Carson got in trouble at one point for arguing that we're giving kids "way too many [vaccines] in too short a time". It's not full-on anti-vaxxer/autism stuff, but it's still pretty dangerous advice.
Except the GOP is anything *but* united. TIME actually had a very good article a few days ago showing just how much Trump has pissed off the GOP because he can't stop making gaffes and shutting up since the conventions ended. (If it weren't under a paywall I would link it) He is majorly behind in a lot of national polls that have been released and he is causing normally red states like Georgia, Arizona, and even South Carolina to be in danger of being won by Clinton. Even Utah isn't safe. There was an internal poll that was released a few weeks ago showing that Gary Johnson is at 26% in Utah, mere percentage points from Trump who only had 29% (and Clinton with 27%). For a state that should be a very easy win for any GOP candidate, that is an unmitigated disaster. To make matters even worse, there is a good chance that Mitt Romney will endorse Gary Johnson soon (he and Bill Weld are huge friends and has said he is looking into supporting the ticket). Given that he's highly respected in Utah, if Romney endorses Johnson, Trump is done in Utah.
I meant they're united against Clinton.
I also don't put much stock in polls this far out. It seems too risky to believe that Trump is guaranteed to lose.
It's gotten to the point where they are just about ready to pull the plug on Trump's campaign and focus on downticket races to preserve the House and Senate. Obviously the GOP does not want to see Hillary become president, but they can stonewall her into oblivion for 4 years and make it so that she cannot do anything at all. I don't really understand the Reagan comparisons because Reagan wasn't anything close to Trump in terms of his attitude and ability to get people behind him. If anything, Trump is going to go the route of Bob Dole, or, dare I say it... Barry Goldwater.
I brought up Reagan simply to showcase the possibility of what happens when you place too much trust in polling and not the actual election result.
Al Gore was a weak candidate. Ralph Nadar would not have had nearly the influence he could have if Al Gore had been able to shore up the Democrat base away from the the Republicans and the Green Party. While there are many facets out of Ralph Nadar's campaign's control, there is at least one. He shares the burden, not holds all the burden.
So third party candidates matter a lot when the candidates of the two majority party are not well liked.
That's great.
Clinton is probably the least-liked Democratic Party nominee since Jimmy Carter (spit-balling here, but in all honesty I think she's less liked than Carter during his campaign against Reagan).
The Republican Party is pretty much united in the single premise that Clinton CANNOT become the President. This is such to the point that they actually went and accepted the nomination of someone who's not actually a Republican in ideology, simply because that man had the backing of the populist element of the Republican Party and they knew that doing anything would ensure CLinton's nomination.
So, there you have it. The Republicans will do everything to deny a Clinton victory. Clinton doesn't rile up the Democratic general support base, and likely the non-decided for that matter. In fact, many of the liberals commonly associated with the Democratic Party (and probably the people who pushed Obama to victory in 08) see Clinton as a morally bankrupt, plain corrupt individual who stole the election from the man who really should have been nominated.
Given all this, I think it would be fair to say that this would be a highly contested race. I think all this brouhaha about the polling is misleading and possibly downright dangerous. Remember that the Carter/Reagan contest was neck to neck up until the end, when Reagan won by a landslide.
Also remember that, at the start of this year, Trump was considered a joke candidate who may win a primary here and there, but would eventually be shut-out. When he started actually winning and Bush and others dropped out, people thought that the field would become consolidated and so the true Republican candidate (not Trump) would emerge victorious.
I think going with your conscience and voting for a third-party candidiate in this situation is nuts.
1. A defense against these issues, including Russian connections, was published... by RT (Russia Today), which while that doesn't prove the Jill Stein-Russia connection, it does not make the Stein campaign look good that their best defense is to post that article on their Facebook. For the record, I don't fully buy into that smear. At worst, she's also "unwitting" because the real relationship is that RT provides coverage for 3rd Parties that otherwise would slip into complete obscurity. Edit: Link
2. Someone in a Facebook discussion on her campaign page to the above article remarked that even if all of these Jill Stein allegations were true, she'd still be a better candidate than either two major party candidates. I didn't join the discussion, but I'd only be willing to say that if all these allegations were true, that'd only be true of one of Donald Trump. Other thoughts?
