As I write this, polls show Trump in very deep trouble. But there's still 2 and a half months until election day, and some unforeseen circumstance might tip the polls in the other direction leading to a Trump victory. Assuming you don't like Trump: What 3 specific things concern you the most about a Trump presidency? And if you are a Trump supporter, what 3 things do you think he'll do to Make America Great Again?
For myself: 1. The Supreme Court. I don't want more right wing activist judges. 2. World standing. God only knows what rude, crazy thing Trump might say as president. 3. The economy. Trump's new plan is same as the old plan: Trickle down economics out of the 1980 playbook. It's hard to narrow it down to only 3.
I'm stunned that Trump has the following that he has. The members of the Republican Party are sort standing by like theyre watching a slow motion train wreck. The conservative talkers - Rush, Sean and Levin among others seem to have jumped onboard and think they can convince other Conservativs that Trump is the guy. To me, he's as big of a joke as Sarah Palin. And Trump just continues to shoot off his mouth and call people names, and his supporters just eat it up like a bunch of 12-year old kids who sit in the back of the classroom and shout 'boobs!' when the teacher turns her back. Oh - by the way - I'm not a Trump supporter. Electing him is very much like Schwarzenegger as Governor of California. Arnold was brash and arrogant and called his fellow politicians 'girly men.' Once the celebrity crap wore off, his true colors showed through and we learned he doesn't know what he's doing. I've learned that the 'general public' is dumb. I like people in power who are smarter than I am. Donald Trump just ain't that smart. People worry that as POTUS, he'll 'push the button' or whatever. Eh - I don't think so. I worry more about wasting four years watching some buffoon bluster his way through the White House. We should want more from The Office of the President of the United States. This isn't some TV show - it's real life.
The comparison with Arnold is perfect. Arnold campaigned with a populist message, lots of vague phrases that were pretty meaningless. A series of corny applause lines and quips from his movies that crowds cheered for, but once in office, where there are actual laws and procedures that must be followed, and complicated things to wade through and try to figure out, the quips are not helpful. It seems that a lot of people love the idea of the outsider charging in and telling the establishment politicians what's what and really give longtime politicians hell. But look at Trump: in the end, he endorsed Ryan and McConnell, they endorsed him. None of them loved doing that, but it's politics, so of course they did. (And Bernie endorsed Hillary as expected.) It's really anyone's guess what his policies might really be if elected, because he's all over the place. And since he's never been an elected official, there's no real track record. We can't even get his tax returns, which I suspect run counter in terms of his overall wealth than what he says from the stump.
1) Supreme Court. Lost for a generation, at least. 2) World Standing. *Best* case scenario: Trump only insults a bunch of people. Worst-case: Trump gets us all killed in a nuclear holocaust because he's a thin-skinned man-child. I'm quite serious. 3) The legitimacy of hatred. If Trump wins, the fury we've seen spill out from fragile white conservative men will be legitimized and only continue. Things will get worst for people of color and women in this country. Conversely, if Hillary wins, and wins with a big enough blowout, it could completely delegitimize Trumpism. I think that's crucial. If it's close, then Trump's behavior and tactics will just pass to the next demagogue, who will only ratchet up the rhetoric even more.
As to #3 on your list, ecdc, I'm really worried that particular cat is out of the bag. The GOP got beat with Sarah Palin on the ticket and they seem to keep doubling down on hate and crazy. There really is no place in the GOP for the George Wills of the world anymore. Maybe many former Republicans will gravitate to the Libertarian party? The GOP has been playing to a talk radio Fox News base for a generation, and even a huge loss for Trump isn't going to change those peoples' minds. (It would, however, send a message to the rest of the world that not every American is a Trump fan, which is important for world peace.) Trump just made a veiled threat in one of his speaking away from teleprompter moments, suggesting that only "Second Amendment folks" could prevent Hillary Clinton's judicial picks. Wolf whistle successfully squeaked, his subordinates are walking back from that statement, saying it is being -- wait for it -- taken out of context. His fired up base will love what he said, normal humans will be sickened by it. Hillary will bump up 2-3 points in polls because of it. He's a very cruel, stupid, mouthy fellow, and the GOP has firmly hitched its wagon to this sinking boulder. There's really no line of decency he won't cross.
It really is hard to limit it to just three but I'll add this one: his particular combination of arrogance/narcissism (which I think is not just garden-variety vanity, but actual clinical Narcissistic Personality Disorder) and cluelessness. He would be in sooooooooo far over his head in the Oval Office... yet could never admit that, even to himself. That's the recipe for tons of bad decisions that he wouldn't be able to bring himself to reverse even after they prove disastrous. And that could range from relatively minor things to major ones like doubling down on deficit-exploding tax cuts for the very wealthy to getting us into unnecessary wars.
What is so particularly aggravating with Trump is that his supporters say they like him for his plain talk, hon non-political correctness, his telling it like it is. And yet, every time Trump belches out something offensive and terrible, apologists rush out to say "No, no, you misunderstood what he meant, it was all a joke, can't ya take a joke? It's the damn MEDIA twisting everything! etc." He says these outrageous ad-libbed things, and is seldom held accountable for any of it by the GOP base. If you take his glib, dismissive quips about "always wanting a Purple Heart" -- my God, can you imagine if Hillary said something like that? Being dismissive and insulting to POWs. He is showing us all his terrible, unfiltered self, day after day, and still people keep believing that he will magically transform into Abe Lincoln II moments after being sworn into office. More confounding to me is his flippant treatment of religion. Usually, the GOP wouldn't stand for that, and yet here he is, professing that he's the best Christian ever and unable to name a single Bible passage. So you have him being dismissive about religion and the military, two third-rail issues up until now, apparently. Mocking the disabled. People from Mexico. Gold Star parents. Women. On and on and on. Trump is what he is: arrogant, incurious, crude, mean, and wholly unqualified to be Commander in Chief. To expect him to transform into some other imagined Trump is ridiculous.
