The Trump Card: How Donald Can -Really- Win

[mde2001]

While I am a Clinton supporter, I do agree that she's made some pretty bad decisions on foreign affairs, and she certainly wouldn't be my first choice in terms of that. That being said, out of the candidates available I believe she's by far the best. Trump is irrational and uninformed, while also being a massive populist. He doesn't have a subtle, diplomatic side, nor does he know when to hold his tongue. He's also quite racist, which isn't really a good thing for someone who has to be diplomatic. Johnson has very little interested in foreign affairs, so its honestly hard to tell with him. Clinton is at least experienced, and while she has made some mistakes, she's only had the ability to do that because of how involved she's been over the years. She's done some really impressive things both as a senator and secretary of state, which I think often gets overshadowed by things like Benghazi.

I agree some typical democrats will go to Johnson, but I'd expect Jill Stein to be the third party candidate who would be the biggest problem for Hillary, as I'd think she'd be more appealing to some of the Sanders supporters than Johnson. That being said, given that Stein is yet to give us many coherent policies, I can see why Johnson would pose a threat. I don't think anyone thinks that Johnson is going to win the election overall, because while he is doing well for a third party candidate, he is miles behind either of the big two.

I don't want it to come off like I dislike 3rd party candidates as a whole, because I honestly believe that the ideas they bring out are pretty interesting and I do think people who dislike both major candidates someone to vote for. I'm just really not that keen on either of the main 3rd party candidates you have, nor do I think either of them would be a good leader. That is just my opinion though, and I totally get why people do want to vote for them

[Chase]

That much is fair - and I know you've actually been on Clinton's bandwagon (in the sense that you've felt Clinton was fairly qualified even before the race got this thin) over even Sanders from the start due to her pragmatic nature - so I hope you aren't taking any of my arguments as abrasive or in a sense that I'm trying to shame you for your opinion.

For me - it's hard to say very nice things about Hillary. She's someone who has literally piggy-backed off of her stronger opponents ever since Obama beat her out in 2008. She's not a liberal liberals should be excited about voting for. She's not conservative enough for conservatives to embrace her and on top of that she actively is divisive against them while expecting them to come to her as an alternative to Trump.

And she's a liar who holds VERY little regard for national security and the people who compose her constituency. She's flopped on issues as much as Trump has. And worst of all - she gets away with it over, and over, and over again.

When the director of the FBI essentially says "Yeah, she's guilty, but she should not be charged." - it's not about justice anymore. It's about who's pocket you are in.

You can argue all you want about how Clinton's experience makes her the best person on the board. It's that same experience that damns her. The only way to possibly lose to this woman is to put up a candidate that says and does things in a way where he doesn't care and maybe even wants to be hated.

..and the Republicans found just the guy. I will give her this - she's damn resilient - and that makes her as strong as anyone. A strong liar/criminal/con artist - is still a liar, criminal, and a con artist.

[mde2001]

I wish Clinton was a bit further to the left. I'm not thrilled by the fact that she is as conservative as she is. I've believed she's been the best candidate from the start based on her being exceptionally qualified and much more coherent than Sanders. I would fall much closer to Sanders than Clinton on the political spectrum, but in the end he never could have achieved the things he was promising. Sanders sounded great on paper, but as soon as his ideas wouldn't stand up once he actually had the educate them. I hoped that Sanders would have pulled Clinton a bit further to the left than he did, but unfortunately she has stayed rather central.

I will admit Clinton's honesty doesn't thrill me and I agree in most other races it would be absolutely huge, but when you put her next to Trump it is diminished significantly. Stuff like Trump University, steaks, water and so on pop into mind. Then there's the saga where he pretended to be his own spokesperson for some reason. Not to mention the fact that there are interviews of him supporting the war in Iraq, despite his alleged aversion to it being one of his advantages of Clinton in foreign affairs.

I realise that a lot of the time while defending Hillary, I end up talking about Trump. This obviously isn't ideal (and I do think Clinton would be a good president whether or not the alternative is Trump), in the end people really have two choices for who is President. They have more options for who to vote for, but because of the way your political system works (I'm not going to get into why I think your system is incredibly flawed, at least for now), there are two viable candidates. That means that a lot of why people vote won't be based on a candidates strengths, so much as the other one's weaknesses. I don't believe Clinton is a perfect candidate at all, and I'd honestly probably prefer someone like Elizabeth Warren, but in the end I think she's the best person for the job that we have available.

