Trump's Suicide Mission

bnw wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

bnw,

I gave you the proof that he’s losing in all the polls. Do you have proof to the contrary? And, again, Trump IS the establishment. I have no idea why you think he’s this anti-establishment crusader who will go against the status quo. He’s supposed to be a billionaire, which makes him a plutocrat. He’s even more “establishment” than the Clintons. He’s not a threat to anyone in the ruling class. He’s a part of it.

And all of his policies would help his fellow plutocrats get much, much richer. He’d personally pocket tens of millions, as would his heirs and all of their ruling class buddies, just from his proposed tax cuts. And all the multinational corporations sending jobs overseas would also benefit from his massive tax cuts and deregulation.

I honestly don’t understand how you can see him as a champion for anyone but the 1%.

WRONG! You did not give such proof. You were suckered by both HuffPo and RealClearPolitics which is what they love to do. They set you up by not including the polls in which Trump LEADS Hildabeast on that page. Click the “Show More” to see what both of those rags chose to ignore.

bnw,

They showed the polls by date, with the latest first. When you click on “show more,” you get them going back further in time. They both list a huge assortment of polls, but neither shows Trump ahead after July 23rd.

Again, there was no attempt to “sucker” anyone. They just showed the most recent polls first.

Also, on NAFTA, trade and Trump.

He’s been lying to his followers from the beginning about what is actually going on. Instead, he’s used jingoistic and xenophobic triggers to get them to believe these trade deals help other countries while uniquely screwing over Americans. In reality, they make things radically better for capitalists, capital and especially American capitalists and capital. But he’ll never be honest about that with you. He wants you to hate Mexicans and the Chinese and poor people around the world and to believe they’re screwing you over, when it’s actually American business owners and interests who are.

They wrote the treaties. They lobbied to get them passed. They benefit. They ship millions of jobs overseas, chasing after cheaper and cheaper labor and more and more profits. Trump does this too, to this day. So he can’t be honest about the real set up, because then you’d be angry at him and people like him, so he scapegoats impoverished Mexicans and Chinese and Malaysians instead, even though they’re getting the shaft too. Labor is getting the shaft. Capital, capitalism and global corporatism win, and that includes Trump.

He’s conning his followers. And it’s too obvious to miss.

Billy_T wrote:

You go on to say:

Trump is not the establishment as all the establishment is all in on trying to defeat Trump. One has to be blind not to see it. Trump wants to shit can the TPP and renegotiate NAFTA and if necessary to shit can NAFTA too. Trump wants to have a dialogue with Russia against ISIS. Trump wants to audit the Federal Reserve. Trump wants to end illegal immigration. Trump ants to support the police and our 2nd Amendment right. All of these are contrary to the wishes of the establishment. Their time is done. The people are speaking through Trump. The election won’t be close to allow the establishment to steal it.

Your first sentence uses your premise as your conclusion. Sorry, logic doesn’t work that way.

Second, Trump, as president, won’t have the power to get rid of NAFTA, even if he wants to. That’s up to Congress. And when it was originally passed, more Republicans voted for it than Dems.

Third, Obama has had a dialogue with Russia about ISIS already.

Fourth, we definitely should audit the Fed. Bernie Sanders has worked hard to pass just such a bill for many years, and hasn’t been successful. I’d love to see the duopoly actually do it and let the sunshine in.

Fifth, Clinton also supports the police and the 2nd amendment. No difference there. Obama does too. “Gun rights,” in fact, expanded on his watch to include open carry in national parks. There were zero losses even under the right’s mistaken reinterpretation of the 2nd.

The establishment is perfectly fine with the 2nd amendment and gun proliferation. It’s never tried to stop it. It also obviously is strongly supportive of the police. The police protect the establishment from the actual will of the people all too often.

1. The establishment is all against Trump. That is obvious. No logical construct necessary.

2. You underestimate the power of Trump’s coattails. Not only will a lot of democrats vote against NAFTA so will a lot of peeing in their pants republicans wary of Trump campaigning against them in the future.

3. Wow. If by a “dialogue” you mean threatening Russia by overthrowing the Russian friendly duly elected government of the Ukraine to expand and base NATO’s anti-missile shield in the Ukraine as well as allow Monsanto to further expand its GMO market into the Ukraine then I have to wonder about the efficacy of the dialogue you tout. Putin has made it crystal clear he views the expansion and basing of NATO’s anti-missile shield as a direct military threat and Russia has banned all GMO food yet the winds from the Ukraine will spread GMO pollens into Russia. We can then discuss Syria in which Russia is at war with ISIS while the US supports ISIS attacking Syrian government forces. Since Syria has been a Russian ally for over 40 years and the Russians were invited into the conflict by the Syrian government the US has meddled in Syria in violation of international law. Some dialogue Obama has there with Russia!

