Politcal Ramblings

[Aslan]

I certainly agree that comparing Trump to a Nazi is unfair. But as a history buff...you start to wonder how certain people actually came into power like Hitler and Mussolini and all these other guys that eventually become lunatics...and it just makes you nervous. It's one thing to call for better border security and increased deportation efforts. It's a bit of a reach to start talking about deportation squads and banning certain religion immigrants.

I don't think Trump is all bad...and I'd vote for him over many of the other options...some on both tickets...but I don't trust him, I don't like him, and he's one of the least Presidential candidates for President I've ever seen. George W. wasn't the worst President in history. There were definitely worse Presidents. BUT...GW was SO bad that he at least makes the "short list". Thats pretty bad. Obama won't even come close to that bad...but also will be nowhere near the legacy of a Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan.

I'd feel better about a "President Trump" if Congress was functioning. A functioning Congress can keep the Executive office in line. But with the Congress we have right now....forget about it. I mean, remember when we used to laugh at English monarchs....and their tabloid nonsense. Their House of Commons yelling at each other? We used to think the American democracy was above that....but we're now seeing 11 investigations into Benghazi....at a cost of millions and millions in taxpayer dollars...just to lower the likelihood that Hillary makes a successful run for President? Threats of government shutdown every month or so? A socialist hippie running on the Democratic primary ticket and a libertarian on the other? Who's laughing at whom now?

[Tony]

I certainly agree that comparing Trump to a Nazi is unfair. But as a history buff...you start to wonder how certain people actually came into power like Hitler and Mussolini and all these other guys that eventually become lunatics...and it just makes you nervous. It's one thing to call for better border security and increased deportation efforts. It's a bit of a reach to start talking about deportation squads and banning certain religion immigrants.

I don't think Trump is all bad...and I'd vote for him over many of the other options...some on both tickets...but I don't trust him, I don't like him, and he's one of the least Presidential candidates for President I've ever seen. George W. wasn't the worst President in history. There were definitely worse Presidents. BUT...GW was SO bad that he at least makes the "short list". Thats pretty bad. Obama won't even come close to that bad...but also will be nowhere near the legacy of a Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan.

I'd feel better about a "President Trump" if Congress was functioning. A functioning Congress can keep the Executive office in line. But with the Congress we have right now....forget about it. I mean, remember when we used to laugh at English monarchs....and their tabloid nonsense. Their House of Commons yelling at each other? We used to think the American democracy was above that....but we're now seeing 11 investigations into Benghazi....at a cost of millions and millions in taxpayer dollars...just to lower the likelihood that Hillary makes a successful run for President? Threats of government shutdown every month or so? A socialist hippie running on the Democratic primary ticket and a libertarian on the other? Who's laughing at whom now?

While I would agree GW was not a particularly smart guy who surrounded himself with guys no smarter than himself and was not a good leader. I disagree about Obama, yes he is a much smarter guy who generally seems to run off anyone who's not a yes man / woman. He has done some things that have significantly weakened our economy and our position in the world. He has promoted heavily bringing in millions of people while deporting few ( Bush and Clinton deported millions of people). He has also made many behind the scenes changes to our public aid systems to include millions of NON citizens and suspended many of the rules used to screen applicants sending the number of recipients and dollars spent to higher levels than ever. This was largely the reason for his re-election, he kept giving and promising the welfare community more and more.
Do you realize he promoted millions of people to bring their elderly parents here and pays them SSI out of the social security system that they never paid a dime into and should not be entitled to draw from.
We spend millions of dollars to raise the standard of living in other countries and reduce the standard of living here, drawing us closer and closer to the 3rd world countries. This socialistic behavior will and has cost the country more than GW ever caused because GW was doing things because he was an idiot, Obama is intentionally weakening and damaging our country.

[fortheloveofbowling]

But as a history buff...

What does it take to be a "Buff"? Is it at least a Bachelors Degree in any given field or just the ability to string together a few paragraphs of opinions with a few facts mixed in?

[Tony]

What does it take to be a "Buff"? Is it at least a Bachelors Degree in any given field or just the ability to string together a few paragraphs of opinions with a few facts mixed in?

Here are the requirements, in nine easy steps from Wikihow !

http://www.wikihow.com/Be-a-History-Buff

Be careful it involves graph paper !

[Jessiewoodard57]

In Aslan's defense to be a "Buff" one needs only to have an interest in any subject . In school I hated history but as I get older and people seem to want to rewrite our US history I have become interested myself.

