Official Hillary Clinton 2016 thread (2 Viewers)

[squistion]

So, traitors. How very 2002 of you.

Straw Man. How very Saints of you.

 

[Politician Spock]

Gary Johnson would be crushing Trump if you recalcitrant Hillary voters would just come around.  You guys are literally endangering the future of our republic by insisting on voting for your most preferred candidate.  

I completely agree. Not only would a Johnson victory save us from these two dolts, it would be a huge step forward in the two parties responding by fixing what is wrong internally with them to win voters back, or one or both of them die off to be replaced with new parties. The country would be far better off for it. In other words, "Don't be Tim!"

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

Here’s the thing, though, about working to get a politician to move to the left (or in any other direction): when the politician tells you what you want to hear, and supports a policy to pander to you, that’s a victory. It doesn’t matter whether they actually believe the sentiment. It matters that they know you believe the sentiment, and they’ve decided the most important thing is to do what you want.

That usually means that the most effective activists in this style make clear demands of politicians about what they want to see, and then praises the politician when it happens.

When Bernie Sanders was asked to say that black lives matter, and did — and started name-dropping Sandra Bland in speeches — that was a victory. The activists who’d criticized Sanders and his campaign acknowledged and praised it (even while remaining annoyed with some Sanders supporters).

Compare that with, say, Code Pink — which is very good at interrupting speeches, but less good at articulating what it is asking politicians to do (beyond ending war). It’s worth noting that, by the end of the week in Philly, the loudest and most constant protests in the arena were from antiwar protesters even though Sanders barely touched on foreign policy in his campaign (another indication that ultimately, this is about Hillary Clinton).

If you believe that Hillary Clinton is a fundamentally corrupt politician in a fundamentally corrupt system, this makes sense. In fact, Clinton’s willingness to tell you what you want to hear merely confirms your thesis that she’s insincere and not to be trusted. But at that point, your problem is not with the things that Hillary Clinton is saying or not saying — it’s with Clinton herself.

At a certain point, moving a politician to the left is not the goal anymore. The goal is to demonstrate that the politician is illegitimate. When protesters interrupt speeches as part of a pressure campaign, the interruption is usually finite; they know they’ll make their point and be escorted out. Constant booing and chanting doesn’t communicate a discrete point; rather, it delegitimizes the politician, and the whole pageant. (Think of the Chicago protesters who successfully shut down a Donald Trump rally before it began.) Breaking the spell of the Democrats’ convention stagecraft was a goal itself; it exposed the whole thing as a sham.

Denying a politician’s legitimacy is a very, very big deal. You can no more be half-legitimate than half-pregnant; you can’t make fine distinctions between two illegitimate politicians (or rather, you can make them in your head, but you shouldn’t be surprised when you fail to communicate them clearly).

It’s essentially a call for revolution. And if the revolution fails to materialize, it’s just an expression of belief that it should.

This is the question that left dissenters need to ask themselves about Hillary Clinton, if they haven’t already: is there anything that Hillary Clinton can do to redeem herself to you?

If there isn’t, you can continue to protest her existence, but don’t be upset if she doesn’t respond — you wouldn’t accept a response if you got it.

If there is, figure out how you can make her do it — especially (if she is elected) in January. You won’t be alone. In fact, you might be surprised to see that some of the people who supported Clinton in 2016 are right alongside, waiting to remind her of what she owes.

Whole thing is worth a read.  At this point it seems clear that Clinton has largely recognized the red is true, and moved on.  

As someone who supports almost everything Sanders stood for it's kind of the worst possible outcome IMO.  She needs to be pressured from the left as the author suggests upstream.  "Flip-flopping" is virtually always a strategic retreat for a politician being forced by politics to do something they disagree with.  It's a WIN for someone who pressured them into adopting policy.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Straw Man. How very Saints of you.

Pertinent arguments are never straw men arguments. You're ready to accuse people of being unpatriotic because they disagree with you. We've gone from accusing Trumpites of being bigots to being racists to bring traitorous. You're calling them traitors, right? Is that not on point? If you're going to say it say it.

 

[squistion]

Pertinent arguments are never straw men arguments. You're ready to accuse people of being unpatriotic because they disagree with you. We've gone from accusing Trumpites of bigots to being racists to bring traitorous. You're calling them traitors, right? Is that on point? If you're going to say it say it.

I didn't accuse anyone of treason, bucko.

 

[Sinn Fein]

If Trump wins, I will blame the Hillary supporters for not understanding what they were doing by supporting Clinton in the primary.  Its almost like they wanted Trump to win...

