Cartoonists around the world satirize Trump

[SimpleDon]

While non-Americans can't vote in the Presidential election in the US they can, thanks to 5/9 ths of the US Supreme Court and the Citizens United ruling, actively participate in the election. Or at least foreign corporations can. Because they are people too.

 

[SimpleDon]

... and money is free speech.

 

[Iznomneak]

 

[SimpleDon]

And the incredible thing about Trump is that his proposed policies are virtually indistinguishable from the other Republican presidential candidates now. When he started last summer he supported higher taxes for the rich, strong support for Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid and universal health care. In the ensuing months he seems to have learned that his angry American supporters want ever larger tax cuts for the rich, ever higher medical costs and the dissolution of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

A man of the people.

 

[iolo]

And the incredible thing about Trump is that his proposed policies are virtually indistinguishable from the other Republican presidential candidates now. When he started last summer he supported higher taxes for the rich, strong support for Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid and universal health care. In the ensuing months he seems to have learned that his angry American supporters want ever larger tax cuts for the rich, ever higher medical costs and the dissolution of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

A man of the people.

American politics mystify outsiders. I put the problem down to Senator McCarthy's abolishing political choice way back when, but you'd think people would have broken free of the Cold War by now. The Russians did, after all.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

And the incredible thing about Trump is that his proposed policies are virtually indistinguishable from the other Republican presidential candidates now. When he started last summer he supported higher taxes for the rich, strong support for Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid and universal health care. In the ensuing months he seems to have learned that his angry American supporters want ever larger tax cuts for the rich, ever higher medical costs and the dissolution of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

A man of the people.

As I understand it, he's been intentionally vague about all of his policies so that he commits to as little as possible so that he can run as a centrist once the nomination is locked up. Sanders fucked up that plan for Clinton and made her commit to more left wing stuff than she would have been comfortable with absent him, but Trump's been far more sizzle than steak so it's less of a 180 when he becomes a different candidate in the general election.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

American politics mystify outsiders. I put the problem down to Senator McCarthy's abolishing political choice way back when, but you'd think people would have broken free of the Cold War by now. The Russians did, after all.

Ya, but Obama has more qualms about just straight up murdering his political opponents than Putin does. That means that alternative continues to exist for the Leader.

 

[Angry Floof]

And the incredible thing about Trump is that his proposed policies are virtually indistinguishable from the other Republican presidential candidates now. When he started last summer he supported higher taxes for the rich, strong support for Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid and universal health care. In the ensuing months he seems to have learned that his angry American supporters want ever larger tax cuts for the rich, ever higher medical costs and the dissolution of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

A man of the people.

As I understand it, he's been intentionally vague about all of his policies so that he commits to as little as possible so that he can run as a centrist once the nomination is locked up. Sanders fucked up that plan for Clinton and made her commit to more left wing stuff than she would have been comfortable with absent him, but Trump's been far more sizzle than steak so it's less of a 180 when he becomes a different candidate in the general election.

I think people give Trump way too much credit for strategic thinking. I don't think he's using any more forethought or, well, thought at all, than a third grade bully. He's always been high on ego, and now he's been introduced to the really potent shit.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I think people give Trump way too much credit for strategic thinking. I don't think he's using any more forethought or, well, thought at all, than a third grade bully. He's always been high on ego, and now he's been introduced to the really potent shit.

I don't know about that. This is the guy who's spent the past year running circles around the entire GOP establishment. While it's true that that can be likened to winning the slam dunk contest at a midget convention, his skills in this area can't simply be dismissed offhand.

Regardless of anything else one can say about him, he does know how to sell and the product that he's pushing now isn't a product that people will be interested in buying during the general election. His lack of specificity at the moment allows him to bitch about how the media's been misrepresenting him and he never actually said anything like whatever he's being accused of saying and this is his actual position. While there will, of course, be instances of that answer being followed by a video clip of his saying that exact thing which he can then ignore and change the subject about, there will be many more where he can't actually be pinned down on the subject and he knows it.

 

[Rhea]

I think people give Trump way too much credit for strategic thinking. I don't think he's using any more forethought or, well, thought at all, than a third grade bully. He's always been high on ego, and now he's been introduced to the really potent shit.

I don't know about that. This is the guy who's spent the past year running circles around the entire GOP establishment. While it's true that that can be likened to winning the slam dunk contest at a midget convention, his skills in this area can't simply be dismissed offhand.

Regardless of anything else one can say about him, he does know how to sell and the product that he's pushing now isn't a product that people will be interested in buying during the general election. His lack of specificity at the moment allows him to bitch about how the media's been misrepresenting him and he never actually said anything like whatever he's being accused of saying and this is his actual position. While there will, of course, be instances of that answer being followed by a video clip of his saying that exact thing which he can then ignore and change the subject about, there will be many more where he can't actually be pinned down on the subject and he knows it.

