The Next President of the United States: IV

Pretty much.

I understand Zeb, and we agree on the issues of the candidates, but while you are able to hold your nose and vote for Trump I am not. We’ve been down this road before and I understand your position, which certainly has its points.

My point to raj was that if wars and budget were his central issues (he brought them up) Trump has not done anything to address them historically (the opposite in most cases), with his current platform, or how he has handled his businesses. Raj’s argument that Trump would be the change that fixes those issues has no backing. You could make that argument if you are voting for Gary Johnson, as I will be (queue the flushing toilet as my vote goes down it).

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[quote=“Drew1411, post:60, topic:218984, full:true”]

I’m not talking about not changing, I’m talking about having a president who actually knows how to handle issues that he would face, two of which you highlighted. How does Trump address that? [/quote]

You just said that the US has a good thing going by only electing people with previous political or military experience and you didn’t want the US to turn into a failed Trump venture as he doesn’t have that experience.

These experienced politicians you talk reverently of have turned the country into a “failed venture.”

[quote=“Drew1411, post:63, topic:218984, full:true”] Raj’s argument that Trump would be the change that fixes those issues has no backing. You could make that argument if you are voting for Gary Johnson, as I will be (queue the flushing toilet as my vote goes down it).
[/quote]

A guy with business experience might do a much better job with budgetary issues than the proven failed career politicians.

No, its not. We are still the strongest military power and most dominant economy. By what measure is the USA failed? I think it can do better, and it certainly is heading in the wrong direction, but it is far from failed.

Again, Trump has not said or done that would indicate he would fix the problems you brought up (wars and debt).

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might?? based on what? business experience that has had many failed and fraudulent businesses.

If budgetary issues are your thing, again, look at Gary Johnson’s track record of handling budgets. Try base your argument on something factual.

For the sake of not repeating myself too many times I’m done responding on this inexperience = good thing argument you have not backed up. You can have the last word if you want.

This is a huge long answer

20 trillion dollars in debt - this is a selling out of the futures of Americans not yet born

massive household debt (basically credit card + mortgage loans)

https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/credit-card-data/average-credit-card-debt-household/

104% Debt to GDP ratio

The decline of prime working age men working

Almost 50 million people on food stamps

Mid-wage jobs are being lost and the ones being created are mostly low wage jobs

[quote]

Under this definition, the middle class made up 50% of the U.S. adult population in 2015, down from 61% in 1971.[/quote]

I could keep going…

I don’t want to keep repeating myself either but the guy is the head of a company that’s worth billions.

He’s failed a handful of times while trying and succeeding hundreds of times. Why are a small amount of failed ventures such a bad thing? You expect him to go 100% in everything he tries?

Also Gary Johnson is irrelevant

Trump owns/has owned over 500 businesses. A total of Four (4) of them have filed Chapter 11. I would call a success rate of well over 90% acceptable.

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I think Hoover (gulp…) fits that parameter by holding appointed rather than elected office.
double gulp!

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True enough. But, I look at it differently. While Trump has shown us nothing in terms of being able to fix this gigantic mess that we are in I am going to vote for a totally inexperienced blow hard over the totally corrupt Clinton machine. I am doing this primarily because I do not want another left wing loon appointed to the Supreme Court. If we get one or perhaps maybe two more Sotomayer’s we are totally screwed for generations…it will officially be over. Trump’s list of 11 conservative Judges looked good to me. He may break his word but for political purposes I doubt it. Hillary…well we know she will stack the court with as many left wing nut bags as she can.

When people say “vote your conscience” that means to vote for Gary Johnson to some people. But to me it means not passing the right to chose the next President on to someone else. So my conscience tells me to vote for the least of two evils.

What a horrible choice.

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True but as I said he can’t win. So…who cares what he did?

This is actually a good point. One must make sure that they are hating Trump for the right reasons and there are plenty. But, regardless of how much you dislike him he’s done quite well in business and especially promoting himself. How that transfers to the Oval Office I have no idea and quite frankly I’m not looking forward to finding out.

But on the other hand I know exactly what the Clinton’s are all about and it stinks to high heaven. So…give me the box with the surprise in it.

Trump calling the fake indians out since 1993

No.

People here already know I hate both candidates so I won’t belabor that point.

But half–if not more–of politics and policy is knowing HOW to present your message in a way that doesn’t come out completely idiotic. Not just saying things that are true (at least we hope the candidate/POTUS is saying true things), but saying them in a way that doesn’t make even keeled people thing you might be a nutter, a racist, a con man, or conspiracy theorist. I mean, democrats had an absolute field day with GWB and his verbal gaffs and sputters, but those weren’t anywhere close to how ineptly Trump has said the things on his mind.

I do agree with Zeb that the primary potential upside to Trump is that he has a higher likelihood of appointing a more conservative justice.

That’s fair and certainly your choice. As Drew said your position has merits. We’ve already established that I can’t hold my nose either.

However, I feel that this sort of thinking you have described is a false dichotomy. It is only true because people believe they are trapped. Looking at polls that have asked if people would consider a 3rd party gives a much higher percentage than people would think–47% from a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll in May. That is significantly higher than any poll I know of in the history of polling. There are others out there that show a strong possibility.

Is it unlikely? Possibly true. But Johnson seems to be pulling voters quite evenly from both candidates, is already polling in double digits, and hasn’t even put up a serious media run.

So in short, I believe it is in fact possible for a 3rd party to win this one. All people need to do is not think they are trapped

That is certainly true. But, I have heard this many times in the past and after all of the talk one of the two major party candidates is elected. One example was Ross Perot who ran a strong third party challenge to Bill Clinton and sitting President George HW Bush in 1992. I told many at the time please don’t throw your vote away Perot isn’t going to win. Well, he did garner 19% of the vote which was pretty incredible and praise worthy. But what he also did was put Bill Clinton in office. I have no doubt that Hillary would be thrilled to win the exact same way.

We would have had a President Gore had Ralph Nader not been a candidate in 2000 (not that I wanted a President Gore). Nader got something like 3% of the vote which proved to be the deciding difference in a very close election.

I’ve seen too many times the Gary Johnsons of the world decide who becomes President. And this happens largely because people have to learn the same lesson over and over again. It’s true if everyone looked at each candidate on an equal basis that it might change. But, that is not going to happen. Even the great Teddy Roosevelt lost running a third party campaign. Members of the two parties have roots that go very deep. Someone is a democrat or republican today because their father was of the same party and his father, and his fathers father and so on. That does not change over night with one election no matter how bad the two candidates are.

Gary Johnson is not going to become the next President. I know who the next President will be. The next President will either be the democrat or republican nominee. And on that I would bet everything I have.

Yeah this is what I figured it’s the way he presents himself first and foremost is why people don’t like him.

I remember Sloth saying Trump didn’t have a record breaking win based on reasoned argumentation. I thought to myself well yeah but Ben Carson tried that and look how far it got him. He’d talk about national debt give facts and figures and it would just put the audience to sleep.

First of all it was not what Ben Carson said that destroyed his chances of winning, it was the way he was saying it. Since people have been voting for President in the media age it has always been about charisma, charm, good looks and oral presentation skills with most voters. Issues are not as important as most around here think. Voters first make up their minds on who they like they then go about rationalizing that decision by claiming a certain issue is most important to them. Short story…we elect our Presidents on personality and that’s one reason (there are many others) that Hillary Clinton will not be elected to the Presidency.

(How many times have I now said that? Too many to count)

Apparently the FBI is interviewing Hillary Clinton at this very moment.

Johnson is not going to win anything, all he is going to do is siphon votes from both candidates. Question is, who will he siphon more votes from.