Fellow conservatives, how alarmed are you by Trump's rise?
Trump has been giving me nightmares lately. No, I don't think he will win the GOP nomination or ever become President. Problem is twofold. First, Trump has sucked all the oxygen and media coverage from the GOP race, which is a major issue since the 2016 GOP field is the strongest since 1980. Rather than hearing about meaningful government reform proposals by Jeb Bush or Rubio's tax plan, we are subjected to endless media coverage on this buffoon and his whacky self-aggrandizing statements. Second, Trump has given strong indications that he will run as an independent if he does not win the GOP nomination. This all but guarantees that Hillary will become our next President. The mere thought of this sends chills down my spine and makes me fear for this great country.
We all know that Trump is not going anywhere. What should the GOP do about this? They have to figure out a way to convince him to not run as a 3rd party candidate by appeasing him, without giving him the nomination or further tainting the GOP's image among crucial voting blocs.
This country can't afford another democratic presidency lest we transform into a European style welfare state. Stop Trump and get behind Bush/Rubio/Walker.
CNN Headlines this morning showing Trump "trumping" all the other GOP candidates most made me choke on my blueberry muffin. The attention he is receiving from media all around the country is stealing the spotlight from the other Republican candidates who deserve a chance to put their word out there. Hillary Clinton cannot become our next president, she is the ultimate definition of a hypocrite. The issue with her is that everyone in this country has seen her work ever since the Clinton presidency, which has not been very beneficial in my opinion. Also, the fact that as a Democratic candidate she has gone from rejecting the idea of gay marriage to supporting it in a matter of a few years just does not sit right with many. She's definitely the main Democratic candidate, but I believe this time a Republican candidate will surely win. Let's just hope it isn't Trump!
My issue with Trump is that I don't believe anything he says. I believe it was 2 years ago he was calling for the legalization and CITIZENSHIP of 30 million illegal aliens. All of a sudden, he's calling for essentially shutting down the border. I think this guy will say whatever he thinks will move him in the polls. And if he were actually elected, I think conservatives would find the guy to be far more liberal than they originally thought.
Like the OP, I'm certain he won't win the GOP nomination, but a 3rd party candidacy would guarantee victory for Hillary Clinton. Assuming a 2-person race, the 2016 outcome will likely be decided by a razor thin margin, and a legitimate 3rd party will swing the election. Hopefully, time will work this all out.
A close 2-person race makes for a nice narrative, but demographics are quickly shifting towards an un-electable GOP. I'm not a "fellow conservative" but I have no problem with Donald Trump because he's perfectly in line with the GOP, he just doesn't use dogwhistle language. He's the monster that Fox and talk radio created and now the party establishment can't control him. You make the bed you lie in, etc.
The silence of the other candidates in response to his Mexican rapists comment while immediately condemning his McCain comments are telling. Where's the apology for swiftboating John Kerry? How do you court the Latino vote while offering half-hearted condemnation of comments like that?
I don't know about "demographic" changes, but no one can get elected with negatives as high as Hillary Clinton's. The GOP just needs to keep driving the negative narrative against Hillary and it will have an excellent shot at winning in 2016. That's what the Obama campaign did to Romney in 2012--beginning in December 2011 the DNC started running negative ads against Romney, which shot up his negative ratings, and those ratings never really recovered.
This isn't a partisan country--anyone can win any given national election with the right message and campaign tactics.
At the very least. you have to give Trump credit for giving zero fucks and not sounding like a broken record. He has an opinion, and doesn't beat around the bush like most politicians.
Agree with you on everything except the notion of a strong GOP field. I think this one could be 2012 bad.
I actually think Trump is the only candidate on the GOP side that actually has a chance of beating Hillary. He's reasonably moderate on social issues so he could potentially draw some of the fiscally conservative democrats. There's no fcking way anybody in the middle is going to show up to vote for a Jeb Bush or Scott Walker. But Trump could energize voters that are more in the middle, which might actually be enough to shift things away from Hillary in some of the swing states (OH, CO etc). Everyone keeps saying "if Trump keeps gaining momentum he hands the election to Clinton," but I actually think the opposite. If Jeb is the candidate, we are almost guaranteed to see Hillz in the White House. It's funny, I was an Obama voter but can't really see myself voting for her. Wish I could vote for Bill tho!