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

I didn't accuse anyone of treason, bucko.

Good thing because if people feel that Trump is a national crisis, an emergency, a dictator in waiting that could bring down the country, then seriously anyone who thinks that should go get a gun and prepare to defend the country they love. Personally I do not think that's where we are or even close to it.

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

The first entirely post-DNC poll just released a few minutes ago shows Clinton's lead surging from +5 in the previous poll by the same pollster to +15 today.  

Just one poll -- and it's almost certainly an outlier even if there is a nice bounce -- but it's the only one we have so far that was fielded after the DNC ended.

 

[squistion]

If Trump wins, I will blame the Hillary supporters for not understanding what they were doing by supporting Clinton in the primary.  Its almost like they wanted Trump to win...

We knew exactly what we were doing - understanding that a 75 year old Socialist who has never been fully vetted by the national media or subject to GOP attack ads had no chance of winning the general election. None.

 

[Sinn Fein]

The first entirely post-DNC poll just released a few minutes ago shows Clinton's lead surging from +5 in the previous poll by the same pollster to +15 today.  

Just one poll -- and it's almost certainly an outlier even if there is a nice bounce -- but it's the only one we have so far that was fielded after the DNC ended.

  Reuters released a poll yesterday that showed it as 37/37/5/1

 

[IvanKaramazov]

 "bucko"

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

I'm frustrated too and I'm sure I've said things I'd take back because of it, but at the end of the day everyone's doing what they think is best for the country.  We just disagree what that is.

 

[BeaverCleaver]

Brian Hiatt ‏@hiattb 1h1 hour ago

Opposing Trump now isn't a matter of partisanship or even politics. It's human decency, patriotic duty, a response to a national emergency.

National emergency? 

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

  Reuters released a poll yesterday that showed it as 37/37/5/1

Wasn't fielded post-convention.  Like I said... just one poll.  Could be a massive fluke for sure.  We'll find out soon enough.

Polling averages have her up about 1.5% right now, on average.  Up from tied 3-4 days ago and up from +.5% two days ago.

 

[timschochet]

I'm not going to blame anyone if Trump wins. I will simply move on to supporting him when I agree with him and opposing him when I disagree. I will wish him the best; once elected the slate is wiped clean. 

And I don't blame anyone now. And I don't think anyone is a traitor.  I'm simply trying to convince you all to vote for Hillary. 

 

[squistion]

Philip Rucker ‏@PhilipRucker 1h1 hour ago

GOP leaders must be thrilled to see Trump entering final 100 days in a debate with parents of fallen Gold Star over who's sacrificed more.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

The first entirely post-DNC poll just released a few minutes ago shows Clinton's lead surging from +5 in the previous poll by the same pollster to +15 today.  

Just one poll -- and it's almost certainly an outlier even if there is a nice bounce -- but it's the only one we have so far that was fielded after the DNC ended.

Thanks for the polling updates, I appreciate them. I believe this number and people should remember again that Trump does not have a real campaign. Hillary will have a natural big advantage on Election Day regardless of the polls.

 

[Bob Magaw]

Fear of Mexicans.

Fear of Muslims.

Fear of crime (subtext here of black criminals specifically).

You see how these all tie together, right?

Action Plans already outlined

1) Wall

2) Demonize/ban Muslims (nebulous allusions to far more rigorous entry visa vetting than currently exists, how, typically, not spelled out)  

3) ? Fill in the blank

* Is three that clear cut, more specifically, have the particulars been spelled out by Trump in a way that a consensus of prospective voters knows how each latest shooting which Trump is quick to opportunistically exploit for fear mongering purposes WILL TRANSLATE into an action plan (at least, in a counterpart as sing song, nursery rhyme, overly simplistic a fashion as the first two).

How does the third point tie together in the same manner as the first two? That was the point I was responding to. Riversco seems to equate each police shooting with near universal confirmation among Trump's constituency that Obama and Clinton are the cause of this state of affairs and Trump will magically fix everything. How? Is this mental picture of Trump's "action plan" on THIS point as universal with the first two (where I do think most/all of his voters grasp the concept of a wall and banning Muslims) such that Riversco's somewhat strident assertion that each new shooting will near automatically equate/translate to a growing belief among voters that a Trump vote will solve this?

So no, I don't think point three is as simplistic as the first two (or as the pedagogical structure and format of your closing point would suggest/indicate/merit - if it ever does  ).  

 

[squistion]

 I'm simply trying to convince you all to vote for Hillary. 

Ezra Klein gives another reason: http://www.vox.com/2016/7/30/12332922/donald-trump-khan-muslim

Donald Trump’s slander of Captain Humayun Khan’s family is horrifying, even for Trump

[...]

