2016 USA Presidential Elections

But I do think that regulation should be kept to a minimum. In such an environment, people thrive.
And yet you've never even tried, let alone been successful at, arguing why the federal govt should emulate the policies of all the shithole Republican led states. You put me on ignore rather than actually defend the policies you champion in action. Fuckin pathetic.
 
And yet you've never even tried, let alone been successful at, arguing why the federal govt should emulate the policies of all the shithole Republican led states. You put me on ignore rather than actually defend the policies you champion in action. Fuckin pathetic.

Yeah, Kansas isn't exactly a roaring success is it.
 
The Trump campaign's latest strategy to insure the nomination: threaten to dox delegates.

More than three months before any ballots have been cast at the Republican convention, Roger Stone, Donald Trump?s on-again, off-again consigliere, has delivered the campaign equivalent of a severed horse head to delegates who might consider denying Trump the nomination. Trump?s supporters will find you in your sleep, he merrily informed them this week. He did not mean it metaphorically.

?We will disclose the hotels and the room numbers of those delegates who are directly involved in the steal,? Stone said Monday, on Freedomain Radio. ?If you?re from Pennsylvania, we?ll tell you who the culprits are. We urge you to visit their hotel and find them. You have a right to discuss this, if you voted in the Pennsylvania primary, for example, and your votes are being disallowed,? Stone said.

Over the years, I?ve covered elections in Iraq, Iran, and Burma. Stone?s taunt is every bit as threatening as anything I heard in those places, which have far less experience than America with democracy. Such is the moment we currently inhabit.

By now, we know most of the chapters in Trump?s political playbook: the epithets for ?low-energy? Jeb and Lyin? Ted and Little Marco, and the bombshell provocations?about, say, a nuclear strike in Europe?as a way to draw attention away from unfavorable news and missteps. And, throughout, of course, the mockery of women. But as we approach the growing prospect of a contested convention, in which delegates can make game-time choices about whom they will support, it?s becoming clearer that Trump may seek to shape the outcome by using his most unwieldy weapon of all: the latent power of usually peaceful people.

It?s easy to mock Trump for his thin-skinned fixation on the size of his audiences, but that misses a deeper point: you can?t have a riot without a mob. Even before he was a candidate, Trump displayed a rare gift for cultivating the dark power of a crowd. In his role as the primary advocate of the ?birther? fiction, he proved himself to be a maestro of the mob mentality, capable of conducting his fans through crescendos of rage and self-pity and suspicion. Speaking to the Times editorial board, in January, he said, ?You know, if it gets a little boring, if I see people starting to sort of, maybe, thinking about leaving, I can sort of tell the audience, I just say, ?We will build the wall!,? and they go nuts.?

The symbiotic exchange between a leader and his mob can thrive on what social psychologists call ?emotional contagion,? a hot-blooded feedback loop that the science writer Maggie Koerth-Baker describes as ?our tendency to unconsciously mimic the outward expression of other people?s emotions (smiles, furrowed brows, leaning forward, etc.) until, inevitably, we begin to feel what they?re feeling.?

When we are exposed to the right energy, even those of us who are not inclined to cross the boundaries from politics to force will do things that we would ordinarily consider reprehensible. Stephen David Reicher, a sociologist and psychologist at the University of St. Andrews, in Scotland, who has studied soccer mobs and race riots, told Wired last month, ?People don?t lose control, but they begin to act with collective values.? Recently, he has turned his attention to studying Trump?s crowds. ?It?s not your individual fate that becomes important but the fate of the group.?

And therein lies the key to Trump?s ability to introduce menace into the convention: he does not need to call upon his supporters to do anything but protect their newfound sense of identity and purpose. Stone, the political operative and self-described practitioner of ?dirty tricks??a man who (again, no metaphor) has a tattoo of Nixon on his back?has mapped out the fantasy that they will offer to their people, to explain what happens if Trump falls short of the twelve hundred and thirty-seven delegates he needs to secure the nomination. ?Either Trump will have twelve hundred and thirty-seven votes, in which case the party will try to throw out some of those delegates in a naked attempt to try to steal this from Donald Trump, or he will be just short of twelve hundred and thirty-seven, in which case many of his own delegates, or, I should say, people in his delegate seats, will abandon him on the second ballot,? Stone said Monday. The convention, he has already told Trump voters, is rigged against them.

?So the fix is in,? Stone said on Monday. ?If Trump does not run the table on the rest of the primaries and the caucuses, we?re looking at a very, very narrow path in which the kingmakers go all out to cheat, to steal, and to snatch this nomination from the candidate who was overwhelmingly selected by the voters, which is why I have urged Trump supporters: come to Cleveland, march on Cleveland, join us in the Forest City.?
 
