrats have never used the Super Delegates to override the public and I strongly doubt they ever would. 

http://www.salon.com/2016/02/13/un_democratic_party_dnc_chair_says_superdelegates_ensure_elites_dont_have_to_run_against_grassroots_activists/

Your own leader stated they were exactly for that reason. 

 

[AAAll-Stars]

Perhaps the right wing should reconsider the laws they've pushed for that allow workers to be fired at whim, now that it doesn't help the corporate folks who want to speak freely on their Facebook pages.

Absolutely. I don't have the answer here. I'm for free speech as much as any person alive. Censorship, even cultural censorship, rings dangerous to me. People shouldn't be fired for their beliefs...but I can see arguments to the contrary.

 

[32 Counter Pass]

The GOP is a coalition, but the leaders are corrupt and not understanding or caring what the avg Republican wants. Trump is a populist that is filling the void that the GOP has left open through its own negligence

Agree. I would also add as part of the definition of negligence is they are simply not doing their job. They have spent the last 8 years blocking every Obama initiative and refusing to review his judicial appointments. All the while collecting pay checks. That is flat out obscene. 

 

[roadkill1292]

I guess so.  It was the last post and hadn't been commented on.

I read an article on where he was pulling support last week.   The takeaway I had was the diverse background he was pulling from.  Specifically, education level and income.

If you don't have it, you don't have it.  Just wondering if you were taking a potshot or had different information.

Here's the piece I read.