Killary Clinton, The Donald, or Jill Stein: The US Election

I have been watching some of the GOP (Republican Party) debates. I think in terms of foreign policy, Donald Trump is the least war-mongering of the 5 candidates remaining for the Republican nomination (Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Kasich & Carson). In the recent (25 February 2016) Houston debate, Rubio said it was not possible to form any kind of a deal with the Palestinian authority. Cruz was also very strong in his unilateral support for Israel. Trump said he would like to make a deal to bring peace between Palestine and Israel, but that such a deal would be a very hard one to make. Kasich and Carson both come across as moderate in terms of their personal demeanor, but in terms of actual foreign policy they are both quite aggressive. Kasich said in the Houston debate that he wants to arm Ukraine, and to see regime change in North Korea.

On the border with Mexico, I think the wall idea is not entirely ridiculous. If you believe in having countries ruled by national governments, those countries should have a right to control their borders. Nations should still accept refugees or asylum seekers for humanitarian reasons. But there is nothing unusual about the USA not wanting to have open borders. An open border would allow anyone who decides they want to live in a particular country to just enter and start living there. Few if any countries have such a policy.

In the Nevada caucus, Trump gained more support from Latino voters than any of the other candidates. This I think makes it problematic to draw the conclusion that Trump's "big, beautiful wall" idea makes him in some way a racist. Nationalistic, yes, but then so are all the other candidates.

I'm not a US citizen, but I think if I were I would probably vote for Trump, rather than purposefully not voting for anyone to express dissatisfaction with the whole system. Or to put it another way, as useless as a vote might be, I would rather see Trump as president than Rubio, Cruz or the "democrat" Clinton. OK maybe all the real decisions are made by the "deep state", but if the President does have any effect in one direction or another, then I think the choice of President is still something worth voting for.
 
Mal7 said:
I'm not a US citizen, but I think if I were I would probably vote for Trump, rather than purposefully not voting for anyone to express dissatisfaction with the whole system. Or to put it another way, as useless as a vote might be, I would rather see Trump as president than Rubio, Cruz or the "democrat" Clinton. OK maybe all the real decisions are made by the "deep state", but if the President does have any effect in one direction or another, then I think the choice of President is still something worth voting for.
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I wouldn't put so much trust in what any of the candidates are saying. Eventually whoever becomes President, she/he/it will do whatever the PTB want. Obama promised his supporters that he would bring all the troops back from Afghanistan, didn't happen. He said he'd close Guantanamo Bay, didn't happen. These are just two of the many false promises. And Trump is already a flip-flopper. Three years ago he tweeted: "Let’s get out of Afghanistan. Our troops are being killed by the Afghanis we train and we waste billions there. Nonsense! Rebuild the USA." Last year he said: "Do I love anything about it? No. I think it's important, number one, that we keep a presence there [in Afghanistan] and ideally a presence of pretty much what they're talking about -- 5,000 soldiers,"

I've never voted in my life, and if I was a US citizen, I definitely wouldn't, because there isn't a "choice", just an illusion of choice... Unfortunately, if there truly was a sincere candidate and for some magic reason would become President, I think he would be on the chopping block pretty quickly. Fwiw.
 
I spent over five hours at a Dealership lounge/waiting room yesterday, having some electronic problems with my car checked out. They have a wide screen TV erected on the wall and all that time, everything on the different channels was focused "on Trump"! The big pow-wow was on his filing taxes and his tax return. Trump countered their claims by showing a huge stack of papers, stating they are all from Corporations - he owns and manages. I don't have Trump's problem - my yearly income is so low on Social Security, that there's not enough to file. Plus, I haven't had a TV in the last 7-8 years - so I could reduce my cable bill and expenses. Looks like I'm not missing much.

NY Times Columnist Jokes About Assassination Attempt Ending Trump’s Campaign (Videos & Photo of tweet)
_http://www.infowars.com/ny-times-columnist-jokes-about-assassination-attempt-ending-trumps-campaign/

UPDATE: Douthat has apologized and deleted the original tweet. A screenshot of the tweet appears below.

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat caused outrage after he joked about how an assassination attempt could end Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

“Good news guys I’ve figured out how the Trump campaign ends,” Douthat tweeted last night.

The tweet links to a video clip from the 1983 movie The Dead Zone, which features a character played by Christopher Walken attempting to gun down a political figure played by Martin Sheen.

In the plot, Walken’s character tries to kill the US Senatorial candidate (played by Sheen) because he has visions of him becoming president in the future and starting a nuclear war. Sheen’s character holds up a baby as a human shield during the assassination attempt, destroying his credibility.

While joking about an assassination attempt on any public figure is crass, it’s particularly relevant with Trump because he faces a very real threat of being targeted.

As we previously highlighted, according to his former advisor Roger Stone, Trump now wears a bullet proof vest at all public appearance due to the sheer volume of death threats he receives on a regular basis.

Trump first began wearing the vest in October last year after after reports that the world’s most wanted drug lord El Chapo had put a $100 million bounty on his head. He also received Secret Service protection at around this time.

