US Election: 2016

[a_majoor]

The only real difference between using US military assets on the Canada-US border and using them on the US-Mexican border is logistics: kurt border is much longer. Since there is already some deployment of US military assets on the Mexican border, the only thing "ludicrous" about this story is the (predictable) reaction of the CBC.

I suppose it is futile to suggest that we can be as condescending as we like but it makes no difference in the dynamics of the US election; American voters are primarily motivated by domestic economic considerations and their perceived security. If they don't feel that these issues are being addressed by their political class, then someone else will come along and start addressing the issue. The failure of progressive nostrums like multi trillion dollar "stimulus" packages and QE is readily apparent in the form of stagnant wages and depressed employment opportunities, and the wave of low level attacks by ISIS inspired Jihadis at home and abroad (regardless of the statistical likelihood of you being a victim) continue to prey on the fears of the American people, and watching the political class "pooh pooh" the notion or deny it is terrorism, while making plans to import more refugees from the Arab world is like fighting a fire with gasoline.

What is really surprising is how truly dense the political establishment is there. Trump is a symptom, not a cause, and whoever packages the message that appeals to the security and economic well being of Americans is going to do very well in the election.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

I like Trump. I'd love to see him win. There are checks and balances to keep him in line, if he got the job. It's refreshing to see someone talk plain with no namby pamby, mealy mouthed speech and lies that almost every politician is want to do. He says what people think.

It would certainly be an interesting four years.

 

[tomahawk6]

On one border we have Mexicans trying to come north and on the other we have Americans trying to flee to Canada.We certainly dont have Canadians trying to escape to the US. ;D

 

[Journeyman]

......and on the other we have Americans trying to flee to Canada.

Like Randy Quaid, seeking asylum from a cult supposedly called "Star Whackers"....who are 'killing off Hollywood.'  :stars:

 

[Kilo_302]

I like Trump. I'd love to see him win. There are checks and balances to keep him in line, if he got the job. It's refreshing to see someone talk plain with no namby pamby, mealy mouthed speech and lies that almost every politician is want to do. He says what people think.

It would certainly be an interesting four years.

You're kidding right?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/11/23/donald-trump-is-constantly-lying/

http://fortune.com/2015/11/26/trump-lies/

http://moneymorning.com/2015/12/09/these-donald-trump-lies-are-stunningly-wrong/

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/11/30/when-comes-trump-time-call-lying-for-what/7QhiIZRJlUxQMTtpSzLodO/story.html


Trump isn't saying what anyone is thinking, he's saying what they are feeling. If you want to jettison logic and abandon reality because it feels good (or fits your preconceived view of the world), go right ahead. But don't pretend for a second that Trump is a just a "plain talkin' speakin' truth to power hero". He's the most cynical liar of them all.

And if you're seriously supporting a candidate who has called for Muslims to wear name tags...yes an interesting four years indeed.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

It would certainly be an interesting four years.

You're assuming he would not get impeached after the first six months  ;D.

 

[Journeyman]

Interesting opinion piece by Niall Ferguson
(a Scot who moved to Wales because he wanted to live in a place that had a better chance of beating England at rugby ;D ). He now teaches History at Harvard.

He ponders Trump's popularity

Donald Trump pounces on the ills of white America

The nearest thing to an answer I can find is in an astounding new paper by the Nobel laureate Angus Deaton and Anne Case, which exposes what can only be called an existential crisis of white America — to be precise, badly educated white America.

All over the Western world mortality rates are declining and lifespans are lengthening. But not in white America, and especially not among those white Americans whose education didn’t go beyond secondary school. For this group, the mortality rate from poisonings (mostly drug overdoses) rose more than fourfold between 1999 and 2013, from 14 to 58 per 100,000. Mortality from chronic liver diseases including cirrhosis rose by 50 percent.

The white underclass is not so much mad as hell as sick as hell. One in three white people aged 45-54 report chronic joint pain, one in five neck pain, and one in seven sciatica. Presumably, it’s the most miserable who drug or drink themselves into early graves. The rest just exit the workforce, opting for disability benefits. Small wonder labor force participation in America has declined so steeply, even as it has risen in other developed countries.

Small wonder Trump is polling so well. He is the sick people’s sick candidate. 

He concludes with:

Either sanity will prevail between now and the Republican National Convention, or Trump will be beaten by Hillary Clinton, much as Wendell Wilkie (another maverick businessman) was beaten by Roosevelt in 1940.

The lesson of real history is that candidates such as Trump are the Democrats’ best friends.