4. Hey we agree about the Fed but Ron Paul gets the lions credit in my opinion.

5. Total BULLSHIT. Hildabeast and Obama would love to take away the 2nd Amendment and EVERYONE knows that. As for supporting the police Obama has been a disaster. Hildabeast would love to get BLM’s support if she could.

bnw wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

You go on to say:

Trump is not the establishment as all the establishment is all in on trying to defeat Trump. One has to be blind not to see it. Trump wants to shit can the TPP and renegotiate NAFTA and if necessary to shit can NAFTA too. Trump wants to have a dialogue with Russia against ISIS. Trump wants to audit the Federal Reserve. Trump wants to end illegal immigration. Trump ants to support the police and our 2nd Amendment right. All of these are contrary to the wishes of the establishment. Their time is done. The people are speaking through Trump. The election won’t be close to allow the establishment to steal it.

Your first sentence uses your premise as your conclusion. Sorry, logic doesn’t work that way.

Second, Trump, as president, won’t have the power to get rid of NAFTA, even if he wants to. That’s up to Congress. And when it was originally passed, more Republicans voted for it than Dems.

Third, Obama has had a dialogue with Russia about ISIS already.

Fourth, we definitely should audit the Fed. Bernie Sanders has worked hard to pass just such a bill for many years, and hasn’t been successful. I’d love to see the duopoly actually do it and let the sunshine in.

Fifth, Clinton also supports the police and the 2nd amendment. No difference there. Obama does too. “Gun rights,” in fact, expanded on his watch to include open carry in national parks. There were zero losses even under the right’s mistaken reinterpretation of the 2nd.

The establishment is perfectly fine with the 2nd amendment and gun proliferation. It’s never tried to stop it. It also obviously is strongly supportive of the police. The police protect the establishment from the actual will of the people all too often.

3. Wow. If by a “dialogue” you mean threatening Russia by overthrowing the Russian friendly duly elected government of the Ukraine to expand and base NATO’s anti-missile shield in the Ukraine as well as allow Monsanto to further expand its GMO market into the Ukraine then I have to wonder about the efficacy of the dialogue you tout. Putin has made it crystal clear he views the expansion and basing of NATO’s anti-missile shield as a direct military threat and Russia has banned all GMO food yet the winds from the Ukraine will spread GMO pollens into Russia. We can then discuss Syria in which Russia is at war with ISIS while the US supports ISIS attacking Syrian government forces. Since Syria has been a Russian ally for over 40 years and the Russians were invited into the conflict by the Syrian government the US has meddled in Syria in violation of international law. Some dialogue Obama has there with Russia!

5. Total BULLSHIT. Hildabeast and Obama would love to take away the 2nd Amendment and EVERYONE knows that. As for supporting the police Obama has been a disaster. Hildabeast would love to get BLM’s support if she could.

We won’t agree about 1 and 2, and we do agree about 3 — though I don’t give Paul as much credit as you do, and his reasons for going after the Fed are, well, fringe nonsense. But that’s another story. So I’ll just respond to 3 and 5.

On 3.) I’m not happy with our interference in Ukraine, either, and I think we egged on Putin by bringing NATO too close to the Russian borders. Recently finished reading a bio of the Romanovs, and it reminded me about the centuries and centuries of invasion and threats to Russia, and their often merciless responses. IMO, there are no good guys in that mix, between us and Putin. Two empires with endless imperialist desires. But you’re wrong about US support for ISIS. That doesn’t exist. And in Syria, enemies are friends for a time, and friends are enemies for a time, and allies fight together on the same side as enemies, and vice versa. It’s a clusterfuck of epic proportions, and Trump doesn’t have a clue how to handle it either.

On 5.) There is absolutely zero evidence that Obama and Clinton want to touch the 2nd amendment, nor do they need to to implement the gun safety regulations they’ve proposed, timid and tepid as they are. All of that falls easily within the parameters of that amendment, and they could go much, much further, and should. Nothing they’ve ever talked about goes against it — even under the radical reinterpretation of Heller. I think what Trump and the NRA have done is to wildly, radically, insanely inflate the supposed “right” stipulated in the Second beyond anything resembling the reality of the words on the page, their historical context, and two centuries of juridical precedent. Even after Heller trashed those two centuries, nothing Clinton or Obama has ever proposed goes against the SA, so there is no need to get rid of it.

I think you’re confusing the radical right’s absurd reinterpretation of the 2nd with its reality as an amendment. In short, they just don’t need to touch it in order to implement serious gun safety legislation. All of that would easily fit within its parameters, context and history.

Billy_T wrote:

I think you’re confusing the radical right’s absurd reinterpretation of the 2nd with its reality as an amendment. In short, they just don’t need to touch it in order to implement serious gun safety legislation. All of that would easily fit within its parameters, context and history.

