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Donald Trump, the road that might not lead to the White House!

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Good grief.

Honestly, ANYONE else running as bad a campaign as this would have won. Conversely, even a candidate as loathed as Clinton would have won with a fraction more competence and a fraction less arrogance.

Johnny Canuck3 and TomUS think this has nothing to do with, for example, climate change but it does. These mistakes, which are the result of the unbridled arrogance of a sclerotic and corrupt elite which is informed by and perpetuates a culture which is inherently alienating to the people it needs not to alienate, in the long run have probably doomed any chance of decent life on planet earth for human beings.

..and they knew that, and rolled the dice anyway without giving a shit.
 
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Honestly, ANYONE else running as bad a campaign as this would have won. Conversely, even a candidate as loathed as Clinton would have won with a fraction more competence and a fraction less arrogance.

Johnny Canuck3 and TomUS think this has nothing to do with, for example, climate change but it does. These mistakes, which are the result of the unbridled arrogance of a sclerotic and corrupt elite which is informed by and perpetuates a culture which is inherently alienating to the people it needs not to alienate, in the long run have probably doomed any chance of decent life on planet earth for human beings.
Agree with a lot of that, with the caveat that I'm agnostic on the corruption front - not convinced that HC is markedly worse than anyone else (not saying they were good) just more targeted by negative publicity.

As for the climate. People talk about that as if it were an add on optional extra thing to be pissed off about. The Storms of My Grandchildren may just bite all of us on the bum.
Mats Granskog & co's testimony, delivered after the schlocky intro, is horrifying. Just in:
 
Agree with a lot of that, with the caveat that I'm agnostic on the corruption front - not convinced that HC is markedly worse than anyone else (not saying they were good) just more targeted by negative publicity.

As for the climate. People talk about that as if it were an add on optional extra thing to be pissed off about. The Storms of My Grandchildren may just bite all of us on the bum.
Mats Granskog & co's testimony, delivered after the schlocky intro, is horrifying. Just in:


I do think that the Clintons, and associated clans like the Podestas, are markedly more corrupt than say Obama but you are of course right insofar that the US political system has institutionalised corruption to such a great extent that image rather than anything measureable was probably the problem for her. Yet, they knew that before she announced her candidacy, that is why the DNC pursued the 'pied piper' stategy of elevating Cruz, Trump and Carson, and that is one of the reasons that we are where we are.

Agree entirely on the issue of climate, I personally suspect and have posted as much on here, that we as humans have difficulty rationalising and understanding the magnitude of the horror that we face with climate change. We, at least I, have difficulty understanding the tragedy of the Holocaust during WW2 due to the sheer scale of the horror inflicted during it. Yet everything and everyone being destroyed forever with no one left to remember or forget after all physical traces of us are gone is indescribably worse than that. The very likely prospect of exactly that should haunt our thoughts, all of the time, and yet it doesn't.
 
"You and your friends will die of old age and I'm going to die from climate change. You and your friends let this happen"
 
Trump risks damaging intelligence agencies, warns former CIA chief

As opposed to what they are actually doing, liberals should be cheering on any estrangement between Trump and the 'intelligence community'. Trump is inheriting the sort of system of surveillance that Ceausescu and Pinochet could only dream of, the then hypothetical prospect of someone like Trump taking power is what privacy advocates used to (unsuccessfully) use to scare Obama Democrats into reconsidering setting up the architecture used for mass surveillance.
 
To concentrate on all that stuff that obama brought in and that trump will now have his hands on would suggest some sort of continuity in liberal idiocy. And that can't happen. Because that was the past and them elections are over. The past can teach us nothing about the future. So shut up. Or something.
 
To concentrate on all that stuff that obama brought in and that trump will now have his hands on would suggest some sort of continuity in liberal idiocy. And that can't happen. Because that was the past and them elections are over. The past can teach us nothing about the future. So shut up. Or something.
He's a kleptocrat with no moral compass, because you can't have a conscience if your goal is only to amass wealth and influence for yourself, your family and close associates. He's neither a liberal or a conservative, but he's using GOP politicians because they are more useful for achieving his goals than liberal ones.

Did you see his meeting with all the tech companies - with his three children at the top table. Left out Twitter it seems over their refusal to create a "nasty Hillary" emoji. Anyone who even vaguely believes this will be like anything the US has seen before is completely deluded. He's going to break it up, sell it for parts and leave folks fighting each other for the few scraps that fall of his enlarging table.
 