Getting 0 minority votes may have worked for the GOP in the past but I don't think it can happen in 2016. Regardless of who has better policies, I think Marco Rubio gives the GOP the best shot against Hillary.
Unfortunately, 90% of the American public is going to view this as first female President who got cheated on vs.
Rubio = Second generation American success story and first Latino President. Jeb Bush = Rich white guy whose brother was one of the least popular Presidents in history. Trump = Rich white guy who hates Mexicans and is an all around ass hat.
Politics is an absolute shit show & no matter what your opinion/view is or how much you debate on internet forums or campaign in the real world nothing will change
Trump is a poor man's idea of a rich man.
I'm pulling for Rand and Trump. I think Rand was a little dramatic over the Confederate flag, did you not care about it 2 years ago?? I like Trump because he is saying stuff what most Americans WON'T say even in the privacy of their own home. Honestly how many people openly support closing the border in this PC day and age?
But that's the thing. Trump's positions have changed like the wind over the last few years. Nothing he says could we trust to even be acted upon.
So did Obama with social issues. There is nothing wrong with "evolving" around an issue. I have a friend that was anti gays then a day after taking lsd is totally pro-gay. People change.
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/11/09/trump.rich/index.html… "Trump proposes massive one-time tax on the rich".
That's a bit misleading since it is from 1999, and it wouldn't wipe out the debt right now. But point taken. I wonder if every rich person would just flee the country and renounce their citizenship?
Wow, good find! I still think I prefer my "80% incremental tax rate on incomes over $10mm" proposal, but I like where this is going...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_States)
So, I may be ignorant here, but I didn't realize that our (common folk) votes actually do not matter. (Except for when we pick our representatives and senators) I knew about the electoral college somewhat, but I thought they followed the popular vote of the state because I never took the time to look it up. Electors(basically all of congress plus three people from D.C.) are the only votes that matter for president and vice president. So, with that being said, does anyone's opinion change of what will happen? Did everyone already know this?
Thanks for telling us something that you should have learned in 7th grade bro.
To satisfy your thirst for knowledge, here's another nugget for you: Did you know the air we breath isn't actually air? That its actually mix of several elements, most notably nitrogen and oxygen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth
I am sorry you get bullied in person and this causes you to attempt to bully people on the Internet, where there is no recourse. I'm not going to link it but pornhub should help soothe some of your hate. Stay away from movie theaters and schools.
Trump has my vote as long as we also build a fence on the Canadian border. Sick of these Canadian kids coming to our country, going to our high schools, and then taking all the first line spots on my varsity ice hockey team.
Any love for Ted Cruz out there?
Trump will flame out. He's being held up by the worst parts of our party. Both sides have them - the left has their social justice warriors who whine about "microaggressions" - and our poor, uneducated, evangelical rednecks are just riled up at the moment. I also doubt he'll run third party. There's zero chance of winning, and it costs a fortune, so what's the point? At this point, it's just a matter of if the rest of us will be "guilty by association." Will his ramblings be used as slander by the media and democrats as to what "the republican party truly feels?"
As far as me, I'm a Rand Paul fan, but I have a feeling he has the same national success as his father. Rubio is great too, and I like Bush enough, but I don't know. No one is jumping out. I miss Romney already.
I completely and utterly reject this statement. I know numerous highly intelligent and successful people who I respect who are mostly on-board with what Trump is saying. Policy-wise, little of what Trump is saying, in my view, is outrageous (our immigration system IS out of control and is totally illogical). I just don't trust that the guy believes anything he's saying.
By the way, why would uneducated, poor, evangelical rednecks be inherently attracted to a well educated New York billionaire with a very liberal-to-moderate track record and virtually no connection to religion whatsoever? What inherently about being an evangelical Christian would make someone attracted to an irreligious celebrity billionaire?
Since you're here I assume that you're familiar with concept of a "Poison Pill".
Similar strategies exist in politics. Trump is forcing the Republican leadership to either allow him a fair shot or he will cause a permanent split in the GOP by running 3rd party.
You need to take a couple days off adderall, champ
I think Trump is very dangerous for the GOP, and this is purely from a political strategy point of view and not judging what he's saying or the Republican/conservative ideology.
