# Trump's Republican primary campaign **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 3, 2015, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828 "2015-09-03T18:00:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 171
**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:** [April 10, 2016, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3405 "2016-04-10T22:01:02Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Again I did not say TRUMP never flip-flopped (consider how even the “respectable” GOP candidates have “evolved” their views on climate change) but merely that there was a continuity of political views even from the days of the late Cold War to the present. That is nice, what everyone can see is that you avoiding what I pointed out, so the point stands, Trump was incoherent there. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3406 "2016-04-10T22:13:27Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > That is nice, what everyone can see is that you avoiding what I pointed out, so the point stands, Trump was incoherent there. Having a consistent ideology=/=never being incoherent ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3407 "2016-04-10T22:15:51Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Yes you could say my post just now was perhaps “excessive” but it was in reaction to your posts basically discussing politics the way people discuss celebrities rather then from any ideological lens. I have news for you. Elections (here, I can’t speak for other countries) are seldom about anything more than the competition between two monolithic ideologies which change just about as quickly as government does, which is to say slower than molasses. There’s no point in rehashing the same old thing over and over again. As for the ‘cult of celebrity’ philosophy you ascribe to me, whether you like it or not, perception is important for a President, here or in the rest of the world. Those things you think I’m being superficial about actually have importance. > [@](#): > > I never said anything about "who you are and any judgement I made about your views were based on posts that you made on this subforum. Bullshit you didn’t. I can read and comprehend just as well as you can. > [@](#): > > And literally anybody of a certain age can say that about themselves including TRUMP supporters, orthodox Trotskyites etc. Nor was it ever my intention to “impress” anybody. Ever seen Max Headroom? I’ll buy that for a dollar. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3408 "2016-04-10T22:37:41Z")
> [@Hank\_Beecher](#): > > You know more about how the world has worked during the time that you have presided over, which has been a period of cultural stagnation and strategic atrophy. This, against a backdrop of an accelerating degree of connectivity, and more accessible information available to more people than ever before. Something was bound to give, sooner rather than later. > > [Charles Stross](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelerando/accelerando.html) predicted it, and it’s happening. > _More riots in Barcelona, Madrid, Birmingham, and Marseilles also underline a rising problem: the social chaos caused by cheap anti-aging treatments. The zombie exterminators, a backlash of disaffected youth against the formerly graying gerontocracy of Europe, insist that people who predate the supergrid and can’t handle implants aren’t really conscious: Their ferocity is equaled only by the anger of the dynamic septuagenarians of the baby boom, their bodies partially restored to the flush of sixties youth, but their minds adrift in a slower, less contingent century. The faux-young boomers feel betrayed, forced back into the labor pool, but unable to cope with the implant-accelerated culture of the new millennium, their hard-earned experience rendered obsolete by deflationary time._ I’d look more to William Gibson than Stross. One way or the other, Stross is about 50 years late. Heinlein and Asimov and others were writing about this stuff, some even before then. How much do you think things have changed politically since the advent of the internet? Instant information access has done nothing to alter the political landscape, except, for instance, to provide a generally safe means of communications to extremists and revolutionaries. Dirty tricks are easier, too, if you’re fool enough to make yourself vulnerable to it. If anything, that instant access has taken the place of TV’s province of pacification of the masses. And if you’re trying to imply that I’m some kind of dinosaur left behind by the information age, you really have another think coming. ---