Side note: I'm kinda running out of things to say, so if I don't reply to a comment it isn't necessarily because I'm ignoring it or quitting a conversation, but just that I don't have much more to contribute. I'll probably find inspiration somewhere though.

[Chase]

God, I'd register as a Democrat JUST to vote for Clinton if Warren was running next to her.

And the reason why is political centrism plays more to EVERY American both as an individual AND as a unified nation as opposed to a picking a poison and appealing only to the grassroots (especially the generally OPPOSING grassroots...). The same goes for an "ideal"oge conservative candidate.

Warren as a person however is very intelligent and well credentialed. Unlike Hillary, the only mean-spirited thing I can say about her is that she's just wrong and/or unagreeable on most things.

I personally have no problems with Warren as a senator - where her job is to argue with both people who are relatively on her side and those who - like me - generously disagree with her in order to settle legislature for the good of the country as a whole. She's a POOOOOOR representative of all Americans however - and when you're running for president, regardless of what your identity in politics is, that's important.

Voting against one candidate as opposed to actually supporting a candidate is the most frustrating thing I've seen only most Americans do this year.

I feel a strong desire to tell you – and I expect you feel a strong desire to tell me – which of these two errors is the worse [becoming an individualist or becoming a totalitarian]. That is the devil getting at us. He always sends errors into the world in pairs – pairs of opposites. And he always encourages us to spend a lot of time thinking which is the worse. You see why, of course? He relies on your extra dislike of the one error to draw you gradually into the opposite one. But do not let us be fooled. We have to keep our eyes on the goal and go straight through between both errors. We have no other concern with that of either of them. - C.S. Lewis,

Mere Christianity.

Of two evils - choose neither. - Charles Spurgeon.

[Swimming95]

Yeah no... if you are voting third party you are absolutely throwing your vote away. Whether you like it or not, either a democrat or a republican is going to win. That's not necessarily a bad thing. For the most part, when a policy viewpoint gets popular, it will get incorporated into the party platform. There have been tremendous strides in how far the democrats have come this time around. Personally for me, I am absolutely for progressive policies. Unless you completely ignore Clinton's history and nuance, it is absolutely one of leftward thinking and movement, especially compared with the other nominees. Its also not completely accurate to call the libertarian party platform a socially liberal one. There are overlaps but its also missing a lot of the point of the libertarian party.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/7/25/1552491/-Is-voting-third-party-throwing-your-vote-away-Spoiler-yes-and-here-s-why

Good Dan Savage rant (has some fun language and is mostly about green party):

[Shamitako]

Yeah no... if you are voting third party you are absolutely throwing your vote away.

That's only true so long as people keep believing it. The idea that a vote is worthless in any scenario is foolish. It's still more or less impossible to get a third party candidate elected, but that doesn't mean voting for one means nothing

[Swimming95]

Fine, it doesn't mean nothing. It means you are actively hurting you're second choice out of the three (three being third party and the other two main parties). 2000 was a pretty good example of that. If you view the two main party candidates as being the same and thus have no preference of the other two, then you should probably actually take a look at their policies.

[Chase]

Swims....is that you? Dude - it's been a while!

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Look - Ralph Nader voters in that 2000 election may have cost the Democrats a loss...but it has actually been one important kick-start in moving the Democratic Party leftward. I'd argue that without Ralph, the Democratic Party wouldn't have gone left enough to like a candidate like Bernie Sanders and Bernie wouldn't have the ability to even compete.

If you like progressivism so much - then you should be thanking the Green Party for causing reform. It's not a bad thing to vote for the third party candidate and it certainly doesn't amount to nothing. "You gotta spend money to make money sometimes."

If your "second choice" is Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump - there's not much to lose this year by voting third party other than your ideology being represented in a completely different branch of government than the executive branch (,and THAT can be countered by voting by ideology in your Congressional races like a good American team player - where your options are not nearly as egregious depending on the state in question.)

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You're just wrong about Clinton's history and nuance. As secretary of state - she encouraged engagement in wars. As a senator she voted FOR the engaging in combat in Iraq. She takes exorbitant amounts of money at speaking events and her foundation is supposed to be a charity that helps with various health issues.

War, Capitalism, Charity over welfare. If you didn't tell me this was Hillary Clinton. I would actually think you were talking about a conservative.

You HAVE to ignore her history and nuance to call her a liberal quite often... I understand she's written a book that advocates the idea that taking care of children is the State's job first and somehow the parents' job second... I understand she's supported throwing money at the automobile industry with President Obama a few times. She's definitely more liberal than Trump - assuming Trump isn't lying to his voter base.

