Donald Trump and US politics

edit: nevermind

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Raycheetah wrote:

Really? Misogynist? How is it that Trump has delegated so much authority to women, in both his campaign, and in his administration?

Just because your view of women is terribly misguided and abusive doesn't mean you aren't capable of recognizing ability in women. Just because your value of a woman appears to be first and foremost how she looks doesn't mean you can't throw a bone to a major donor (does anyone even want to pretend that there is any other reason Betsy DeVos is now our SecEd?). It just means that you're kind of a dick. And for the record? Trump's cabinet, to date, has less women than Obama's. And Bush's. And Clinton's. Not that that matters, but let's not pretend he's delegated "so much" authority to women.

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Trump was a "player" back in the day. He was a rich guy and traveled in circles in which he had access to willing, attractive women, and he interacted with them in ways many celebrities whom the Left would install in the Oval Office in a heartbeat do now. He got caught crudely bragging in private about his escapades with women who knew him, knew his ways, and participated as more or less equal parties in the socio-sexual behavior of their shared circles. Was it crude? Yes. Was it rape, or even sexual assault? We can't know for absolute certain, but billionaires have groupies, too, and there have been NO serious allegations of sexual misconduct about Trump from any of those whose pussies he might have grabbed.

There were several serious allegations. 13 women accused him of groping or assaulting them. Do these all not count for some reason?

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Now, about Bill Clinton... Accused multiple times of rape (with a particularly nasty MO of biting onto his victim's lip to control her with pain), his wife, recent presidential candidate Hillary ran interference for him (as she also did as a young lawyer, getting the rapist of a young girl off with time served, and then smirking about it), and he might as well be a Leftist rock star.

He was a really good president. Most liberals seem to have cooled on him considerably as a direct result of these allegations. Blaming Hillary for his misdeeds is baseless and kind of a low blow. Your portrayal of Clinton "getting the rapist off" is just wrong.

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As for Trump's racism, that's a laugh and a lie. The best I expect you to muster is his objection in a legal case in which he was involved to being judged by a man with ties to La Raza, due to his campaign to exclude criminal aliens (not a race) from our nation,

Tell that to Paul Ryan. You know, major political figure from Trump's own party who called Trump's statements on this judge "textbook racism":

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Claiming a person can't do their job because of their race is sort of like the textbook definition of a racist comment," Ryan said at a press conference in Washington Tuesday to unveil a new anti-poverty plan. "If you say something that's wrong, I think the mature and responsible thing is to acknowledge it."

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/paul-ryan-trump-judge-223991

And for once, Paul Ryan is right. Trump claimed that this Indiana-born judge should recuse himself from the case because of his Mexican heritage. This is nonsense. At best, he's implying that because the judge has a Mexican heritage, he would automatically object to Trump's wall-building efforts, and that this would necessarily color the way the case was handled.

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Trump: Jake, if he was giving me fair rulings, I wouldn't be talking to you this way. He's given me horrible rulings.

Tapper: But I don't care if you criticize him. That's fine. You can criticize every decision. What I'm saying is, if you invoke his race as a reason why he can't do his job ...

Trump: I think that's why he's doing it.

I don't think this means Trump is racist. I don't think he believes what he said when it came to that judge. I just think he's willing to reach to racist, nativist arguments for his own personal benefits.

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or perhaps his "Muslim" ban (Islam is also not a race, and the ban is not of Muslims in any event). Otherwise, Trump gets along well with everybody. He "hates" nobody who isn't a criminal or the like. To Trump, all Americans are Red, White, and Blue.

Well, there was the issue where he was sued for discriminating against African-Americans in his apartments multiple times. And the whole "I don't want black people counting my money" quote. And that one tweet about Black-on-white crime that was fabricated out of whole cloth by neo-nazis. And the fact that he picked up Steve Bannon to lead his campaign. And nominated Jeff Sessions as AG. At best, this is someone who doesn't care about racism, is willing to say and do racist things to get ahead, and is willing to ally and surround himself with racists.