If those accusations are true, then I think she not much better than Trump.
...
I went to one of the links the article provides (It's the one in "Stein simply deleted and replaced her statement "), and read the comments there.
Such vitriol.
And it's always sad to see people act the same, regardless of who they're supporting.
"The Green Party calls for a complete, thorough, impartial, and independent investigation of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, including the role of the administration of George W, Bush, various U.S. based corporations and interests, and other nations and third parties."
Haven't got a clue what to make of that.
Isn't this a reference to an investigation into the Saudi role in 9/11?
I don't think so. I find "including the role of the administration of George W, Bush, various U.S. based corporations and interests," very telling.
I feel like I've heard homeopathy referred to completely different things than what y'all are pointing to, but I'm willing to be wrong. I'll accept alternative medicine as the catch all for what I was referring to.
Alternative medicine, for all intents and purposes, is a catch-all phrase used for medical practices that either haven't been studied extensively under the medical version of the Scientific Method or has been without success.
Then she's a bad candidate and I won't vote for her; If she can't get these arguments right, I'm not interested. I don't byy organic, and I won't buy this either. But, that doesn't change that the green platform is on the whole good.
"The Green Party calls for a complete, thorough, impartial, and independent investigation of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, including the role of the administration of George W, Bush, various U.S. based corporations and interests, and other nations and third parties."
Well, we do know that Trump supporters will believe absolutely anything the man says.
If he says the election is fixed against him, they will believe him.
If he says he saw thousands of people cheering when the towers fell, they will believe him.
If he says the media is biased against him, and everything bad they say about his is false, they will believe him.
If he says he was a front to cinch a Democratic win, they will believe him.
Couldn't it be that Trump says things that he knows his supporters will agree with/already believe in?
With that said, you're probably right. America has always had overt racists, they're just not so often encouraged to believe that their beliefs are correct and mainstream as they've been recently. White America has to speak out against the terrorists in their communities.
They did.
That's why the KKK doesn't go around hanging black people anymore.
Rocky Suhayda, Chairman of the American Nazi Party, thinks Trump winning would be a good opportunity for White Nationalism, would surprise the Enemy, would help convince people Nazis aren't bigots or something. [link]
Lets be real, even if Trump loses, the American Right's shift towards this kind of bull***** is more than a little worrying.
I don't think the conservatives are actually getting more xenophobic, in that more xenophobic conservatives today than a year ago.
Trump is simply letting those elements reveal themselves to the general public.
That being said, I also believe that the Republican Party, and that the U.S. in general realy, never had a grip on just how many of their people had xenophobic ideals.
There always were a lot of xenophobes in the U.S., with varying degrees of strength in their belief. Some may be Nazis, others may be people who are showing an overreaction to news from Germany and such.
In any case, I still maintain that the true worrying element in this election should be the Trump supporters and not Trump himself. These people aren't going away. One can only hope that they go back to not voting.
It seems that you are arguing how free a society is is measured by the percentage of people able to pursue their desires. Therefore anarchy is less "free" than instituting a formal government with traffic laws and meat inspectors. This is a very odd use of the word 'free' in a discussion about libertarianism. It might be an effective tactic to get the freedom-obsessed on your side, but it's not what I"m talking about. It's not what most libertarians are talking about. When a libertarian argues that they should be allowed to drive drunk, they are coming at this from an "this would increase my freedom" angle. They're referring to freedom from official government controls, which they usually only are okay with as punishments for actions rather than preventative policies. I often hear, "let people drive drunk, then jail anyone that kills someone for any reason - drunk or not".
That's interesting. Whenever I hear libertarians argue about their position, they actually tend to argue that actions that can harm people to the point of death/severe disability/what have you wouldn't be allowed because death/severe disability/what have you directly denies that individual freedom.
As such, your action is infringing horribly into another's freedom, and ergo cannot be allowed in a libertarian society.
So; I've been wondering if and how exactly this scenario would play out. Because, the GOP seems to be incapable of change and voters for the GOP seem to be incapable of caring about what the "leadership" wanted.
I think this is inaccurate.
