# Trump or Palin? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 22, 2016, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-or-palin/772770 "2016-11-22T22:43:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2016, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-or-palin/772770/41 "2016-11-25T02:01:25Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > On a related topic, just how embarrassing would it be for our species if aliens (the space kind) showed up to say hello and learn of our culture during the next 4 years? I think I would direct them to the dolphins as the most advanced life form on the planet. “The American President? Errmmmm … no, no, you mean the _Prime Minister_ in _North America_” _points toward Ottawa_ ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2016, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-or-palin/772770/42 "2016-11-25T03:19:04Z")
Trump, but only because I think he can be a sensible person when he wants to be. (The trouble is that he never wants to be.) Palin rubs me the wrong way in a manner that can’t be described. If she were Prez, I’d probably go bankrupt from broken TV screens. > [@John\_DiFool](#): > > 50 mile wide meteor from space. > > Just fucking put us out of our misery as a species if it ever came to that. [13% of Americans agree with you.](http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-07-01/13-percent-of-people-prefer-a-giant-meteor-crashing-to-earth-over-a-trump-or-clinton-presidency) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2016, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-or-palin/772770/43 "2016-11-25T04:15:43Z")
Palin. She’d be a terrible President but her terribleness would be predictable. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2016, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-or-palin/772770/44 "2016-11-25T05:21:54Z")
Palin doesn’t have the temper and impulse control problems. I’m more worried about Trump throwing a toddler fit and doing something horrible than I am anything else. Well, maybe Roe v Wade being overturned, but that’s the same if Palin is in charge. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2016, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-or-palin/772770/45 "2016-11-25T16:50:36Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#): > > If you think Palin is a rock bottom moron, it could be worse. Imagine Trump vs. Drunky Smurf. Drunky Smurf would abolish the Department of Education to try to get back at that guy who beat him up in high school. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2016, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-or-palin/772770/46 "2016-11-25T21:55:53Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Drunky Smurf would abolish the Department of Education to try to get back at that guy who beat him up in high school. Wait… He made it all the way to high school? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2016, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-or-palin/772770/47 "2016-11-25T21:59:26Z")
Easy choice: Michael Palin. Wait, you meant \*Sarah \*Palin…oh well, never mind. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2016, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-or-palin/772770/48 "2016-11-25T22:14:55Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > Wait… He made it all the way to high school? :dubious: He not only made it, they asked him to stay the full eight years! ---
**Author:** ![Gukumatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/74df32/32.png) [@Gukumatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gukumatz)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2016, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-or-palin/772770/49 "2016-11-27T08:17:36Z")
+1 for **Bricker**. The conclusion is, of course, obvious. Trump/Palin 2020. Just a minute, need to buy some stock in whichever pharma company has the biggest stock in cardiac arrest medicine. ---
**Author:** ![Jane\_Smythe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f04885/32.png) [@Jane\_Smythe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jane_Smythe)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2016, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-or-palin/772770/50 "2016-11-27T10:12:47Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#): > > A friend of mine tossed out this question last night, and I couldn’t come up with an answer. > > If your only choice - no write-ins, no alternatives - for President of the United States was Donald Trump or Sarah Palin, who would you choose? I wouldn’t vote. They are both completely contradictory to anything a viable US president should be. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2016, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-or-palin/772770/51 "2016-11-27T15:17:24Z")
Palin, for three reasons. First, she seemed to be semi-aware that she didn’t know stuff that a VP candidate ought to know; as far as I can tell, Trump never ever acknowledges his own ignorance, he tries to bluff and BS his way through instead. Secondly, she recognized that being criticized and satirized is normal for politicians in a free society, and didn’t go around picking Twitter wars with Tina Fey. Thirdly and most importantly, she doesn’t inspire anything like the cult of personality Trump does, nor does she court exactly the same audience; she might pursue the same policies, most of which would be disastrous, but she wouldn’t have emboldened a bunch of white nationalists to act out their rage while she was at it. Of course, the third point is why Palin isn’t the President-elect and Trump is, and the first and second ones are probably reasons for the third. Sigh. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2016, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-or-palin/772770/52 "2016-11-27T21:02:29Z")
One of the first bills Sarah Palin was presented with as governor of Alaska was a bill that would prohibit the State of Alaska from offering benefits to same sex partners of state employees. Palin had campaigned on a social conservative platform, after all. She promptly vetoed it. Social conservatives were furious. Palin’s response was that the bill was unconstitutional, so she could not sign it, and if the legislature wanted to pass it they needed to change Alaska’s state constitution (something that was not going to happen, as the Democratic minority would never let it. So it didn’t; it did come to a vote but could not pass the 2/3rds supermajority required.) It’s a small little thing, it’s not like she passed the Thirteenth Amendment or won the Second World War, but consider everything Palin did that you can’t even imagine Trump doing: 1. She gave the finger to people who had been loyal to her, entirely over a matter of legal principle. 2. She made a decision based on an informed understanding of the law, despite it being politically unpopular, especially with her base. 3. She played her cards in such a manner as to ensure the effort would die without her having to actually express an opinion about the law beyond a technically correct interpretation of its constitutionality. Trump wouldn’t have done any of this. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-or-palin/772770.md?page=2)