Boy, I really don't know. I can totally see him as a completely undeliberate biffoon lucking upon a combination of his natural ego wanting things that happen to be working. Like evolution doesn't have a "direction" and happens upon things that are advantageous.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I don't know about that. This is the guy who's spent the past year running circles around the entire GOP establishment. While it's true that that can be likened to winning the slam dunk contest at a midget convention, his skills in this area can't simply be dismissed offhand.

Regardless of anything else one can say about him, he does know how to sell and the product that he's pushing now isn't a product that people will be interested in buying during the general election. His lack of specificity at the moment allows him to bitch about how the media's been misrepresenting him and he never actually said anything like whatever he's being accused of saying and this is his actual position. While there will, of course, be instances of that answer being followed by a video clip of his saying that exact thing which he can then ignore and change the subject about, there will be many more where he can't actually be pinned down on the subject and he knows it.

Boy, I really don't know. I can totally see him as a completely undeliberate biffoon lucking upon a combination of his natural ego wanting things that happen to be working. Like evolution doesn't have a "direction" and happens upon things that are advantageous.

And I agree that this is a lot of him. However, there's also more. He has a politically savvy campaign team around him and he knows how to market what he's selling. He goes off on weird-assed racist tangents more often than they'd probably like, but he also pounds the talking points they put infront of him at the same time. They and him are preparing to ... update ... his message for the general election and they know how to have him say the things that he's saying in order to have it fit into his narrative when he starts saying the exact opposite a few months from now.

 

[Keith&Co.]

His lack of specificity at the moment allows him to bitch about how the media's been misrepresenting him and he never actually said anything like whatever he's being accused of saying

but he's also quite willing to say "I never said that" when there's a video of him saying it.
So on top of lacking specificity, he can easily skirt as close to any stance as he needs to at any moment, sure he can just retcon the entire conversation later, and again as needed.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I think people give Trump way too much credit for strategic thinking. I don't think he's using any more forethought or, well, thought at all, than a third grade bully. He's always been high on ego, and now he's been introduced to the really potent shit.

I don't know about that. This is the guy who's spent the past year running circles around the entire GOP establishment. While it's true that that can be likened to winning the slam dunk contest at a midget convention, his skills in this area can't simply be dismissed offhand.

Regardless of anything else one can say about him, he does know how to sell and the product that he's pushing now isn't a product that people will be interested in buying during the general election. His lack of specificity at the moment allows him to bitch about how the media's been misrepresenting him and he never actually said anything like whatever he's being accused of saying and this is his actual position. While there will, of course, be instances of that answer being followed by a video clip of his saying that exact thing which he can then ignore and change the subject about, there will be many more where he can't actually be pinned down on the subject and he knows it.

I'm dismissing it out of hand. No other candidate has ever gotten away with what he has gotten away with. Howard Dean was outdone, in part by a microphone that was designed to not pick up crowd noise, and a hoarse voice from the flu. Trump has said dreadful things and lies constantly, but his followers like it and seem even more emboldened by the criticism from the media and even their own Party. Trump isn't doing anything, it is his supporters that don't care about the tone of the message. Trump should have been gone before Iowa, and nothing he has done or said was designed for any other outcome.

His candidacy is the end result of a lot of other factors of which he had no involvement, ie the relentless attacks on "mainstream" media, the Tea Party movement, the Republicans ultimately not letting the nation burn, the outrageous attacks on Obama since '08.

 

[funinspace]

I don't know about that. This is the guy who's spent the past year running circles around the entire GOP establishment. While it's true that that can be likened to winning the slam dunk contest at a midget convention, his skills in this area can't simply be dismissed offhand.

Regardless of anything else one can say about him, he does know how to sell and the product that he's pushing now isn't a product that people will be interested in buying during the general election. His lack of specificity at the moment allows him to bitch about how the media's been misrepresenting him and he never actually said anything like whatever he's being accused of saying and this is his actual position. While there will, of course, be instances of that answer being followed by a video clip of his saying that exact thing which he can then ignore and change the subject about, there will be many more where he can't actually be pinned down on the subject and he knows it.

Boy, I really don't know. I can totally see him as a completely undeliberate biffoon lucking upon a combination of his natural ego wanting things that happen to be working. Like evolution doesn't have a "direction" and happens upon things that are advantageous.

Damn...and now this thread goes all serious Anywho, I'd say it is a mix of being like evolution and a fairly skilled bully/operator. I don't think Trump got where he is (aka prior to this presidential run) by being a moron. He is getting lucky in some ways due to the various frustrations of large subsets of the US. I would say that some of his success is from strategic thinking and some from luck of the draw. And by strategic thinking I don’t mean 6 months out.

I haven't finished this lengthy article that lpetrich posted (see: http://talkfreethought.org/showthre...iously-anymore&p=265858&viewfull=1#post265858), but authoritarianism and current fears (even if imaginary/exaggerated) seems to be the missing link that at least partly explains the rise of Trump in this cycle:
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11127424/trump-authoritarianism

People who score high in authoritarianism, when they feel threatened, look for strong leaders who promise to take whatever action necessary to protect them from outsiders and prevent the changes they fear.

