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  • Donald! Trump!
  • fasthaggis
    Full Member

    He asked for a wall,he got his wall >>> Trump’s wall

    Well it made me laugh 🙂

    mrblobby
    Free Member

    Blimey…

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/21/donald-trump-republican-national-convention-speech

    Politics of fear, guess it’s a tried and true Republican path, but this seems to have sunk to new depths 🙁

    Tom_W1987
    Free Member

    @mrblobbt Donald Trump gave himself away as a full-fat fascist.

    martinhutch
    Full Member

    He asked for a wall,he got his wall >>> Drumpf’s wall

    Well it made me laugh

    Why has Trump got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame? Is it for his role in Home Alone 2?

    Northwind
    Full Member

    For the Apprentice (and for submitting the application and paying the fee, which I read is $30000)

    Tom_W1987
    Free Member

    Just noticed that Donald Trump has armed militia men protecting him during rallies. Please tell me they wear armbands, also they should salute their leader more – perhaps by using a Roman salute, everyone knows the Romans were cool. Also they would look even snazzier if their uniforms were brown.

    PJM1974
    Free Member

    The politics of the demagogue seem to be en vogue. Trump hasn’t been alone in selling fear to drum up support.

    Maybe it’s because right wing politics has run out of things to offer?

    simon_g
    Full Member

    I thought this was an interesting take – “The case for making Donald Trump America’s first king”:

    http://www.vox.com/2016/7/20/12235572/donald-trump-king-america

    Evidently, Trump is interested in the prestige and public attention that comes with the presidency. But he doesn’t want to spend a lot of time worrying about niggling policy issues like Brexit or corporate tax reform.

    While the idea of a president with no power sounds crazy to American ears, it’s actually how a lot of advanced democracies work around the world. Many countries have a ceremonial figurehead — either an elected president or a hereditary monarch — who represents the nation at state dinners and ribbon-cutting ceremonies. And they also have a head of government, usually the prime minister, who makes all the important policy decisions.

    In the United States, we’ve combined these roles into a single person, and it hasn’t been working very well. It’s made the presidency an impossibly demanding job, while giving our head of government a degree of prestige that makes it harder to hold him accountable for his policy mistakes.

    ChrisL
    Full Member

    simon_g – Member
    I thought this was an interesting take – “The case for making Donald Trump America’s first king”:

    It’s already had an emperor though.

    gofasterstripes
    Free Member

    Vomit-inducing little fascist.

    We are so screwed.

    shermer75
    Free Member

    Outrageous lies used to hoodwink a reactionary public into making a shitty electorial decision? Hmmm, there’s something about that that sounds familiar…

    ernie_lynch
    Free Member

    I don’t think the American public is particularly reactionary, if they were then John McCain would have won in 2008 and Mitt Romney would have won in 2012.

    What the US electorate is is highly politically polarised, far more so than any other time in recent history and far more so than other comparable countries.

    The Tea Party Republicans are particularly vocal (and they have plenty of money to be heard) which creates a false impression, imo, that they reflect overwhelming public opinion. But it shouldn’t be forgotten that at the opposite end are American liberals and that Bernie Sanders has proved to be hugely popular with the American public. Although admittedly not quite enough to win the Democrat nomination. He did however have a significant effect on the political narrative, something which even Trump can’t ignore.

    garlic
    Free Member

    The US is very reactionary, actually the planet seems reactionary at the mo. Someone’s political persuasion doesn’t really matter that much, I see friends that consider themselves leftwing/progressive/liberal also being reactionary; posting fake (and unchecked) quotes as memes and links to dubious blogs that support what they think is their viewpoint, usually without reading them first. I see this happen with pro-Corbyn, anti-Tory, anti-Trump posts as much as I see anti-Trump, anti-foreign, anti-Europe etc.

    Also; the Silent Majority which was the backbone of small-c conservative politics for decades seems to have evaporated; everyone has an opinion and they seem to be sharing it on social media. The ‘Angry Brigade’ is no long the preserve of the militant left. We seem to be living in an increasingly binary world.

    shermer75
    Free Member

    The US is very reactionary, actually the planet seems reactionary at the mo. Someone’s political persuasion doesn’t really matter that much, I see friends that consider themselves leftwing/progressive/liberal also being reactionary; posting fake (and unchecked) quotes as memes and links to dubious blogs that support what they think is their viewpoint, usually without reading them first. I see this happen with pro-Corbyn, anti-Tory, anti-Trump posts as much as I see anti-Trump, anti-foreign, anti-Europe etc.