Following his controversial comments on Muslim immigration back in December, Twitter exploded with death threats aimed at Trump.

Reaction to Douthat’s Twitter quip from Trump supporters was forceful.

Douthat bills himself as a conservative, but in his latest column for the New York Times he concludes that “President Hillary” would be a better choice for America than “our own nuclear-armed Berlusconi”.

Attacks on Trump from conservatives and members of the Republican establishment have picked up in recent days, with Mitt Romney remarking yesterday that the billionaire’s tax documents could be hiding a “bombshell” revelation.
 
Oxajil said:
I've never voted in my life, and if I was a US citizen, I definitely wouldn't, because there isn't a "choice", just an illusion of choice... Unfortunately, if there truly was a sincere candidate and for some magic reason would become President, I think he would be on the chopping block pretty quickly. Fwiw.
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I think certainly in the 2012 election that what we could call usefully call the Deep State would have found equally acceptable the election of either Barack Obama or his defeated opponent Mitt Romney. So I would agree there was an illusion of choice. I am not completely sure in the current 2016 election that the Deep State would be happy with Trump being elected. There does seem to be a lot at stake, in that the escalation of conflicts involving Russia, Syria, Turkey, Libya, and of course the hot-headed hawks of the USA could potentially lead to World War Three.

Trump talks about Russia, Syria, Iraq, and Libya in the following 4 minute video. He says it is good that Russia is bombing ISIS; that the US shouldn't be giving weapons to the "moderate" rebels in Syria, and that it would better if the politicians had spent the day at the beach doing nothing, rather than overthrowing Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Gaddafi in Libya:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jyElI-pc08 ["Trump Explains The Syria Conflict" CBS, 10 February 2016]
 
I watched the John Oliver clip on Donald Trump. I think I still prefer Trump to Rubio or Cruz among the Republican candidates. I think some of the attacks on Trump are justified. Trump does seem in many of his past business ventures to have been more of a snake oil salesman than a Mother Teresa.

The comedic attacks on Trump, if they are effective, will help Hillary Clinton win the general election in November. I don't think Clinton would be better than Trump. In terms of making media-conspiracy links, the John Oliver "Last Week Tonight" show is an HBO program. HBO is owned by Time Warner. Time Warner is the conglomerate that also owns CNN, which has been seen as having a bias towards "liberals" and democrats, and for that reason is sometimes referred to jokingly as the "Clinton News Network".

I think Trump does have some actual policies, and is sometimes unfairly criticized for not having any real policy but just repeating "Great", "Beautiful", "Great" over and over. He does give plenty of opportunities for ridicule via selective use of short sound bites. On reducing healthcare costs, his policy is to remove Obamacare, and make healthcare funding cheaper by allowing people to go outside their state lines for their healthcare plans. At present, insurance companies tend to have monopolies within individual states. If people could go outside their state for healthcare, there would be more competition between the medical insurance companies, and the prices of insurance plans would drop. For people in the lowest economic position who cannot afford medical insurance, Trump favors government paid healthcare via Medicaid, so that people won't "die on the streets". Trump discusses healthcare with Cruz in the following three minute video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNs4rYv1H_M ["Trump and Cruz Debate Socialized Medicine (2/25/16 Rep. Debate)"]
 
Mal7 said:
I watched the John Oliver clip on Donald Trump. I think I still prefer Trump to Rubio or Cruz among the Republican candidates. I think some of the attacks on Trump are justified. Trump does seem in many of his past business ventures to have been more of a snake oil salesman than a Mother Teresa.
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I’m not sure I could find a preference in any of them, what’s to prefer? The real troubling thing about Trump links to the title of the thread, that he is indeed a spellbinder and is using it as a way to give voice to some very angry, disenfranchised, authoritarian followers.

On that level, it doesn’t matter that he doesn’t have any policies, to those folk getting whipped up by him it will make no difference whatsoever. There’s fascism down that road and many of Trump’s supporters would be all to walk down it with glee it seems, if it "makes America great again".

So I’d be inclined to forget policies and discussing the details, its the broad sweep of what Trump represents, what is being activated in people by him and how he’s doing it that is far more troubling imo.

There’s a great piece on SOTT.net to give fulle rcontext for the above though. Well worth the read: The U.S. descent into fascism: The age of the demagogues

Half of all Americans live in poverty. They have watched helplessly as their communities have been plunged into distress by the flight of manufacturing jobs and as their infrastructure, both moral and physical, has been ripped out from under them. America resembles the developing world. A tiny, oligarchic elite amasses obscene amounts of wealth while most of the population lives amid boarded-up storefronts, dilapidated houses, pothole-riddled streets, abandoned factories and warehouses and crumbling schools. They see no future. They have abandoned hope. Their despair now infects a shrinking and desperate middle class. Americans feel isolated, vulnerable and frightened. They yearn for moral and economic renewal, revived greatness, and vengeance. And many are desperately hunting for a savior outside the established political order.
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This article http://sott.net/en313355 is a refresher on what politics and elections circus mean today.
 