Yeah, Kansas isn't exactly a roaring success is it.
It's not just that it's not a success. It's that it's tanking under conservative leadership. Much like Wisconsin, Mississippi, Louisiana, etc etc etc. Hell look at the destruction of public education in Illinois that's been brought about just by electing a wack job governor. Modern conservatism destroys states. Destroys functioning government. But then that's what you get when you vote self-proclaimed anti-gov't nuts into office.

People are just too stupid to realize they're getting exactly what they're voting for.

:lmao: The Trump organizer is an 18-year-old computer science major. Or course he is.

Really though, I laugh at the kid but it does take some balls to do that. I'll give him that.
 
It's not just that it's not a success. It's that it's tanking under conservative leadership. Much like Wisconsin, Mississippi, Louisiana, etc etc etc. Hell look at the destruction of public education in Illinois that's been brought about just by electing a wack job governor. Modern conservatism destroys states. Destroys functioning government. But then that's what you get when you vote self-proclaimed anti-gov't nuts into office.

People are just too stupid to realize they're getting exactly what they're voting for.

The result of them letting talk radio think for them.

:lmao: The Trump organizer is an 18-year-old computer science major. Or course he is.

Really though, I laugh at the kid but it does take some balls to do that. I'll give him that.

Exactly. People shout at him and he offers them the surplus snake food. While I am hardly a fan of Trump, I have more respect for his supporters than the fanatical anti-Trump protestors.
 
From this side of the pond every single candidate seems to have something wrong with them - some are completely bat shit crazy, others just bonkers. You lot have loads of unimportant issues that you seem to spend foot tons of effort on. Oh well we got 'Pig Farmer' and 'we're all in it together' David Cameron, so perhaps your system is not so bad after all. ...
 
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From this side of the pond every single candidate seems to have something wrong with them - some are completely bat shit crazy, others just bonkers. You lot have loads of unimportant issues that you seem to spend foot tons of effort on. Oh well we got 'Pig Farmer' and 'we're all in it together' David Cameron, so perhaps your system is not so bad after all. ...

You also have the manhole cover aficionado, who makes Lenin look like a centrist. :p
 
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This election shit is a rigged sham and quite honestly, has likely always been rigged. On both sides.

Some "Democracy" we have if this is truly the case...
Most people don't realize that the party decides the nominee, not the voters (even the reach-this-minimum-to-get-the-nomination thing is a party rule). We are in desperate need of a strong third party but the sheep aren't willing to put their money where their mouths are, so we always end up with one of two clowns.


EDIT: If it comes to Hillary vs. whoever in the general, I will not vote for her. Period.
This, 100%. I don't like anyone that's running but fuck that cunt Hillary so g-ddamn much. ANYONE but her.
 
Most people don't realize that the party decides the nominee, not the voters (even the reach-this-minimum-to-get-the-nomination thing is a party rule). We are in desperate need of a strong third party but the sheep aren't willing to put their money where their mouths are, so we always end up with one of two clowns.

I've quickly found that out - IIRC I've never voted in the Primary before. It's fucked up and yes, it's time for a viable third party, more than 3 parties actually.
 
I like how one of my teachers in my youth said it: "People really don't elect the politicians, we just steer the people that do away from the really bad ones".

I like what Dan Carlin had to say on the subject of a party split being possible in both parties in his latest podcast. It would definitely make things very interesting to say the least. That is the one thing that Trump has really done, showing the divisions within the Republican party and that is somewhat good.
 
The other day I saw a documentary about the Watergate scandal and how Nixon ultimately was thrown out of the White House because his own party decided to put the wellbeing of the USA above the wellbeing of the GOP.

I somehow have the feeling that today the affair would not have ended with the president's resignation...
 
It would still end, but it would not be nearly as neat. Although it did take some time for all the pieces to fall into place to get him to resign.
 
I like how one of my teachers in my youth said it: "People really don't elect the politicians, we just steer the people that do away from the really bad ones".

I like what Dan Carlin had to say on the subject of a party split being possible in both parties in his latest podcast. It would definitely make things very interesting to say the least. That is the one thing that Trump has really done, showing the divisions within the Republican party and that is somewhat good.

I only listen to Hardcore History, I'm terrified to give his other podcast a chance because if I dislike it or he is a political nut I'm scared it will color my love of HH. Is Common Sense any good?
 
Ugh this shit is ridiculous. I have no words.
 
I only listen to Hardcore History, I'm terrified to give his other podcast a chance because if I dislike it or he is a political nut I'm scared it will color my love of HH. Is Common Sense any good?


He is pretty rational, and the shows are pretty good as a whole. The only thing I wish is when he does a complete redo of a show(he tells us when it happens), I want to be able to listen to it. lol
 
Things aren't looking good for Cruz in the NE, he is a distant third in NY.
 
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