US Presidential Race

I checked and this time even the first primaries and caucuses don't start before February.
So who's leading the polls now means nothing.

John Oliver was asked what his thoughts on Trump are, and he responded magnificently.

He basically said he doesn't give a shit because the election is more than one year away, and everyone reporting on anything in that direction now is helping nobody. When pressed he said he refuses to give a shit.

It's so weird to hear someone say something sensible about this.

VivaStPauli wrote:John Oliver was asked what his thoughts on Trump are, and he responded magnificently.

He basically said he doesn't give a shit because the election is more than one year away, and everyone reporting on anything in that direction now is helping nobody. When pressed he said he refuses to give a shit.

It's so weird to hear someone say something sensible about this.

That's what he said on Colbert's new Late Show as well.

I liked the answer too, because it's been very lazy, the way Stewart and Colbert jumped on Trump and made their shows mostly about him.
I get that it's tempting, and very entertaining, and of course they were also incorporating the 'guilt' of being lazy and jumping on it into their jokes, but in the end it's still a bit too low a denominator for satire IMO.

That being said, Trump for me is not MERELY an iteration of Herman Cain et al., mostly because of the money he himself has.
The campaigns of hyped joke candidates usually end because they run out of money, and because they have too much of a foot in mouth moment ('gotcha' moment) at some point, which usually serves the media to cut them down after propping them up.

Trump COULD possibly finance some kind of campaign himself, and he's above and beyond any foot in mouth moments anyway, his completely unhinged, and most importantly 'trademarked', douchery explodes this mechanism to an extent.

then again, Oliver is on premium cable with a prestige once-a-week broadcast these days, an 'indulgence' for HBO so to speak, so it's easy for him to take the high ground
Would me more daring for him to devote one of his famous in depth segments to demanding Game of Thrones cut down on the cheap sexploitation

Massive underestimation of Trump here.

He is a winner and so far has played his campaign excellently. Always manages to stay in the news, spin everything about him, always in headlines, ...If you've read "Art of the Deal", you can see he's applying so many of those methods to his campaign.

I see him winning GOP nomination.....in the final election, not sure though since Clinton basically controls the media narrative

A winner

Didn't that "winner" receive a bailout twice, and didn't he manage to bankrupt a f*cking Casino? A Casino!?

A few business failures in how many projects, 700 ???

Yea, Heyneckes is a  garbage manager, because he lost to BATE,  or got spanked by BVB in 2012, or lost to Leverkusen in the league in 2013 :rollseyes: . Everybody has the hiccups

It's about the big picture. Donald trump is among the richest people in America, successfully accumulating wealth and creating employment, has successful children and still bangs a woman at age 70 hotter than 90% of other girls.

In his life, he's been successful significantly more times than he's failed. Hence making him a winner. He may be a dickhead, but so is Mourinho, and he's a Winner as well.

You've completely disconnected all your values from any semblance of morality, haven't you?

Trump will win the Republican nomination. Nobody has been able to touch him so far. Trump has practically eaten every establishment Republican alive every time they've tried to attack him.

It's ridiculous but our right wing is a complete disaster, and electing someone like trump isn't above them. They worship actors like Reagan, voted in Arnold in California, even ex wrestlers.. Why not Trump? They have no sets of moral values anymore. They just want someone who won't back down and will say stuff the way he sees it. He's a serious candidate considering the current republican field and how crazy they have become.

Hillary-sama will destroy him in the general though.

Arnold had a very reasonable campaign in California and was among the better governors around, and with ex wrestlers I assume you mean Jesse Ventura, who is also less insane than, say, Rick Perry or Bobby Gyndal.

I implore you guys to look back 4 years. Back then it was all Witches, Pizza Millionaires, and N*****head Ranch galore, none of them made it in the end, because the insane candidates always create the early media buzz, that lets them soar high in the early polls because they have the highest exposure, but it's also what really sinks them, once the serious debates start half a year later.

I know that crazy over the top candidates have done similar to trump and flamed out. But trump is different than the Ron Pauls or Ross Peros or whoever. He has said things that would have sunk bigger candidates 5 times over on multiple occasions and after all that he is polling higher now than he has at any point.


After the "reign of terror" and eight years of a Muslim Kenyan socialist dictator, at least according to the conservatives, they are sick of their establishment

I don't see any of the establishment candidates gaining enough support.

It's really too early to make any predictions either way tbh

I do think the Sanders vs a Republican in a general election debate a very interesting one though.

Interested to hear what you guys think about this one

Hillary Rodham Clinton is a liberal Democrat on domestic matters, and Bernie Sanders is a socialist. They voted the same way 93 percent of the time in the two years they shared in the Senate

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/28/upshot/the-senate-votes-that-divided-hillary-clinton-and-bernie-sanders.html


Sepi has gotten more and more insane as time has gone on. A shame really.

