# Note to all the other boiling frogs... **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [July 23, 2016, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/note-to-all-the-other-boiling-frogs/760707 "2016-07-23T20:15:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/note-to-all-the-other-boiling-frogs/760707/1 "2016-07-23T20:15:02Z")
I know that one one level this sounds Captain Obvious turned up to eleven, but… I am out of words to describe how horrifying the casual acceptance and approval of Trump is. The man doesn’t seem to have made a rational, reasonable, “presidential” statement since his first announcement… and he can act like an addled, sociopathic cartoon 24/7 and neither do any damage among his followers nor generate much more anger among opponents. He just spews and spews and spews. \*\* Once up on a time, any single one of his childish, rude, obnoxious and stupid pronouncements, lies and gaffes would have ended a candidate’s run.\*\* Look at how many genuinely qualified men and women have ended up in the dustbin for one perceived flaw or mistake (Ed Muskie, anyone?) But Trump has been nothing but such horrid, terrifyingly ignorant and racist gaffes for most of a year… and he’s one bad voting turnout away from the Oval Office. Just thought I’d point out to my fellow frogs in this crock: Yeah. It’s hot. Don’t lose sight of how effing hot it really is. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/note-to-all-the-other-boiling-frogs/760707/2 "2016-07-23T20:25:19Z")
Trump is a centerfuge spinning so fast, the oily, racial and sexist dregs, sediment and alluvium of this country have not only separated themselves from the rest of the nation they used to be mixed up in, but are solidifying into a toxic, radioactive sludge that is beginning to spray into everyone’s eyes and mouth. But soon, he’ll spin so fast, whatever that thing is on his head will spin off and make a pinwheeling _bwrrrrrrrzzzzzzzz!_ sound as Clinton wins the general. ---
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/note-to-all-the-other-boiling-frogs/760707/3 "2016-07-23T20:37:04Z")
He’s a con artist, a terrible businessman, and he’s running on the ticket whose platform supports repeal of health care, repeal of SSM and wants to bring the Bible to classrooms on the notion that it’s part of American history. This is another thing that bugs me. If you’re supporting Trumpy Wumpy, you support the platform PLUS the idea that a man with a gnat’s attention span who has no political experience can run a country. Looking at the platform and their candidate together, I’d say the GOP found the perfect bedfellow. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/note-to-all-the-other-boiling-frogs/760707/4 "2016-07-23T20:39:16Z")
If someone had suggested ten or twenty years ago — heck! one year ago — that this unbelievable turd of a man would be a major party’s nominee for President, with a real chance of winning the whole thing … that suggestion would have been laughed at, or thought to be thriller fiction describing the aftermath of an apocalyptic calamity. Yet it is playing out as we type, with Trump still showing strongish in the polls, despite blunder after blunder. U.N.B.E.L.I.E.V.A.B.L.E does not begin to describe it. And for the Great American Experiment, whether Trump edges out Hillary or not _Woe above woe! grief more than common grief!_ [QUOTE=King Lear, shortly before he begins to go mad] Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks! You sulph’rous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity o’ th’ world, Crack Nature’s moulds, all germains spill at once, That makes ingrateful man! [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/note-to-all-the-other-boiling-frogs/760707/5 "2016-07-23T20:39:58Z")
> [@Locrian](#): > > PLUS the idea that a man with a gnat’s attention span who has no political experience can run a country. Well, better than one of those, you know, _elite insiders_. ---
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/note-to-all-the-other-boiling-frogs/760707/6 "2016-07-23T20:43:46Z")
I am going to try to get one question asked to him through Internet on debate days. I’d like to ask him, “After being a regular businessman in the real estate industry, why do you want to work for me? For all Americans? Why should we be your boss?” Or even better, “Mr. Trump, explain how a bill becomes a law.” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/note-to-all-the-other-boiling-frogs/760707/7 "2016-07-23T20:49:03Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > I know that one one level this sounds Captain Obvious turned up to eleven, but… > > I am out of words to describe how horrifying the casual acceptance and approval of Trump is. The man doesn’t seem to have made a rational, reasonable, “presidential” statement since his first announcement… and he can act like an addled, sociopathic cartoon 24/7 and neither do any damage among his followers nor generate much more anger among opponents. He just spews and spews and spews. I posted this over in the Republican National Convention thread: > [@The Republican national Convention](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-republican-national-convention/757729/1357): > > I’m guessing that the networks didn’t broadcast [Congressman Sam Klimson (R-Delaware) diverging from his originally planned speech](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg4JGRICQo8). (NSFW) ---
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/note-to-all-the-other-boiling-frogs/760707/8 "2016-07-23T20:53:46Z")
Yeah, videos from The Onion site are getting better. SFX still suck though. I’m pretty sure Paul Ryan has similar thoughts like the guy in the parody. Ditto for Mitt Romney. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/note-to-all-the-other-boiling-frogs/760707/9 "2016-07-23T20:56:16Z")
I am surprised by Trump’s rise, and yet not so surprised in retrospect. The rise of right wing extremism has been steady since the end of the 1980s. In this day and age of media fragmentation, people are no longer exposed to informative news; we live in an echo chamber. Progressives are also starting to fall into this trap as of late, which only causes further polarization, but I definitely blame the right wing for their claims of persecution by “liberal media.” The left is just now finally starting to get sufficiently outraged. The right wing has gone on the offensive over the past 30 years and there has been an increase in the spread of undemocratic ideas. And they’re repeatedly lied to aid the spread of these notions. And it’s the right wing news machine and a fragmented media apparatus that has enabled them do it. I think Trump will run a frighteningly competitive race and he could actually win it. But even if he doesn’t our problems aren’t going away. The last 8 years have shown me that even when right wing policies bring this country to the precipice, people still cling to ideas that have no basis in fact. This is probably what living in the Coolidge and Hoover years were like. It will probably take a national disaster for Americans to come out of their collective coma. Even then, though, I don’t necessarily trust that everyone will be capable of identifying the culprits of their miserable state. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/note-to-all-the-other-boiling-frogs/760707/10 "2016-07-23T20:57:44Z")