"Have you ever been to Arlington Cemetery?" Khan asked Trump. "Go look at the graves of brave patriots who died defending the United States of America. You will see all faiths, genders and ethnicities. You have sacrificed nothing and no one."

On ABC this morning, Trump responded to Khan’s speech. I don’t know what I expected from Trump. Maybe he would show some gentleness. Maybe he would show some empathy. Maybe he would refuse to comment. Maybe he would attack Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama’s foreign policy leadership. All of those responses would have been fine.

Trump’s actual response, though, wasn’t fine.

"If you look at his wife, she was standing there," he said, on national television. "She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn't allowed to have anything to say. You tell me."

This wasn’t a slip of the tongue. In an interview with Maureen Dowd, Trump took the same tack. "I’d like to hear his wife say something," he said.


Let’s be very clear about what Trump is doing here: as ABC wrote, he’s suggesting "Khan’s wife didn’t speak because she was forbidden to as a Muslim." This is bull####. It is flatly, verifiably, false. But that’s almost beside the point.


Trump listened to a speech by the bereaved father of a fallen Muslim soldier and used it to slander the fallen soldier’s family. That was his response. That is his character.

At this point, I honestly don’t know what to say. I don’t have new language for this, I haven’t found another way of saying this isn’t okay, this isn’t kind, this isn’t decent. Instead, I’ll note James Fallows’s response. He quotes Joseph Welch, speaking to Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1954.

"Until this moment," he said, "I think I never really gauged your cruelty."

If you would like to see Ghazala Khan speak, you can do so in this interview she gave to MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. As Fallows writes, she breaks down sobbing while speaking of her son. It suggests she let her husband give the DNC speech for a simple reason: she remains overwhelmed by grief.

This is the woman Trump decided to slander. This is the gauge of his cruelty.

This isn't partisan. This isn't left vs. right. Mitt Romney never would have said this. John McCain never would have said this. George W. Bush never would have said this. John Kerry never would have said this.

Trump also wanted the Khans to know that, like them, he had sacrificed for this country.

"I've made a lot of sacrifices," Trump said. "I work very, very hard. I've created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures. I've had tremendous success. I think I've done a lot."

I honestly do not understand how a human being can respond to a family that lost their son for this country by saying that he has sacrificed too, he’s worked really hard, he’s built "great structures."

This is not a question that needs to be asked in most elections, but it needs to be asked in this one: what kind of person is Donald Trump?

 

[timschochet]

Klein's response says it all. I just hope the public is paying attention. 

 

[Mister CIA]

We knew exactly what we were doing - understanding that a 75 year old Socialist who has never been fully vetted by the national media or subject to GOP attack ads had no chance of winning the general election. None.

Who is we? You and the straw man in your pocket?

Straw man, straw man, straw man!

Okay, I'm through making fun of you.

 

[Zegras11]

I'm not going to blame anyone if Trump wins. I will simply move on to supporting him when I agree with him and opposing him when I disagree. I will wish him the best; once elected the slate is wiped clean. 

And I don't blame anyone now. And I don't think anyone is a traitor.  I'm simply trying to convince you all to vote for Hillary. 

1067 pages in and you still really suck at it.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

This is not a question that needs to be asked in most elections, but it needs to be asked in this one: what kind of person is Donald Trump?

This is the crux.

I don't think this country has ever had to question if a person running for president is truly an awful, rotten human being.

 

[timschochet]

1067 pages in and you still really suck at it.

I'll keep trying to get better. I have 3 more months! 

 

[timschochet]

This is the crux.

I don't think this country has ever had to question if a person running for president is truly an awful, rotten human being.

Oh we've had awful people before. You know how much I respect Nixon's presidency, but no question he was a nasty bad man. So, by all accounts, was his immediate predecessor. 

This difference was that both men were much more competent to be President than Trump. 

 

[Guest]

Good to see you back, Senor Jamon.

Took my timeout like a man.   Usually *pretty* good about keeping politics off Facebook.  Without this place things got a little dicey.  

Glad to be back and so is my wife, I think.  (Rained on sister-in-law's "little girls can finally dream!" post after Hillary's Hunger Games breaking glass address to the half empty auditorium).

Squis - apologies.  Made a couple of comments I felt were tongue-in-cheek, and regret they may have read sincere.  

Again, glad to be here.  Would rather make some of you cry than my SIL.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Oh we've had awful people before. You know how much I respect Nixon's presidency, but no question he was a nasty bad man. So, by all accounts, was his immediate predecessor. 