**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:** [April 10, 2016, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3409 "2016-04-10T22:57:29Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Having a consistent ideology=/=never being incoherent :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3410 "2016-04-10T23:03:15Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > I have news for you. Elections (here, I can’t speak for other countries) are seldom about anything more than the competition between two monolithic ideologies which change just about as quickly as government does, which is to say slower than molasses. There’s no point in rehashing the same old thing over and over again. It is true that normally, ideological evolution is slow from one election cycle to the next although even then ideological distinctions between factions in the two parties are quite important. That said, there have been several election cycles (1932, 1964, 1972) where one of the major parties underwent an ideological revolution. And that is what the Republican Party is undergoing right now, where the leading candidate is threatening to withdraw from NATO, denouncing the Iraq War as based on lies, and attacking free-trade pacts as net-losses for America which no other major Republican Party candidate since at least Bob Taft has advocated. > [@](#): > > As for the ‘cult of celebrity’ philosophy you ascribe to me, whether you like it or not, perception is important for a President, here or in the rest of the world. Those things you think I’m being superficial about actually have importance. I agree perception and personality do have some importance, hence why I wish Bernie Sanders had the persona of Donald TRUMP. That said, perception and ideology go hand in hand. Simply being a billionaire or being angry doesn’t garner you the same amount of support if your politics are otherwise essentially generic as we saw with people like Steve Forbes or Herman Cain. You need both a strong persona and a popular ideology in order to become a distinct candidate playing a major role in the election cycle. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3411 "2016-04-10T23:09:14Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > :rolleyes: So you don’t think the Donald has a consistent ideology, nevermind having advocated the same basic platform for the last thirty years? ---
**Author:** ![Hank\_Beecher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hank_beecher/32/7275_2.png) [@Hank\_Beecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hank_Beecher)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3412 "2016-04-10T23:10:27Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > I’d look more to William Gibson than Stross. One way or the other, Stross is about 50 years late. Heinlein and Asimov and others were writing about this stuff, some even before then. > > How much do you think things have changed politically since the advent of the internet? Instant information access has done nothing to alter the political landscape, except, for instance, to provide a generally safe means of communications to extremists and revolutionaries. Dirty tricks are easier, too, if you’re fool enough to make yourself vulnerable to it. If anything, that instant access has taken the place of TV’s province of pacification of the masses. > > And if you’re trying to imply that I’m some kind of dinosaur left behind by the information age, you really have another think coming. I was referring to a period of time primarily, and the generation of people who came of age and grew old during that period secondarily. The ever smaller distance between people is just the backdrop. But it is illustrative that you use the Information Age, which is older than some grandparents, as your milestone. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3413 "2016-04-10T23:10:29Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Once again your posts thoroughly embodies the evils of neoliberalism in their attempt to de-ideologicize politics (a contradiction in terms if there ever was one!) and instead turn it into simply a question of personalities and “respectability” where politicians are judged not on the bases of their views but on how “serious” they seem and their “tones” so that types like Lieberman or Chafee are considered sages while populists who have a coherent _Weltanschauung_ like Sanders and TRUMP are dismissed as “extreme” or “not serious”. I can imagine, with effort, an alternate universe where Joe “Droopy Dog” Lieberman represents a cult of personality while Donald J. “TRUMP” Trump does not, but it is not the one you and I inhabit. As to the coherency you find in Trump’s worldview… you know, you’re really supposed to draw the target BEFORE you shoot at the barn, pardner. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3414 "2016-04-10T23:14:46Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > I can imagine, with effort, an alternate universe where Joe “Droopy Dog” Lieberman represents a cult of personality while Donald J. “TRUMP” Trump does not, but it is not the one you and I inhabit. That’s not what I meant. What I mean is that the media, our “intellectuals”, and so forth played up Lieberman as a serious politician “worthy” of election because he has a “serious tone”, was “bipartisan” etc. way while denouncing TRUMP as a fool and boor because of his “demagougery” etc. > [@](#): > > As to the coherency you find in Trump’s worldview… you know, you’re really supposed to draw the target BEFORE you shoot at the barn, pardner. Unsurprisingly you dismiss the strong evidence I provide in favour of the fashionable narratives of the “respectable” pundits. ---
**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:** [April 10, 2016, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3415 "2016-04-10T23:21:51Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > So you don’t think the Donald has a consistent ideology, nevermind having advocated the same basic platform for the last thirty years? Yes, because what he has demonstrated incoherence on that issue, first he blamed