Whenever I think of Donald Trump being president, I’m always taken back to that dead zone clip of Martin Sheen causing WWIII.
I’d be impressed too.
I think people have fallen into a recency-effect trap of assuming elections will always be close, decided by swing states like Ohio or Florida. But it’s not that far back in history that Presidential elections have been complete blowouts.
I strongly suspect a Clinton-Trump election will look a lot more like Reagan destroying Mondale than it will any recent election.
The only real question is whether the Republicans can maintain control of the Senate (and possibly even the House) under a Trump banner.
That’s why I think a third party Shmepublican candidacy might be a good idea.
[quote=“Ryan_Liam, post:81, topic:747810”]
Whenever I think of Donald Trump being president, I’m always taken back to that dead zone clip of Martin Sheen causing WWIII.
[/QUOTE]Heh, a friend of mine was wondering how long before Trump uses a baby as a human shield, and whether even that would dissuade his fans.
It’s the mannerisms which I find are uncanny.
Yes, but the electorate as a whole is much more polarized now than it was 20 years ago. I don’t really think Trump will be elected president, but tight races are a fact of life now, and I think it will be a more competitive contest than it has any right to be in a sane universe.
(Although imagining the Right’s response to Clinton winning in a Reagan vs. Mondale-style blowout does put a smile on my face.)
[quote=“Ryan_Liam, post:81, topic:747810”]
Whenever I think of Donald Trump being president, I’m always taken back to that dead zone clip of Martin Sheen causing WWIII.
[/QUOTE]I’ve been thinking about the similarities too, although more in the way Sheen’s character campaigned with all that phony baloney hardhat nonsense. Definitely keyed into the same blue collar populism. (And it’s pretty wild that Sheen played this kind of evil maniac president, and then later the ultimate “good” president from a progressive POV.)
I’ve also noticed parallels to Bob Roberts. The tagline “vote first, ask questions later” seems especially appropriate.
So…let me get this straight. A third party with a Republican candidate is going to do anything more significant than to fracture the Republican vote? Yeah, good luck with that.
One massive voting bloc I haven’t seen mentioned in this thread is “senior citizens”. Granted, this is entirely anecdotal, with a small sample size, but at the time I left my employment in a local retirement home (last October), there were a lot of residents there liking the idea of President Trump.
I’m leaning towards voting for Trump. I certainly will never vote for Clinton.
For the record, as I’ve mentioned before on this board, I was raised as a Republican and as an Evangelical Christian. But in my 40s, I grew disenchanted with the way my religion and my political party had crawled into bed with each other (I thought each was ruining the other), and now consider myself an independent voter, with Libertarian leanings. I helped legalize marijuana and gay marriage in my state (Washington), despite being neither a pot smoker nor gay, and despite the fact that both things are technically against my religion.
Is Trump racist? Probably. But is anything he is proposing contrary to US law? Nope. I know that my fellow Dopers take Cracked.com with a grain of salt, but they published an excellent article yesterday about Trump:
Ignore the clickbait title of the article. The title was actually changed while I was reading it. The current title is, “5 Very Possible Nightmare Scenarios From A Trump Presidency”. The original title describes the article much better: “5 Realistic Ways Donald Trump Can Accomplish His Crazy Goals”. (And the commenters called them out for changing the title. Some of the commenters said, “Damn, Cracked. You’ve convinced me to vote for Trump!”
As far as the Hispanic vote, I live in a city where the population is now around 30% Hispanic (mainly Mexican). I actually work in an industry, foodservice, that is heavily impacted by Mexicans who are willing to work for low wages, and I have seen my own wages affected. Know what? I don’t care. I have worked with some amazing Mexican workers who are in this country legally, and they are being affected just as badly as I am by illegals. A legal Mexican-American, who either entered the country legally and obtained citizenship, or, more likely here and now, was actually born and raised here has just as much objection to illegal immigration as you or I do.
At my last job, I worked with a young Mexican-American man. He has older relatives who entered the USA illegally. He chose to enter legally. And when he came to the USA, he made a point of learning to speak English properly. Despite being born and raised in Mexico, he speaks perfect English. He expressed disgust toward his relatives who have been here 10 years longer than he has been, and they still can’t speak English. I had been noticing the way he wrote the daily specials on the whiteboard in the kitchen, and one day I complimented him on the fact that his spelling was better than many native English speakers. He explained to me that a big part of his learning to speak English was that … he read a lot of English. Books, newspapers … anything in English, he read it. And as far as speaking in English, he made a concentrated effort to diminish his Mexican accent, so that he would be intelligible. I don’t know if he’s a voter, but if he is, I can see him voting for Trump. He seemed to believe in, “if you want to be American, do it the right way”.
(The writer does note however that it is useful to hype the threat to increase Democratic turnout, thereby helping in congressional races. So maybe I should dial back my public scoffing.)
Actually, yes.
Of course someone close to him finally got to explain the riot act to him and he has flip flopped on that.
In any case, there are other items where Trump may be running afoul of the law, and besides Trump university.
Weird my link didn’t work, maybe they updated or moved it? Anyway I think Latinos won’t forget Trump’s first speech and that’s why they are not in love with him or his politics.
48 hours ago I would have thought this OP preposterous. But now that penis size has become the qualifying factor, let’s face it… Hillary’s got nuthin’! :eek:
I think so, too. Trump’s followers will love him no matter what he does, but that’s not going to be enough in November.
The Hispanic vote will bury him in many of the swing states. He can back track from everything else, but he can’t get away from his stance on building that wall and having Mexico pay for it. That will cost him the election.
You’re not thinking this through.
If the election is Trump vs Hillary a lot of R voters stay home or cross over to vote for Hillary in preference to Trump. Hillary gets > 50% in the EC and becomes Prez. And maybe a lot of R senators & Reps don’t get voted for either, so Congress becomes more D, maybe even majority D in one or the other chamber. Bad for Rs all around.
Conversely, if the election is Trump vs Hillary vs e.g. Romney, the mass of R voters come out to vote for either Trump or for Romney. The Rs do well in Congress since their straight ticket voters showed up. Because the mainstream R voters have somebody sane to vote for, they don’t cross over which means nobody gets 50% in the EC. The election goes to the House, where the Rs have their expected majority. The R-dominated House duly selects the mainstream R candidate, e.g. Romney. So the Rs have a Prez, probably a Senate, and a House. Good for Rs, bad for Ds. And Trump? A big goose-egg for him. All is rainbows & unicorns in R-land.
That’s the theory at least. Whether it’ll work is certainly an open question.
The first part, about protecting Congress, makes sense. But the second part, trying to throw the presidential election to the House, does not. It would depend on either Romney or Drumpf winning a plurality of the vote in several states Obama carried twice, even as they compete with each other for votes. It’s a complete nonstarter.
This isn’t my idea; I’m just explaining it. There are some mainstream R pundits recommending it.
I agree it seems … implausible. Sometimes a desperation play is the only play you’ve got.
As I said the last time I saw this plan, if they fucked with the election this way and the House voted in a President who didn’t win the most votes, it would deserve public lynchings. It would be an abomination and no one would give a crap that “them’s the rules”.
We’ve all noticed that Biff Tannen got the almanac.
The turnout figures for Republicans are incredible. One thing that may be happening here is that a lot of people are coming out to vote for Trump who are typically apolitical and normally don’t vote at all. They’re just people playing a part in the biggest reality TV show ever.
It’s going to be a weird election. We might actually be witnessing the end of the Republican party. That sounds crazy, but it’s getting really ugly over there.