I created this meme and posted it on my Facebook page. While I think Hillary is a bit aloof and icy - I think Obama is too for that matter - they're also both educated, super smart and bring a level of dignity to the office. To me, Trump is just a big mouthed jackass, who thinks he's being cute by raging against the machine. He's like a Confidence man, who gets the client to sign on the dotted line but doesn't have a clue how it's all going to work. I thought he was going to quit soon? When does that happen?
What aggravates me too is when people say he "tells it like it is" when he himself doesn't believe many of the things he says. Take birtherism, which was his entree into politics 5 years ago when he was testing the waters. Trump is hardly a super-genius (except in the Wile E. Coyote sense), but he's not stupid. You know he was too smart to have ever really believed the birther crap. He knew damn well, all the time, that Obama was born in Hawaii. And obviously he was lying through his teeth with the "We sent people to Hawaii, and they're finding out amazing things, incredible things..." stuff. He never believed the whole premise and he lied through his teeth about the other stuff. Yet he acted like he believed it, put on a good performance about believing it, and that was enough to convince highly susceptible people that he "tells it like it is." And this time... he knows damn well he could never get Mexico to pay for a wall, even if it was built. He knows that. Yet he spews nonsense about it constantly as though he believes it with everything he has. And people think he "tells it like it is." Some of the stuff he says really is his ugly id revealing itself, but with things like those two examples (and there are others), he doesn't even tell it like he thinks it is. SMDH. Or Obama? Or, to take more of an apple to apple (same age, same gender, same war they avoided) - can you imagine if Bill Clinton had said that? Remember when people were deriding him as a draft dodger in 1992, even though he never had phantom "bone spurs" that magically disappeared as soon as he aged out of the draft? If some veteran who was a fan of Clinton's in '92 had presented him with a Purple Heart and he had said "I always wanted a Purple Heart. But this was much easier..." can you imagine what the GOP would have said to that?? Yet they give Trump a pass.
I found this an intriguing litmus test for whether Christians really walk the walk or not, and the hardcore fundies failed miserably. Obviously they're willing to overlook any and all moral objections when it suits their political needs. Interestingly, the Mormons (as a group) passed with flying colors. Say what you want about them (and I frequently do lol), but they say what they mean and they mean what they say. Dare I say I'm proud of them?
"Conservative Christians were unwilling to extend mercy to a Democrat who asked for it but have offered it freely to a Republican who doesn’t want it." This is something that has truly baffled me. I heard some evangelicals interviewed who just brushed of his behavior with, "We all sin." They even had their little children singing his praises and saying he is going to save us. My conservative, Mormon friend told me she would *burn in Hell* before she would vote for Trump. That gives me hope.
I'm sure that there are a lot of people that are blindly following the mouth that roared, but, just in my small immediate family I have one Trump vote and 7 Hillary votes. That's just one family. Just because they are the loudest and because of that are getting the most TV coverage doesn't mean that they are expanding their support to any real degree. I am actively asking everybody I know that thinks, like me, that the worst thing that could ever happen to this country is to have a Trump President to make sure that when November gets here they get out and vote. If they need a ride, I will bring them. We cannot allow a school yard bully to intimidate a nation by scare tactics when he is yet to tell us what he would do about it if threatened. (other then run to the nearest bunker) To use his words... Believe me, that is what will happen..OK!
Goofyernmost, I hope you're right and that it's just the noise level that is distorting things. The problem for me is that while I'll vote for Hillary, it's much more a vote against Trump. She's got a lot of shifty business going on in her circle much of the time, and each new revelation is one more reason for someone to not vote for her. I honestly believe that if the GOP had actually nominated an adult, Hillary would be trailing by at least 20 points in every poll. She can thank her lucky stars that she's running against a maniac who is far out of his depth. If Hillary wins, I'm going to be happy because it means Trump lost, but that doesn't mean I'm super jazzed about her. It's astounding, isn't it, that in a country of 300 million people, these are the final two candidates?
I do so agree. But, this country can survive Hillary, but, I'm not so sure about the Donald. This world is very volatile and his madness is extremely dangerous. World Wars have started with less provocation. Hillary is either the smartest crook in the world or she is not near as bad as the Right Wing is trying to make her out to be. The GOP has spent millions of dollars trying to pin something on her, and they have yet to make anything stick. What she does is pretty much what every politician has to do to get things done. We all like to think that our society is pristine and saintly, but, it surely isn't. Drump thinks that all he has to do is bully his way through and it will just happen. Like he owns the country and the White House is his board room where everyone just says yes to him because he can fire them. Politics is a little different. One of the most powerful people in the country right now is someone that he played games with concerning his endorsement. That is just plain stupid and reflects a complete lack of any reality based thought. He really thinks that, if elected, he can just do whatever he wants to do. Not to say that that person deserved an endorsement, the coward that he is, but, if he stays the majority leader he can make the presidents job really hard if he wants. Hillary is not perfect, but, from what I can tell, she is extremely sharp and not a person to be trifled with. It is the lesser of the evils, but, that one is not anywhere near as evil as Orange man. It's an easy choice. The reason why out of that many people we cannot get anyone any better is because anyone that would make a good President is to smart to run for it. Just not worth it.
I think that is exactly what everyone should be thinking when they vote. It will be a landslide in her favor, despite her YUGE shortcomings.....
Yeah, I think a lot of conservatives will take the same attitude as conservative humorist PJ O'Rourke: " she's wrong about everything, but she's wrong within normal parameters."