[Hot_pocket]

If i touch on anything already said, oh well because im not starting at the beginning of this thread haha. It blows my mind how much of a tyrant Obama is....says every concervative. Maybe not all of them but everyone who swears ,to whoever they believe in, think he is in office because the liberals have the majority. Just like they believe obama is brain & VP Biden is pinky and planning to take over the world. You can't win an election without the majority of votes by all who make the decision to vote unless you're GWB. So there were conservatives who believe Obama was the right choice is what I'm lead to believe, right? I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed but I'm pretty sure Obama didnt hurt the economy as bad as people think. Just one thing to not give him credit for, Job production has soared, is that bad or good? Obama was suppose to be a 1 term president according to a republican, who stated, that was their main goal for him when he was first elected. That was said in an interview after was re-elected for his second term, the resistence or hate as I'll call it was real. I have to agree though about congress, as we say when doing a raid in destiny, we should wipe now.

[Aslan]

Guide to the 2016 Elections:

I've seen enough coverage now to sort of simplify the primaries for the voters out there who have minimal interest and don't really care that much.

1) The Moderates
I picked this section because it's the simplest. There aren't any. The closest we had was Jim Webb who was running as a Democrat but used to be a Republican. The next closest options are probably Donald Trump and Chris Christie...maybe a Lindsay Graham who has now dropped out.

2) The Democrats

This field is now down to 3 and really it's down to 2 and a question mark about whether O'Malley would be a Vice Presidential pick. Hilary has been a victim of partisan politics since her days as Secretary of State and it has been surprisingly effective at at least making the Democratic Primary "sort of" a race. Hilary is the more moderate of the two candidates and the overall frontrunner to become President, but is left of Obama who is quite a bit left of the Bill Clinton administration.

There are no "big differences" between Bernie and Hillary even though they try to make it seem like there is. Hillary is more establishment, will essentially just try to further Obama type initiatives and will generally be led by her party and following the polls. Bernie is further left on just about every issue except guns. He's an establishment candidate but is sort of running a Dennis Kusinich/Ralph Nader style "outsider" campaign and has tapped into the populist movement which is one of the more exciting political movements since the tea party. The populist movement, championed by Elizabeth Warren, is simply a "socialist light" style of capitalism where as the wealthy are pressured with more of the burden of the country...but hopefully not so much so that the capitalist/democratic system collapses. The populist movement has been born (like all political movements are usually born) out of a social outrage regarding the growing disparencies between the top 10% and the rest of the country and the shrinking middle class and loss of good paying, less skilled jobs. It is a bit of a backlash against the "trickle down economics" policies of the Bush administration that failed miserably.

3) The Republicans
This could be a post of it's own, so lets try to put the candidates into groups to more easily figure this out...it's not as hard as the circus would hint to.

1. The Tea Party/Freedom Caucus
2. The Governors
3. The Outsiders
4. The Religious Right

1. The Tea Party/Freedom Caucus are the ultra-Right of the party that has for the most part spent the last 8 years blocking everything and anything Obama tried to do while at the same time making life a living hell for John Boehner and the establishment Republicans. Candidates consist of Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Carly Fiorina.

Why Carly? Even though she tries to paint herself as a Trump-like outsider...she's politically a tea party/freedom caucus candidate...she just lacks the experience of having held office. Of the 3 other candidates listed, HUGE differences between them. Ted Cruz is as far right as one can go on every issue. Marco Rubio is like a "Ted Cruz light" and the "light" is on immigration. Cruz has always followed the Republican party and LOVED immigrant workers (because it's cheap labor) but has hated legalized immigration (most immigrants become Democrats). Marco, being from Florida, has had to taken a more "Amnesty Approach" which was in style before Donald Trump reminded everyone that most people aren't big fans of illegal immigration. Rand Paul is the most conservative candidate in the race, but is SO conservative that he's more of a libertarian than a republican. What's the difference? Libertarians essentially believe in an Aristocracy/sharecropping type of existence where a few people have massive amounts of land and they do as they wish with very little government interference. Rand, unlike his father, is more in line with the party...BUT...had been crippled recently with heightened foreign policy issues...because his only achilles heel is libertarians do not believe in the Marshall Plan where as the United States uses puppet states to provide a buffer between ourselves and our true enemies (Russia and China).

2. The Governors
John Kasich, Jeb Bush, George Patacki, Chris Christie. These candidates are all very similar with some right wing ideals and some more moderate views based primarily on the States they were governors of. For example, Jeb Bush is more liberal on immigration as a former governor of Florida. Chris Christie has take some liberal positions as a Republican governor of a very blue, East Coast state...as has Patacki. This group usually is where the nominee comes from, but this year is struggling to get right of the tea party crew and aren't "non-establishment" enough to move into that lane.