This difference was that both men were much more competent to be President than Trump. 

I'm gonna disagree with ya there, Tim, Nixon appealed to people, or he tried to, we know what the record says now, but in 72 the criticism was Vietnam and probably his obsession with left wing enemies. He was definitely hated for that. But this kind of stuff? No.

Nixon was a veteran himself. He didn't do things like this. He genuinely loved his country. Trump has attacked people who have given their lives to their country and he has devoted his whole life just himself and only himself. And he doesn't even understand the difference. It's nauseating. Nixon like Hillary was really of questionable character and lousy judgement but Trump is gross on a personal level.

- eta - btw Hillary would be hung from the nearest lamppost for even one of these comments that Trump has made about veterans.

 

[Bob Magaw]

What evidence would it take to change your mind about this?  For example, suppose one of the two major parties nominated a guy who ran on building a wall and hating Muslims.  Would that be enough to convince you that there actually is a pretty big chunk of the country that wants those things?

It is possible to be talking about different things and think they are the same. I think that is happening here, but I'll try to make it explicit, so our level of discourse isn't conducted in some kind of jumbled conceptual slurry. I'm aware Trump was nominated and has a chance to win. I've noted above, at times I'm not sure what is more appalling, Trump, or that there is an appetite for him. Clearly he has struck a chord with the xenophobic demogouguery. Like Il Duce, he is the larger than life God-Man, only he can cure all of societies ills. He is strong. He is powerful. He can get things done. He can call women pigs, dis POW/Senator McCain for getting caught, use spastic body language to mock and ridicule the handicapped. A real humanitarian.

But I digress. IMO, his constituency isn't as homogenous as the milk in the Dude's White Russian. How would you break it down? Some just vote for Republican. PERIOD. Some are moderates, right (or for that matter even left) leaning centrists that can't abide HRCs checkered past.

So what percentage of Trump's voter base are actually hard cases that are voting for Trump BECAUSE he is espousing a wall and the demonization of a religion? To extend that thought further, if you took a poll, how many do you think realistically expect a wall to actually get built? Are we talking 50%, 40%, 30%, 20%, lower? And if it is not a large percentage, EVEN AMONG HIS CONSITUENCY, than that was the sense I meant in saying if you (meaning Riversco) think a large percentage of Americans actually want a GWOT (Great Wall Of Trump - though preposterous to me, wouldn't that make his monstrous ego swell with pride, a xenophobic monument to endure for centuries/millennia, bigger and more spectacular than the Pyramids), than I'm seeing something very different. Part of my, exasperation, or even being aghast that an idea like the wall might be taken seriously by even a small percentage of the population, is that even on a strategic/tactical level, it just seems so goofy and cartoonish. The border is too large to monitor with current technology to prevent illegal immigrant movements en masse (whether driving, walking, whatever). How does adding a wall change that equation. They can just simply dig under it and easily circumvent the border that is too large to monitor. Come on, seriously? I'm not saying the average voter is quark hunting for CERN or using bioinformatics to find gene based cancer cures, but even by America's depleted educational standards relative to the rest of the world, this is pure, unadulterated Loony Tunes.           

As a reminder (context now on the preceding page),  below is what I wrote and you were responding to.        

"If you think you have your finger on the pulse of the country and it wants a GWOT (Great Wall Of Trump) and to demonize a RELIGION, than we seem to live in very different countries, unrecognizably so."  

You see how all this ties together, right?

 

[timschochet]

Which leads to an interesting question, Saints: we've discussed Huey Long before. Like Trump, an authoritarian, who had little respect for the Constitution. In fact, had he become President he might have made us a dictatorship. 

Yet there's also no doubt that Long was a highly competent leader with a much greater grasp of political reality than Trump will ever have. So if it was Trump vs Long who would you choose? 

 

[Ramblin Wreck]

Hillary Clinton is the only one who can defeat Donald Trump. Anyone who does not vote for Hillary Clinton is not contributing to the defeat of Donald Trump, and therefore is part of the problem. That's how I see it. 

in a normal election I would not see it this way. In fact I would be very supportive of Sinn Fein's position, and yours. This is not a normal election. Everything I write is based on the premise that a Trump presidency is an extremely grave threat to this country. If you believe that, you MUST vote for Hillary Clinton. 

Grave threat?  You're such a drama queen on a board in which you will never change anyone's opinion.

Hillary Clinton has killed people, grossly mishandled classified information on purpose, and is a lying dirty power hungry scumbag.  Yeah that's what we need. 

