With Trump, we save time. 
There are plenty of people with lots of money who have not turned into Donald Trump. I shudder to think what he will turn into if he gets more than money.
Unfortunately with the current system thats not true. Trump (or at least his advisers) are masters of getting media attention without paying for it. From his results so far thats a winning strategy, at least as far as getting the GOP nomination.
Other candidates in future are going to try to copy Trump’s strategy unless the entire primary nomination process is radically changed.
How many people can you think of that received a few hundred million and a functional company who haven’t been able to grow their wealth if they chose to? For example, Sam Walton was worth about $4.6 billion when he died in 1992. His heirs are collectively worth around $150 billion today. That’s a much higher rate of return, and they didn’t even have to declare bankruptcy multiple times. Pretty much the only business success Trump has really had is selling real estate in boom years in many of the fastest growing markets in the country, and selling his brand as a reality star. He has failed as a casino owner, steak salesman, travel search engine owner, airline owner, vodka brand owner, mortgage salesman, board game salesmen, magazine owner, university owner, ice salesman, football team owner, vitamin salesman, etc.
Part of the reason I would reluctantly choose a random person is because I think at least a random person is probably not a textbook narcissist whose instincts are bad, and whose irrational confidence makes them completely unaware of their faults. That’s really the worst thing about Trump. Most stupid, lazy, people know at their core they should not be president, and would not think they know better than the political allies they’d eventually surround themselves with. That’s the upside. You might get some mouth breathing moron, but at least that guy doesn’t think it makes sense to publicly pontificate about defaulting on the debt, or accuse China of making up global warming. Most dumb people are not aggressively, dangerously dumb, and charismatic enough to sell others on their bullshit.
OK, on to the next round:
Trump, or random Fox News reader?
Trump, or random YouTube/Yahoo/Tumblr commenter?
Trump, or a 9/11 Truther or anti-vaxxer?
Trump, or *the *personal acquaintance that you dislike most?
I don’t see a difference.
No. That is true. If a candidate (Hillary) has haters, shouting and violent protesters as her supporters, then such supporters strengthen chances of the other candidate (Trump).
Trump has 3 things going for him -
- His truthfulness, honesty, good intent, smartness, charisma.
- Anti-incumbency against Dem. rule of 8 years.
- Anti-Trump people who are just pitiable haters.
Although such are the demographics of USA and such is the propaganda against Trump that blinds the people, that Trump has very very small chance of winning.
Well, there was exactly one true statement in that entire propaganda piece (#2, for those keeping score). How did Trump get a surrogate in India?
Of course, the same applies to Hillary, from where I sit.
And even that is doubtful. I understand the people-like-to-change-parties-in-power-from-time-to-time is a pervasive meme, but has any convincing evidence ever been presented?
It’s tough to prove conclusively since elections don’t happen in a vacuum. Everything is anecdotal, but it seems like there needs to be an overwhelming rationale for a third term. 41 rode in on the wave of prosperity of the '80’s and goodwill towards Ronnie. Truman, aside from being the man who ended the war, had the post-WWII boom. (Ike could easily have been a Democrat, and was even asked to run as one, but he was going to win anyway.) And, of course, FDR was the hand that guided the ship through two national crises.
This year, that reason is the personification of Gordon Gekko. Except, of course, that Gekko was smarter than Hairboy.
Trump is remarkably untruthful, even for a politician. Erza Klein: I’ll add emphasis.
[INDENT][INDENT] …for the most part, when Trump takes the time to write down what he wants to do, his moderation and heterodoxies prove to be a feint. His actual policies often do the precise opposite of what he promises. I don’t know whether that’s because Trump is actively trying to deceive the electorate or because he literally doesn’t know or care what proposals are released under his name, but either way, the deception is in the details.
…
But even as the details of Trump’s plans make him look like a more typical Republican presidential candidate, they make him look like a more atypical personality. Politicians have a reputation for lying, but that’s a bit unfair — most of them try to stick to mere spin and misdirection, when possible.
Trump, however, will happily tell you the sky is brown even as he waves a photograph showing it’s blue. The scope and brazenness of his lies are genuinely unusual. That he has managed to run for office pretending to be a teller of hard truths is further evidence of how far American politics has fallen, and how weakened the gatekeepers really are. [/INDENT][/INDENT] Mexico won’t pay for a wall and Trump knows it. Characterizing Mexican immigrants as a group as rapists is engaging in false witness. Trump promised to release his tax returns in early 2015. There’s no reason why an audit should preclude the release of his returns.