3. The Outsiders
This is essentially Donald Trump. Ben Carson is more of a religious right candidate pretending to be an outsider. Dr. Carson has been a right wing radio talk show host for years. Donald is doing well simply because people are tired of the current climate. It's Ross Perot all over again...except this time people are actually upset. The downside is outsiders tend to eventually fail. They say something terribly stupid, the establishment goes after em hard, and/or they get exposed in some other way. I still think eventually Donald will fail to this scrutiny...once the general election is underway.

4. The Religious Right
These candidates are always in the primary and never seriously considered. Our country gets very, very weary of electing candidates that hint towards a country where freedom of religion is defined as "one faith over another". Many of us absolutely despise Islam since nearly every terrorist attack tends to be from Islamic groups...BUT...we're very, very cautious about electing our own "Ayatollah". These candidates are Mick Huckabee, Rick Santorum, and Ben Carson. These guys play very well to the bible belt but usually can't get much ground anywhere else. The bottom line is, America is becoming more and more a secular state...like Europe...and the same old religious hate mongering...even when well intentioned...just doesn't hold the same magic it once did. Of these candidates, Rick Santorum is interesting given his more middle class focused message...and Ben Carson is interesting as a "half outsider" kinda of candidate. But once we leave Iowa...these candidates will he hoping for a Vice President gig or a better TV/Radio contract.

Summary:
As terrible as it sounds...this election is relying on two horrible things:
1) Can Hillary Clinton survive the political gauntlet of pretend investigations and politically motivated attacks and charges...enough so to hold off the populist Bernie Sanders? And, can she emerge as a likable enough candidate that moderates will support her in the general election?

2) Can Donald Trump keep walking the line between a straight talking voice of the people yet not say something "Trump-Like" that could end his run almost immediately?

And whomever DOES emerge from the Republican circus...can they find a candidate that can convince the general electorate that they will be able to work with the other party, eliminate the ultra-liberal nonsense from 8 years of Obama, yet still try to actually solve the problems Obama was attempting to solve? Or, will this simply be another reboot of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld...where the government gives away the money to the rich and the rich move their business overseas? Thats gonna be the toughest part. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz don't have answers the general electorate want to hear. Neither does Jeb Bush. The general electorate might be able to support a Lindsay Graham or a Chris Christie or a Rand Paul on SOME issues...but MOST of the country wants solutions to income inequality, mental illness, health care costs, student loans and college costs, etc... The tax cut message isn't going to work again. We don't want a $425 tax rebate. We want good paying jobs. We don't want a repeal of Obamacare where we all go back to paying for the uninsured...we want a better solution than Obamacare. And we're generally tired of being told that if we just get rid of ONE MORE tax....all those rich 1% or 2%...they will FINALLY use those tax cut windfalls to rebuild the country. That age is over. This is the global age...jobs go to the country with the lowest wages. Headquarters move to the place with the lowest taxes. Job cuts are deemed as "good for the economy" as they boost stock prices by limiting overhead costs.

So it really doesn't matter who faces who in the general election. If it's Sanders...the Republicans have to hope they can paint him as a crazy left wing lunatic. If it's Hillary, they have to keep driving the message that she can't be trusted and is evil. What you don't see in either sentence is how the Republican candidate provides an answer to the problems most Americans are worried about. They (Republicans) continue to try to win elections with a platform of "the other guy stinks"...and that doesn't work as well in the general election as it does in the primary election. Thats why Mitt Romney seemed like such a strong candidate and then got hammered by an unpopular 2nd term candidate in Obama. Trump is probably their best bet...and I can almost assure you that makes the RNC even more nervous than it makes you and I.

[Perrin]

so our options come down to dumb, dumber, bad, and crazy.... yay for the two party political system....

[fordman1]

You really didn't read all of aslan's post did you. Where did you get the time?

[Aslan]

so our options come down to dumb, dumber, bad, and crazy.... yay for the two party political system....

It'll come down to:

A) Same as Obama but worse.
B) Same as George W. Bush except worse.
or
C) The Donald...which could be a refreshing change to a candidate no beholden to Washington lobbyists who has his finger on the pulse of the American people....OR...it could turn out to be the next Adolf Hitler...where an egotistical maniac starts wars with Mexico over fences and uses the office to triple the value of Trump Enterprises.

I can't seen any other options at this time. They are all just really, really bad versions of the same bad, bad thing. I still like Bernie. I like his reformist approach and his populist stances. But I really struggle to see how he can actually enact anything he claims to want to do...when you have a Republican controlled Congress that can't even agree on the easy stuff. So they've spent 6 years trying every possible backdoor way of killing Obamacare...yet somehow Bernie thinks he can get Nationalized Health Care past Congress?? How's that gonna work. Hillary pitched that idea under the Bill Clinton administration and almost cost him a second term. Even Congressional Democrats ran away from that back when Obamacare was being negotiated.