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They are not the same candidate because of their policies. They are however, the same amount of unfavorable to the point where conservatives are saying their guy is just as bad as having Clinton win in many cases, and liberals on the other side are saying the same thing about Clinton in many cases as well.

If there's ever a time a protest vote was worth something, there's a whole country that has the right to protest this one.

[Deleted User]

Yeah no... if you are voting third party you are absolutely throwing your vote away. Whether you like it or not, either a democrat or a republican is going to win. That's not necessarily a bad thing. For the most part, when a policy viewpoint gets popular, it will get incorporated into the party platform. There have been tremendous strides in how far the democrats have come this time around. Personally for me, I am absolutely for progressive policies. Unless you completely ignore Clinton's history and nuance, it is absolutely one of leftward thinking and movement, especially compared with the other nominees. Its also not completely accurate to call the libertarian party platform a socially liberal one. There are overlaps but its also missing a lot of the point of the libertarian party.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/7/25/1552491/-Is-voting-third-party-throwing-your-vote-away-Spoiler-yes-and-here-s-why

Good Dan Savage rant (has some fun language and is mostly about green party):

Voting 3rd party is less 'throwing your vote away.' and more protesting that the current system is broken and neither candidate is suited for the job. The two party system has led this country to be more and more corrupt and big business oriented behind the scenes no matter how much they'll preach and lie through their teeth that they're fighting for the little guy.

The vast majority of the libertarians I know hate things like speech codes, smoking bans, racial quotas, and the vast swaths of political indoctrination that pass for “education” today. They tend to oppose gun control, think fondly of homeschooling (if not always homeschoolers) and are generally split on the question of abortion. They do not, however, think that the government should be steamrolling religious institutions with Obamacare or subsidizing birth control. Liberals tend to loathe federalism or states’ rights (though there’s been some movement there), libertarians usually love the idea. The liberals who don’t like it fear that states or local communities might use their autonomy to live in ways liberals don’t approve of. Libertarians couldn’t care less.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/338058/being-socially-liberal-not-being-libertarian-jonah-goldberg

[Swimming95]

Thanks for the link Jericho, definitely helps present some of the differences between liberal and libertarian. As I said, it's much more throwing away if you have a preference between either of the two candidates who will win. Considering trump has absolutely bigoted rhetoric and policies, it's hard to say that I have no preference. Supreme Court does mean a lot here. i may not personally be affected but I know a lot of women, Muslims, Mexicans, LGTBQ, African Americans or other minorities who would absolutely be affected more negatively by a trump presidency.

I also have no interest in the Green Party. They are absolutely anti-science and it's really frustrating. I'd much sooner take pragmatic progressivism that has a chance of being passed than completely tuning out everyone else. Also, at least with the Democratic Party, it has historically gone more center after losses and not farther left. Most people are not that far left wing. Clinton is absolutely more liberal than Obama is. Also, unfavorability takes in the whole country and not within party. There has been increased polarization and within the parties the candidates are fairly popular.

I am absolutely fine if you have a difference of policy. I understand and respect that. What gets me annoyed is a lack of research into the candidates or if you take a lets burn it down approach. I feel like that's missing a lot of the conversation.

And no offense chase, You are definitely missing a lot of what's been going on. There is no evidence of any wrongdoing with the Clinton foundation and no evidence that any of the Wall Street speeches affecting her votes. As a New Yorker during the time of 9/11 there is a lot more to the Iraq vote that you are missing from when she was my senator. For foreign policy, read about her work with Asia and the Russia reset. She has also been a huge advocate for women's rights and certainly also has come around greatly on LGTBQ rights. She had been instrumental in getting 9/11 first responders the help they needed. She has aggressively worked for climate change regulation. You may disagree with how she goes about that but it's certainly better than calling it a Chinese hoax. She takes in the nuance of the cost of living in her original minimum wage stance but has incorporated the $15. I'm sure I left things out but here is a link on more http://addictinginfo.org/2015/04/13/heres-a-list-of-hillary-clintons-accomplishments-so-quit-saying-she-doesnt-have-any/

Also I'm on mobile at the moment so can't write a better reply. Also happy to take the conversation offline.

[Chase]

whoa whoa whoa.... people are saying there's something wrong with the Clinton Foundation? I just asserted that it helps fund various medical ventures and that it was a charity. Is that a bad thing? Gosh, it would be a shame if some crackpot conservative conspiracy theory actually played a part of Clinton slipping in the polls, let alone was actually factual... That's almost as heinous as someone saying Hillary Clinton is ill! Can you imagine?