So MacWilliams naturally wondered if authoritarianism might correlate with support for Trump.

He polled a large sample of likely voters, looking for correlations between support for Trump and views that align with authoritarianism. What he found was astonishing: Not only did authoritarianism correlate, but it seemed to predict support for Trump more reliably than virtually any other indicator. He later repeated the same poll in South Carolina, shortly before the primary there, and found the same results,…

<snip>
Trump embodies the classic authoritarian leadership style: simple, powerful, and punitive.

My guess from reading some of this article so far, and my own thoughts are that a large swath of whites, are feeling pressure economically and they see the world as much scarier. Long time societal rules have changed again, with gay marriage completely breaking down the last major barriers last year. So these people are lashing out at weird people and foreigners. A minor example, is my elderly father who watches way to much Faux News, and he seriously thinks that illegal immigration is a growing problem. When I point out that the number of illegal immigrants is down by nearly a million people, he just says “so they say”. We also have seen a big increase in the divergence of how people get their information about life, politics, et.al. with the ‘establishment’ news sources being less and less relevant.

And Trump does occasionally say something intelligent that few to no neocons would or could say. Ironically, it doesn't seem to matter that he has also said stupid shit, along the lines of what Hillary or Cruz would do in the ME. If anything it sounds like Cruz may have backed off a little from the idea of big adventures in the ME. Can anyone imagine Hillary saying the below?
http://thehill.com/opinion/juan-williams/272857-juan-williams-iraq-war-shapes-2016-landscape

“We have done a tremendous disservice not only to the Middle East — we've done a tremendous disservice to humanity,” Trump told a Republican debate audience in December.

“The people that have been killed,” he said, “the people that have been wiped away — and for what? It's not like we had victory. It's a mess. The Middle East is totally destabilized, a total and complete mess. I wish we had the $4 trillion or $5 trillion. I wish it were spent right here in the United States, on schools, hospitals, roads, airports, and everything else that are all falling apart."

So I’d summarize by saying that I think a fairly smart, rich, true outsider, bully coincided with politics hitting some pretty rough patches, along with a long time stagnating economy for many Americans, even us whites. The GOP has not been able to duck the Shrub disaster of Iraq, so his rare accurate comments in that direction hit home. And the Democrats are hardly clean there either, with the mess in Libya and Syria now; never mind the Afghan pile that is still steaming. Both parties are somewhat owned by WS, and I think Sander’s and Trump’s followers have at least partial recognition of that.

 

[Will Wiley]

Trump threatened Isis because Isis threatened America. And he threatened to do to them the exact same thing they do to others.
Hillary Clinton is far far worse. She has personally been involved in the destruction of entire nations that did not threaten America.
I can't see why this is so hard to get.

So two wrongs create a good policy?

Did I say it was good policy?

There are two awful choices, but for the world at large Clinton is far worse.

 

[Will Wiley]

Trump threatened Isis because Isis threatened America. And he threatened to do to them the exact same thing they do to others.

I don't get how Trump promising to be a terrorist is better than anyone mongering a war. .'

Trump wants to kill terrorists families and terrorists.
Clinton and the other Republicans will kill terrorists and there families and untold innocent civilians and bomb and invade countries who pose no threat and probably start a nuclear war.
For the world, Trump is the lesser of two evils.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

So two wrongs create a good policy?

Did I say it was good policy?

There are two awful choices, but for the world at large Clinton is far worse.

Why do you believe Trump?

 

[Will Wiley]

Did I say it was good policy?

There are two awful choices, but for the world at large Clinton is far worse.

Why do you believe Trump?

I believe him more than I believe the others, apart from Sanders.
Trump has been a critic of America's crminal wars since at least 2004. Clinton has been a gutless aplogist.

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqA2Hs5dTFM[/YOUTUBE]

 

[untermensche]

So two wrongs create a good policy?

Did I say it was good policy?

There are two awful choices, but for the world at large Clinton is far worse.

For the world in general neither is any good.

Trump is an unknown and a loose cannon. He could possibly lead to the end of the world as we know it.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I don't get how Trump promising to be a terrorist is better than anyone mongering a war. .'

Trump wants to kill terrorists families and terrorists.

Trump PROMISES to kill terrorists, and their families, even if they're innocent. Just to punish the dead terrorists.
And even if that was the best of intentions, rather than a fairly despicable descent into pointless revenge, it's almost impossible that such violence will not spill out of the targeted families.

Clinton and the other Republicans will kill terrorists and there families and untold innocent civilians and bomb and invade countries who pose no threat and probably start a nuclear war.

Nah. There's no profit in actually launching the nukes. Leasing them in perpetuity, and upgrading them every few years, that's where the money is.

For the world, Trump is the lesser of two evils.

No, he's really not. He'd be far, far worse. His followers are driving him to assuage their xenophobic fears. That does not bode well for anyone standing down range...