Nov 2023 Mod notice:
There may be other, more specific, threads about some aspects of US politics, but this one tends to act as a hub for all sorts of related news and information, so it's usually one of the busiest OTC threads.
If you're new to OTC, it's worth reading the Introduction to On-Topic Conversations
and the On-Topic Conversations debate guidelines
before posting here.
Rumor-based, fear-mongering and/or inflammatory statements that damage the quality of the thread will be thumped. Off-topic posts will also be thumped. Repeat offenders may be suspended.
If time spent moderating this thread remains a distraction from moderation of the wiki itself, the thread will need to be locked. We want to avoid that, so please follow the forum rules
when posting here.
In line with the general forum rules, 'gravedancing' is prohibited here. If you're celebrating someone's death or hoping that they die, your post will get thumped. This rule applies regardless of what the person you're discussing has said or done.
Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Yes. She wasn't exactly a good secretary but she's also nothing alarming either. Will be an interesting precedent if it means all the establishment cabinet members are basically returning Dubyaites because while it wasn't a good time it's going to torpedo Trump's chance of reelection given many of his voters used to go for Obama specifically to get away from that.
edited 30th Nov '16 11:00:00 PM by AlleyOop
I wonder what the purpose of Trevor Noah was with this interview with a Trump supporter
.
Yes Fascism has a human face. We all know that, but in the end "there is no there there". I really don't know if these people are even human beings.
They seem utterly incapable of accepting anything other people say and have an entirely borderline personality and intransigence.
She seemed somewhat reasonable albeit misinformed and deluded but someone that could realistically go anti-Trump and rail against him if he does do something despicable.
Way too patriotic though. Felt like she was about to transform into a bald eagle every time she talked about the flag.
edited 1st Dec '16 12:40:08 AM by MadSkillz
Reminds me of Samuel Fuller's Pickup on South Street where the anti-hero tells the FBI, "Don't wave the flag at me." Fuller was an actual US Veteran, he was in the first waves at Omaha Beach...so it meant something when he said it.
PEACE, n.
Man, you guys really hate Donald Trump. I'm still waiting to see if he actually does turn out to be this evil overlord, but until then, I'm giving him an open mind.
On another note, I wasn't gonna vote for Trump at all, but please enlighten me; why on Earth should I have instead voted for Hillary Clinton of all people? She really didn't offer much in the way of change, and seemed to place social issues over economic ones. Great, but that's not what the majority of citizens, including several minorities, were looking for. It's why someone like Sanders, and yes, Trump despite his extreme tactlessness, got such huge followings. Clinton simply represented the elite. And saying I should have chosen her simply because if not, I would help place an apparent "racist and evil fascist" into office isn't going to cut it as an answer.
edited 1st Dec '16 1:19:01 AM by LDragon2
Donald Trump is the one who hates people here...
Let's get one thing straight about this open mind business...it's utterly meaningless. The only people who need open mind are people who need second chances. Donald Trump hasn't got second chances...he's got endless chances, he has infinite lives, he has cheat codes, he's used his wealth, his race, his gender, his luck as privileges to get through stuff that would condemn most people not of that background and advantage.
In fact I think the problem with this election is that people have had too open a mind...he is a misogynist, lets have an open mind, the KKK support him, lets have an open mind...and so on and so forth. Trump has power, we don't have any power. We're sitting here in this chatroom out of refuge seeking a platform to say whats on our mind...say it while we still can.
The burden of proof is on Trump to prove us wrong. Not on us to expect things better. We have every right and reason to think and expect the worst and prepare ourselves, mentally and psychologically. Take stock of our existing laws and institutions and what challenges we have to face and so on.
This is weird sense when people like a product you like to latch onto fringe opinions criticizing that product. And then you keep repeating it.
But when people here at large criticize Trump after he literally stacks his cabinet with the unqualified, the racist, the establishment and the crazy, you want to keep an open mind.
The guy hasn't even taken office yet. Granted, several of the people he has placed into the cabinet do indeed worry me.
And look, just because several key KKK members supported the guy doesn't exactly reflect all the people who supported the guy. Plenty of people wanted him because they wanted something different, even if it came from someone like him. And where has he shown that he's misogynist aside from that Access Hollywood tape?
edited 1st Dec '16 1:22:44 AM by LDragon2
![]()
![]()
![]()
Have you considered redirecting your OCD impulses (since you claim you have them) away from anti-Japanese wankery on Ilbe and towards what Trump's advisors and cabinet believes
?
Seriously you consider hatred of the Japanese in East Asia to be slightly better than a crime against humanity, and then when fucking fascists take power in the US, you keep an open mind?
edited 1st Dec '16 1:24:01 AM by Krieger22
I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiotShe accepts climate change, she was going to give us the public option on health care, and basically bring NHS to America...Hillary has always sponsored a much broader and ambitious health care scheme than anyone else proposed, more than Obama, and better than Obamacare. She was going to uphold civil liberties and basic social norms.