I'm going to need you to sell me on the "fact" that Clinton is more of a liberal than Obama is.

"People have accused me of being moderate or center...I plead guilty." - Hillary Clinton, 2016.

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"Coming around" on issues is exactly the same assertion I made about Hillary piggybacking off of her opponents - only reworded to make it sound flowery and on Hilary's own volition. Maybe there IS some truth in Hillary going leftward - because Obama and Sanders pushed her that way.

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Never said she wasn't a humanitarian on 9/11. You know who else has been a humanitarian? Donald. J. Trump. (See: Visit to Louisiana) She doesn't get style points here either.

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Finally, I don't even have to click on the link you sent me to respond. I never claimed Hillary doesn't have any accomplishments, but her record in most of the country is not all that sexy and defensible. I actually stated earlier that Hillary "being there and doing that" doesn't essentially make her better than any other candidate, but I never claimed she wasn't there.

Her liberalism isn't all a hoax - but she doesn't have to lie about it all the same! You can't tell me the woman isn't a pathological liar.

[Deleted User]

"People have accused me of being moderate or center...I plead guilty." - Hillary Clinton, 2016.

What would be more honest?

"I'm a progressive who gets results and I will be a progressive president who gets results" - Hillary Clinton, 2016.

[Chase]

The honest answer would be C.

"I'm a moderate president who will get progressive results because the Supreme Court is going to be FULL of judicial activists by the time my first term expires."

[Shamitako]

*Grumbles about the importance of the supreme court*

[Swimming95]

You can look up their comparative voting records in congress. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with moving more leftward. The political climate of today is much different than that of a decade ago. There is no sense wasting all of your political capital on something that won't get passed. Progressive Pragmatism allows you to continuously push as left as is possible and actually make progress. On some issues she is more center than I would like but most of her social policy platform is nicely where I would want. You can ascribe whatever intent you want behind it. I frankly don't care as long as she pushed for those values which she seems to be doing. Purity tests are a pretty good way of alienating most people.

Also not sure if you are being sarcastic on the Clinton foundation. I brought up it doing good mostly as it has been a nonsense talking point recently. And also to be fair, the extent of being ill that a lot of people like to accuse her of is also grossly overstated to the point of bordering on conspiracy theory.

It's a little bit harder to say that Trump is a humanitarian. Considering he went down to Louisiana to pose with playdoh after being told by the governor to stay away to not drain security resources. That and there also seems to be evidence he lied about giving to charities. Though at the moment, that seems to be slightly more conspiracy than I would like and will stay away from preaching that as a fact.

My goal in listing those accomplishments was more to say what I liked about her and to also give some proof to her being a lot more leftward and not necessarily as much of a hawk as people like to claim. It was a lot less about what you said specifically.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/hillary-clinton-was-liberal-hillary-clinton-is-liberal/

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_572cca08e4b0bc9cb0469098

http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/12/hillary-clinton-more-liberal-than-obama-as-senator/

Lastly, it is pretty clear that we disagree about this. I don't think we are going to be able to convince the other on our views. I am fine if we interpret these things differently and don't really want to escalate it further. I'm sorry if I came off as hostile in my views.

[Chase]

I do care about her intent behind her policies. If she means to get those passed to begin with it - from an optics standpoint - is more assuring as a voter that the candidate actually cares about their positions on certain issues. She did the political equivalent of reading the room and shifting to positions that would allow her to get where she is with regards to campaign promises. "Oh, Barack was doing this and voters responded and I lost." "Oh, Bernie is doing this and voters are responding and this race ended up way closer than it needed to be."

Hillary's pragmatism is about the only thing I can say I like about how she operates. Point you.

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How partisan do you have to be to incriminate someone of lying about donating to charity and spin providing relief to families into a simple photo-op - then turn around and do something yourself even if you're seemingly trying to point out the other side as being only driven by conspiracy theorizing?

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Yes. I was being sarcastic about the Clinton Foundation. Minus point for you because any time you slip in polls to the point where CNN - not Fox mind you - has a poll with Trump winning likely voters over Clinton by two points - it's NOT a non-sensible talking point! That's like saying that Benghazi is a nonsensical talking point or that her e-mail server is a non-

Oh wait. Liberals do that too.

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It's important to know that I'm NOT defending Trump. He digs his OWN grave and it would be a waste of my time because I'm not voting for him in the first place.

Clinton has done a great job throughout her political career and has much to be proud of - but she's also lied and manipulated and has been just as egregious as Trump when it comes to offending others and her campaign is very much beatable because she's made being opaque and evasive a part of her general demeanor.

