TRUMP - Just because.....................Naw, I just can't say it!
POSTED BY: SHINYGOODGUY
UPDATED: Monday, March 9, 2026 20:06
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Democracy for Realists, based on years of scholarship done on the ugly realities of how American voting behavior really works, sheds crucial light on a question that liberals have been banging their heads over for months — why on earth would anyone vote for Donald Trump? The book's analysis is both troubling and important: Throughout history, people in general have cast their votes for no particularly good reason at all, so there’s no reason to expect Trump supporters to be any different.
www.amazon.com/Democracy-Realists-Elections-Responsive-Government/dp/0
691169446/
The frightening knowledge that general election outcomes are heavily shaped by arbitrary factors helps explain some of the appeal of books like 2008’s The Party Decides. Not only was the book’s argument compelling on its own merits, but there was also something fundamentally reassuring about the idea that policy-savvy elites were picking nominees through a rational deliberative process. You might not like the policy outcomes the winning political party pursued, but things would probably be done competently and coherently, and as long as the parties rotate in power, nothing too terrible should happen.
Donald Trump’s nomination by the Republican Party served to largely shatter that book’s prestige in the media.
But the crucial thing about Trump is that while he gives all appearances of being a catastrophic presidential candidate — not supported by either of his party’s two living past presidents, endorsed by zero major newspaper editorial pages, routinely decried as a liar by mild-mannered, non-ideological campaign reporters, and enjoying only grudging backing from the GOP congressional leadership — he’s not performing that badly.
Vox’s Trump Tax model, designed in partnership with a group of political scientists, suggests that Trump is polling only 5 percentage points worse than you would expect a generic Republican to poll given the overall political climate. Major election forecasts see a Trump win as unlikely, but still normally give him a 1 in 4 or 1 in 5 chance, meaning Hillary losing to Trump would be the equivalent of Hillary's football team blowing an easy field goal — surprising, but hardly unheard of.
Shark attacks, which Presidents and candidates have no control over, have moved voters 10 percentage points in Presidential elections. Trump is behind by only 6% of the popular vote. All of the evidence from both the current campaign and longer-term studies of the American electorate suggests two basic conclusions about Trump — that the vast majority of people who would vote for a generic Republican nominee will vote for him, and that while he would need some good luck from external events to win, it’s easily within the realm of possibility.
We are only one poorly timed piece of bad economic news or one case of Hillary Clinton coming down with the flu away from a president with no relevant qualifications who virtually nobody with real experience governing truly thinks is a good choice.
It would be nice to think that government is driven by the profound desires of the people. The evidence, however, suggests something rather different and darker — that as the balance of power shifts away from party establishments and toward the mass public, we will get government driven by the whims of inattentive and uninformed voters, and there won’t be much beyond dumb luck standing between the republic and a telegenic demagogue who happens to secure the backing of the minority of people who bother to vote in primary elections.
www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/10/14/12663318/bartels-achen-demo
cracy-for-realists
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Yesterday’s presentation by Donald Trump's economic adviser, Peter Navarro, at the Tax Policy Center’s discussion of the presidential candidate tax plans reminded me of a passage in George Orwell’s dystopic novel 1984. The inner party’s chief torturer holds up his left hand with the thumb hidden and four fingers extended and asks the prisoner, “How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?” When Winston replies “four”, the official responds, “And if the party says it is not four but five – then how many?”
That’s a bit of what’s happening with Navarro’s explanation of Trump’s tax and trade policy. His argument goes something like this: Yes, Trump’s tax plan on its own would increase the deficit. But in tandem with his trade policy (as well as regulatory changes and a pro-carbon energy policy), their tax plan would not increase the deficit.
Here’s where Navarro’s argument about trade goes wrong: continue at -Trump adviser's take on taxes, trade turns economic theory on its head
www.csmonitor.com/Business/Tax-VOX/2016/1016/Trump-adviser-s-take-on-t
axes-trade-turns-economic-theory-on-its-head
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He now points a finger at "animal" Democrats for the fire bombing in NC. I think that the jury's still out as to who done it, but I wouldn't put it past his supporters to try and distract attention away from the sexual assault allegations.
I found his response a bit too quick and wrong-headed. As usual despicable.
SGG
Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
I saw this article online in MSN News and thought that maybe it was one of those bait and switch stories that sensationalize statements made by prominent people to capture reader's attention.
Oh, it got my attention alright.
Let's put aside the chauvinistic comments for a moment. This guy flat out
threatened the United States:
"...but if Hillary Clinton wins it will be the last U.S. president ever."
The guy is completely mental, especially if he thinks that Russia will be left standing unscathed. In a nuclear war, nobody wins. It makes you wonder
about comments made right here in River City by our dynamic duo; of how
Hillary is the warmonger and aggressor in this equation. It takes a lot of
balls to make that bold of a statement. That or lack of mental capacity; it just might be that, like Trump, he's lost all semblance of reality.
Buckle up Dorothy, Kansas is going Bye-Bye!
SGG
The guys unhinged and as much as I don't care for Hillary it would be a disaster if she were to lose to him.