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Donald Trump, Russia, and the Mystery of “These People”

On July 29, 2016, Donald Trump You can watch the whole speech here.addressed a rally in Denver, Colorado:

“Look, we have the greatest business people in the world and we don’t use them. We use political hacks. Some of these business people are not nice people. Who cares? You care? I don’t think so. Some of these business people are vicious, horrible, miserable human beings. Who cares? Who cares?” he repeated, muttering.

Then Trump began to scream.

“Some of these people, they don’t sleep at night! They twist, and turn, and sweat!” he cried, twisting his hand furiously, “and their mattress is soaking wet! Because they’re thinking all night about victory the next day against some poor person that doesn’t have a chance.”

His eyes flashing with panic, Trump kept going.

“And these people – unfortunately, I know them all,” he laughed bitterly. “These people would love to represent us against China, against Japan, against all of these countries…These people. They feel crazy! They feel angry! They cannot believe the deals that are made. We will do things we have never done before.”

The speech was a revealing moment in what was then thought of as the worst week of Trump’s campaign (until October, when the “grab them by the pussy” video emerged). The Democratic National Convention had just concluded, causing Hillary Clinton’s approval ratings to rise and Trump’s self-control to cede. Trump spent that week engaging in aggressive and erratic behavior, including attacking Khizr and Ghazala Khan, parents of slain veteran Humayun Khan; feuding with a baby at a different rally; lying about a “secret video” from Iran; and most notably, on July 27, asking Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails.

“I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump said at a press conference. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

That was the last press conference Trump ever had. Which is a shame, because it would be nice to know, once and for all, who “these people” are.

--------------------

Trump’s cabinet is a collection of pro-oligarch warmongers. There’s Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, an ExxonMobil executive and a close ally of Putin who was awarded Russia’s Order of Friendship in 2013 and whose $500 billion Arctic oil contract between ExxonMobil, the Kremlin, and Russia’s Rosneft oil company was suspended once Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014.

There’s National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who gave a paid talk at a gala dinner with state propaganda network RT in 2015, and who is known for his vicious temper and penchant for conspiracy theories, calling on Hillary Clinton to be imprisoned and calling President Obama a “liar” who tacitly supports ISIS.

And there’s Paul Manafort, who is said to be “back”, guiding the president-elect. Trump’s team is like a matryoshka doll of kleptocrats, one worse than the next.

Trump’s cabinet also features a variety of individuals whose role seems to be destroying the institutions they each lead. The Treasury Secretary ran a bank known as a “foreclosure machine”; the Labor Secretary wants automation instead of workers; the Attorney General is a notorious racist who has attacked voting rights, and so on.

They fit neatly into Trump’s vision for the US, expressed in the same Fox News interview where he defended Putin and spoke of a future Russia-approved win, that economic collapse and riots are how America is made great again. They are excellent picks if your goal is to create a kleptocracy in which privatization of public resources will be used to benefit the wealth of the president, his family, and his cronies.

--------------------------

That is why I keep watching that video of Trump talking about “these people”. These “vicious, horrible, miserable people”, tyrannizing the poor fools who have no chance. Trump’s eyes are filled with horror as he seems to argue with himself, talking of sleepless nights, trying to convince himself that no one will care about of the immense power men devoid of conscience will wield over this country.

He has a look I see on a lot of faces these days as people take in the news: the raw panic from knowing both too little and too much.

Was Trump’s statement a prophecy? A confession? Hard to say. That’s the thing about “these people” – they do not like others asking questions. But the American people are looking for answers these days, and it is unlikely they will stop until they find them. “These people” should prepare for more sleepless nights.
 
Honestly, ANYONE else running as bad a campaign as this would have won. Conversely, even a candidate as loathed as Clinton would have won with a fraction more competence and a fraction less arrogance.

Johnny Canuck3 and TomUS think this has nothing to do with, for example, climate change but it does. These mistakes, which are the result of the unbridled arrogance of a sclerotic and corrupt elite which is informed by and perpetuates a culture which is inherently alienating to the people it needs not to alienate, in the long run have probably doomed any chance of decent life on planet earth for human beings.