> [@Locrian](#): > > I am going to try to get one question asked to him through Internet on debate days. I’d like to ask him, “After being a regular businessman in the real estate industry, why do you want to work for me? For all Americans? Why should we be your boss?” > > Or even better, “Mr. Trump, explain how a bill becomes a law.” 😃 “It doesn’t matter. I don’t pay bills.” ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/note-to-all-the-other-boiling-frogs/760707/11 "2016-07-23T20:59:56Z")
I am stunned too. This election cycle has been one big dystopic social experiment. Somehow 30 million people can look at a joke and either say that he’s not a joke, or that he’s a \*good, electable \* joke. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/note-to-all-the-other-boiling-frogs/760707/12 "2016-07-23T21:04:31Z")
I’ve asked this question of my friends and neighbors … “Of all that The Donald has said, is there any ONE thing that strikes dear to your heart.” The answers have been overwhelmingly yes. For me, it’s about throwing investment bankers into prison when they commit felonies. I think it’s a terrible mistake to create a class of businesses that are “too big to fail”, and thusly “too big to prosecute”. That kind of shit’s gonna come back to haunt us someday … The reasons are as varied as my friends, and covers the whole spectrum of ideas … but with each of them, ONE thing stands out as a good idea. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/note-to-all-the-other-boiling-frogs/760707/13 "2016-07-23T21:45:39Z")
That’s certainly a reasonable idea, but what on earth has Donald Trump, Boy Billionaire, ever done to make you believe he plans to do it? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/note-to-all-the-other-boiling-frogs/760707/14 "2016-07-23T22:05:59Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > I’ve asked this question of my friends and neighbors … > > “Of all that The Donald has said, is there any ONE thing that strikes dear to your heart.” > > The answers have been overwhelmingly yes. For me, it’s about throwing investment bankers into prison when they commit felonies. I think it’s a terrible mistake to create a class of businesses that are “too big to fail”, and thusly “too big to prosecute”. That kind of shit’s gonna come back to haunt us someday … > > The reasons are as varied as my friends, and covers the whole spectrum of ideas … but with each of them, ONE thing stands out as a good idea. The problem with any promise made by Trump is that it will be contradicted or will not be as definitive as it first seemed to be. [http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/trackers/2016-04-21/trump-bankers-who-acted-purposely-illegally-should-be-jailed](http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/trackers/2016-04-21/trump-bankers-who-acted-purposely-illegally-should-be-jailed) > [@](#): > > “A lot of mistakes were made. You can’t put a businessman in jail because he made a bad business decision,” Trump says > > "Bankers should “absolutely” go to jail if they did something “purposely illegal,” " Best bet? **If** he becomes president he will look at all his friends and tell the American people that gosh, none of his buddies did anything on purpose. IMHO the American people that will vote for Trump will be offered metaphorical pennies for dollars regarding this and many other issues. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/note-to-all-the-other-boiling-frogs/760707/15 "2016-07-23T22:13:06Z")
He’s not a Democrat. For some people, that’s the only qualification. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/note-to-all-the-other-boiling-frogs/760707/16 "2016-07-23T23:48:27Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > The problem with any promise made by Trump is that it will be contradicted or will not be as definitive as it first seemed to be … [snip] I find this true for any Presidential candidate … is Gitmo closed yet? But that’s another issue … just how much can the President do without Congressional permission? Consider The Donald signing an Executive Order expelling all the Muslims from the United States, there’s got to be one Federal Judge who will slap an injunction on that, and rather quickly. No Muslims will be expelled no matter how much The Donald says he wants too. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/note-to-all-the-other-boiling-frogs/760707/17 "2016-07-23T23:53:46Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > … just how much can the President do without Congressional permission? … Two words: “Executive orders.” Also, he can nominate Supreme Court Justices and federal judges. True, they have to get an up vote from Congress–but some of them will, no matter how reactionary they may be. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2016, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/note-to-all-the-other-boiling-frogs/760707/18 "2016-07-24T00:06:27Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > I find this true for any Presidential candidate … is Gitmo closed yet? No, you’re right. All politicians are equally dishonest, therefore you should totally vote for Donald Trump, who’s already said that he was lying about the one issue that you claimed everyone cared about. That is a very rational and dare I say, classy, way of thinking. As for “how much damage can a president do?” - well the Iraq war cost about a trillion dollars and 150,000 deaths. I’m sure that once Donald Makes America Great Again! we can do even better this time. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2016, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/note-to-all-the-other-boiling-frogs/760707/19 "2016-07-24T00:43:03Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > The reasons are as varied as my friends, and covers the whole spectrum of ideas … but with each of them, ONE thing stands out as a good idea. If they vote for him they’re just dupes. It’s like buying a piece of shit car with a mis-firing engine and shot transmission, just because it has some shiny ornament on the hood. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2016, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/note-to-all-the-other-boiling-frogs/760707/20 "2016-07-24T00:48:29Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > He’s not a Democrat. For some people, that’s the only qualification. It looks as if a lot of lifetime R voters are going to cross the line this time. He’s not _Hillary_… and you’re into frothing loon land, no part of reality need apply. > [@guizot](#): > > If they vote for him they’re just dupes. It’s like buying a piece of shit car with a mis-firing engine and shot transmission, just because it has some shiny ornament on the hood. No, it’s like doing that because the seller promises he’ll have that shiny ornament for you next week. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/note-to-all-the-other-boiling-frogs/760707.md?page=2)