I understand what you are saying, but he has run an emotional campaign, based around the idea that he is a winner, and that he will make things great for the average joe. Someone who loses so much money they can make no taxable income for a long period of time doesn’t sound like a winner. And even if it is strictly above board, it sounds extremely dodgy to the average joe that someone can live a lavish lifestyle while telling the government they are not making any net income.
If you live by emotive arguments, you die by them.
No, it doesn’t. It might mean that by the tax code, but not to the majority of people. They see a guy who fucked up in business at an unprecedented level, and now he gets to avoid paying taxes. One stupid wrong thing lets him do another wrong thing. It’s just a loophole for the rich.
And, if we are correct about it being a paper loss, then it is indeed a rich person thing. Non-rich people can’t manipulate their finances so they come out with a big loss while still not actually being bankrupt.
And even if there is this great explanation about why the tax code is set up this way, that’s a fact, not an opinion. It’s still gonna feel wrong, which is the point.
I’m starting to think some kind of public or military service should be mandatory for a president - it at least shows one is capable of serving interests other than one’s own.
Anyway, the Trump supporters should look at Ms Machado. They will remember that they** like **a little meat on the bones and ask “WTF is he complaining about?”
I think ElvisL1ves point is that you can’t always get what you want. It then becomes a matter of trying to get the next best (or the least worse) result.
And you’re now helping Trump because he also isn’t Clinton. But you don’t have the facts to support your opposition to her; all you have is rationalizing bluster.
So tell us who is looking for reasons to support a decision you’ve made on an indefensible basis. “Believe it or not”, some of us, *most *of us, are voting on the basis of issues and qualifications, not Republican-style reflexive opposition and animus. It would do you well to consider doing likewise.
Good point. Fundamentally, it’s yet another consequence of the centuries-long US culture’s focus on near-universal land- and home-ownership as the worthy goal that separates us from the feudal Europeans. Gotta develop that big frontier!
(The Washington biography His Excellency is one work among many that elucidate various expressions of this American trait.)
The biggest thing Clinton has to do going forward now is to try to ensure that Trump gets into another insulting twitter feud with someone who the public sees as a sympathetic “regular person”.
If you look at the graphs in the 538 now-cast and polls-only pages… You’ll see two major inflection points in the campaign where Trump goes down and Clinton goes up. In both of these instances, it was not because Clinton did anything amazing - The first was when Trump went off on the Gold Star family and personally insulted them. The second was when Trump went off on Alicia Machado and personally insulted her.
These two things have been the two events that have MAJORLY shifted the campaign.
Clinton needs Trump to shoot himself in the foot again - it’s the only thing that seems to work.
I am not really all that convinced that the Alicia Machado thing specifically is what caused Trump to fall in the polls recently. More likely is simply that he got his ass kicked in the debate - an event Alicia Machado was a small part of. The post-debate Clinton bump is consistent with bumps seen after lopsided debates in the past.
Absolutely, however, Trump’s inability to hold himself back from punching down is a weakness that can be further exploited.
I agree. Clinton got two bumps: after the nominating conventions, and after the first debate.
True, these two bumps also coincided with Trump freaking out at somebody on Twitter, but that freakout was part of a larger event. The Republican nominating convention, remember, was a complete hot mess–empty stands, plagiarism, a speaker who refused to endorse the candidate, etc. The Democratic convention was beautifully orchestrated (yeah, there were the idiot BernieorBusters, but they were well-overshadowed by events on the stage).
That contrast mirrored the contrast in the debates between the hot mess candidate and the beautifully orchestrated candidate.
During the Sunday (October 9) debate, Trump will be in a room full of people who almost certainly will be less privileged and prosperous than himself. It’s unlikely than any of them, for example, received multi-million dollar loans from their fathers to help get them started in life.
One of them may well ask Trump a question that he will consider to be less than respectful toward his own very important self.
He will be unable to refrain from–at the very least–making a sarcastic remark to or about that person, during the debate. Afterwards, he will have his flunkies look for dirt on the person, and will then Tweet about it.
I expect Hillary’s team has at least two more people with very similar stories to Alicia Machado, complete with magazine interviews and slick videos that will be released the day after the next two debates (and they will be brought up during the debates).
And I expect that Trump will, once again, not be able to help himself in responding. He is who he is, and he’s not going to change.
Both also match big events that made Clinton look good and Trump bad, the conventions and the debate crushing. I think the more important lesson is that making Trump look bad will cause him to go off, at that point it doesn’t really matter what the target is.
I think Clinton should do a ad or video that investigates Trump and his friend, billionaire pedophile Jeffry Epstein and the parties that had underage prostitutes. Showing information from the court files about the 13 year old he raped, Katie.
And also releases information such as this:
I have a different view. I think Hilary’s fine on her electoral path. What Team Clinton needs to do is put more work into the down ticket elections in the House and Senate.
I think they need to wrap Trump around the neck of every Republican Congressional candidate who hasn’t repudiated him. They need to remind people of the outrageous things Trump says and does, point out that sticking with him is crass partisanship and Un-American, and convince them that it’s NOT okay to skip voting for Trump but still vote for their Republican candidate who stands beside Trump.