I truly hope you are correct. But imagine this: he wins the nomination- not too far fetched at this point. Then say in early October there is a major terrorist attack perpetrated by Muslims. I’m talking say 100+ killed. Suddenly a lot of people are going to rationalize by saying something like “of course I don’t hate all Muslims, but Trump is right that we can’t trust them.” Can this win the election? I don’t care to find out.
But until the election, Trump can and will be saying terrible things. And Muslims and even Sikhs (I guess because all brown people are the same) are being targeted. Now of course not all of this is because of Trump, and some of these attacks would still be happening even if Trump was not in the race. But he is much more encouraging of it than anyone else is or would be. I would much rather have a race where there was less chance of the Democrats winning but also less active racism loudly being proclaimed, rather than the current race we have.
Sure, but the important thing to remember is that both sides do it. Just about every Republican and a couple of Dems, so that’s totally equivalent! Maybe not numerically equivalent, but morally, which means that on principles of humanity, they are essentially the same. Did I mention that both sides do it? Well, they do.
Well, that’s funny, because Trump does that on the regular.
I’d actually feel better if I felt Trump was truly saying many of these things purely out of cynical demagoguery or positioning in a long-term political chess game, but I feel like he’s so intellectually bankrupt that he believes many of the things he says, or can flip back and forth on a whim. Where’s the line between “them Muslims can’t be trusted!” and “I am the healthiest Presidential candidate evar!”? Is there a point at which he’ll sober up and privately say, “Of course, I don’t really believe that, but you know how the game is played”? Without guiding principles, a man is just an animal - no insult meant to animals.
If Trump had been there in Paris, he would have shot at the ISIS attackers himself. He’s just that awesome.
We’re lucky he’s in such superb health. When he has to throw down, his astonishing stamina will see him through the fire fight.
Something about two wrongs?
This goes to the point I made about the damage to the Republican party, while I think that Trump would be beaten in the presidential election if Trump gets the nomination for the Republican party it is clear that he would get it by having a majority of the Republicans agreeing with his poison. That does mean that a lot of ugly ideas will be made “mainstream”.
The main worry for me is that Republicans are more willing to go into lockstep (or a light goosestep in this case?) meaning that we can expect even more ugliness, I know enough history to know that many will tell themselves that they are not like that. But the hypocrisy they will have to push will either make them walk away from the party, or they will talk themselves into enjoying the water from the now well poisoned well.
At least one of the people in the audience shouted that the protestor should be set on fire, that’s reported in a video.
QFT
I’m totally with you, and I’m planning to vote for him in the Missouri primary (unless Hillary actually needs my help against Bernie). OTOH I’m not sure it’s so bad if he loses the nomination, as it seems unlikely they’ll nominate someone sane (though it is true that on the other side of the aisle, John Kerry looked as dead as Jeb does now at this point in 2003), plus he is very likely to run as an independent.
Well, the guy *does *have the most hits in history, and AFAIK he never bet *against *his own team, right?
God, no. Each week he continues as an ostensibly mainstream candidate hurts our country, and our standing in the world. His monstrous notions become, in appearance and maybe actuality, a shade more representative of us.
Trump has already done harm to America that will last beyond election day. The longer he festers, the worse it becomes.
We live in a democracy. To the extent he hurts us, it’s because he has a strong enough base of support. His opposition in both parties is also at fault, because he should not be the only one talking about certain issues like immigration in a non-bullshit way. Lying to the public, engaging in bait and switch tactics, is not, contrary to elite belief, honorable. If the elite want the public to see immigration and terror policy their way, they have to persuade. Scolding, and when scolding fails, lying and pandering, reflects more poorly on them than the people.
Certainly there had to be a certain base of support for the ideas, for him to get started. But him being out there, braying ever more loudly, feeds those people, legitimizes them a little more, draws others to them. Public speech focuses memes in the political arena, reinforces their supposed relative importance. That’s democracy, too. Whether the dynamic makes the society incrementally better or worse depends entirely on what the ideas are.
Just why do you suppose that base of support is almost entirely associated with a single party?
News flash: His way is far more bullshit than any of the others’.
You’ve told us many times how you’re willing to overlook that anyway, if the result is a Republican victory. Speaking of bullshit.
Seen any polls lately? What you call “the elite” is what we, here in this democracy you speak of, call “most of us”.
Your party. Proud of it, ain’tcha? But why?
This is only true if he wins the general election, or (to a lesser degree) if he comes close. If he gets wiped out like Goldwater, McGovern, or Mondale, the result is just the opposite: a total repudiation that makes the American people look pretty good.
We’ll be seeing TRUMP solidly in the 40s if not break 50 after tonight.
The Twitter right seems to think he kicked ass; if the GOP electorate were more rational, his “answer” to the nuclear triad question and at least one of his interactions with Jeb would have sent him in a tailspin.
Soundly repudiating Trump salvages something on the international stage, but I don’t think it undoes all the harm. Especially not within the country, among all the people seeded with his notions, who will have stoked those ideas for months. Trump being thrashed next November maybe chastens them some, but it doesn’t dispel.
Um no. See the debate thread for more details, but TRUMP was quite smart not to nitpick over such a ridiculously specific question like the nuclear triad (about an obvious “It’s a trap!” for the TRUMP as the late, great Admiral Ackbar would have put it as suddenly getting online messages from an ultra hot looking 15-year old suggesting to “meet up”) and he thoroughly demonstrated to the world what an incompetent, entitled pathetic loser Jeb Bush was and is using FACTS like him destroying the fake Floridian, fake Latino, fake Catholic 41-3 in the polls.
As I said in the debate thread, this is not good either; Trump right now is a complete incompetent when one looks at the people he is kowtowing right now on his run to become the Republican nominee. Come to think of it, Trump gets away with many failures and bankruptcies because he is not involved directly, but it is clear that such results come thanks to the kind of people he delegates his business to.
Add to that a gross ignorance of what the nuclear football does and the less I would want to see him getting close to it.