YOU'RE FIRED!Follow

I'm one of those loons who thinks he might be a democrat (like he was). His antics are making the moderate Republicans swing left, which will hurt them in primaries, but will help the guanopsycho right wing candidates in the primaries, but they will have no chance in the general election.

People were saying the same thing about Trump's attacks on Obama over the birth certificate.

Of course trying to "prove" Trump's motivations is impossible although common sense should prevail. If Trump wanted to kill the GOP's chances at a White House victory, he'd be saying this stuff while running as an independent to split the vote. And, of course, this raises the uncomfortable point that Trump would be saying 100% over-the-top insane bullshit to make the GOP look bad and still have 18% saying "Yeah, that's what I like" -- 30% if you combine people's first and second choices for the nomination.

Have you taken a look at the rest of the field? The rest of them are saying "Well, I'm crazy, but not as crazy as that guy!"

You give the rest of the GOP field far too much credit.

Is it wrong that I'm having fun watching Trump troll McCain? I do feel a little guilty about it, if that helps.

No. It's hilarious. He's not only trolling McCain, but the entire GOP field.

It's possible to intend to do one thing, but do so in a way that creates a predictable unintended consequence. In this case, if your objective is to prevent the deportation of illegals, you might create a policy to do just that. And if that policy includes actively avoiding informing (or even misinforming) ICE when releasing a prisoner regardless of who it is or what crime they were arrested for, occasionally that means someone who is a violent criminal may be detained in SF on a relatively minor charge (drug charge in this case IIRC) and then released instead of deported. It would take someone actively choosing not to follow existing policy for this to have been caught and acted on properly. And even then, I suspect it would be near political suicide for someone in the SFPD to reach out to ICE to have someone detained. This result was inevitable. Just a matter of how long it would take.

It's a bad policy. But it's a bad policy that is predicated on a simplistic narrative of what is a far more complex and nuanced situation. Anyone who tries to simplify things down to be "for/against" immigrants just does not do the issue justice. And outcomes like this become inevitable as a result.

Edited, Jul 20th 2015 4:26pm by gbaji

Trump with a big national lead in the polls at 24%. Next highest is Walker at 13%. That was largely before the McCain stuff though.

On the other hand, an Iowa poll taken over the weekend (during the McCain stuff) put Trump at 13% -- second place behind Walker at 22%. Limbaugh is advocating for Trump as well, turning it into an establishment/media trying to tear down a guy who has the plurality support of the GOP voting public. It's essentially impossible that Trump will lose enough support quickly enough to disqualify him for the first debate in early August.

Good, I'd be a little disappointed if he didn't get into a shouting match face to face with the other seventy candidates at least once.

Edited, Jul 21st 2015 10:04am by lolgaxe

I imagine it'll be twenty-seven minutes of taking shots at Trump. There's certainly plenty of material to go around.

I don't think anyone disagrees that he's trolling in that he's intentionally saying inflammatory things to get a reaction. I don't think that it directly reflects on whether he's "serious" or not -- you can be saying such things as part of your "tell it like it is and say the things those fat cats in Washington don't want you to say" persona (witness Christie or LaPage).

I get the impression that he's quasi-serious: He didn't expect to get this sort of traction and expected just a platform to give his views and perhaps influence the stage. But if the people magically wanted to make him president (they won't) then he'd take the job. His ego is such that he's not about to let things go while he's still getting attention and he can probably keep getting attention for a good long while.

Does it count as giving out if you could probably easily find it written over any rest stop glory hole?