As has been upheld by recent SC decisions.

..

Billy_T wrote:

bnw wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

Also, on NAFTA, trade and Trump.

He’s been lying to his followers from the beginning about what is actually going on. Instead, he’s used jingoistic and xenophobic triggers to get them to believe these trade deals help other countries while uniquely screwing over Americans. In reality, they make things radically better for capitalists, capital and especially American capitalists and capital. But he’ll never be honest about that with you. He wants you to hate Mexicans and the Chinese and poor people around the world and to believe they’re screwing you over, when it’s actually American business owners and interests who are.

They wrote the treaties. They lobbied to get them passed. They benefit. They ship millions of jobs overseas, chasing after cheaper and cheaper labor and more and more profits. Trump does this too, to this day. So he can’t be honest about the real set up, because then you’d be angry at him and people like him, so he scapegoats impoverished Mexicans and Chinese and Malaysians instead, even though they’re getting the shaft too. Labor is getting the shaft. Capital, capitalism and global corporatism win, and that includes Trump.

He’s conning his followers. And it’s too obvious to miss.

Trump is campaigning on protecting and increasing US employment particularly in manufacturing. So capitalists can make money by not shafting the US worker. No doubt domestic and foreign labor are getting the shaft in those trade deals but Trump will be working for the US worker which is as it should be.

We’ve talked about this before. Trump has never, ever, not once, talked about how he would increase US employment or help American workers. He has no plan, other than slashing taxes for the rich and deregulating business further. Deregulation means fewer protections for workers and the environment, not more. Deregulation means Capital and Corporations have even more power over workers than they do now.

Again, Trump has never spelled out one single detail of one single plan to help American workers. All he’s done is tell you to trust him. He hasn’t demonstrated why you should. Ever. Not once.

35% tariff on imported goods from an ex-pat company.

No sale. You’re using “Gun Safety” as a ruse to deny 2nd Amendment right. It won’t work.

No “ruse” necessary. The 2nd amendment never gave you the “right” you think it did. It’s never given you the right to unfettered, unregulated, unlimited consumer choice or firepower.

All it says is that if you’re in a state-run militia — which no longer exist — you can “keep or bear arms.”

That’s it. There is no “right” there to endless consumer choice of weaponry, free from restrictions, restraints or constraints. And we’ve always had restrictions, restraints and constraints, and the courts have always upheld them — even Heller.

No such absolute “right” has ever existed in the history of humankind. The radical right, led by the NRA, invented it out of wholecloth, and Trump is pandering to them. It sounds like you agree with their invention.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by Billy_T.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by Billy_T.

Zooey wrote:

Well, I don’t care very much about discussing the policies this time around because it’s like discussing whether I would rather be drawn and quartered, or tied down naked on top of an agitated nest of bullet ants. I imagine being drawn and quartered is worse, but I wouldn’t get any pleasure out of going into the details of either of these events.

But in terms of policies, no, it;s not like that. In terms of personalities it IS. But not policies. As many of your own posts make clear (you have some good policies posts on here.)

…

wv wrote:

Zooey wrote:

Well, I don’t care very much about discussing the policies this time around because it’s like discussing whether I would rather be drawn and quartered, or tied down naked on top of an agitated nest of bullet ants. I imagine being drawn and quartered is worse, but I wouldn’t get any pleasure out of going into the details of either of these events.

————
I basically agree with that. And i think we KNOW Hillary’s policies.
She’s been around for a long time. Her policies are essentially the same as Bill’s and Obamas. More of the same, with some likely Identity Politix window-dressing.

Trump? We ‘cant’ know a lot of his policies, cause he’s Trump. But we know he’s got some hideous ideas and his supreme court appointments would be mind-bogglingly dangerous.

w
v

And what I am hoping for is a comparison of all 4 people’s policies. And btw Zooey has posted things that perfectly spell out some of those differences, which I commend him for. It’s a simple fact that we are better off economically with HC on the basis of tax policy alone, for example.

ADDED BY EDIT: I PROBABLY MISREAD HERE. SEE BELOW. AND stuff on women’s choice, race, sexuality…that’s only window dressing if you’re a white male. Don’t be shocked at me saying that…it’s true. Sometimes we tell each other truths here so they can be looked at hard. That’s among friends. It should at least be open for discussion. I know I have been told that it’s heavily pro-Hillary whites males who say that, but I am not one of those. I say it because I think it’s an unavoidable deep issue in our world, and I say it as a decades long left progressive who could give a shit what Hillary loyalist nazis say.

For example if Sanders were regressive on that stuff he would never have gotten anywhere.