The general interpretation of the 2012 election and the GOP leadership strategy afterwards is that said leadership surmised that they needed to broaden their message, and so increase their appeal to minorities such as the Latino population.
That's why Jeb Bush was the party favorite early on.
The way I see it, the problem is that the GOP made a serious mistake with the way they interpreted the conservative backlash against government. It wasn't just towards Democrat-controlled government; it was towards government in general.
That's why Jeb Bush was highly unappealing to the populists and non-die hard pary adherents. Bush is part of a political dynasty, and so represents the same old, same old.
Trump is most decidedly not the same old, same old.
And that's what makes him appealing to these populists who are supporting him.
I think it's a mistake to consider these people actually part of the GOP. They just got lumped along with the GOP because the GOP is the conservative side of U.S. politics and so will encompass this group (in much the same way the Democrats have in the last decade or so grown to encompass the genuinely liberal elements of society) out of necessity.
The GOP leadership is just stuck with Trump because they really, really, really don't like Hillary Clinton. To the point that they're willing to place themselves under severe self-delusion regarding Trump. That's why they can't just dump him at this point, since that means Clinton wins. They're willing to get a man that is clearly unelectable into office, simply because he has the Republican Party next to his name on the ballot box.
In all honesty, I don't think Trump's victory is the most interesting development of this election cycle. Rather, it's that Sanders has succeeded in really forcing his will on the Democratic Party.
It is genuinely startling to me just how much social politics have changed the U.S. in the last decade or so. And now Sanders essentially forced the Democratic Party to officially make this a part of its identity. This is huge, probably on par with the shift that occurred in the 50s-60s with the Civil Rights movements.
Trump and the populist movement is a direct response to the impact social politics had on the U.S.
At this point, I fully expect the divide between the conservative and liberal camps to grow even bigger. And If the Democratic candidate line-up in 2024 doesn' have genuine liberal tendencies, then I fully expect to see a similar populist uprising in the manner similar to Trump.
I disagree. And it's not like Russia or the world is waiting for Trump's approval to expose that classified content which Clinton was so negligent with.
That seems irrelevant. The point is that Trump asked Russia to go find classified information.
It shouldn't matter what the background on those classified information is at this point- Trump asked Russia to go find classified information.
Why is it dangerous advice?
I meant they're united against Clinton.
I also don't put much stock in polls this far out. It seems too risky to believe that Trump is guaranteed to lose.
I brought up Reagan simply to showcase the possibility of what happens when you place too much trust in polling and not the actual election result.
So third party candidates matter a lot when the candidates of the two majority party are not well liked.
That's great.
Clinton is probably the least-liked Democratic Party nominee since Jimmy Carter (spit-balling here, but in all honesty I think she's less liked than Carter during his campaign against Reagan).
The Republican Party is pretty much united in the single premise that Clinton CANNOT become the President. This is such to the point that they actually went and accepted the nomination of someone who's not actually a Republican in ideology, simply because that man had the backing of the populist element of the Republican Party and they knew that doing anything would ensure CLinton's nomination.
So, there you have it. The Republicans will do everything to deny a Clinton victory. Clinton doesn't rile up the Democratic general support base, and likely the non-decided for that matter. In fact, many of the liberals commonly associated with the Democratic Party (and probably the people who pushed Obama to victory in 08) see Clinton as a morally bankrupt, plain corrupt individual who stole the election from the man who really should have been nominated.
Given all this, I think it would be fair to say that this would be a highly contested race. I think all this brouhaha about the polling is misleading and possibly downright dangerous. Remember that the Carter/Reagan contest was neck to neck up until the end, when Reagan won by a landslide.
Also remember that, at the start of this year, Trump was considered a joke candidate who may win a primary here and there, but would eventually be shut-out. When he started actually winning and Bush and others dropped out, people thought that the field would become consolidated and so the true Republican candidate (not Trump) would emerge victorious.
I think going with your conscience and voting for a third-party candidiate in this situation is nuts.
If those accusations are true, then I think she not much better than Trump.
...
I went to one of the links the article provides (It's the one in "Stein simply deleted and replaced her statement "), and read the comments there.
Such vitriol.