..and they knew that, and rolled the dice anyway without giving a shit.
Blaming Trump's opponents for the horrors Trump will unleash is misguided. Yes, the Hillary campaign and the Democratic party were arrogant and incompetent but if you want to lay blame for Trump, blame Trump and his supporters on the religious right, the Republican establishment that pushed the TEA party and condoned birtherism, the fools who voted for Trump thinking he was an outsider who would drain the swamp and fight for the little guy. The prime responsibility for the rise of Trump lies with his supporters, not his opponents.
 
Blaming Trump's opponents for the horrors Trump will unleash is misguided.

Yes, it is. The Democratic Party is criticised for making Hillary the candidate, in the first place.

During the course of the Republican primaries, many Republicans disliked or outright hated Trump - yet he became the candidate.

If the Democrats can be blamed for allowing Hillary to become the candidate, then the Republicans are equally blameworthy, by that line of thinking, for allowing Trump to become the candidate.
 
Yes, it is. The Democratic Party is criticised for making Hillary the candidate, in the first place.

During the course of the Republican primaries, many Republicans disliked or outright hated Trump - yet he became the candidate.

If the Democrats can be blamed for allowing Hillary to become the candidate, then the Republicans are equally blameworthy, by that line of thinking, for allowing Trump to become the candidate.
Sanders, as a genuine US liberal, was about the best that could have been hoped for as a mainstream candidate. I would have loved to have seen him instead of Clinton for that reason. There are reasons to think Sanders could have done better than Clinton - that he beat her in the primaries in the 'rust belt' states she ended up losing for starters. But that's also perhaps a bit of wishful thinking. Who knows what shit Trump would have slung at Sanders and what effect that would have had? Relatively liberal candidates of the past, such as Dukakis, have fared very poorly.
 
Blaming Trump's opponents for the horrors Trump will unleash is misguided. Yes, the Hillary campaign and the Democratic party were arrogant and incompetent but if you want to lay blame for Trump, blame Trump and his supporters on the religious right, the Republican establishment that pushed the TEA party and condoned birtherism, the fools who voted for Trump thinking he was an outsider who would drain the swamp and fight for the little guy. The prime responsibility for the rise of Trump lies with his supporters, not his opponents.

Personally I'd blame Republicrat Street, the system itself is what made Trump the Potus possible. Blaming Trump is like mistaking the symptom for the cause.
 
Personally I'd blame Republicrat Street, the system itself is what made Trump the Potus possible. Blaming Trump is like mistaking the symptom for the cause.
Trump isn't the symptom. He's the disease. Symptoms will include, for instance, the dead bodies of the people Trump's actions kill. The causes of that disease are multiple and complex. Saying 'the system made Trump possible' is merely a truism - clearly it did as Trump exists.
 
Trump isn't the symptom. He's the disease. Symptoms will include, for instance, the dead bodies of the people Trump's actions kill. The causes of that disease are multiple and complex. Saying 'the system made Trump possible' is merely a truism - clearly it did as Trump exists.

The system prevented Bernie from being nominated instead of the establishment apparatchik, the system maintains Wall Streets interests at the expense of the interests of the bulk of the population, it also sent US jobs to China (not that I'm against the Chinese having jobs). The system permitted no alternative to all this within the 'acceptable bounds' (again- Bernie, who in the end bowed to the same system). Sooner or later the boil of what's wrong was going to burst forth in some form or other. Politics of frustration init.

Anyway, Trump's not killed anyone so far, as much of a swine as he comes across I reckon we should see what he actually does before acting like an American Mussolini has seized power. When he tries to do illegal things that's when it makes sense to fill the streets and demand impeachment or whatever, otherwise it's just another ugly colour-coded regime change (royal purple perhaps) that won't result in the desired outcome.
 
Yes, it is. The Democratic Party is criticised for making Hillary the candidate, in the first place.

During the course of the Republican primaries, many Republicans disliked or outright hated Trump - yet he became the candidate.

If the Democrats can be blamed for allowing Hillary to become the candidate, then the Republicans are equally blameworthy, by that line of thinking, for allowing Trump to become the candidate.

This may be me not paying enough attention, but I remember VERY little coverage of the Democratic contenders, until it came down to Bernie vs. Hillary, and I remember that from previous elections as well. The main focus always seems to be on the party opposite the incumbent president's party. Maybe part of the reason for weak candidates after two-term presidencies in their own party, and why the other party generally wins? (this is complete speculation on my part, btw)
 
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