First, I would not discount an independent party run. He won't win, but this has more to do with Trump's ego than anything else and he has an ego the size of, well, I'm not sure if it's comparable to anything less than something on a cosmic scale. If, and that's a big IF, he's actually worth $10B, what does he have to lose? He's almost 70, he's done well in RE, business and entertainment (in his mind he's conquered them all). Why not tackle politics? Perot did it with far less money. I've known a couple of people who worked for or did business with him and they said he's an absolutely horrible person (and one of those opinions came from a guy who was in the construction/union business in NYC with absolute and definite mob ties who built some of Trump's buildings, a guy who knew Gotti well at his height and he said Trump made those guys seem nice and moral) he's also the type to run as an independent completely out of spite to fuck over GOP leaders. Like others have stated, he's changed his opinions more times than can be counted so he's not running on ideology so I doubt he'd care that much if he blew up the GOP's chances.
Second, as TurquoiseHexagon was getting at, a decent Democratic strategist can take the rapist and murderer line and run with it for miles. I'm not talking in absolute truths or anywhere close, but politics leaves the Platonic forms far behind and whatever can be spun as the truth is the truth. It is not a stretch of the imagination to take the rest of the GOP to task for little to no reaction (except for Jeb) and use the transitive property to say that (rapist/murderer) illegal immigrants=all Latinos which in turn is easy to equate to all minorities and paint the entire party not only as out of touch with minorities but as racist. I don't think it's tough to convince minorities that why didn't the GOP come out in protest when Trump talked about illegals (and therefore transitively->all Latinos->all minorities if a Rovian strategist can burn the point into minorities conscious) but as soon as one word was said about McCain the Party actually publicly rebuked a primary candidate for the first time? Why didn't they way something about "us?" Like I said, I'm not saying it's the truth, but it can be spun that way if the Dems had a Karl Rove. And the danger isn't that the GOP would simply lose the minority vote, Latino and/or black, because it's not getting those votes anyway, but that Latino and black leaders can get their respective constituencies to come out to vote in large numbers. Obama definitely got African Americans to turn out in record numbers and while a white woman may not be able to do that, there's a lot, A LOT, of tension in the black community and if you could get the black and Latino vote out in large numbers because the GOP can be painted as racist, it could be a Sisyphean task for Republicans.
I also think it could bring about overall schisms in the Republican Party. The party's been in an identity crisis for a while and I think this could bring out the different parts of the Party that don't really gel together and outwardly pit them against each other.
I know some will attack this and say I'm a liberal left winger, but I see more strategic challenges for the GOP with regard to Trump.
What's interesting is that Trump didn't call "Mexicans" rapists. He specifically said SOME Mexicans are who are entering this country illegally, which is actually demonstrably true. The media definitely did not take much time to spin that in an entirely fallacious manner. But to your point, that's the kind of stuff that can be spun like yarn. I'm friends with a lot of Hispanics (2 of my 5 closest friends are Mexican and Bolivian), both are conservative Republicans (probably to the right of me), and both DETEST Donald Trump. That definitely is a bad omen for his candidacy in the general.
I agree. Trump's comments have tainted the entire GOP, as unfair as it may be. The liberal media doesn't give conservatives a benefit of the doubt; they are held to a different standard than the democrats. This is similar to a 2012 GOP debate when an audience booed a gay soldier. The candidates themselves did not boo, but by implication they were found guilty, and the GOP became known as the anti-gay party that was out of step with a changing country.
I think there's a solid chance (around 25%) that Trump runs as an independent. Hillary would be in Trump's debt forever because I think in a two-way race, she loses to the GOP nominee.
I share Trump's anger on illegal immigration, but as many have said, he is not sincere. He has espoused very liberal views on immigration, taxes, and health care until fairly recently, and he has donated money almost exclusively to democrats. If you listen to his speeches and interviews, there's almost no substance. It's Trump just gloating about how rich he is and calling everything a disaster. He does not offer serious policy proposals but rather funny comebacks that satiate people's desire for a badass. Trump knows that conservatives are pissed and want a fighter; he is merely responding to that demand. It's alarming that so many people have bought the Trump schtick and think he would actually make a great President.
By the way, if the GOP wins 2016, I fully expect Trump to savagely attack the Republican President. That's just how he rolls.
I'm alarmed at how high Trump Tower has risen
Dear lord and jesus, please allow me to get my 12% P&L carried interest taxed at LT Capital Gains rate of 15-20%. That's all I ask.