And it's always sad to see people act the same, regardless of who they're supporting.
I don't think so. I find "including the role of the administration of George W, Bush, various U.S. based corporations and interests," very telling.
I think it's what Tiax wrote.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy
Alternative medicine, for all intents and purposes, is a catch-all phrase used for medical practices that either haven't been studied extensively under the medical version of the Scientific Method or has been without success.
"The Green Party calls for a complete, thorough, impartial, and independent investigation of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, including the role of the administration of George W, Bush, various U.S. based corporations and interests, and other nations and third parties."
Haven't got a clue what to make of that.
Couldn't it be that Trump says things that he knows his supporters will agree with/already believe in?
They did.
That's why the KKK doesn't go around hanging black people anymore.
I don't think the conservatives are actually getting more xenophobic, in that more xenophobic conservatives today than a year ago.
Trump is simply letting those elements reveal themselves to the general public.
That being said, I also believe that the Republican Party, and that the U.S. in general realy, never had a grip on just how many of their people had xenophobic ideals.
There always were a lot of xenophobes in the U.S., with varying degrees of strength in their belief. Some may be Nazis, others may be people who are showing an overreaction to news from Germany and such.
In any case, I still maintain that the true worrying element in this election should be the Trump supporters and not Trump himself. These people aren't going away. One can only hope that they go back to not voting.
That's interesting. Whenever I hear libertarians argue about their position, they actually tend to argue that actions that can harm people to the point of death/severe disability/what have you wouldn't be allowed because death/severe disability/what have you directly denies that individual freedom.
As such, your action is infringing horribly into another's freedom, and ergo cannot be allowed in a libertarian society.
How would you?
In fact, what does it mean to decide that we value human lives and how do we enforce this?
I think this is inaccurate.
The general interpretation of the 2012 election and the GOP leadership strategy afterwards is that said leadership surmised that they needed to broaden their message, and so increase their appeal to minorities such as the Latino population.
That's why Jeb Bush was the party favorite early on.
The way I see it, the problem is that the GOP made a serious mistake with the way they interpreted the conservative backlash against government. It wasn't just towards Democrat-controlled government; it was towards government in general.
That's why Jeb Bush was highly unappealing to the populists and non-die hard pary adherents. Bush is part of a political dynasty, and so represents the same old, same old.
Trump is most decidedly not the same old, same old.
And that's what makes him appealing to these populists who are supporting him.
I think it's a mistake to consider these people actually part of the GOP. They just got lumped along with the GOP because the GOP is the conservative side of U.S. politics and so will encompass this group (in much the same way the Democrats have in the last decade or so grown to encompass the genuinely liberal elements of society) out of necessity.
The GOP leadership is just stuck with Trump because they really, really, really don't like Hillary Clinton. To the point that they're willing to place themselves under severe self-delusion regarding Trump. That's why they can't just dump him at this point, since that means Clinton wins. They're willing to get a man that is clearly unelectable into office, simply because he has the Republican Party next to his name on the ballot box.
In all honesty, I don't think Trump's victory is the most interesting development of this election cycle. Rather, it's that Sanders has succeeded in really forcing his will on the Democratic Party.
It is genuinely startling to me just how much social politics have changed the U.S. in the last decade or so. And now Sanders essentially forced the Democratic Party to officially make this a part of its identity. This is huge, probably on par with the shift that occurred in the 50s-60s with the Civil Rights movements.
Trump and the populist movement is a direct response to the impact social politics had on the U.S.
At this point, I fully expect the divide between the conservative and liberal camps to grow even bigger. And If the Democratic candidate line-up in 2024 doesn' have genuine liberal tendencies, then I fully expect to see a similar populist uprising in the manner similar to Trump.
That seems irrelevant. The point is that Trump asked Russia to go find classified information.
It shouldn't matter what the background on those classified information is at this point- Trump asked Russia to go find classified information.
You know this, how?
How do you know that it was more a sarcastic comment?
No, treason and dishonest behaviors are different things.
Clinton claiming that her e-mails contained no classified information (I think that's what she said at one point) would be dishonest behavior.
Trump saying that he hopes Russia gets its hands on a bunch of classified information is treasonous behavior.