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I'm not going to bother debating Trump's policies with you, because it's clear you lack any detailed knowledge of them,

Yeah. No shit. Because he hasn't offered any details. To the degree that he has, they've been somewhere between nonsensical ("I'll pay for the wall with a 20% tariff on mexican goods" - that's still not Mexico paying for the wall) and dangerous ("I'll renegotiate the federal debt" - this would detonate the bedrock of the international financial markets by making the US treasury bond no longer a safe investment bet). Where has he been offering these details?

You wanna know what Clinton's plan was to, say, help rural Americans in suffering areas get jobs? Look on her website, it's still up, and you can find detailed plans on how she intends to do that. Trump? He just says "we're gonna bring coal back", as though that were a thing you could just snap your fingers and do. He offered precious few details on how he'd do that, and either didn't know or lied about the cause of coal's demise.

What policies? A goal is not policy. A slogan is not policy. Actual legislature is a policy.

DeVos and now abolish Dept of Education. This is great. Return education back to locals not to mention DoE is unconstitutional, but so is about 99% of what govt does. Lots of work Republicans have ahead of them to dismantle the socialist united states.
https://massie.house.gov/newsroom/press-releases/rep-massie-introduces-bill-to-abolish-federal-department-of-education

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Just because your view of women is terribly misguided and abusive doesn't mean you aren't capable of recognizing ability in women.

You called Trump a misogynist. I don't think you and I share an understanding of the definition of that word. But you go on ahead and think that of a man whose presidential campaign relied heavily on a woman to get across the finish line.

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There were several serious allegations. 13 women accused him of groping or assaulting them. Do these all not count for some reason?

Can you name a single one of them whose case was more than simple hearsay? Can you even name a single one without researching it? Can you explain why even the hostile media couldn't successfully weaponize any of these "allegations" against Trump during the election?

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He was a really good president. Most liberals seem to have cooled on him considerably as a direct result of these allegations. Blaming Hillary for his misdeeds is baseless and kind of a low blow. Your portrayal of Clinton "getting the rapist off" is just wrong.

You quote Snopes; I'll provide audio (at about 30 seconds in, Hillary is laughing about her client passing the polygraph test, forever destroying her faith in polygraphs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCDzRtZLUkc

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As for Trump's racism, that's a laugh and a lie. The best I expect you to muster is his objection in a legal case in which he was involved to being judged by a man with ties to La Raza, due to his campaign to exclude criminal aliens (not a race) from our nation,

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Tell that to Paul Ryan. You know, major political figure from Trump's own party who called Trump's statements on this judge "textbook racism":

"Claiming a person can't do their job because of their race is sort of like the textbook definition of a racist comment," Ryan said at a press conference in Washington Tuesday to unveil a new anti-poverty plan. "If you say something that's wrong, I think the mature and responsible thing is to acknowledge it."

Paul Ryan wasted no opportunity during the campaign to attack Trump; he and the rest of the #NeverTrumper crowd would have preferred Hillary to win. If you'd been paying any attention during the campaign, you'd know that. Even now, Ryan will happily criticize Trump if the President says anything Ryan feels he can use to distance himself from someone he sees as an unwelcome interloper in the party. Ryan doesn't give two hoots in hard vacuum about racism, or he'd have attacked Obama for it.

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Well, there was the issue where he was sued for discriminating against African-Americans in his apartments multiple times. And the whole "I don't want black people counting my money" quote. And that one tweet about Black-on-white crime that was fabricated out of whole cloth by neo-nazis. And the fact that he picked up Steve Bannon to lead his campaign. And nominated Jeff Sessions as AG. At best, this is someone who doesn't care about racism, is willing to say and do racist things to get ahead, and is willing to ally and surround himself with racists.

EVERYONE was sued for that at that time. It wasn't a Trump issue; it was a landlord issue. Meanwhile, nobody talks about this story:

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsmax-Tv/donald-trump-smart-businessman-ideas/2015/07/27/id/659172/

Author Ronald Kessler tells Hayworth a story about Trump dating back to the late 1990s, a story that he says demonstrates who Trump really is.

