I think Trumps photo accurately describes my disbelief that Republicans are so idiotic that they would vote Trump over a democrat. Seriously… toss in a Rubio (and lots of water bottles) or Jeb, er no… I have issues with two Clinton Presidents, three Bush Presidents – helllll no, still I'd take them over Trump. Republican voters… you're fired.
src: http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/09/politics/new-hampshire-primary-highlights/index.html
I think I'd vote for Idi Amin before I'd vote for Clinton. I'd even vote for Sanders (and I despise Socialism), before Clinton. Bernie is just a misguided fool (he seems to genuinely have good intentions)……Clinton is evil incarnate.
Big Ego + Power = bad idea.
I would have thought if anything, republicans, would get that more than democrats.
OK people really need to stop being ludicrous. A Trump presidency, even if you despise Hillary or Sanders, cannot be allowed to happen. It's fucking ridiculous that it's even gotten this far. Cruz is fucking insane IMO but even he'd be better than Trump. This isn't reality TV, this is our government.
+Paul Spoerry
I'd take Trump before Cruz. I'd also take Trump before anyone on the Democrat side. Sorry if you think it's being ludicrous, but I'm dead serious, and that includes the statement I gave above.
It's unfortunate if that makes me diminished in your view, but if you (or anyone else for that matter), can take away anything from all the comments I've posted over the last several years, it's that I don't care what others think about me, and I make no excuses nor apologies for my positions.
As far as it being our government and not reality TV……what the clowns in the capitol have done to our government is no less a joke that what is passed off as quality TV with these ridiculous reality shows (basically, our government has become the reality TV show that the rest of the world is watching).
I still like you as a person, but Trump is an insane megalomaniac with zero political experience. It's an untenable position to accept that he hold our highest execute office. And yes… I believe voting for him is fucking ludicrous.
As for our current government being like reality TV… electing a reality TV personality certainly won't dissuade that type of behavior. It will only reenforce it.
+Paul Spoerry
Take the description you attributed to Trump, and just sub-out his name. It could apply to dozens (if not hundreds) of current office holders (not least of whom is currently sitting in the oval office).
At least with trump, He's running on his own money, freeing him form owing political favors to a thousand sleazy contributors. It seems that he will not be beholden to special interest groups or political machines as well.
So if the choice is a megalomaniac who's in the back pocket of those who really run this country, or one that isn't, I'll take the one with out the leash.
…..plus, they also said the same things about Reagan. Yet he was exactly what the country needed at the time, especially after the shameful 70s and the impotent malaise the country was floundering in.
Reagan was such a blowhard he nearly started WWIII. Imagine Trump running off at the mouth like he does but to other world leaders. No thanks. He caused a massive build up of the military industrial complex. I know many put him up on this pedestal but as far as being an outsider being a good thing I don't know he's a good example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/05/the-ussr-and-us-came-closer-to-nuclear-war-than-we-thought/276290/
http://www.wired.com/2013/05/able-archer-scare/
Last time a patriotic, racist, hate driven opportunist had power over one of the most powerful counties, it didn't end so well. It's very short sighted that wwII was a war on communism, as it has nothing to do with it. The motive and strategy is very similar. Don't give in to blind hate and learn from the past.
+Paul Spoerry
I don't know, it could be said that he prevented WW III. Aggressive authoritarian nations prey upon weakness, and with leadership like Carter allowing not just the powerful nations to walk all over us, but the piss-ant ones too, we were all but asking aggressive nations to use their military.
Since WW II, the United States greatest strength has been the fact that other nations were aware of our overwhelming military power that they feared to go to war. That's where the whole 'if you want peace, you must prepare for war' thing comes into play.
Plus, don't forget that we came closest to WW III when the pride and joy of Democrats was in the White House. In October of 1962 we were one nervous ship captain's mistake of an all out shooting war.
I would say that it was the tough stance (and previous 'blowhard' words) of President Kennedy that saved the situation back then, and it was Reagan's same positioning that kept the aggressor nations in check during the 80s.
+Sam Segers
OK…….so we went from zero to Hitler in 8 comments. Unbelievable.
So now Trump is on par with one of the biggest mass murders in the history of forever. Nothing like loosing all credibility for your argument in one comment. ¬_¬
+West Kagle building your campaign on hate and radical, non realistic ideals of nationalism just rings the alarm. That's all I'm saying. And yes I'm comparing. Keep in mind that's it's not Hitler that's the mass murderer but everyone that blindly followed him, he repeated the ideas everyone had. They were even the same add trump.
Just compare the statements he makes about immigrants, about the current state of the country and what he will do to make America great again. It's just the same. I'm not saying he's going to start a war or he'll deport all Latinos, handicapped and homophiles. Just be careful with people that speak this kind of language. There is more than one example.
+Sam Segers
There are people running for the office of POTUS that have that authoritarian drive, desire, and ideological mind set right now, and their last names are not Trump. As a matter of fact the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is much more similar to the Nazi leader than anyone since Hitler himself. So much so it's eerie.
…….I'm just sayin'
Its very hard to know how raciest Trump is, or how serious he is with that stuff. There's a lot of safeguards in place to stop a president going too nuts, even if he was elected.
The question is, does he really believe that stuff? Or does he just know how to manipulate a certain voter base?
Like the wall he keeps going on about – surely he knows he cant get that wall built on money from mexico? Surely "his smart people" have told him that even if they were "forced too" they couldn't afford it? (and does no one query how he would ''force them''?)
It all seems rhetoric to me – saying things he knows some people wants to hear, regardless of how possible it is.
+Thomas Wrobel
If the last several Presidents have taught us anything, it's that if they want something to be badly enough, all they have to do is sign an executive order. It's become somewhat of a rubber stamp to by-pass all rule of law and usurp other branches power.