The feminist reaction to Biden joining the race has been disgraceful imo. I was listening to NPR today and these are actual quotes from callers: "He is stealing her moment", "I will never forgive Biden for ruining Hillary's chance", "This shows that it's more important to know the right people to play golf with than being good at your job".

If you believe this you need to take a step back and do some breathing exercises. If Biden gets the nomination it will be because Hillary was not a very convincing candidate. She has months of advantage over him and a better resume. If she loses the democratic nomination it will not be because she's a woman but becasue the American democrats do not believe her to be the best one for the job. Furthermore the notion that she deserves the nomination because she is a woman is downright insulting to feminist principles.

The fact that Hillary supporters are freaking out over the rumors of Biden joining the race by itself shows that Hillary's campaign is not very strong.

VivaStPauli wrote:You've completely disconnected all your values from any semblance of morality, haven't you?

What has morality do with it ?

Honestly, just because I don't support the majority of this forum's ultra-leftist socialist views where Race doesn't exist, rape rates are irrelevant, religion doesn't cause anything bad, nuclear family structure being destroyed is fine, we should live in a world with no borders, the wealth should be shared, and everything will be fine by itself, I'm being tainted as Racist, Insane, Crazy, Nazi, etc

I voted Liberal in Canadian elections yesterday ffs ..... but It doesn't mean I'll be liberal if I was American or European. Every country needs different dynamics. for example ,Sweden is desperate for a Xenophobic hard core right. Canada needed a Liberal after 10 years of Tories., etc etc.

I am not defending Trump either, but he's a winner with a great strategy because he knows the deal. he's getting the job done so far, has rattled his opponents, has touched some nerves that other politicians are too PC to touch, and many many Americans enjoy it because they are sick of "always on the line" never picking a side politicians. many expected him to be gone by now already, but he's still leading. Just because Trump doesn't appeal to your Leftist views, doesn't mean there aren't a bucketload of conservative americans in Tenesse and Alabama who love hearing what he has to say.

Natalie Portman wrote:

VivaStPauli wrote:You've completely disconnected all your values from any semblance of morality, haven't you?

What has morality do with it ?

Honestly, just because I don't support the majority of this forum's ultra-leftist socialist views where Race doesn't exist, rape rates are irrelevant, religion doesn't cause anything bad, nuclear family structure being destroyed is fine, we should live in a world with no borders, the wealth should be shared, and everything will be fine by itself, I'm being tainted as Racist, Insane, Crazy, Nazi, etc

I voted Liberal in Canadian elections yesterday ffs ..... but It doesn't mean I'll be liberal if I was American or European. Every country needs different dynamics. for example ,Sweden is desperate for a Xenophobic hard core right. Canada needed a Liberal after 10 years of Tories., etc etc.

I am not defending Trump either, but he's a winner with a great strategy because he knows the deal. he's getting the job done so far, has rattled his opponents, has touched some nerves that other politicians are too PC to touch, and many many Americans enjoy it because they are sick of "always on the line" never picking a side politicians. many expected him to be gone by now already, but he's still leading. Just because Trump doesn't appeal to your Leftist views, doesn't mean there aren't a bucketload of conservative americans in Tenesse and Alabama who love hearing what he has to say.

*bleep* sepi. How can you be so damn intelligent and yet so damn stupid at the same time You clearly are a smart guy. I'll give you that.

But something must have happened in your life where an immigrant gave you a bad experience or something.

So for the record, even though I do not support your views on the refugees going into europe, the right wingers there have somewhat of a case to make when it comes to immigrants (and even then, not really)

But the USA is a country of immigrants. You do not know the history here so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. but I'm gonna have to destroy you

1. Rating a candidate based on the amount of pussy they get? Are you serious dude? How about their experience in political matters, positions of power, actual views held???

2. Mexican immigrants do NOT cause problems. In fact, el paso is one of the lowest crime rate cities in the USA

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2015/07/immigration-and-crime

EDUCATE yourself on real facts instead of spamming our board with xenophobic trash. You lived in dallas. Did you not see how hard the mexicans worked in construction, etc, in harsh conditions?