"When Donald opened his club in Palm Beach called Mara-a-Lago, he insisted on accepting Jews and blacks even though other clubs in Palm Beach to this day discriminate against blacks and Jews," Kessler says.

"The old guard in Palm Beach was outraged that Donald would accept blacks and Jews so that's the real Donald Trump that I know."

Yeah, SUCH a racist.

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Yeah. No shit. Because he hasn't offered any details. To the degree that he has, they've been somewhere between nonsensical ("I'll pay for the wall with a 20% tariff on mexican goods" - that's still not Mexico paying for the wall) and dangerous ("I'll renegotiate the federal debt" - this would detonate the bedrock of the international financial markets by making the US treasury bond no longer a safe investment bet). Where has he been offering these details?

You wanna know what Clinton's plan was to, say, help rural Americans in suffering areas get jobs? Look on her website, it's still up, and you can find detailed plans on how she intends to do that. Trump? He just says "we're gonna bring coal back", as though that were a thing you could just snap your fingers and do. He offered precious few details on how he'd do that, and either didn't know or lied about the cause of coal's demise.

What policies? A goal is not policy. A slogan is not policy. Actual legislature is a policy.

Twenty days in and you expect legislature? Trump's complete cabinet hasn't even been confirmed, yet. Let's face it: You know what Trump's about, and you don't approve of it. Don't criticize it for not being like Hillary's never-gonna-happens. While you're complaining about a "lack" of policies, President Trump is busy making things happen.

Answer if you like; I won't engage again. I'm tired of wrestling with you. I get muddy, and you seem to enjoy it too much. ='[.]'=

Given that you have no interest in responding, let's just tackle the point I find most salient: Trump's utter lack of qualifications in politics and his non-existent policies.

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Raycheetah wrote:

Twenty days in and you expect legislature?

When a president runs on a platform of, "I'm going to do X, Y, and Z", I expect that president to be able to tell me how they expect to accomplish X, Y, and Z. They don't need to have the legislature drafted and ready, but they should at least have a clear idea of what their game plan is, and be able to convey this. A president can promise the world and back; this does not mean we should take their word for it. I think the best example here was when Trump promised he was going to take the fight to ISIS. He swore up and down he had a plan for dealing with ISIS. Then, when pressed on it he admitted his plan was "consult with the generals". The same generals he had called incompetent. That's not a plan. That's an admission that you don't have a plan.

Clinton had plans. She explained quite clearly what she meant to accomplish, and how she planned to accomplish it. Trump did not. Even on the tiny handful of issues where he actually took a position, that position was never well-fleshed out.

Similarly, republicans have wanted to "repeal and replace" Obamacare for six years. Their plan for doing so is... where, exactly? What's their genius plan to fix the American health care system they bemoan as utterly broken due to Obama? Oh right, they don't have one. A competent political party that campaigned so heavily on an issue for so long should have drafted legislation ready to head to committee on day one. They've only had, what, 6 years to prepare for this moment? And they aren't ready. This is like if they had spent six years saying, "We promise, if elected, to make subprime mortgage lending illegal," and then sat around with their dicks in their hands trying to figure out how they wanted to proceed on that issue.

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Budget_player_cadet wrote:

There were several serious allegations. 13 women accused him of groping or assaulting them. Do these all not count for some reason?

The fact that they mysteriously evaporated after a couple weeks doesn't lend them any credibility. Some were discredited by their own prior actions, statements or inconsistencies. That's why no one is really considering them any more.

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Budget_player_cadet wrote:

What policies? A goal is not policy. A slogan is not policy. Actual legislature is a policy.

You might want to refresh or further your understanding of what a policy actually is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Policy. They can range from something simple like "We are an equal opportunity employer" to a full blown foreign policy with a staff of thousands of people to carry out.

GGG has some forum policies for instance. They are not elaborate documents - you can click under Forum and Code of Conduct. No legislation required, yet it is still GGG's forum policy.

You will start to see Trump's detailed plans of actions roll out rather quickly as soon as his entire cabinet has been seated.