Hi Mal7,

Frankly, I think you might got caught up a little in all this "election" side-show. It's easy to think that some candidates may be better than others if you listen to their campaigns, debates etc., where they try to "spellbind" people by saying the right things, pushing the right buttons etc. I think it's a good exercise to just stop paying attention to all the noise of the presidential campaigns, and focus on the facts. Here are some, at least this is how I see it:

Mal7 said:
I watched the John Oliver clip on Donald Trump. I think I still prefer Trump to Rubio or Cruz among the Republican candidates.
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And do you think Trump, even if he wanted to, could change anything fundamental about the pathological system of the USA?

Trump does seem in many of his past business ventures to have been more of a snake oil salesman than a Mother Teresa.
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Yes, a snakes oil salesman, a pathological liar and megalomaniac narcissist. As John Oliver put it: "a shitty lifestyle brand".

The comedic attacks on Trump, if they are effective, will help Hillary Clinton win the general election in November. I don't think Clinton would be better than Trump.
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Does it matter who will become president, when everything they "do" is decided by Wallstreet/a few powerful and pathological clans at the top of the US oligarchy?

In terms of making media-conspiracy links, the John Oliver "Last Week Tonight" show is an HBO program. HBO is owned by Time Warner. Time Warner is the conglomerate that also owns CNN, which has been seen as having a bias towards "liberals" and democrats, and for that reason is sometimes referred to jokingly as the "Clinton News Network".
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Please don't fall for "liberal" vs. "conservative" thinking. It's a distraction, divide and conquer... In this video, John Oliver reports facts. Everything else (HBO, "liberal bias" etc.) is irrelevant.

I think Trump does have some actual policies, and is sometimes unfairly criticized for not having any real policy but just repeating "Great", "Beautiful", "Great" over and over.
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John Oliver gives plenty of examples how Trump changed his "opinion" from one day to the next. He doesn't really stand for anything. Obama at least was fairly consistent in his message during his campaign, but still did the opposite when in office. Trump even lies during his campaign and changes from day to day - what do you expect him to do when in office?


Mal7 said:
He does give plenty of opportunities for ridicule via selective use of short sound bites. On reducing healthcare costs, his policy is to remove Obamacare, and make healthcare funding cheaper by allowing people to go outside their state lines for their healthcare plans. At present, insurance companies tend to have monopolies within individual states. If people could go outside their state for healthcare, there would be more competition between the medical insurance companies, and the prices of insurance plans would drop. For people in the lowest economic position who cannot afford medical insurance, Trump favors government paid healthcare via Medicaid, so that people won't "die on the streets".
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Do you think Trump, a guy who makes cruel jokes about homeless people, cares for the people on the streets? Besides, privatisation is a fraud, designed to make some oligarchs and their buddies rich. Plus, competition of health insurance doesn't make things cheaper, it only leads to chaos and more power for the pharmaceutical companies, which are the real evil in our medical system. To even have a slight hope to counter their doings, we need a strong regulator (government) and a strong state-run insurance body. Frankly, I think the whole medical field should be government-operated from start to finish. Here in Europe, privatisation of the health sector only led to misery galore and a few psychopaths making tons of money.

I can recommend Michael Moore's documentary "Capitalism: A Love Story" which I watched recently - it shows just how corrupt and evil the Western corporate fascism (yes, that's capitalism today) is. It will never change in any meaningful way "from the inside". OSIT
 
Mal7 said:
Mr. Premise said:
Scott Adams (the guy who writes Dilbert) has written a lot about Trump in his blog. Adams, who always struck me as a bit creepy, studies hypnosis and manipulation as a hobby, and says Trump is a master at this (he calls him a wizard). A lot of the things he says that sound like gaffes or random shooting off of his mouth are actually well crafted. He predicted Trump would win this thing last summer.
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There's an 8 minute video about Scott Adams' theory about Trump here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55NxKENplG4 ["Dilbert Creator Scott Adams on Donald Trump's "Linguistic Kill Shots". by ReasonTV. October 2015]
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The "vagueness" technique reminds of the portrayal of Hitler in the documentary "The Nazis: A Warning from History" where he would make vague declarations and then the people that work for him would fill in what he meant and then competitively go implement whatever they thought Hitler wanted.
 
Alada said:
I’m not sure I could find a preference in any of them, what’s to prefer?
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I prefer that Trump thinks he would be able to get on with Putin, whereas Rubio thinks Putin is a gangster that the USA should get tough with.

Here's a clip of Rubio talking about Putin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA8kaGnf4ro ["Marco Rubio: Putin Is A Gangster | Marco Rubio for President" 10 November 2015]

I may be getting too caught up in the whole election spectacle. Trump does have excesses, and has appealed to unpleasant traits among the population. I guess I like to think that he is an actual outsider, non-establishment candidate, and that his worst excesses have just been attention-gathering exercises.
 
Trump has been drawing some really large crowds on the Campaign trail.

What happens - if someone other than Trump gets sworn in as the next U.S. President?

A Revolution = in the streets - of every city?
 
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