3. Trump isn't against the establishment, hes independent etc. Yeah right, he IS the establishment. Being an asshole doesn't make you a real person. It just makes you an asshole. His networth is in the billions, and you expect him to help the average American? Do you realize the welfare system in the us, social security etc that trump wants to remove benefits not only poor americans but middle class americans too?

http://www.snowcow.com/society/how-much-do-we-spend-on-welfare/

4. By that definition, winners, as you said, is most of wall street, since they hoard cash illegally through scheming and contribute nothing to society. At least minimum wage workers do jobs no one wants to do and yet we villianize them

In a perfect republican world, White Anglo-Saxon protestants (preferably Presbyterians and baptists) would be all powerful, minorities would be segregated again via passive racism, anyone who looked mexican (that includes you) would be deported regardless of actual heritage or citizenship status, there would be no minimum wage since you know, socialism is evil and shit, and blue collar workers dont deserve even 7.15 an hour, tax breaks for the rich, no gun control, expansion of the army and destruction of clean energy sources, etc. I can go on. Anyone at this point and age who is even remotely conservative is just blind and scared.

open your fking eyes or stop posting garbage, tyvm

Trump is rich because he inherited a massive amount of wealth. His successes in business can be directly attributed to this as well. He lacks any nuance or understanding of international politics or relations, diplomacy, and cooperation. A Trump Administration would be both significantly more interventionist (see his choices for cabinet positions and their quotes) and directly more antagonistic to basically every other major power, Russia included (which makes it doubly ironic that you claim to be a supporter of him).

It's also worth noting that the majority of Americans (and this really isn't a debatable point, the statistics are quite clear) do NOT support Trump or want him in the White House. He is currently running on a vocal minority and even his own professed party do not, by and large, consider him a legitimate candidate for the at-large election despite his strong polling numbers at the current time.

This being my point, yes. Trump is a "winner" in the sense that cheating at poker lets you win a lot of money, but it doesn't make you good at playing poker.
Trump inherited his wealth, and (adjusted for inflation) really didn't do all that incredibly much with it.

I can see the appeal of Trumps bluntness (even I found it refreshing when he straight up told the press that he can't stand his opposition, and doesn't believe that the other candidates respect each other, because it seemd honest) - but while I can appreciate his honesty, his views, which he is admittedly expressing honestly, are insane, and racist.

The GOP is a complete disgrace


Millions of tax payer dollars wasted on these non stop Benghazi hearings for no knew information.. To do nothing other than take down Hillarys poll numbers to hopefully effect the election. All from the supposedly Conservative party who whines and moans over every penny spent actually doing productive things

Politicians are society's greatest hypocrites. I'm not surprised.

Hillary did well though largely. I am still lukewarm to her, but I think came out of this with her campaign still intact definitely. She's not out of the woods yet though as the FBI certainly watched every second of this hearing, especially the end, where her e-mails came into focus. The GOP never had the political clout to take her down on this topic, no matter how much they blustered about it. They've would've done it already if they truly could.

Problem is, the FBI largely won't need political clout to take her down if they do find even a small portion of wrongdoing on her part. If anything, the status quo remains......sans millions in taxpayer money.

Something i find interesting is that Hilary did know the day after that the attack was not a response to an anti Islam film. And yet, 5 days after the event Jay Carney was explicitly and assertively stating the attack was a response to a "reprehensible and disgusting" film?

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/09/14/press-briefing-press-secretary-jay-carney-9142012

VendettaRed07 wrote:Her position was " I'm not a socialist but I believe that at times capitalism needs to be saved from its self". In reality, that's exactly what socialism is really, but comes across much better to an American audience.

I'm curious, could you substantiate your opinion? I think socialism is a bit more extreme than what you're trying to paint it as.

Wow.. Rubio pretty much wiped the floor with Bush in that debate, and managed to do so in a graceful way; didn't think he had it in him after that whole dry mouth -> glass of water debacle

Do you think he could become a serious contender for the nomination? I never thought so tbh, but in that weak field

I don't know, Rubio went pretty far-right trying to get Tea Party votes for the primaries, which might seriously bite him in the ass in the general election.

I always thought he was one of the more serious and strong contenders though, in the league of Carson, Jeb! etc; not a joke candidate like Jyndal or Santorum.
Jyndal feels like I've written that wrong. Gyndal? I don't want to google that guy.

Jindal.

As I said earlier, ultimately, USUALLY at least, they go with the one most 'electable'.
Rubio surely is more electable, based on his demeanor and positions, than most of the rest.
However, even the 'electable' candidates have to go through the ultra right wing gauntlet of the primaries, where being Cuban-American is not an advantage as it might be in the general election. This gauntlet has become more gruesome and self-defeating, too.

He also struck me as too boyish and lightweight, on top of being 'foreign'-sounding.

I'm just asking because, except for Christie, who I severely overrated as a politician a few years ago, Bush, who's not a good candidate either, Kasich and Fiorina who won't get anywhere, and Rubio, all the others represent a doubling down on the far right southern strategy which is certified unwinnable.

A guy like Carson obviously is far too extreme right wing to get elected by the 'whole' of the American people. The detestable stuff he said in the past will make for 2000 effective attack ads.

I thought Christie was their strongest candidate, despite "Bridgegate" (that name tho, omg) but he's not winning the primaries.

It's the same problem the Republicans face each election cycle since the rise of the Tea Party; can't win the Primaries without Tea Party support, can't win the general election with having said on record what you had to say to win Tea Party support.