the Chinese, and now it is not happening at all. Until he comes forward acknowledging that global warming is real and that we have something to do with it he is just talking nonsense, and continuously. it is not the only item were he is incoherent: > **[Donald Trump's incoherent, megalomaniacal religion: Why his courting of...](https://www.salon.com/2015/08/09/donald_trumps_incoherent_megalomaniacal_religion_why_his_courting_of_evangelicals_reveals_the_depths_of_his_ignorance/)** > > As Trump's campaign for the Republican nomination lumbers on, it behooves us to consider his (feigned) faith > [@](#): > > Donald Trump’s incoherent, megalomaniacal religion: Why his courting of evangelicals reveals the depths of his ignorance > **[On Taxes, Economics, and Trade, Trump Is an Incoherent Mess](https://reason.com/2016/03/31/the-trump-riddle-wrapped-up-in-an-enigma/?print)** > > The reality TV star's policy positions are all over the place. > [@](#): > > On Taxes, Economics, and Trade, Trump Is an Incoherent Mess > The reality TV star’s policy positions are all over the place. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3416 "2016-04-10T23:26:18Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Yes, because what he has demonstrated incoherence on that issue, first he blamed the Chinese, and now it is not happening at all. Until he comes forward acknowledging that global warming is real and that we have something to do with it he is just talking nonsense, and continuously. > > it is not the only item were he is incoherent: > > [http://www.salon.com/2015/08/09/donald\_trumps\_incoherent\_megalomaniacal\_religion\_why\_his\_courting\_of\_evangelicals\_reveals\_the\_depths\_of\_his\_ignorance/](http://www.salon.com/2015/08/09/donald_trumps_incoherent_megalomaniacal_religion_why_his_courting_of_evangelicals_reveals_the_depths_of_his_ignorance/) Again, I’m not arguing TRUMP has been coherent on every issue much less that he’s right on every one. To give another example, Stalin changed his views on (for example) cooperating with the Western democracies to contain the Third Reich before deciding to support the Molotov-Ribbentrorp Pact but he was always a Marxist-Leninist with his own particular views on “socialism in one country” and “intensification of the class struggle”. Salon is a joke publication with the exception of one writer (Michael Lind) who sadly seems to have left the site now. And now you are quoting a bunch of libertarian whiners crying that TRUMP didn’t swallow the Ayn Rand kool-aid and isn’t calling for gutting the welfare state. ---
**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:** [April 10, 2016, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3417 "2016-04-10T23:31:28Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Again, I’m not arguing TRUMP has been coherent on every issue much less that he’s right on every one. To give another example, Stalin changed his views on (for example) cooperating with the Western democracies to contain the Third Reich before deciding to support the Molotov-Ribbentrorp Pact but he was always a Marxist-Leninist with his own particular views on “socialism in one country” and “intensification of the class struggle”. > > Salon is a joke publication with the exception of one writer (Michael Lind) who sadly seems to have left the site now. > > And now you are quoting a bunch of libertarian whiners crying that TRUMP didn’t swallow the Ayn Rand kool-aid and isn’t calling for gutting the welfare state. Like if those were the only ones, and shooting the messenger only gives away the fact that you can not deal with the incoherence. Once again the one that is looking at unreason for talking points is you. > **[Donald Trump's false claim that his tax plan wouldn't increase the deficit](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/nov/05/donald-trump/donald-trumps-false-claim-his-tax-plan-wouldnt-inc/)** > > A week after the third GOP debate, Donald Trump is still salty at CNBC’s John Harwood, the moderator who asked him wheth > [@](#): > > Our ruling > > Trump said his tax plan would not increase the deficit. > > Free market-oriented and liberal groups alike say Trump’s tax plan would lead to a $10 trillion revenue loss, even if it did create economic growth. > > Since Trump has said he will not slash retirement programs like Social Security and Medicare, experts doubt that any spending cuts he made would result in a revenue-neutral tax plan. > > We rate Trump’s claim False. Incoherent indeed from Trump, and dangerously too. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3418 "2016-04-10T23:33:43Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Like if those were the only ones, once again the one that is looking at unreason for talking points is you. > > [PolitiFact | Donald Trump's false claim that his tax plan wouldn't increase the deficit](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/nov/05/donald-trump/donald-trumps-false-claim-his-tax-plan-wouldnt-inc/) Again when did I say anything about TRUMP being right? To give yet another example, Hitler’s genocidal anti-Semitism and anti-Slavism were not even remotely based in reality but that doesn’t mean those were actual views he had a position and was a core of his ideology. ---
**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:** [April 10, 2016, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3419 "2016-04-10T23:36:29Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Again when did I say anything about TRUMP being right? To give yet another example, Hitler’s genocidal anti-Semitism and anti-Slavism were not even remotely based in reality but that doesn’t mean those were actual views he had a position and was a core of his ideology. Who is talking about Trump being right? My point was that he is incoherent. And so it stands and you were wrong. It happens. To me it is very important here to realize how it is not only the left the ones that notice that incoherence, but also many from the right. Point being that the loose cannon nature of Trump will translate into many groups from the right also opposing Trump in the general election. Groups that are influential too, and I have trouble remembering such a situation happening in a general election. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3420 "2016-04-10T23:38:08Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Who is talking about Trump being right? My point was that he is incoherent. And so it stands and you were wrong. It happens. I’ll just reduce it to some questions: Did Adolf Hitler have a coherent ideology? Did Josef Stalin have a coherent ideology? Did Pol Pot have a coherent ideology? Does Ted Cruz have a coherent ideology? Does Donald TRUMP have a coherent ideology? ---
**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:** [April 10, 2016, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3421 "2016-04-10T23:47:34Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > I’ll just reduce it to some questions: > > Did Adolf Hitler have a coherent ideology? > > Did Josef Stalin have a coherent ideology? > > Did Pol Pot have a coherent ideology? > > Does Ted Cruz have a coherent ideology? Know enough history to say that there was a bit of incoherence, after all their ideology had the seeds for the eventual dissolution of what they believed in. Cruz also has troubles in making sense. > **[Truthsquadding Ted Cruz Climate Denial](https://thinc.blog/2016/02/11/truthsquadding-ted-cruz-climate-denial/)** > > It’s on. Ted Cruz did us the enormous favor a few days ago by reeling off a list of the greatest hits of bonehead climate denial. I’ll be going thru these one by one and taking them dow… > [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Does Donald TRUMP have a coherent ideology? Overall, no; there are some items were he makes sense, but they are few. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3422 "2016-04-10T23:50:54Z")
> [@Hank\_Beecher](#): > > I was referring to a period of time primarily, and the generation of people who came of age and grew old during that period secondarily. The ever smaller distance between people is just the backdrop. But it is illustrative that you use the Information Age, which is older than some grandparents, as your milestone. That phrase was deliberately chosen. When I was a teen I was playing with a two-digit hex computer my father and I had built from schematics in Popular Electronics. I’ve seen the majority of the evolution of this era, although if you want to be technical it really started with Alan Turing in WWII. (No, I’m not that old.) ---
**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:** [April 10, 2016, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3423 "2016-04-10T23:54:12Z")
I forgot this bit too: Trump is not only incoherent in environmental and economical matters, but also… well, just plain incoherent. [http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2015/09/15/3701215/donald-trump-talks-funny-2/](http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2015/09/15/3701215/donald-trump-talks-funny-2/) > [@](#): > > According to Sclafani, Trump doesn’t often do that. Usually, she said, he starts his answers with “I.” But when Trump does want to divert his answers, however, Sclafani says that’s where he gets tripped up. > > For example, in the first debate, he was asked to explain why he once supported a liberal, single-payer health care system. He responded: “First of all, I’d like to just go back to one. In July of 2004, I came out strongly against the war with Iraq, because it was going to destabilize the Middle East. And I’m the only one on this stage that knew that and had the vision to say it.” > > Trump was trying to illustrate that he has had stances contrary to the Republican party before, and that they were correct. But at the time, Sclafani said it came off “totally incoherent,” because he combined the discourse marker “first of all” with a complete change of subject. > > “This is a case of, he’s getting a hang of these types of moves where he needs to refocus, but he does it in two different ways at once, which makes for an incoherent answer,” she said. I guess that means that Trump will then, if he becomes president, demand the banishment of language experts. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2016, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3424 "2016-04-11T00:04:25Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > I guess that means that Trump will then, if he becomes president, demand the banishment of language experts. LOL who needs doublespeak? We have Trumpspeak! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828.md?page=170) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828.md?page=172)