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Which leads to an interesting question, Saints: we've discussed Huey Long before. Like Trump, an authoritarian, who had little respect for the Constitution. In fact, had he become President he might have made us a dictatorship. 

Yet there's also no doubt that Long was a highly competent leader with a much greater grasp of political reality than Trump will ever have. So if it was Trump vs Long who would you choose? 

Ha, that's awful. I'd vote third party. And in Louisiana we have an open primary.

But Long is a telling example of what can happen in America and people would not believe it. He put machine gun nests up across from the mayor's office in City Hall. He ended up with his own brown shirts guarding him. He controlled the governorship, the legislature, a US Senate seat, all at the same time, and he personally delivered to himself and friends a share of the state's oil revenue. He threw elected and appointed officials out of jobs on a whim because they opposed them like Erdogan.

 

[Bob Magaw]

Ezra Klein gives another reason: http://www.vox.com/2016/7/30/12332922/donald-trump-khan-muslim

Donald Trump’s slander of Captain Humayun Khan’s family is horrifying, even for Trump

[...]

"Have you ever been to Arlington Cemetery?" Khan asked Trump. "Go look at the graves of brave patriots who died defending the United States of America. You will see all faiths, genders and ethnicities. You have sacrificed nothing and no one."

On ABC this morning, Trump responded to Khan’s speech. I don’t know what I expected from Trump. Maybe he would show some gentleness. Maybe he would show some empathy. Maybe he would refuse to comment. Maybe he would attack Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama’s foreign policy leadership. All of those responses would have been fine.

Trump’s actual response, though, wasn’t fine.

"If you look at his wife, she was standing there," he said, on national television. "She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn't allowed to have anything to say. You tell me."

This wasn’t a slip of the tongue. In an interview with Maureen Dowd, Trump took the same tack. "I’d like to hear his wife say something," he said.


Let’s be very clear about what Trump is doing here: as ABC wrote, he’s suggesting "Khan’s wife didn’t speak because she was forbidden to as a Muslim." This is bull####. It is flatly, verifiably, false. But that’s almost beside the point.


Trump listened to a speech by the bereaved father of a fallen Muslim soldier and used it to slander the fallen soldier’s family. That was his response. That is his character.

At this point, I honestly don’t know what to say. I don’t have new language for this, I haven’t found another way of saying this isn’t okay, this isn’t kind, this isn’t decent. Instead, I’ll note James Fallows’s response. He quotes Joseph Welch, speaking to Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1954.

"Until this moment," he said, "I think I never really gauged your cruelty."

If you would like to see Ghazala Khan speak, you can do so in this interview she gave to MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. As Fallows writes, she breaks down sobbing while speaking of her son. It suggests she let her husband give the DNC speech for a simple reason: she remains overwhelmed by grief.

This is the woman Trump decided to slander. This is the gauge of his cruelty.

This isn't partisan. This isn't left vs. right. Mitt Romney never would have said this. John McCain never would have said this. George W. Bush never would have said this. John Kerry never would have said this.

Trump also wanted the Khans to know that, like them, he had sacrificed for this country.

"I've made a lot of sacrifices," Trump said. "I work very, very hard. I've created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures. I've had tremendous success. I think I've done a lot."

I honestly do not understand how a human being can respond to a family that lost their son for this country by saying that he has sacrificed too, he’s worked really hard, he’s built "great structures."

This is not a question that needs to be asked in most elections, but it needs to be asked in this one: what kind of person is Donald Trump?

Possibly the most disgusting words/behavior/stance yet, and that is saying a lot.

His megalomania prevents him from seeing the mother as human being. It is literally impossible for his self-image and Il Duce caricature performance to permit him to EVER admit he was mistaken. Is he a hollow man with no center playing a role for his constituents, or does he really believe this?

 

[msommer]

Grave threat?  You're such a drama queen on a board in which you will never change anyone's opinion.

Hillary Clinton has killed people, grossly mishandled classified information on purpose, and is a lying dirty power hungry scumbag.  Yeah that's what we need. 

Allegedly.

Trump on the other hand is just vile and spews garbage in just about every tweet or comment he makes. Is that really what you want?

 

[timschochet]

Grave threat?  You're such a drama queen on a board in which you will never change anyone's opinion.

Hillary Clinton has killed people, grossly mishandled classified information on purpose, and is a lying dirty power hungry scumbag.  Yeah that's what we need. 

You are not the type of person I was trying to reach with this. If you believe that Hillary has killed people, that puts you beyond the range of what I would consider rational discourse on this subject. 

I don't think suggesting that Trump is a grave threat is being a drama queen- it's an accurate description IMO. 