    Also; the Silent Majority which was the backbone of small-c conservative politics for decades seems to have evaporated; everyone has an opinion and they seem to be sharing it on social media. The ‘Angry Brigade’ is no long the preserve of the militant left. We seem to be living in an increasingly binary world.

    Yep, I agree. Feels like everyone’s made a dash for the extremes!

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    simon_g: I’ve trotted that same argument out in defence of our Queen. It’s actually quite handy to have a separate ceremonial Head of State to handle opening hospitals and the like, leaving the PM free to get on with their job.

    Not sure I’d want it to be Trump though 😯

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    CNN poll has Trump ahead – a post comvention bounce perhaos but I am not sure we”‘ll see the same from Hillary

    linky

    oldnpastit
    Full Member

    Is it too late to vote in Bernie Sanders? I thought the superdelegates could vote for whoever they like?

    project
    Free Member

    Doesnt really matter who wins, those in power, large companies/banks etc, those who control the media and all those non elected civil servants or whatever theyre called over there have THE REAL POWER.

    ninfan
    Free Member

    Michael Moore discussion on why Trump will win – genuinely interesting on the mathematics of the rust belt states etc.

    http://michaelmoore.com/trumpwillwin/

    somafunk
    Full Member

    ^ That popped up in my twitter feed yesterday courtesy of Stephen Kinsella (economics lecturer @ Limerick Uni)

    A few months ago i would have laughed at the absurd possibility of trump being president but these days i’m quite resigned to the fact that he’s going to win the election.

    Northwind
    Full Member

    And this after the democrats put such titanic effort into selecting their candidate with the worse chance of beating Trump. All the while shouting unelectable! unelectable! Genius.

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    Ninfan – that was an interesting read.

    Soma yes me too, 9 minths ago I thought Trump was a side show who’d soon be brushed aside.

    Northwind, the democratic voters didn’t think Bernie had anchance. Hillary won easily.

    outofbreath
    Free Member

    “Trump Lie: Of all my travels in this country, nothing has affected me more deeply than the time I have spent with the mothers and fathers who have lost their children to violence spilling across our border.
    Fact: Washington Post Fact Checker: “Data on immigrants and crime are incomplete, but a range of studies show there is no evidence immigrants commit more crimes than native-born Americans.” [Washington Post, 7/8/15]”

    Some of those 20 odd lies are pretty tenuous…

    outofbreath
    Free Member

    Someone like Paul Mcenna (but not him) wrote an article on Trump that made me realise he had a cunning strategy to win that could work.

    He tells lies and immediately gets debunked. But the very debunking spreads the message behind the lie. You’re effectively getting the opposition to campaign for you.

    It’s a bit like the 350 million. Debunked in May. Remainers just kept spreading it. People knew it was exaggerated, but they repeated it over and over spreading the Leave campaign’s message that EU membership has a cost for them.

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    True that oob. I think another factor is that for a certain group of voters, forcing the establishment to challenge these lies just emphasises the idea that he is some kind of anti-establishment hero that “tells it like it is” (i.e. without all those inconvenient facts and figures that no one can be bothered reading).

    Again I think there are parallels with Brexit here where somehow Boris Johnson managed to cultivate an anti-establishment image, despite the fact that he couldn’t be more establishment if he tried.

    fasthaggis
    Full Member

    Someone like Paul Mcenna (but not him) wrote an article on Trump that made me realise he had a cunning strategy to win that could work.

    I am more and more convinced,that during their campaigns,both Trumpet and Boris had some crafty subliminal messages running on all the big screens behind them.

    mikewsmith
    Free Member

    Worth a read on the insight into the campaigns, the funds and the structures
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-24/is-donald-trump’s-celebrity-enough-to-win-the-us-election/7655816

    Excitement, drama, showbiz, plagiarism — the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

    But now, there is an even bigger intrigue: just how could Republican nominee Donald Trump win the election in November?

    Australian journalist Jonathan Swan, who works for the authoritative US political media outfit called The Hill, is part of a small, specialist group of US reporters that follow the massive amounts of money that flow into political campaigns and said a lot of it — in fact, a big chunk of it — has to do with money.

    ‘We’ve never seen an experiment like this’

    Swan said Mr Trump may be a billionaire, but his campaign is not all that wealthy.

    outofbreath
    Free Member

    Worth a read on the insight into the campaigns, the funds and the structures
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-24/is-donald-trump’s-celebrity-enough-to-win-the-us-election/7655816

    Really interesting, thank’s for sharing that.