 

[a_majoor]

Another examination of the Trump phenomena. I am going more and more to the idea that Trump, like Le Pen and the Ford Brothers, is accurately gauging and rebroadcasting the mood of the electorate who are fed up with the usual talk and action by the political class. If Trump is elected as president, I will look forward to some spectacular fireworks, but as this article points out, there are very few practical means to enact many of the ideas that Trump has promised to implement. (As for impeachment, the Congress has been lying supine for decades now, allowing "executive privilege" SCOTUS rulings and regulatory rule writing by the bureaucracy to carry out the very tasks which are assigned by the constitution to the Congress of the United States. The only really activist members belong to the TEA Party movement, who if anything would seem more inclined to go along with a Trump Administration than to oppose it).

http://www.knoxnews.com/opinion/columnists/frank-cagle/frank-cagle-trumps-foes-must-appeal-to-supporters-26f33c9e-7cf2-71ed-e053-0100007ffa88-362532971.html?d=mobile

Frank Cagle: Trump’s foes must appeal to supporters

If Donald Trump was a grocer he would throw chickens off the roof of his store, bury a stuntman in the parking lot and threaten to beat the crap out of panhandlers in front of his business.

Old-timers might remember these antics as a few of many from legendary millionaire grocer Cas Walker, a Knoxville city councilman and sometime mayor. The irascible Cas loved attention and had his own reality television show — on daily and featuring people like Dolly Parton, Chet Atkins and the Everly Brothers. He would say anything, usually crude, to attract attention, and people loved him for it. He was also a bully who used his show and his newspaper, the Watchdog, to attack anyone who opposed him. To this day there are people in Knoxville who are big fans and nostalgic for the days when he was a political force in East Tennessee.

Historian and author Bruce Wheeler has written about Walker standing athwart any sign of progress in Knoxville, a constant thorn to the establishment. Whether it was fluoride in the water or expensive sewer lines, Cas was "agin it."

What I don't understand about the Republican establishment these days is that they fail to recognize that Trump uses outrageous statements to garner attention, but he taps into issues of real concern to the American people. But if you want to stop Trump, don't attack him; appeal to the people who support him. Offer sensible solutions to problems he has identified, rather than his half-baked, unrealistic rhetoric.

For example, when the Syrian refugee controversy erupted Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz suggested that maybe we could take only Christian refugees from the Middle East. They were excoriated for the idea. President Barack Obama stood in the Oval Office and said America could not have a religious test for admission and it was un-American. He should know better.

The 1965 immigration reform act, which still governs, has specific criteria for the admission of refugees: people fleeing religious persecution. Who is facing more religious persecution than the Christians in Syria and other areas controlled by ISIS? Beheading, buried alive, machine gunned. Any country has the right to decide who can be admitted and who cannot. Until 1965 Third World immigration was prohibited. There are Christian relief agencies in the Middle East that could help vet refugees facing persecution and help them resettle here.

Did Bush double down, make the case and provide an alternative to Trump's bellicosity? No, he just attacked Trump's idea to stop Muslim immigration temporarily, instead of making the issue his own. Trump's plan? How would that work? Offer anybody getting on the plane a ham sandwich and bar anybody who didn't eat it? His half-baked idea is about as practical as his plan to have Mexico pay for the border wall.

I think a Trump presidency would be a disaster. While he talks a good game, he has no practical way to carry out his promises. Like Cas, he will say anything to grab attention, get a headline and get on television. But his success should be a warning to the political establishment. The American people are fed up with political correctness, and if you do not provide sensible solutions to the issues Trump has raised, don't be surprised when he stand on the podium as the GOP nominee.

 

[Bird_Gunner45]

Another examination of the Trump phenomena. I am going more and more to the idea that Trump, like Le Pen and the Ford Brothers, is accurately gauging and rebroadcasting the mood of the electorate who are fed up with the usual talk and action by the political class. If Trump is elected as president, I will look forward to some spectacular fireworks, but as this article points out, there are very few practical means to enact many of the ideas that Trump has promised to implement. (As for impeachment, the Congress has been lying supine for decades now, allowing "executive privilege" SCOTUS rulings and regulatory rule writing by the bureaucracy to carry out the very tasks which are assigned by the constitution to the Congress of the United States. The only really activist members belong to the TEA Party movement, who if anything would seem more inclined to go along with a Trump Administration than to oppose it).

http://www.knoxnews.com/opinion/columnists/frank-cagle/frank-cagle-trumps-foes-must-appeal-to-supporters-26f33c9e-7cf2-71ed-e053-0100007ffa88-362532971.html?d=mobile

Donald Trump has zero chance of being president. There is no way that California,  new york/new England,  Oregon,  Washington, or the majority of rust belt states vote him. He's a laughable talking head who spouts semi-literate garbage to appease idiots/racists. Any ink used to describe his presidential policies is a waste of the industrial process and any argument in favor of him is a waste of the intellectual process. I hope for conservatives everywhere he crawls back under his rock and they learn a valuable lesson.