 

[IvanKaramazov]

It is possible to be talking about different things and think they are the same. I think that is happening here, but I'll try to make it explicit, so our level of discourse isn't conducted in some kind of jumbled conceptual slurry. I'm aware Trump was nominated and has a chance to win. I've noted above, at times I'm not sure what is more appalling, Trump, or that there is an appetite for him. Clearly he has struck a chord with the xenophobic demogouguery. Like Il Duce, he is the larger than life God-Man, only he can cure all of societies ills. He is strong. He is powerful. He can get things done. He can call women pigs, dis POW/Senator McCain for getting caught, use spastic body language to mock and ridicule the handicapped. A real humanitarian.

But I digress. IMO, his constituency isn't as homogenous as the milk in the Dude's White Russian. How would you break it down? Some just vote for Republican. PERIOD. Some are moderates, right (or for that matter even left) leaning centrists that can't abide HRCs checkered past.

So what percentage of Trump's voter base are actually hard cases that are voting for Trump BECAUSE he is espousing a wall and the demonization of a religion? To extend that thought further, if you took a poll, how many do you think realistically expect a wall to actually get built? Are we talking 50%, 40%, 30%, 20%, lower? And if it is not a large percentage, EVEN AMONG HIS CONSITUENCY, than that was the sense I meant in saying if you (meaning Riversco) think a large percentage of Americans actually want a GWOT (Great Wall Of Trump - though preposterous to me, wouldn't that make his monstrous ego swell with pride, a xenophobic monument to endure for centuries/millennia, bigger and more spectacular than the Pyramids), than I'm seeing something very different. Part of my, exasperation, or even being aghast that an idea like the wall might be taken seriously by even a small percentage of the population, is that even on a strategic/tactical level, it just seems so goofy and cartoonish. The border is too large to monitor with current technology to prevent illegal immigrant movements en masse (whether driving, walking, whatever). How does adding a wall change that equation. They can just simply dig under it and easily circumvent the border that is too large to monitor. Come on, seriously? I'm not saying the average voter is quark hunting for CERN or using bioinformatics to find gene based cancer cures, but even by America's depleted educational standards relative to the rest of the world, this is pure, unadulterated Loony Tunes.           

As a reminder (context now on the preceding page),  below is what I wrote and you were responding to.        

"If you think you have your finger on the pulse of the country and it wants a GWOT (Great Wall Of Trump) and to demonize a RELIGION, than we seem to live in very different countries, unrecognizably so."  

You see how all this ties together, right?

I sincerely would like to believe the bolded part is right and that the percentage you're looking for is low.  I'm just not as optimistic about that as you are.  I've posted before that if a third party in the US ever got off the ground, it would be some kind of white nationalist party like National Front.  I certainly agree with you that those sorts of views are repellant, but I don't think they're as rare or unrepresentative of a significant chunk of the electorate as you do.

 

[Bob Magaw]

Ha, that's awful. I'd vote third party. And in Louisiana we have an open primary.

But Long is a telling example of what can happen in America and people would not believe it. He put machine gun nests up across from the mayor's office in City Hall. He ended up with his own brown shirts guarding him. He controlled the governorship, the legislature, a US Senate seat, all at the same time, and he personally delivered to himself and friends a share of the state's oil revenue. He threw elected and appointed officials out of jobs on a whim because they opposed them like Erdogan.

Did not know that, thanks.

Sometimes there is a disconnect at the federal/state level which was set up for obvious reasons at the inception of the Republic and Constitution, which can lead to unfortunate consequences in which lack of federal oversight leads to state level abuses that sound banana republic-like.

There have been dark chapters in US history.

The subject of McCarthyism has been broached.

There have been other instances of high level corruption at the city level (Boss Tweed, Pendergast Machine)

One I haven't seen mentioned is the Japanese internment camps during WWII (and I think they were stripped of all assets, little thing like real estate were just plain stolen by the federal government, no other word for it - any far too late reparations were insulting?). There was one at the Santa Anita Race Track near by. What was up with that? We didn't do the same to Germans and Italians?

It is easy to think, we are modern, we are better, we stand for freedom and liberty and are a shining beacon to the world. But all too often, that has been far from the case. Xenophobia has happened before, and irrational eruptions can (have and will) arise again.  

 

[Ramblin Wreck]

Allegedly.

Trump on the other hand is just vile and spews garbage in just about every tweet or comment he makes. Is that really what you want?

I don't want either of them.  Neither is no better than the other as a person.  