Yes, she's a pragmatist. I guess that means one day I'll qualify for president.

[Shamitako]

Yes. I was being sarcastic about the Clinton Foundation. Minus point for you because any time you slip in polls to the point where CNN - not Fox mind you - has a poll with Trump winning likely voters over Clinton by two points - it's NOT a non-sensible talking point! That's like saying that Benghazi is a nonsensical talking point or that her e-mail server is a non-

Oh wait. Liberals do that too.

Wait. What's the correlation between the charity thing and the polls?

[Chase]

Supposedly during the time Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, people seem to think she would hold a lot of meetings with people with the condition that they would donate to the Foundation.

Essentially, if you wanted some priority, the rumor has it you had to enable some "pay-for-play" in order to meet with Clinton.

I don't have enough confidence that this is actually factual - so I never made such an assertion directly in the first place. I hope it's not true, because I respect the State office. - however, it's been weeks of people hitting her for her dealings with the Foundation that have contributed to Trump's rebound of the last round of polling.

[Shamitako]

Okay. But that's still a huge jump of logic to get to how she's doing in the polls, particularly for only a rumor

I'm not saying it;s not something that shouldn't be discussed, but your counterpoint is completely nonexistent... You compared a rumor being swept under a rug to facts being swept under a rug and equated that to her position in polls

EDIT: Oh, okay, that actually caused the drop in polls. NVM then

[Swimming95]

Meant non sensible as a lot of that conversation is being clouded by conspiracy theory not necessarily what happened. I have no interest in getting into a debate about Benghazi and the emails here as it's pretty clear that we see them differently.. And I didn't mean to say that all of the hate is driven by conspiracy theory. Sorry if it came out like that. It's important to have a healthy conversation about all of the issues. Some of the conversations seem slightly less than healthy by all sides.

I'm also sorry if it sounded like I thought you were defending trump. My intention was more to explain why I was defending and supporting Clinton.

Again, it is pretty clear we disagree on how to view these things and I don't want to escalate it any further. I will gladly clarify or explain my views further.

[Chase]

I should apologize too - because I got a little "inspired" by being accused of not knowing what I'm talking about and when that happens I tend to swing back.

I would love to hear Hillary's reasoning for voting in favor of the war. I -still- tend to think retaliation was necessary to displace the conflict from American soil - but I am not happy that fighting had to take place.

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I'm open to see where I goofed, Lexi. It matters because it's a conglomerate of factors that play into what influences polling. The first one is the round of polling that took place before this one did so right after the convention season and it appeared Clinton was going to win in landslide fashion with a rough average of 10 points.

From then - Trump has had only a few goofs - but has been relatively statesman. He actually got on TV and said he regretted some of the things he said and was humble. He even went to Mexico along with Louisiana and started looking somewhat "presidential."

Clinton on the other hand has had it pretty rough. She's not one to do press conferences and Trump pointed it out. She genuinely -is- feeling sick, which is normally not a bad thing, but it is if you lie about it and then get found out. She still gets flak from having the optics give her a sense of "above-the-law" status when it comes to what James Comey said about her AFTER not recommending an indictment for her e-mail scandal - and came a report from a Clinton-friendly paper about the Foundation that they couldn't pin on Fox News or conservatives that kept how bad Clinton looks in the news cycle for two weeks.

It appeared at the very least - pretty damning all things considered.

[Deleted User]

Supposedly during the time Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, people seem to think she would hold a lot of meetings with people with the condition that they would donate to the Foundation.

If the DNC primary process is anything to gauge off of, I wouldn't be in the slightest bit surprised if it did hold to be true.

[Swimming95]

Agreed, sorry about that part too. I'm sure from your point of view I look as though I'm missing a lot of the facts. From my point of view it was vice versa. It often times feels like nuance is lost and things are sensationalized out of proportion which is why I snapped at that.

As far as Iraq vote goes, my personal thoughts are this. I will say that I try to view it in the context of the time and I don't think anyone wouldn't call it a mistake to have voted for the war. She has also apologized for that mistake. I think in the aftermath, her constiuants were angry. There was a huge call to get some kind of action and there was pressure on her to vote in favor. I also think that the senate was widely misled about the reasons for the war and the surrounding process. I at least like this article on her decision: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2016/02/hillary_clinton_told_the_truth_about_her_iraq_war_vote.html

[Shamitako]

So, what I'm getting from this is still that Clinton is indefensibly a lying bitch. She's just used her powers as a lying bitch to actually get some stuff done on occasion

I like her less now TBH