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Quote:I believe Trump's campaign went off the rails because of Trump's new campaign C.E.O. Steve Bannon:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
He now points a finger at "animal" Democrats for the fire bombing in NC. I think that the jury's still out as to who done it, but I wouldn't put it past his supporters to try and distract attention away from the sexual assault allegations.
I found his response a bit too quick and wrong-headed. As usual despicable.
SGG
www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/steve-bannons-vision-for-the-trump-co
alition-after-election-day
It took someone smarter and more cynical than Trump to distill Trump’s platform of protectionism, closed borders, and white identity politics into one message about a global conspiracy. The man behind this new message is Steve Bannon, who became the C.E.O. of the Trump campaign in August. Bannon is on leave from Breitbart, the right-wing news site where he served as executive chairman, and where he honed a view of international politics that Trump now parrots.
Bannon, who is sixty-two, is new to right-wing rabble-rousing, compared to someone like Stone. Bannon went to the Harvard Business School and became wealthy as a mergers-and-acquisition deal-maker for Goldman Sachs, in the nineteen-eighties. He made a fortune by buying a share of the royalties for “Seinfeld” back in 1993, and receives them to this day.
Bannon met Andrew Breitbart, the founder of the news Web site, when Bannon was financing conservative documentaries in Los Angeles in the aughts. Breitbart, who previously worked with the Drudge Report, started Breitbart in 2005 as a conservative news aggregator, much like his former employer. In the fall of 2009, Bannon and Breitbart worked together on a business plan to launch a more ambitious version of the site, and Bannon joined its board in 2011, once the financing deal closed. When Andrew Breitbart died, in 2012, Bannon became executive chairman and took over the site. Back then Breitbart was a pugnacious but still recognizably conservative site, but, with Bannon in charge, its politics started to change.
Bannon embraced the growing populist movement in America, including the “alt-right,” a new term for white nationalists, who care little about traditional conservative economic ideas and instead stress the need to preserve America’s European heritage and keep out non-whites and non-Christians. Under Bannon, Breitbart promoted similar movements in Europe, including the United Kingdom Independence Party, the National Front in France, Alternative for Germany, and the Freedom Party in the Netherlands. Bannon likes to say that his goal is “to build a global, center-right, populist, anti-establishment news site.” After the election is over, Breitbart, which has offices in London and Rome, plans to open up new bureaus in France and Germany.
This ambition extends to supporting the election of right-wing candidates. In 2013, Bannon encouraged Senator Jeff Sessions, of Alabama, who led the opposition to immigration reform, to run for President, but Sessions declined to enter the race. Bannon went on to attend early candidate forums, where he noticed that, while most Republicans stuck to the Party’s small-government message, Trump was hitting the protectionist themes that proved popular at Breitbart and on the European right.
In early 2015, Breitbart tilted toward Cruz, but after Trump entered the race that summer, with a sharper anti-immigrant message, Breitbart evolved into an unofficial arm of the Trump campaign. “Donald Trump: Candidate for Our Age” and “20 Reasons Why It Should Be Donald Trump in 2016” were typical headlines. When Trump fired his campaign director, Paul Manafort, in mid-August, he made Kellyanne Conway, a Republican pollster, his new campaign manager, and named Bannon his campaign C.E.O.
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Trump’s appeal isn’t limited to what he says he’ll do on social issues. Trump’s promises to lower taxes and cut government spending also are attractive. Gene, 39, immigrated from Moscow 16 years ago and works as a computer consultant. “Why do I support Mr. Trump? Because I pay $70,000 in taxes,” he said, playing with the metal bracelet in his hand as he sat sipping coffee, facing the water. “I believe a lot of people don’t understand that he is a really good guy. He looks like kind of crazy but the question is what is inside. Inside he is a good guy.”
Boris Korosty, who immigrated to the US 27 years ago, said, “Hillary would take us towards something like socialism. She has the same mentality like Mr. Obama—bigger government, more welfare, more this, more that. I have seen what this does, this is not a good thing.”
He shares his dim view of America’s future. “What scares me is that I saw one of the biggest countries fall down in a few days because of wrong leadership. No war, nothing. Boom, no more Soviet Union. Scares me, a lot.” Another reason he backs Trump? “At least he is a tough guy,” said Korosty. “What kind of president falls down while she is walking?”
http://qz.com/809857/the-heart-of-a-russian-enclave-of-new-york-beats-
strong-for-donald-trump/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Trump from the start had been playing a part, but his acting got worse and worse as time went on, until finally he couldn't keep track: Was he supposed to be a genuine traitor to his class and the savior of the common man, or just be himself, i.e., a bellicose pervert with too much time on his hands? Or were the two things the same thing? He was too dumb to figure it out, and that paralysis played itself out on the Super Bowl of political stages. It was great television. It was also the worst thing that ever happened to our electoral system.
Trump's shocking rise and spectacular fall have been a singular disaster for U.S. politics. Built up in the press as the American Hitler, he was unmasked in the end as a pathetic little prankster who ruined himself, his family and half of America's two-party political system for what was probably a half-assed ego trip all along, adventure tourism for the idiot rich.