Meanwhile, here's more proof of Trump's "racist" Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions:

GJ guys

Thats all the left has is race misogeny lies. Basically divide and rule because their policies are total shit proven bankrupt through history and will bankrupt us. US republican need to welcome minorities more and rob democrats of divide and conquer they practiced forever. Trump should always be in inner city campaigning, bringing jobs back etc Minorities are way more conservative anyway than white ppls and no one wants to be robbed of half their paycheck to pay for deadbeats so putting ppls back to work should be #1 priority even if that mean tariffs and freeze immigration. With unlimited supply of over the barrel third world labor those blighted areas will never be back to work and they will always be jealous bitter Democrats accepting scraps on the dole.

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Budget_player_cadet wrote:

Nononono.

I'm not calling you stupid. I can tell you aren't stupid. Believe me, it shows - you know what you're talking about.

I'm saying that this happens to almost everyone. You. Me. Probably Neil DeGrasse Tyson. It's psychology - political partisanship makes us more tribal, and less able to process information that disagrees with us. It goes so far that if you give partisans a pretty basic math test and tell them that it's about, say, gun control, political partisans get more questions wrong - and the better they are at math at a base level, the larger the results divide gets when you swap out gun control for a neutral issue, like the effectiveness of a skin cream.

I'm not calling you stupid. I'm pointing out that partisanship inherently makes smart people stupid. I've been trying to call it out in myself lately, because looking back, I can see that I've ignored facts because they were politically uncomfortable. I'm not an idiot. This is just the effect partisanship has on people.

You are incorrect.

If you've ever watched Donnie Darko, you've seen the clearest example of idiotic partisanship I've ever seen, in the form of Kitty Farmer. The absurdity of her argument is clear; not only does she choose two things which aren't even opposite to dichotomize (ask Anakin Skywalker about the relationship between love and fear), but she attaches undue relevance to the difference. The argument against her is not pro-fear; if someone partisan to the fear side of the "lifeline" was going through the exercise, it would be equally absurd.

I feel contempt for the Kitty Farmers of the world, and some respect towards Donnie for standing up against her; I think most of us do. So it is that I have a minor lifeline of my own: on one end is partisanship, on the other a commitment to evidence, reason, fairness which transcends partisan loyalties. However, analyze this carefully: I am saying a prioritization of [Set A] constitutes good, while a prioritization of [Set B] constitutes at best a distraction from the good. I acknowledge that I'm not less tribal, really, only that I frame the sides of the dichotomy differently.

But my argument is: framing the dichotomy properly is the entire trick. Frame it poorly, and both sides are absurd; frame it correctly (no simple task!) and you have Good and Evil.

To argue otherwise, to say that all dichotomies are false dichotomies, is to say there is no Good and Evil in our actions; thus, there is no difference in value between our choices; thus, that free will is meaningless; this, all is determinism based on identity, on the circumstances one is born into. The only method to say all dichotomies are false is to accept moral relativism, cultural Marxism, the self-contradictory amorality that seeks to undermine the basis of both ethics (good/evil) and economics (value).

So no, people are not stupid because they're partisan. They're stupid because they're partisan over shit that doesn't matter. They've been listening to their survival impulse to find the divide between Good and Evil, to optimize the value of their choices, but allowed someone else draw the line and, in a misguided fit of pragmatism, acquisced to that determination. They're too lazy, too incompetent, too afraid to claim authority over themselves and redraw the line with their own righteous hand.

They have no passion for ethics as a field of study, and accept a saccharin substitute like the good consumers they are.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

But my argument is: framing the dichotomy properly is the entire trick. Frame it poorly, and both sides are absurd; frame it correctly (no simple task!) and you have Good and Evil.

A true dichotomy would be good/not good or evil/not evil.



I'll pedantically dance my way out the nearest door now.

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Aim_Deep wrote:

Minorities are way more conservative anyway than white ppls

Citation needed. (I suspect ethnic minorities are more conservative in some areas, especially socially, and more liberal in other areas, especially economically. But I haven't the data.)

@innervation: I don't get it. And I'm worried you'd kill the joke if you explained.