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

One I haven't seen mentioned is the Japanese internment camps during WWII (and I think they stripped of all assets, just plain stolen by the federal government?). There was one at the Santa Anita Race Track near by. What was up with that? We didn't do the same to Germans and Italians?

Totally off point (on my part) but fyi:

World War I: German internment camps in Australia in pictures


Many of the more than 100,000 Germans living in Australia during the outbreak of World War I were jailed without trial in three main centres in New South Wales: Berrima in the Southern Highlands, Trial Bay on the North Coast and Holsworthy, in Liverpool in Sydney's west.

Holsworthy was the largest and longest-running internment camp, remaining open until the last internees and prisoners of war were repatriated in 1920.

...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-05/world-war-i-german-internment-camps-in-australia/5646636

- To tie it in, when Giuliani talks about electronic monitoring of those on terror watch list, take it seriously. He's not kidding IMO.

And I've said and I believe that logically if someone thinks that a foreign muslim is a danger to the US - and so should be banned - I have a very hard time understanding why American muslims should not be interned as well. I see no difference if the controlling problem is religious identity

People may think these are just academic, or emotional arguments, but they're not.

 

[Bob Magaw]

I sincerely would like to believe the bolded part is right and that the percentage you're looking for is low.  I'm just not as optimistic about that as you are.  I've posted before that if a third party in the US ever got off the ground, it would be some kind of white nationalist party like National Front.  I certainly agree with you that those sorts of views are repellant, but I don't think they're as rare or unrepresentative of a significant chunk of the electorate as you do.

Thanks for clarifying. Let me be more specific. If you polled 100% of adult Americans, guesstimate a number (or approximation expressed as a range) that EXPECT a wall to get ACTUALLY built. Not asking how many find their own beliefs aligned with The Donald. Based on the above, you seem to have something in mind, if I understand you correctly. Because that is what I was addressing with Riversco, when it seemed like he thought he was speaking for a generation. I find the ACTUAL wall building contingent fringe. But acknowledge I could be way off. Maybe I'd just like to think I'm not!   

And BTW, wasn't brought up by you, but since you sort of alluded to it (repellant beliefs), as to bringing in race in regards to Trumps bizarre, lunatic birther escapade, it is about as troubling to me as adding a grain of sand to Mount Everest. Is it really in dispute that Trump might be racist, for anybody that has taken even a cursory look at his CV? Pouring what amounts to a thimbleful of gasoline on a fire ceases to have meaning when you are already completely engulfed in a raging conflagration.  

 

[Gucci Fur]

Philip Rucker ‏@PhilipRucker 1h1 hour ago

GOP leaders must be thrilled to see Trump entering final 100 days in a debate with parents of fallen Gold Star over who's sacrificed more.

I question Khan's judgement.

His son was killed by Muslims in a Muslim country in a war supported by Hillary Clinton. If Trump had been in charge then his son would still be alive.

My guess is that his son is rolling over in his grave at the pathetic pandering of his hypocritical father.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

I question Khan's judgement.

His son was killed by Muslims in a Muslim country in a war supported by Hillary Clinton. If Trump had been in charge then his son would still be alive.

My guess is that his son is rolling over in his grave at the pathetic pandering of his hypocritical father.

Whew. Muslim American appears at a political convention holding the US Constitution and extolling devotion to the USA.

Not the Republican one.

 

[Bob Magaw]

This is the crux.

I don't think this country has ever had to question if a person running for president is truly an awful, rotten human being.

Just to make a distinction, there certainly have been bad presidents. Not sure they were that way due to reprehensible character, maybe more for general ineffectualness. And a maybe more important distinction, I certainly don't recall this level of demagogue rising this far in US politics in the nuclear era.

Historical rankings of Presidents of the United States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States

 

[squistion]

Matt O'Brien ‏@ObsoleteDogma 2h2 hours ago

To recap: Trump insulted the grieving mother of a soldier who died fighting for our country, and said that hiring people was a sacrifice.

 

[squistion]

I question Khan's judgement.

His son was killed by Muslims in a Muslim country in a war supported by Hillary Clinton. If Trump had been in charge then his son would still be alive.

My guess is that his son is rolling over in his grave at the pathetic pandering of his hypocritical father.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/7/29/1554328/-View-from-the-left-Democrats-claim-the-mantle-of-patriotism#read-more

In fact, national security wound up providing one of the most profound moments of the week when the father of a Muslim soldier who died in combat in 2004 gave Donald Trump a lesson in patriotism.

“Our son, Humayun, had dreams too, of being a military lawyer,” explained Khizr Khan, “but he put those dreams aside the day he sacrificed his life to save the lives of his fellow soldiers. Hillary Clinton was right when she called my son 'the best of America'. If it was up to Donald Trump, he never would have been in America.”