That such a small man would have such an awesome impact on our nation's history is terrible, but it makes sense if you believe in the essential ridiculousness of the human experience. Trump picked exactly the wrong time to launch his mirror-gazing rampage to nowhere. He ran at a time when Americans on both sides of the aisle were experiencing a deep sense of betrayal by the political class, anger that was finally ready to express itself at the ballot box.
The only thing that could get in the way of real change – if not now, then surely very soon – was a rebellion so maladroit, ill-conceived and irresponsible that even the severest critics of the system would become zealots for the status quo.
In the absolute best-case scenario, the one in which he loses, this is what Trump's run accomplished. He ran as an outsider antidote to a corrupt two-party system, and instead will leave that system more entrenched than ever. If he goes on to lose, he will be our Bonaparte, the monster who will continue to terrify us even in exile, reinforcing the authority of kings.
If you thought lesser-evilism was bad before, wait until the answer to every question you might have about your political leaders becomes, "Would you rather have Trump in office?"
Trump can't win. Our national experiment can't end because one aging narcissist got bored of sex and food. Not even America deserves that. But that doesn't mean we come out ahead. We're more divided than ever, sicker than ever, dumber than ever. And there's no reason to think it won't be worse the next time.
www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/the-fury-and-failure-of-donald-
trump-w444943
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SECOND... do you suppose you could post your own opinion, instead of someone else's?
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=60903&p=4
I'm beginning to think that you let others do your thinking for you.
Hillary is a WAR CANDIDATE, and that's just what we need, right? More war?
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There are many, many problems with hillary. She breaks countries and starts wars wherever she goes. Right now, she and obama are drumming up war fever JUST TO WIN THE ELECTION. Never mind that it's not against some small hapless country full of brown people that most voters can't find on a map. No, hillary and obama are aiming a Russia, a fully capable nuclear equal. I wonder if they've considered that the Russian response to their war-mongering might be something they can't just turn off after the election.
hillary as a president would have zero power to keep her many, many empty promises. And she knows that, but it doesn't stop her from making them anyway, because people really are that gullible. So, why not? But even more than that, hillary herself doesn't believe them, as the leaked documents show. hillary is an empty husk of a person when it comes to integrity.
hillary is completely corrupt, mixing state power with personal gain, as the leaked emails about pay-to-play as Secy of State and her toadying speeches to GS show.
And there's the billary issue - co-abusers of women and children, equal, if not worse than anyone else on the campaign trail.
But the BIGGEST problem with hillary is her finger on the nuclear button. Having left Iraq, Libya, Ukraine and Syria in unfixable smoking ruins, and unable to admit or even understand that she was wrong, surrounded by her equally deluded neocons in the State Department, military and CIA who also think a nuclear war is winnable, deaf to warnings, she'd turn her attention toward Russia - with her fat finger on the nuclear button and US policy to launch nuclear weapons FIRST in her waddling hip pocket. Given her unblemished history of failure, i can't imagine anything could possibly go wrong.
Let me just point out that the author left out vital relevant facts in the opinion piece. Doing that is known as cherry-picking. And whether you do that in the news, in discussion, in debate or in opinion, when you distort the facts, you've changed the nature of your communication into propaganda. But WE don't have any of THAT in the US, do we?!
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Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
There are many, many problems with hillary. She breaks countries and starts wars wherever she goes. Right now, she and obama are drumming up war fever JUST TO WIN THE ELECTION. Never mind that it's not against some small hapless country full of brown people that most voters can't find on a map. No, hillary and obama are aiming a Russia, a fully capable nuclear equal. I wonder if they've considered that the Russian response to their war-mongering might be something they can't just turn off after the election.
hillary as a president would have zero power to keep her many, many empty promises. And she knows that, but it doesn't stop her from making them anyway, because people really are that gullible. So, why not? But even more than that, hillary herself doesn't believe them, as the leaked documents show. hillary is an empty husk of a person when it comes to integrity.
hillary is completely corrupt, mixing state power with personal gain, as the leaked emails about pay-to-play as Secy of State and her toadying speeches to GS show.
And there's the billary issue - co-abusers of women and children, equal, if not worse than anyone else on the campaign trail.
But the BIGGEST problem with hillary is her finger on the nuclear button. Having left Iraq, Libya, Ukraine and Syria in unfixable smoking ruins, and unable to admit or even understand that she was wrong, surrounded by her equally deluded neocons in the State Department, military and CIA who also think a nuclear war is winnable, deaf to warnings, she'd turn her attention toward Russia - with her fat finger on the nuclear button and US policy to launch nuclear weapons FIRST in her waddling hip pocket. Given her unblemished history of failure, i can't imagine anything could possibly go wrong.
President: National poll results
Hillary Clinton (D) 45% (+7.00)
Donald Trump (R) 38%
Gary Johnson (L) 6%
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President: National poll results =
Reality isn't decided by polling.
Hillary is a WAR CANDIDATE, and that's just what we need, right? More war?
Oh BTW, please define intelligence.
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=60903&p=4#1
018100
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