Continued:
Thought #2: From everything we’ve been reading, Trump can barely be controlled by and listen to anyone, but it seems his family manages to have some success. I thought early on that in spite of Trump, his kids turned out pretty well, but now I question what their motives are and what they are trying to accomplish. They can barely control their dad now (and it seems like they are not completely unified). I don’t want anyone in office who barely can act sane and has to be controlled by his family in order to do so. I can’t figure out if they are just trying to prevent him from melting down and hurting the family business or they really want him to become president which would allow them more power. Ivanka seems to want to get more influence for her husband for instance
According to the NY Times, Pence got the nod because Trump’s private jet broke down on Tuesday night and Pence let him stay in the governor’s mansion.
That explains where the first logo came from.
Not directly. The VP candidate isn’t Trump’s choice, but the party’s. I’m pretty sure there is a point after which nobody can make the change to the ballot, even if one or both of the candidates die (in which case, the candidates are replaced by whomever the party selects regardless of what it says on the ballot).
I suppose Trump could threaten to withdraw his candidacy (the way Thomas Eagleton did in 1972) if the party didn’t replace Pence, but if that were to happen, I would think the party would let Trump withdraw and select another Presidential candidate, especially as if it did get to that point, the party would realize that there would be no chance of winning.
Leaving aside the intent of RFRA, which I disagree with your opinion, Pence still has a history of advocating for discrimination against gay people.
[QUOTE=Pence2000]
Congress should oppose any effort to recognize homosexual’s as a ‘discreet and insular minority’ entitled to the protection of anti-discrimination laws similar to those extended to women and ethnic minorities.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Pence2003]
Congress should oppose any effort to put gay and lesbian relationships on an equal legal status with heterosexual marriage.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Pence2010]
There is no question that to mainstream homosexuality within the active duty military would have an impact on unit cohesion, an impact on readiness
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Pence2013]
I believe marriage is the union between a man and a woman and is a unique institution worth defending in our state and nation. For thousands of years, marriage has served as the glue that holds families and societies together and so it should ever be.
[/QUOTE]
Apparently the Pence announcement was preluded with the Stones singing “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”?
Could be the Pence pick is the same impeachment/assassination insurance that the Quayle pick was.
But Trump did have a *very *limited pool of people to choose from, just a handful of whackos and the desperate.
There is no question in my mind that that Vox authoritarianism article is required reading and explains much about Trump’s popularity and for that matter the popularity of the extremist interpretations of Islam. Both sell revealed truth and certainty, both promise in-group status against The Others, be those others be Hispanics or the infidel.
To my mind the world is not “rapidly destabilizing” but there is little question that there is a whole mess of change going on.
I do see that this is the big battle of ideas in the world right now, with lives across the world being lost as the battle is waged: not one regarding American hegemony or American strength, but the primitive reflex of humanity, in the face of change, to gather up into our individual tribes grabbing our clubs against all other tribes, versus forming a larger tribe of tribes that adopts a shared and ultimately secular set of basic rules of conduct. America just happens to historically be the most experienced with valuing a set of secular axioms that exploit the strength of diversity, the longest attempting to be “out of many one.”
Trying to bring this back to the theme of the op, Pence and Trump differ in superficialities but Pence fits with Trump’s overall message of tribalism justifying fascism, the same message that Islamist extremists distortion of Islam sells. Pence wraps his in religious themes and Trump in more overtly racist and economic ones but it’s still the same shit inside the box.
You assume that Trump is capable of believing that someone would want to assassinate him.
This is, of course, untrue. For confirmation, I refer you to the three key tenets of Trump’s worldview;
- Donald Trump is very rich
- Donald Trump is very smart
- Everybody loves Donald Trump
In order for Trump to be the target of an assassination or impeachment, Article III would have to be untrue.
And that is simply not possible, because everyone Trump employs tells him (and he’d fire them if they ever dared to lie to him) that everyone loves Donald Trump.