She won the Popular vote by a margin of 2.5 million over your candidate
Come back when you understand the word "majority".
Bernie Sanders didn't get the African-American vote and was outvoted in the primaries and relied on caucuses and appeals to superdelegates. His platform was not something that appealed to the broad Democrat constituency. He has no real record of public policy achievement unlike Hillary.
Hillary was the true populist there not him...but that's now how the story got told.
Trump didn't offer change. He didn't even offer real solutions. He flip flopped answers depending on his audience and then he created an even bigger divide in America with his rhetoric. Hate crimes have spiked since he won.
Anyways you should've voted for Hillary because she was offering economic solutions. She had extremely detailed plans on what she wanted. But the election wasn't a debate between policies. It was a personality debate.
And you should've voted for her because she actually believes in climate change and wants to combat it.
Trump doesn't. Climate change is the biggest existential threat facing the humans at the moment and Trump is choosing to ignore it.
So what economic solutions was Clinton offering? Sorry, I'm a bit behind when it comes to politics. And climate change is one of my main issues with Trump. Lastly, can you show me your sources on the hate crimes? The most I've seen in terms of violence from the election results has been those riots that are from people protesting Trump's election.
edited 1st Dec '16 1:29:23 AM by LDragon2
Also, I just want to point out that Trump is the ELITE!
He is not a man of the people and never was.
He conned the Trump supporters that voted him in based on him draining the swamp and flipping politics on its head.
He's already done enough things in the last two weeks to get himself impeached.
Hillary was going to increase government spending into programs to improve infrastructure and the battered industries of the rural heartland. She was planning to revive the Old FDR days. All those Trump voting idiots, voted against the very person who wanted to help them who proposed ideas that could have directly helped them.
Her policies was going to work similar to how the New Deal did, use government spending to create employment.
She was also going to get the wealthy to pay their taxes and improve regulation...yes she was Wall Street friendly, but you have to be if you want to be an Internal Reformist and all American Presidents are Internal Reformist rather than revolutionaries...that includes the first one, Washington as well.
Her plans on improving clean energy and battle climate change was way better than Obama's as even Noam Chomsky (a man who hates commending US politicians on general principle) grudgingly admits.
![]()
Okay, I do believe that quite a few of those crimes are real, and I am truly sickened by that. However, at the risk of sounding like an unsympathetic jerk, how many of those reported where actually real, and how many of them were hoaxes? Many have been pointed out as such.
I'm not denying that they exist, but it's just hard to separate the real ones from the fake.
Okay if its hard to separate the real ones from the fake, we must decide to ignore all the crimes...that's your Insane Troll Logic.
![]()
The Daily Wire is a pretty right-wing source. Take what's there with a grain of salt.
Honestly, it just seems like you're making excuses for Trump. He really is that bad.
One reason to be wary of Trump's upcoming administration is the people he is surrounding himself with and granting positions of power. White supremacists? There are several. Establishment figures? A few are former Dubya Cabinet members. Big Business and Money? The new Secretary of Commerce is a former Rothschild bigwig (who almost certainly still has ties to them) and the new Treasury Secretary is a former Goldman Sachs and Soros bigwig (and again almost certainly still has connections). Trump also created a new "chief strategist" position for Steve Bannon, who by all accounts is a bigoted anarchist.
Trump himself has made statements that he will end net neutrality, repeal or severely cripple the ACA, and his much ballyhooed Infrastructure Plan is nothing more than a glorified tax break scheme for contractors and developers (like himself).
The GOP Congress will almost certainly allow him to do whatever he wants since he will likely approve everything they want. That includes the FADA, a "religious freedom" law that would effectively set civil rights in America back decades, and the privatization of Medicare (Paul Ryan's pet project).
The contrast between HRC and Trump on climate change has already been mentioned. But for completion's sake: Trump is going to make a fucking climate-change denier head of the EPA!
Then there's his Wall and his Muslim registry. Some people try to claim that he's not serious about those things. Except he is dead fucking serious about those things.
Don't get me wrong: I don't want Trump's administration to be a total disaster. Because if that happens, it won't just be the supporters who suffer. We will all be fucked. Everything mentioned in this thread so far are just reasons I (and others) think it is extremely likely that the next few years will be bad.
edited 1st Dec '16 1:56:00 AM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprised"Give him a chance"...
I posted this graphic from The Nib earlier about how well that has worked out:
https://thenib.com/give-trump-a-chance
edited 1st Dec '16 1:54:23 AM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprised

From what I can gather, she's very establishment Republican, in a way that pisses off anti-establishment Trump supporters, who also make some comments about her chinese heritage that tell me more about the commenter than anything else.
Plus she was in Bush Jr.'s cabinet, so she has actual experience.
So all in all, I'm cautiously optimistic.