In the real world I am surrounded by Hillary politicos who don’t want to listen or converse on any of this. They give you dismissive loyalty test type one liners and don’t care what effect that has. I used to avoid political discussion because I got burned out on it. That’s why I was even reluctant to get into the original Iraq war discussions years ago. What burns me out on politics, is politicos.

The way I see the major issues always is to be progressive on economic, social, cultural issues and to maintain a very vigilant eye on issues of race, gender, and sexuality (which to me does not reduce to identity politics. For example being white comes not just with an invitation to blind privilege, but restrictions on who and what we are and can be.) I do not think those things can be divided–they are all interwoven. So I tend not to accept any division of those issues, no matter which way the division goes.

But…I will restrict comments like this to this thread. It’s hard to both manage the occasional posting-style extremes on this board and also participate in it. Maybe someone else could manage that divide easier than I do. If so I accept my failings in that respect and just do what I think is right given the circumstances.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by zn.

A huge problem when it comes to discussing policies, is that Trump is so vague about his. This, of course, isn’t unusual for Republicans in general. The Dems tend to be wonky technocrats, while the Republicans tend to use trigger words instead of policy talk to elicit fear, paranoia and so on. Trump has taken this a step further. He does all of that and then just says, “Trust me. You’re going to have so much winning, you’ll get bored with it.” It’s as if he watched too many reality TV shows starring Charlie Sheen.

So it’s generally pretty issue to list policies from the Dems, and next to impossible to do so with the Republicans, with one exception: Taxes. They tend to actually give us the numbers for their new tax cut rates, though they never talk about the fact that a ten percent tax cut for someone making 30K is nothing compared to someone making 3 million. Or 30 million. Or 3 billion, etc. And when they talk about getting rid of “the death tax,” they tend to make it sound like every estate pays it, even though less than 0.2% of the people with estates do. Right now, no couple with less than 10.6 million does.

Trump is also unique because the incredibly vague things he says about his policies often contradict each other. For instance, he wants this massive tax cut, including personal, corporate and estate taxes, which most economists believe would add ten trillion to the debt, but, at the same time, he calls for nearly twice the amount of infrastructure spending as HRC. It’s roughly 500 billion to 275 billion, give or take. Clinton pays for her new spending with slightly higher taxes on the rich — last time I heard, a new rate of 43% — while Trump slashes revenues so he has to borrow trillions for his plans. He’s also called for a massive increase in military spending, a la Reagan, along with his massive cut in revenues, so he’s likely to triple the debt just like Reagan did.

That’s just a bit of the policy differences between the two.

zn wrote:

A huge problem when it comes to discussing policies, is that Trump is so vague about his

We know what they are.

Policies are not direct solutions or proposals. Though sometimes you do get those things.

You can tell where candidates stand on issues because they are courting constituencies.

Doesn’t mean we know their exact gameplan on this or that.

But we know generally where they stand on driving issues, and that’s what’s meant by “policies.”

ZN,

But could you actually describe his policies? I try my best, but it’s extremely difficult, for the reasons listed. If you know them, please list them.

Again, the only thing he’s really come close to providing any details about is his tax plan. Even the deregulation side of that is vague. He just tells us the lie that regulations cost Americans trillions per year, so he’ll cut them and save trillions. No specification of which regulations he’ll cut or end, etc. etc.

Billy_T wrote:

ZN,

But could you actually describe his policies? I try my best, but it’s extremely difficult, for the reasons listed. If you know them, please list them

Yes. We all can. “Policies” is a very general term. It doesn’t mean “specific plans.” If you don’t like the term “policies” say “general ideas and attitudes concerning ________ “.

And if you’re watching the game tonight join us in the chat room gawddammit.

Billy_T wrote:

zn wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

ZN,

But could you actually describe his policies? I try my best, but it’s extremely difficult, for the reasons listed. If you know them, please list them

Yes. We all can. “Policies” is a very general term. It doesn’t mean “specific plans.” If you don’t like the term “policies” say “general ideas and attitudes concerning ________ “.

And if you’re watching the game tonight join us in the chat room gawddammit.

Thanks for the invitation, ZN. Much appreciated.

I suspend my cable service (Directv, currently) every summer. Usually for two months or so. So I can’t watch the game. Am hoping when I call them in early September, I’ll get a good deal on the NFL ticket, which has been the norm for me for a long time. We’ll see.

I suppose I could go to a sports bar tonight and watch it, but, frankly, I’ve never been really big on exhibition games. In fact, I wish they’d do away with them. I really hate the idea of players getting hurt in games that don’t count. I hate them getting hurt, period, of course. But it seems especially perverse when the games are meaningless.

It’s Goff.

However you do it watch the game.

How often do the Rams trade up to pick 1 for a qb.

…

Billy_T wrote:

QUOTE