In another thread about the platform, I posited that in view of the personalization of the presidential race around Trump, the platform had been simply thrown to the Movement Conservatives and Tea Partiers so they can satisfy themselves that the platform is full of all their fondest wishes for a world where white blue-eyed English-speaking Jesus himself, carrying an AR-15 in each hand, cuts the billionaires’ taxes and eliminates the minimum wage so there will be no more gay weddings, even if The Donald doesn’t seem interested in doing any of that. The VP pick would tend to point in the same direction: the Trumpistas will tell the UltraCon True Faithful that yes they will have someone at the highest level to advocate their RW ideological hardline, even if the guy at top of the ticket is openly and unashamedly a pragmatist opportunist. All this so the real committed Christian conservatives won’t stay home in disgust and let the evil Democrats win.
throw away line: “You get what you pay for”
Yes, this VP pick was made to give Christian fundamentalists a way to talk themselves into voting for Trump. Some of them may know both that Vice Presidents rarely have much power in an administration, and that Trump is highly unlikely to take advice from anyone. But the remarkable Human Power to Rationalize will come to the rescue and let them feel righteous about voting for Trump.
An excellent test of this power of rationalization will come in upcoming polls of registered Mormon voters. They have been the most resistant group (among religious voters) to Trump, despite a history of voting for GOP candidates. IF they ‘come around’ to supporting Trump now, then we will be seeing the power to rationalize in action; Pence is no Mormon, but at least he doesn’t have the rabidly-anti-immigration record–or the record for personal conduct that dismays many Mormons–that Trump has.
(On Trump’s poor reputation among LDS voters:
You do know that the laws deal with more than gay marriage, right? Any accomodation for gays, Jews, atheists, black people, can be denied if you claim religion.
If they were to include vegans, vapers and hipsters, might be tempted to re-think my position. Wouldn’t change it, mind you, but maybe roll the idea around for a while.
snerk
I wouldn’t blame Pence for bailing on the ticket after the 60Minutes interview. I swear if Pence started to fart, Trump would finish it for him.
But Hillary is obviously tougher than The Donald. He’s a brittle rich kid who whines when he doesn’t get his way. Surrounded by Yes Men (& Yes Women) all his life, he’s never learned how to deal with adversity.
She’s been under attack by the Right Wing for many years now. (And her foreign policy is hardly dove-like.)
Which “America” feels itself weakening?
You’re absolutely right that Clinton is tough and a hawk, but the problem is one of perception. The US has been bombing ISIS for what, almost three years now, but still terror attacks keep occurring in Paris, Nice and Orlando. As the IRA used to say “we only have to be lucky once, you have to be lucky everytime”. The average punter on the street just sees that ISIS is still around and attacks are still happening in their name. Of course generally we don’t find out much about all the planned attacks that get stopped.
Trump’s policies, as abhorrent as they are, would be immediately obvious in day to day life to the average person, they might be wrong and ignorant but they’d be visible obvious actions. He’s also got a an actual good point in calling out the fact that the Saudi’s are not our allies and have been funding terrorism for years. I think Obama and Clinton need to make a much clearer case to the public about the progress being made against ISIS and they need to address the elephant in the room, Saudi Arabia. Otherwise, if more ISIS inspired attacks keep happening before November it is going to hurt Clinton.
Which belies the Republican rhetoric about “We must fight them there, so we don’t have fight them here.” Trump can bomb the shit out of Syria, but it won’t stop the ISIS websites, twitter and Facebook accounts. Disaffected youth in America will continue to be radicalized over the internet, even if every jihadist in Syria is wiped out. You don’t think those websites are on servers in a hut in Syria, do you? How many ISIS inspired acts of terror in the US were by ISIS cells sent to inflict carnage? The war against terror is not in Syria, or Iraq, or Afghanistan, and sacrificing American blood and treasure on those battlefields will not make America safer. The war against terror is a cyber war, and a war for the hearts and minds of American youth with no future and nothing to lose.