 

[IvanKaramazov]

Thanks for clarifying. Let me be more specific. If you polled 100% of adult Americans, guesstimate a number (or approximation expressed as a range) that EXPECT a wall to get ACTUALLY built. Not asking how many find their own beliefs aligned with The Donald. Based on the above, you seem to have something in mind, if I understand you correctly. Because that is what I was addressing with Riversco, when it seemed like he thought he was speaking for a generation. I find the ACTUAL wall building contingent fringe. But acknowledge I could be way off. Maybe I'd just like to think I'm not!   

And BTW, wasn't brought up by you, but since you sort of alluded to it (repellant beliefs), as to bringing in race in regards to Trumps bizarre, lunatic birther escapade, it is about as troubling to me as adding a grain of sand to Mount Everest. Is it really in dispute that Trump might be racist, for anybody has taken even a cursory look at his CV? 

Expect a wall to actually get built?  I dunno.  20%?  

On your second paragraph, no, not in dispute at all.  

 

[Bob Magaw]

Totally off point (on my part) but fyi:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-05/world-war-i-german-internment-camps-in-australia/5646636

- To tie it in, when Giuliani talks about electronic monitoring of those on terror watch list, take it seriously. He's not kidding IMO.

And I've said and I believe that logically if someone thinks that a foreign muslim is a danger to the US - and so should be banned - I have a very hard time understanding why American muslims should not be interned as well. I see no difference if the controlling problem is religious identity

People may think these are just academic, or emotional arguments, but they're not.

Not sure if I understand the last part. In other words, if the IRA opened a branch in the US and set off a few bombs, should we round up all Irish Catholics?  

Maybe a better way to pose the question. What percentage of Muslims (or those of the Islamic faith, including people like Kareem Abdul-Jabaar and Muhammad Ali) are terrorist? If it is very, very, very, very low, should they all be tarred by the same brush?

I'd be on board with more rigorous vetting procedures for immigration. But I thought he phrased it as temporary (what time scale, typically, he remains not just vague but silent on) BAN.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Just to make a distinction, there certainly have been bad presidents. Not sure they were that way due to reprehensible character, maybe more for general ineffectualness. And a maybe more important distinction, I certainly don't recall this level of demagogue rising this far in US politics in the nuclear era.

Historical rankings of Presidents of the United States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States

Tim brought up Huey Long. Huey whatever people thought about him they recognized that he was a charming, likeable character on the face of things. 

Here's something that Trump does which is very reminiscent of Long - Huey gave people derisive nicknames. So for instance the mayor of NO was "Turkey Neck" Walmsley. Others got insulted like that. But generally Long's danger lay in that he was so charming, funny and a genuine people person in public. Behind closed doors he was a snake.

But Trump is such an unabashed d'bag, he makes Johnny Manziel look restrained. Maybe among presidents Andrew Johnson (by reputation) had this kind of petulance and negative effect on people. Andrew Jackson was disliked but he was a certified Grade-A hero.  I don't think there's an 'all time jerk' list for presidents.

 

[Bob Magaw]

I question Khan's judgement.

His son was killed by Muslims in a Muslim country in a war supported by Hillary Clinton. If Trump had been in charge then his son would still be alive.

My guess is that his son is rolling over in his grave at the pathetic pandering of his hypocritical father.

One way to look at it I guess.

Another is he could acknowledge the sacrifice made by their son (and them) to protect the liberties that enable him to keep scamming real estate investors to the tune of multiple BKs.

Also, his monstrous ego would never permit him to admit The Donald of wrongdoing even if he blatantly was.

Some would view it as the height of cowardice to go after the grieving mother.

I would call him a reptilian abomination, but that would be an insult to reptiles.   

 

[Bob Magaw]

Expect a wall to actually get built?  I dunno.  20%?  

On your second paragraph, no, not in dispute at all.  

I was going to guess something in the 15-20% range.

Maybe you concur with me than.

My point to Riversco (which prompted our exchange) was that if he thinks a majority of Trump's constituency actually think a wall is going to be built, we are seeing very different things (or, interpreting what we are seeing differently). IMO, he sometimes see ghosts when it comes to a purported consensus (i.e. - of course Wentz is way better than Goff ).

 

[timschochet]

I question Khan's judgement.

His son was killed by Muslims in a Muslim country in a war supported by Hillary Clinton. If Trump had been in charge then his son would still be alive.

My guess is that his son is rolling over in his grave at the pathetic pandering of his hypocritical father.

Oh my.