They have all abused it, but this last POTUS has been arrogant and in your face about it with his 'I have a pen and I have a pone' and ' Sue me' comments. So now it's become a very public slap in the face. Until then I'd wager that most people didn't realize how bad the abuse had become, and there is now a hard look back at this authoritarian practice.
It may be that a President Trump would find it difficult to executive order in anything he wishes (which, I suppose, is a silver lining in the lawlessness we've experienced over the last 16 years).
Those views on the use of Executive Orders aren't based in any sort of reality. Compared to his recent predecessors Obama has LESS executive orders. Even taken historically he's nowhere near what many have done.
Actual facts
* http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/orders.php
* http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/every-presidents-executive-actions-in-one-chart/
dont bother, as soon as you start actually listing facts like that people immediately start looking up ways how Obama's were different (even though uptill now they probably couldn't name anyone elses anyway but because they KNOW Obamas record must be worse, they then hunt for evidence of it….).
+Paul Spoerry
I never said he has more than the others. I said he's been rather arrogant with an obviously shady practice. Plus I made a point to include the last several administrations to show that it's not a new abuse.
…..I also put the moniker of lawless abuser on 43 as well as 44 since his were just as 'I haven't got time for this congress BS' as Obama's are.
+Thomas Wrobel
*read the comment I posted in response to Paul's post (so I don't have to type it twice).
That's just a subjective feeling on their use though. What you call arrogant I might call brave. I'm sure many in the South thought The Emancipation Proclamation was arrogant while others thought it simply the right thing to do. Additionally, it doesn't truly matter how arrogant they may be, if it cannot be backed up by the Constitution, or was granted authority from Congress, it can be found invalid… it happened to Truman.
+Paul Spoerry
Maybe arrogant isn't exactly the right word. Where most just go about the business of making the orders (almost on the q.t)., he was more like, "yeah, I'm gonna do this and I dare you to do anything about it. If you don't like it…sue me". Where as before it was more nonchalant this was more 'I know this is shady, but there isn't a thing you can do about it'.
Now it has become apparent to all but the comatose, that this practice is way out of control in it's abusiveness (and I'm not saying that he's the one solely responsible for it getting to that level). Even a fairly informed person like myself (although I find out all the time that there is much that remains hidden from me), didn't realize the extent of the abuse being rendered with this behavior.
When Obama started using the orders to blatantly do an end-run around the congress (and in effect the American people), I was shocked that this would be permitted. Then it was brought to my attention (I believe by you) that Presidents all the way back to FDR were abusing this power.
This is why I said there was actually a silver lining in this, and that it was the laying bare of this suspect process. With out the over the top way Obama did his, it would have remained more unobtrusive (at least to the public in large part).
I think parts of that are fair and others not so much. Yes, most US Presidents have done this (actually, almost ALL of them have done it)… FDR being the one who did it the most (I think… would have to go re-check). I don't know that Obama's was any more in your face than anyone else who held office though. I mean you could say at least he was honest about it. Contrast that with GW… Iraq… WMD's… the fact we full on know they full on knew there weren't any but still sold it to Congress/the public that way.
Still… unless we change the legality of it then it really doesn't matter HOW they approach it… only that when they do it's legal. What you hear now are Republicans going banana's any time Obama does it. They conveniently leave out that they, as a group, decided to block everything he proposed. So what's he supposed to do? Again… within his legal means of doing so. The thing is… no president can do something illegal just because they want to and executive orders HAVE been contested and revoked because they don't have ultimate authority. I do very much understand the sentiment that the executive is there to "execute" on laws and not make them. However, that's not explicitly the case and unless we change the law they aren't doing anything wrong… and again, Congress, etc can and have challenged the legality of executive orders. I think what we have now is that there is just a very vocal set of Republicans, and by proxy their mouthpiece Fox News, who will cry wolf at anything the scary black man in office does.
+Paul Spoerry
I have an issue with any President using executive orders to go around the congress and usurp it's powers. As for what's a president to do if the congress refuses to act on the things he proposes, he's going to have to give them a lot of what they want to get his way, or deal with the fact that he will get nothing done unless it's something that they absolutely are in favor anyway.
You have to look at it this way, the public put those people in the congress, and a POTUS going around them is a FU to that public. The current congress that is hostile to Obama was put there by an angry and upset public to specifically block his agenda. It wasn't like that when he first got in. His party had control of the congress, and his actions played a big part in why it lost that control (the actions of the congress itself, did the rest).
"The current congress that is hostile to Obama was put there by an angry and upset public to specifically block his agenda."
I think that's a gross oversimplification. Exit polls showed that 54 percent of voters disapproved of Obama’s performance, and 79 percent gave the thumbs down to Congress. So sure… maybe half said they disapproved of the President but nearly 80 percent disapproved of CONGRESS. They weren't voting people in to specifically go against Obama they were voting in because the US citizens viewed them as 'Worst Congress Ever': http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/congress-numbers-113658
+Paul Spoerry
…..but the public was angry with congress not just because they were awful on their own, the public was angry with them because the Congress was compliance with the White House. The people thought Congress were a bunch of regressive lunatics, but that the head regressive was sitting in the Oval Office.
Don't forget that the voters weren't happy with the ACA, they weren't happy with Obama's illegal immigrant amnesty order, and they weren't happy with his assault on the 2nd amendment. That all culminated with the radical exchange of Congressmen and Senators in the mid-term elections.
The voters realized that there was no way to ouster Obama. The powers that be, would never allow the first Black President to be forced out, the repercussions would be catastrophic. The next best thing to removing him so as to stop his policies, was to elect a Congress that would block said policies.