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    People voted Leave as the EU is dysfunctional. There was no positive case you could make for it. Arguing about £350m was stupid as the line “but its only £150m a week or £10bn pa” just played into Leave’s hands. Boris never tried to appear anti-establishment, people certainly voted “against” Cameron / IMF / OECD establishment but not for Boris or any other individual.

    “Lie” is not a place Hilary is gong to go, in fact its Trump who is going to go after her on this ground. She has a long track record of saying one thing then doing another plus she’s been found to have lied repeatedly about Benghazi / personal email server. She is very very unpopular.

    To bring the EU / US elections together the trade deal with Mexico (NAFTA) is very unpopular. Under Trump I would expect major changes in it, perhaps it’s just torn up. The view in much of the US is trade deals just export jobs. No deal is seen to be a better option.

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    Mike you need a short url for that.

    IMO Trump will raise enough money. Whether its more or less than Clinton I don’t know.

    outofbreath
    Free Member

    This is the article I was talking about:
    http://blog.dilbert.com/post/126589300371/clown-genius

    MrWoppit
    Free Member

    jambalaya – Member
    People voted Leave as the EU is dysfunctional. There was no positive case you could make for it.

    You haven’t been paying attention.

    outofbreath
    Free Member

    People voted Leave as the EU is dysfunctional. There was no positive case you could make for it. Arguing about £350m was stupid

    My point was the technique employed, not the issue itself.

    When Remainers were still screaming from the rooftop that £350 mill overstated the payments (two months after the number was debunked) what they were actually doing was publicizing the Leave message that there’s a significant cost. Making part of the Leave case for them.

    Exactly as Scott Adams says, I had no idea exactly what EU membership costs before, and I still don’t. I’ve *never* heard a ‘Leaver’ say what it is. But thanks to Remainers I know it’s a little bit South of £350 mill due to whatever discount we get. The Leavers told a lie, which tricked the Remainers into giving a vast amount of free publicity to the idea behind the lie.

    Whether it was a good/meaningful argument or not is irrelevant to the point. If the Leave campaign had stated the exact correct number it wouldn’t have made the news at all. Exaggerating the number made it front page news for weeks and motivated the Remain campaign to spread a Leave message far and wide.

    If you don’t like that example I’m sure you can think of another you prefer.

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    outofbreath – I think we agree. I just read the Dilbert article. One place I think Adams (and many others) are making a grave mistake is the same Remain argument that “smart people” automatically vote Remain / Clinton. Firstly its not true and secondly it galvanises support for the other side who say FU. Also the net figure for EU is £10bn pa as I posted above, thats current figure and it moves about as contributions are calculated based on relative strengths of the economies (we are predicted to outperform EU substantially post Brexit). So its £10bn and rising

    Trump won the nomination as he was the best candidate in what was a weak field. Sadly he’s the best candidate Trump vs Clinton. In fact he’s the perfect candidate to put up against the ultra-establishment Clinton “brand”

    outofbreath
    Free Member

    One place I think Adams (and many others) are making a grave mistake is the same Remain argument that “smart people” automatically vote Remain / Clinton.

    I didn’t really get that message from the Adam’s article, but yeah, I’d agree that would be a big mistake. Sounds like Clinton won’t be making the same mistakes the Remain campaign made, they’re got serious campaigning machinery.

    mikewsmith
    Free Member

    On the brexit parallel a few things contributed.
    Shouting very loudly and blaming the eu
    Dissatisfaction with the government
    The government could not admit that if they wanted to the could have fixed most of the things people are complaining about but chose not to.

    On the link just cut and paste it.
    On Trump the link does go some way to suggest the difference in the campaigns, how the voters will react to Democrats door knocking and advertising etc will be telling Trump has none of the infrastructure and a fraction of the cash. The infrastructure he will be borrowing don’t trust or like him. The senators are distancing themselves. Clinton already has a massive presence in the swing states so that will benefit her greatly.

    I would expect to see a lot of trumps most shocking outbursts being played to the key demographics over the next few months. Just a reminder of what he really stands for.

    ninfan
    Free Member

    OOB – I’m glad that other people realised that

    me pre-referendum:

    and for those who doubt the effect:

    outofbreath
    Free Member

    @ninfan Once again I fail to have an original insight. 🙁

    ninfan
    Free Member

    I prefer to think that great minds think alike. 😀

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