The General US Politics Thread

edited 25th Nov '15 7:03:56 AM by sgamer82

To nobody's great surprise, the shooters at that Black Lives Matter rally were white-supremacists who'd crawled off /pol/ to stir shit.

... that makes far more sense than it should.

I'm kind of wondering at the suggestion from the article/law enforcement that the shooters could have been acting at self-defense. I mean I know it's hard to judge as an outsider reading the news, but it sure sounded like attempted murder to me.

If I read the article right, they got into a scuffle, then the shooters went to their truck, got their guns then opened fire. That doesn't sound self defensive to me at all. Self defense to me is spur of the moment. If they had their guns already and opened fire during the course of the initial confrontation, I could buy that being argued as self defense.

EDIT: I might've misread a bit after all, or mixed it up with something else. Either way it still reads like they didn't start shooting until after they were out of actual danger.

edited 25th Nov '15 9:44:15 AM by sgamer82

@Protaganist Saw it coming a mile away, still lolled

"I'll give the Republicans a bit of credit and just assume that they'd prefer Hillary to win instead of Trump."

I've got a fairly right wing friend who makes fun of Obama all the time, calls Trump a "literal plague", and my Republican-all-his-life grandpa was talking to me the other day and said "The only thing worse than Hilary winning would be Trump." ^note  This is the same grandpa that doesn't like Muslims much, thinks minimum wage jobs are just for high schoolers, and was fairly convinced Obama isn't american for a while

My handful of personal contacts may not be a great sample size, but he's scaring off some of the most right wing people I know.

edited 25th Nov '15 5:53:12 PM by Joesolo

Reaaaaaaaaaaaaally hoping for a Barry Goldwater moment here.

A resounding defeat that paves the way for an even farther right political movement to gain prominence over the years? ^note According to The Other Wiki.

edited 25th Nov '15 6:43:55 PM by Eschaton

More in the "loses spectacularly to the democratic candidate" sense.

Trump is prime example of no publicity is bad publicity.

He's still grabbing top news slots.

He might end up siphoning voters away from the Republican party if he goes third party. However, what do you think the chances are of him winning the nomination? How's the process work? Do they narrow it down one by one, so at some point it'll be Trump vs. a single non-Trump? Or do they all go at once? If it's the latter, Trump has a good chance of being the Republican nominee. If it's the former, it'll probably be Carson who'll win.

Well, a lot of them will probably just have to drop out due to lack of support and money. A couple already have. Which is a sort of informal whittling down. But eventually we'll get to the primary elections, which means who actual registered Republicans (although really who can vote in said primaries depends on whether or not your state has closed, semi closed, or open primary elections) can vote on whoever's left to decide the nominee. As was said, a brokered candidate is probably unlikely this time.

I've also been wondering if splitting the Republican vote is a possibility. But since the primaries are restricted to registered members, that sounds like a opportunity for the more devoted, passionate, and vocal people to make a potentially disproportionate impression.

However, like Joesolo said above, Republicans that I know definitely don't like Trump. Though I'm not sure whether it's because they think his policies are actually bad, or because they think his policies are just unwinnable. The fact that they don't like him as a person contributes either way.

Honestly, at this point, a Trump victory seems reasonably likely, and some of the ways wherein it might not happen would be the establishment really sticking their neck out to ensure things go their way. If that were to happen, I wouldn't put it past Trump to run third party, if he feels like he hasn't been treated fairly.

Given how thin skinned Trump can be, I fully expect him to do just that, despite his promise not to.

To be fair to Trump-

-sorry, had to step away from the keyboard. Threw up in my mouth a bit.

Anyway, to be fair, the establishment HAS deliberately been gunning for Trump. It's just that, uhhh, for very good reason.

Have they really? Because if they have at all, it's been a piss poor job.

They seem split between whether to really gun for him hard, or mimic him. The other GOP candidates have been trying to act like him, but it comes off as unconvincing and deliberate. They probably really do see him as a problem, but are scared to go after him at the same time.

I think part of the issue is that Trump is merely eroding the facade Republicans have built up over the years. What's underneath seems mostly the same between most of their candidates, so criticizing him too much would jeopardize their own position and justify the opposition.

So it's not so much an issue "what" he says, but "how" he says it, at least from my perspective. So it looks like the other candidates go "well he's got a point, but that's not the right way to go about it, so here's MY plan." Their criticisms are coupled with justifications.

But the establishment types have played nice before (relatively speaking), and since that hasn't gotten people what they wanted at the federal level, that left the field open for a figure like Trump to step in. Who capitalizes at not being like "those" politicians, while pulling every political trick in the book.

edited 25th Nov '15 8:47:39 PM by Eschaton

I dunno. I doubt he'll get elected-I have yet to see a lot of support for Trump, even on the Right. Maybe I'm not very observant, though.

Trump MIGHT, MIGHT win the republican Nomination. But there is no way in hell he'd ever win the general.

He's got zero centrist appeal, and he's pissed off every minority he's mentioned, Women in general, and he's certainly not sniping any Democratic voters.

Even in the polls, he's only pulling in a plurality of republican voters, and in the 30% range. Head to head in raw numbers, he'd lose to Hillary or Bernie easily.

I don't know if any nation-wide polls have been done yet for one against the other outside party lines.

Hillary - yes. Against Bernie - I wish I could say it would be too close to tell.

I also find it hilarious that the Democrats have made an attack ad throwing W. Bush's quotes about terrorism not really being about Islam right in the GOP's face, basically saying "hey, remember this guy everyone hated? Well, the Republican candidates are even bigger jerks."

But, yeah, the crazies in the GOP primaries are too extreme to be viable in a general election, hence why the establishment is freaking out.

I just saw Donald Trump mocking a handicapped journalist.

Now I am just waiting for his reveal that it was all a hoax and that Trump is actually played by Sacha Baron Cohen. Can't find another explanation.

edited 26th Nov '15 11:56:09 AM by Julep

I'd like to popularize something I brought up in the Islamophobia Thread- describing him as "Professional Asshole Donald Trump".