 

[a_majoor]

The valuable lesson conservatives will learn is they need to understand and reach out to the voters, not ignore their concerns and build islands where they can ride out the effects of the policies the political class are implementing. Like I keep saying, people like Trump, Le Pen and the Ford brothers become prominent for a reason, and the reason is looking at the political class every morning when they wake up and go to the sink in the bathroom.....

On a lighter note (before the big premier on Friday):

https://pjmedia.com/blog/presidential-candidates-as-star-wars-characters/

 

[Kilo_302]

The valuable lesson conservatives will learn is they need to understand and reach out to the voters, not ignore their concerns and build islands where they can ride out the effects of the policies the political class are implementing. Like I keep saying, people like Trump, Le Pen and the Ford brothers become prominent for a reason, and the reason is looking at the political class every morning when they wake up and go to the sink in the bathroom.....

On a lighter note (before the big premier on Friday):

https://pjmedia.com/blog/presidential-candidates-as-star-wars-characters/

I don't think you're going far enough here. What exactly are the policies the "political class" is implementing? And what are the effects?

 

[Bird_Gunner45]

The valuable lesson conservatives will learn is they need to understand and reach out to the voters, not ignore their concerns and build islands where they can ride out the effects of the policies the political class are implementing. Like I keep saying, people like Trump, Le Pen and the Ford brothers become prominent for a reason, and the reason is looking at the political class every morning when they wake up and go to the sink in the bathroom.....

On a lighter note (before the big premier on Friday):

https://pjmedia.com/blog/presidential-candidates-as-star-wars-characters/

The problem is that the people they reach out to feel marginalized because progress has put their racist/homophobic/uneducated views in the footlocker of history. For those people I since rely hope their concerns are left on an island.

Conservatives in the US and Canada need to focus on the policies that make sense, such as financial prudence and the emphasis on individual vs collective rights. Trump and his ilk emphasize the worst possible factors conservatives have to offer- xenophobia, racism, and fascination with pushing pointless agendas (gun rights,  abortion, gay marriage bsns, etc). Until they do that the US will remain blue snd Canada will remain red

 

[cupper]

On one border we have Mexicans trying to come north and on the other we have Americans trying to flee to Canada.We certainly dont have Canadians trying to escape to the US. ;D

If there are, they are just the crazies that we are trying to get rid of.

Hey. Wait …..  Damn.  :not-again:

Never mind, nothing to see here.

 

[cupper]

Trump is like a glass eye. Looks good but doesn't work worth a damn.

Trump is using his experience as an entertainer to pander to whomever he feels would be likely to vote for him.

But there is nothing of substance in anything he actually says.

Which is why he won't get anywhere in the general election if he becomes the nominee.

The big worry for the GOP right now is having no clear candidate and ending up with a disputed convention with the expected floor fight.

 

[Kilo_302]

If this catches on, it might be the show stopper for Trump. If there's one thing that the American people rally behind, it's the military. Not to mention the fact that in many ways it's one of the more liberal institutions in the US. Religion and ethnicity don't matter in combat, and there are a lot of Muslims serving in the military.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/16/pentagon-troops-it-s-us-or-trump.html

 

[George Wallace]

If this catches on, it might be the show stopper for Trump. If there's one thing that the American people rally behind, it's the military. Not to mention the fact that in many ways it's one of the more liberal institutions in the US. Religion and ethnicity don't matter in combat, and there are a lot of Muslims serving in the military.

Yes, there are a lot of Muslims serving in the military.  There are also a lot of loyal American Muslims in other Government Agencies and other levels of government and Public Service.  If you catch the full Trump speeches, he has made exceptions to them.  Of course the MSM snippets tend to leave those exceptions out of their reporting.  Sounds similar to what we just witnessed here in October.  Such is the bias and partisan activities of the MSM these days.

 

[Loachman]

I like Trump. I'd love to see him win.

Me too.

I want to see him fire Trudeau.

 

[Bird_Gunner45]

Me too.

I want to see him fire Trudeau.

Yes.... racism, xenophobia,  and general stupidity have never been so fun!

If you want trudeau fired (ie- unelected) than these are the sort of mouth breathers that conservatives need to keep away from.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Yes.... racism, xenophobia,  and general stupidity have never been so fun!

If you want trudeau fired (ie- unelected) than these are the sort of mouth breathers that conservatives need to keep away from.

Ahhhh, there it is. if you don't agree with me, you are racist and a xenophobe. Kinda like invoking Godwin into a discussion. :

 

[George Wallace]

Ahhhh, there it is. if you don't agree with me, you are racist and a xenophobe. Kinda like invoking Godwin into a discussion. :

Wait for it!