The brazenness of Trump’s inaccuracies is pretty remarkable. What I think is going on is that Trump has a good sense of what a particular audience would like to hear. That’s good salesmanship. I wouldn’t call it leadership. And you lose a certain fraction when you say transparent untruths.
ETA: More on Trump’s appeal: [INDENT][INDENT][INDENT]“There’s something perfect about that encapsulation of his appeal, because if you think what’s going on is that the economy has become unfair, you’re struggling, and you think what’s been happening is that rich guys like Trump are going to screw you over and have been for some time, now here comes one of those rich guys with all that power and all that capacity to rig that in their favor, and he’s promising to rig that in your favor?” [/INDENT][/INDENT][/INDENT] Ezra Klein Perfectly Explains Trump's Appeal: He's OUR Billionaire! | Crooks and Liars
It’s difficult to not fight the hypothetical now. Here are 2 replies:
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The other guys, because they lack Trump’s charisma and can do less harm. Congress would have no inclination to cooperate with them for example.
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But give them a modicum of influence and you can say that Trump is clearly more qualified, relatively speaking. And Trump is a known anti-vaxxer as opposed to an unknown anti-vaxxer.
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As it happens, I’d prefer my disliked acquaintance, but that sort of thing might vary.
Educated at Wharton
Vastly expanded his fathers business
Built his name into a brand
rose to the top of 1 of the 2 major political parties despite being an outsider who had the party establishment attempt to bring him down.
Very competent at handling the media, gaffes that would sink another candidate slide off his back
I never said he’d be a competent president. He is an empty suit spouting empty rhetoric that appeals to the primitive part of our brain that desires an alpha male. But he is more competent than Joe blow off the street. At the very minimum, I’d rather have a Wharton graduate than a high school graduate running the nation.
“Skip the middleman between Power and corruption, Trump '16. No Waiting!”
The counter-argument is that the high school dropout would be less competent but also less arrogant. So he would delegate then kick back. The hope is that the average dropout has more self-awareness (though less intelligence) than Donald Trump. I’m not sure whether this argument actually holds, but there it is.
Trump is shockingly ignorant, even of things he should know about. Example: BinC Watch: Donald Trump Still Has No Idea How Government Debt Works – Mother Jones [INDENT][INDENT]Here’s the scary thing: debt really is one of the few things that Trump probably knows a bit about. It’s certainly bitten him in the ass often enough. And yet he still has no idea how it works. He continues to think that the federal government is basically the same thing as a trader on the Goldman Sachs trading desk.
It’s not. Whatever Trump is talking about, it won’t work. Sovereign debt is sovereign debt, and it gets paid off at 100 cents on the dollar. Trump may think everyone except Trump is an idiot, but I’m pretty sure the folks at the Fed and the Treasury are already keenly aware of how to handle open market operations to maximize value for the US government. Someone at the Trump Organization needs to clue him in about how all this stuff works. [/INDENT][/INDENT]
Do you mean income over 150k? Someone who has a salary is pretty much by definition not the evil robber baron you’re presumably trying to eliminate.
Odds are pretty good (40:1) against getting such a person anyway.
But to whom would the high school dropout delegate? One of the reasons I’d favor Trump (and hate myself for it) is his rolodex. Should he ever decide to look for help or advice or information instead of relying on his “very good brain,” Trump actually knows people who could provide semi-competent help. It is possible that some of the people he’ll surround himself with will know something about the things that a president’s advisers should know.
Random Citizen’s chances of knowing someone who has a clue about governing on a federal level is close to nil. People will pop out of the woodwork to help - but it’ll take months before RC even learns their names, much less establishes a working relationship with them and learns who to trust on which issues.
Plus the reasons mentioned earlier in the thread.
Horrible choice.
Yeah the Wharton grad with a degree in Economics who said he’d just pay off the national debt by having the Fed order more money. I think his time in college was spent getting drunk and chasing girls, because he clearly didn’t learn anything. Daddy’s money got him that degree. And he built his business based on fraud and a bully mentality. Ask a New York banker if he’d ever consider making a loan to Trump.