Why People Vote for Trump - help!

Great Debates
61

Personally, I’ve never been interested in the touchy-feely aspects of political campaigns such as a candidate “feeling my pain” or “caring about me” or “being somebody I could have a beer with”. What I want to know is whether the candidate advocates positions that I agree with and intends to try to implement them if they get elected.

I have no illusions about my disagreement with Clinton on plenty of her policy positions, nor do I imagine that she’s always 100% candid about all of her opinions and intentions. But as First Lady and then as Senator, she supported a fair number of initiatives that I agree with, and as politicians go, she’s reasonably competent and knowledgeable. She is willing to go to some trouble to support and implement various policies that I and many people who agree with me want to vote for. That’s not perfect by any means, but it’ll do. If the alternative is Donald Trump, it’ll definitely do.

Trump, on the other hand, has zero political experience and nothing in the way of detailed, coherent policy positions. It’s not a question of choosing one political candidate over another political candidate. It’s a question of choosing a political candidate over a reality TV star. It’s not a decision any reasonably informed voter could seriously hesitate over.

And if we’re talking narcissism, Donald Trump is about Donald Trump. That is it. Like I said, I don’t care if politicians actually care about me, but I’d be insane to imagine that Trump cares about me any more than Clinton does. And as far as any other qualifications are concerned, Clinton is immensely better prepared and better equipped than Trump to actually do the job of being President.

Do I prefer the policies and record of Sanders, in general, to those of Clinton? Sure. But I’m not idiot enough to imagine that Trump would govern more like Sanders than Clinton would. Not even close.

[QUOTE=crypto]
She is the establishment. That means Wall St.
[/quote]

And Trump is the establishment. That means Trump Tower.

Is Clinton to some extent in the pocket of moneyed interests? Sure; pretty much all politicians are, in the current broken state of American politics. But Trump, himself, is the obsessively greedy moneyed interest that he berates other politicians for being in the pockets of.

I would not feel one whit better having my country’s general economic prosperity undermined to make more money for Trump than I would by having it undermined to make more money for Clinton’s Wall Street backers. And with Clinton in office, at least I’d have an experienced politician who supports at least some policies I agree with, instead of a posturing empty suit whose only interest is in his own celebrity and self-aggrandizement.

[QUOTE=crypto]
Removing all of the BS rhetoric, the biggest reason to vote for Trump is because (as far as anyone can tell at this point, anyway) he doesn’t seem to be beholden to anyone. […]
He scares the shit out of both sides because they don’t seem to have anything hanging over him that he is worried about, and without that, they can’t control him.

[/quote]

Nonsense. Why Trump scares the shit out of sensible people, including the tens of millions of ones like me who have no realistic hope of “controlling” billionaire celebrities under any circumstances, is because he’s a profoundly ill-informed and egocentric showboater with no real interest whatsoever in governance except as it ministers to his taste for fancy trappings of superior status. He’s a Dunning-Kruger catastrophe just waiting to happen.

At present, Trump’s huckstering adventurism hasn’t significantly harmed anybody except unwise investors and unfortunate ex-employees who got caught in one of his Trump-focused and Trump-enriching business ventures and were left holding the bag after he walked away from it. But if he managed to get into the White House, his rookie ignorance of how political governance actually works combined with his massive ego could well end up seriously damaging the future of tens of millions if not billions of people.

I don’t give a shit that Trump “doesn’t have anything hanging over him” and isn’t “beholden to anyone”, which is just another way of saying that he’s extremely wealthy and lives in the public eye with all his personal scandals already public property. Well, so do Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian, for instance. But I don’t think Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian ought to be President, any more than Trump ought to be.

62

I’m not too worried about that. She has the diplomatic experience to prefer alternatives to war.

Now…if she could nuke the House of Representatives…

63

Yeah, except himself. Which makes him just as bad as Hillary except that he a) seems completely ignorant on most important issues, b) has no experience in government (sorry, running a company doesn’t count) and c) acts like a buffoonish immature grandstanding ass.

Also, so what if Hilary made a bunch of money giving speeches to Goldman Sachs? I know that in certain circles, Wall Street is automatically supposed to be shorthand for “evil people doing evil shit”, but investment banking is a legitimate part of the national economy.

64

No. Because that’s a promise she can fulfill and it’s what Obama has already done which is put coal miners on the unemployment line.

Where are these green jobs now for the coal miners? Hmmm? Are they going to build solar panels in West Virginia? Why wait until Hillary is elected? Maybe if Obama was less worried Syrian refugees, illegal aliens, and Transgenders he would be more focused on Veterans and unemployed coal miners. Nah.

Here’s another quote that fully represents the Democrat party. ‘There are probably more ugly women in America than attractive women’ Former DNC Chair Ed Rendell.

65

Wait a minute there… one of those already made a more substantive campaign ad than most of the challengers in the last three cycles.

66

Why I will vote for Trump if it comes to that:

  1. Anyone but Hillary. Anything but Hillary.
  2. We can always hope he’ll be assassinated and his VP will be halfway sane and competent.
67

Thrown overboard by obstructionist Republican legislators mouthing about “reining in government”. Dude, you can’t simultaneously support an opposition party going all-out to block executive policies and also blame the executive for not enacting those policies. (Well, I suppose you can if you’re a Republican, but those of us with some respect for reason and logic consider it contradictory.)

68

:confused: Whereas we could elect Clinton and get a President that’s at least halfway sane and competent right from the get-go. It really seems like a pretty easy choice.

