2016 Election

[Fau Teixeira]

Trump is a Fascist. Gotta call that one out He just retweeted a Benito Mussolini quote.

He may not know that he is one. But history does.

[masterfins]

What has Trump ever said throughout this entire time that would make you think Trump is a good idea?

I think the fact he speaks his mind and says what he thinks is a positive, even though I don't agree with everything he says.  Everyone else (except maybe Bernie) just tailors their speech to get elected.  And everyone else is going to have a long list of people he/she owes, and will have to repay with jobs, favors, etc.; Trump would have the fewest.  I also think he would be good for businesses and the economy, and when the economy is good everything else is good.

[Rich]

Are you saying that the dotcom recession lasted from 2000 throughout Dubya's entire presidency?  Or that the 2008 collapse started under Clinton?

Bush got the blame for the recession he inherited when he got into office in 2000. He deserves blame for a lot of other things, but this recession was caused by the dotcom bubble bursting.

Since we're in "it could be argued mode", it could be argued that Clinton's presidency benefitted from a tech bubble.

[Rich]

What has Trump ever said throughout this entire time that would make you think Trump is a good idea?

Trump has proposed as many good ideas as Bernie Sanders.

[Rich]

Not really. You can point to turning points, or individuals who took measures to bring about change. Reagan gets credit for two things he had little to no effect on.

The economy doesn't rise and fall on a turning point. The turning point is simply the result of other forces materializing over time. The Housing Market crash that led to the Great Recession did not happen overnight. It took 5+ years for those variable rate mortgages to force people into foreclosure.

[CF DolFan]

Trump is the only national Republican in the last... century?... to not actively attack working-class Americans; most other GOP politicians prefer to  prop up multinational corporations (and to be fair, there are many corporatist Democrats that do the same).  He has advocated for many protectionist policies (particularly regarding Mexico and China) that can definitely have an appeal to Rust Belt Americans that have seen their jobs shipped off to foreign country after foreign country.

There will always be a place in politics for blaming the other.  Sometimes the other is people of different race; sometimes it's people from other countries; sometimes it's people of different religion, or different sexual orientation, or economic class (and yes, sometimes the other is rich people).  I believe Trump's particular targets for the other resonate strongly with working-class Republicans who have told for decades that their jobs need to be shipped off for the benefit of "capitalism" (read: corporate profits).

I agree with a lot of what you said. The idea of Trump as president scares me almost as much as 4 years of Hillary but it looks like that is where things are going to end up and I don't know how to feel about that yet. The fact the two most polarizing individuals are leading by far in both races says more about how unhappy the country is than anything else. Regardless of who wins it's kind of sad.

I do realize this web site leans liberal but I put a poll up just to see peoples thoughts. Hard to have an election thread without a poll.

[Sunstroke]

If Trump somehow manages to get elected - Dear Lord, have mercy - then America will be the laughingstock of the planet for the next 4 years.

[Spider-Dan]

I'm less scared of President Trump than I am of President Cruz, and it's not even close.  I simply do not believe that Trump will even attempt about 90% of what he's saying.  He's a salesman.

[CF DolFan]

Cruz is too conservative so he won't get anything done. He doesn't compromise on anything and as such, has no one to work with him. While as a Christian I can support much of what he says there is a reason other Senators aren't backing him. Everyone hates the word "politics"  but the truth is if you aren't willing to concede anything you won't get anything in return.

[Rich]

Cruz is too conservative so he won't get anything done. He doesn't compromise on anything and as such, has no one to work with him. While as a Christian I can support much of what he says there is a reason other Senators aren't backing him. Everyone hates the word "politics"  but the truth is if you aren't willing to concede anything you won't get anything in return.

Cruz and Sanders are opposite sides of the same radical leaf.

[Spider-Dan]

I wouldn't say that.  The Republicans in Congress are pretty open about how much they despise Cruz.

[Cathal]

Trump has proposed as many good ideas as Bernie Sanders.

You'll have to explain that one to me.  I didn't even know Trump had ideas or even a way to support them other than getting some real smart people in there to do business deals.

[Rich]

You'll have to explain that one to me.  I didn't even know Trump had ideas or even a way to support them other than getting some real smart people in there to do business deals.

Kinda like Bernie's idea of giving stuff for free. He hasn't explained how this is going to happen or how it will get paid for. It's just going to happen.

[Rich]

I wouldn't say that.  The Republicans in Congress are pretty open about how much they despise Cruz.

It seems given the amount of establishment support for Hillary, Democrats aren't too excited about a guy who until 2015 was not a Democrat.

[Spider-Dan]

Hillary certainly is the establishment.  But I haven't seen the array of back-daggers for Bernie that Republicans (particularly Senate Republicans) are brandishing for Cruz.