DontTouchDemGains #MakingGainz
I can't believe there are people debating Trumps views, the guy is just screaming to get attention, he isn't a serious candidate. The only reason he is "leading" any polls is because the GOP field is so fragmented. He will certainly do more to hurt the GOP in the long run than help it l. That said, I think the GOP has almost no shot of beating Hillary as long as conservatives are associated with racists, period.
Brady you've really grown - http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/is-the-gop-on-the-verge-of-politi…
Contrary to what you might think, Trump taking all of the media coverage is largely a good thing for the GOP. Hillary/Sanders are clearly the front runners, and the GOP has plenty of time to craft a story and attacks against these candidates. While the democratic nomination is almost entirely locked up, the GOP is widely split between a lot of weak candidates, and the media focusing on Trump is taking away from this un-unified party. I fully expect Trump to drop out at the last minute, and then, a single candidate will emerge from the current GOP mess as the runner. The democratic camp won't have as much time to craft a strong story and attacks against that candidate, and the candidate will have a clean slate from that point.
Disclosure: I'm an independent and won't be voting for either of the major candidates.
"fellow conservatives" "jeb bush" "lol wot"
If you think I'm being ridiculous then you really need to get outside of NYC a bit more.
I'm hearing things like a story about 150 people lined up to apply for part time, minimum wage jobs at a new pizza joint that opened in a Georgia town. It's also not an isolated story.
Second notice that the rumblings are already there. We had OWS in 2011. During the last 15 months we've seen an armed standoff against the government in Nevada, protests in Albuquerque, violent unrest in Baltimore and St. Louis, and an increasingly large number of "lone wolf" attacks against government agents like the IRS and police officers. Every single major social upheaval in recorded history was preceded by a pattern of increasing social frustration and unrest. No exceptions.
Also, if you think I'm being ridiculous I want you to ahead and model US and European debt payments. THEN input increased interest rates into your calculations and see what happens.
Think about that one for a minute.... they're looking at ways to trim other benefits like unemployment and housing. Plus a lot of pensions are massively broke. What happens when you take a population which is already massively angry at the government and combine that circumstance with turning off the handouts that people depend on to survive? You're going to have a lot of very angry and very desperate people out there with a predictable result.
There's something about people that are born into billionaire families that pisses me off.
With that being said, in the eyes of most uninformed, uneducated voters Trump does possess charisma even if it is all a shit show.
Why? (Not that I was)
Trump possesses charisma, regardless of your position on his policies or him as a man. I'm not sure why being "uninformed" and "uneducated" would impact the view of someone's personal charisma. They are in no way linked to one another. As an example, one of the most detestable human beings to live in the last quarter century was Hugo Chavez. That said, he possessed plenty of charisma, which is one of the reasons he was popular.
So you are mad that your parents were poor? Sounds like a great justification to vote for idiots who have zero understanding about basic economics and shout for the idiots of the world that we can bring prosperity to the globe by simply taking from those who have succeeded and giving to those who are too stupid to improve their lives.
I 100% think you're being ridiculous and I think that you know you're being ridiculous. The French Revolution? C'mon...
Your premise is correct and well stated, but your predicted outcomes are absurd. The worst thing that's going to happen is a continual slide toward increased socialist policies, higher taxes, higher minimum wages, etc. Now granted that is something to get upset about, but it's a little different than the guillotine.
No. I am not shitting you. We may not have a "reign of terror" per say but it's not unreasonable to predict that the population in some areas will lash out at whoever they believe is responsible for their problems and it could get violent. More lynchings than guillotine but the point stands.
Again, look a little further back in history than the 1913 date most economists do. The last time we had of severe public sector fiscal problems, domestic civil disturbance increases, and increases in international conflict among other problems in a similar magnitude to today was at the time of the American revolution.
You speak of a "continual slide", but said "continual slide" has been happening for roughly 27 years now. Believe me when I say that any further "slide" is going to just be squeezing blood out of a rock. The money to pay for any more of it just doesn't exist in most people's budgets....and once people can't stay in their homes or pay for food things get violent quickly.
I'm more excited for Malia Obama's presidency than I am for Chelsea Clinton's. The 2040s are going to be a roaring decade!!
Lmao, Malaria Obabbler will never be president.
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