I understand many people not liking Clinton, but I simply cannot understand how anyone could objectively think that Trump would be a better or even marginally less bad POTUS than she would be.

69

I worked for Alabama Medicaid while I was between professional jobs. I’ve heard so long about illegal aliens getting quality healthcare while law abiding homegrown folk go without that I almost took it for granted. Here- and our state policies mirror many others both north and south- illegal aliens get exactly one (1) Medicaid benefit: childbirth.

No prenatal, no follow-up, not even birth control after the baby is born. (The baby gets benefits, but that’s because it’s a citizen.)

There have been severe birth defects and women who had terrible complications because they could not get adequate care while pregnant. They had to be in labor to get anything at all on the state dime.

70

Not “Being beholden to anyone” is, in any event, hardly a new thing. George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush were both very wealthy, after all, and really did not need a ride. Barack Obama was a millionaire and his campaign was heavily grassroots-financed. John F. Kennedy was rich; if he was beholden to anyone it was largely his father. Dwight D. Eisenhower wasn’t rich but had the rather significant name recognition factor of having been the Supreme Commander of the force that conquered Western and Southern Europe and helped to vanquish the most evil force in living memory. FDR was rich. Hoover was both rich and one of the most admired human beings in the world prior to being elected.

Being little beholden is not particularly a new thing in Presidential candidates, and I am quite baffled as to why anyone would think Trump is a new flavour in this regard.

It is interesting to note that of the Presidents I named, the closest approximation to Trump is Herbert Hoover. Hoover was very, very different in many ways (he was famous mainly for humanitarian efforts, and in terms of personality was not at all like Trump) but like Trump he was a self-important, egomaniacal, self-promoting to a ludicrous degree, and largely a businessman with no experience in elected office. Look how that turned out.

71

Can you understand how anyone could objectively think Clinton would be a be a better POTUS? Because I don’t think you can either. The fact is, who you think would be better is not an objective criteria - it will depend on your assumptions, and the relative value you place on those potential assumed outcomes. Different people value different things differently, and for those people, what they think will be better may be different than you.

I’m in CA so my vote really doesn’t matter, but I would rather have the office vacant than have Clinton be president. I’m not sure if I would rather have Trump than Clinton. I would rather have Sanders than Clinton.

72

You’re right that “objectively” is the wrong word to use for support of Presidential candidates, but I do not understand how you can even subjectively arrive at the position

Sanders > nobody > Trump >? Clinton.

I mean, I can see being strongly opposed to Clinton because one thinks, subjectively, that she’s too left-wing, but in that case I can’t see why on earth you would consider Sanders a better choice. What kind of criteria are going into the construction of that extremely bizarre preference hierarchy?

73

When foreign countries actually debate banning Trump from being allowed to visit their country, you really have to stop and think, is Trump the image we want representing the US?

74

I don’t think the transitive property works in this analysis :slight_smile: I’m pretty much single issue on guns. After that in order of descending importance is probably taxes, then foreign policy. Sanders has a plan to raise taxes, but I doubt he’d get traction. I think there needs to be some probabilistic analysis that connects to policies. For example, if Clinton’s tax policies are bad - and she will likely be able to implement them, that is less desireable than Sanders policies which may be worse if he is less likely able to implement.

75

Excuses. Excuses. And more excuses. Where are Obama’s executive orders now? Remember the stimulus? Hell, I would have supported it if had actually started solar panel factories in West Virginia and not Democrat slush funds like Solyndra. Obama is POTUS and nobody is running as his third term. Even Biden knows what a disaster Obama has been and didn’t run.

Remember Hillary was against Gay marriage just like Obama. Neither of them are qualified for having these hateful positions.

76

Except that he hasn’t http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php?f=0&year=2016&elect=1. Note the giant red colored part of the map, those are the primaries he lost. This is an objective fact. Bernie, unlike Trump, believes in an objective reality. The whole Trump campaign is based on this kind of thinking involving more “seems” rather than “is”.

77

There are plenty of “manly” people in the world more than willing and able to create things for a lower pay than the “manly” people in this country. Perhaps if the “manly” people in this country would accept lower and I assume more “manly” wages for their labor, manufacturing would happen more here. Until that point, the US economy will specialize in the kinds of “pajama boy” things many in the world would be more than willing to do but currently aren’t able to do as well. Pajama Boy things like designing products, building complex information systems, and buying land to build tacky buildings. Once the rest of the world begins producing people with the skills to these “pajama boy” tasks, manufacturing will also start to return here as people there start leaving their manly jobs for more money.

78

And why do you think Clinton and Sanders are likely to have significantly different agendas on gun policy? Why do you think Sanders’ agenda is the one you’d prefer?

You mean, like the POWER initiative to help coal workers transition to “green-energy” jobs?

The Obama administration has done more to help coal miners than the relentlessly obstructionist Republican opposition has, certainly.

79

:rolleyes: While I’d definitely oppose any candidate who opposed marriage equality nowadays, it seems a bit silly to rule out every candidate who was against it back when being anything but against it would have automatically made one essentially unelectable to any national office.

In any case, if being or having been against marriage equality makes a candidate unacceptably “hateful”, that certainly rules out Trump, who has been loud (though not consistent) in his assertion that the Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality should be overturned and that the issue should have been left up to the states.

80

A putative Trump VP would be a Republican, so sane and competent (even halfway) would be off the table.