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#52 May 06 2016 at 6:09 AM Rating: Good
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Eh, if you see it not as Trump trying to convince Hispanics he's not racist, but instead trying to convince his existing supporters that he's not racist then it makes sense.
#54 May 06 2016 at 7:59 AM Rating: Good
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Actually knowing stuff like the difference between Sunnis and Shiites and why they want to kill each other is probably going to be one of many important geo-political factoids to know over the next four years.
Jophiel wrote:
NYT wrote:
The Tower Grill does not, in fact, offer taco bowls,
I mean, if he doesn't know what's on the menu of his own businesses ...

Edited, May 6th 2016 10:57am by lolgaxe
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#55 May 06 2016 at 8:33 AM Rating: Excellent
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That first quote was from Twiz, not me. Stop being a Gbaji.
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#56 May 06 2016 at 8:35 AM Rating: Good
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Well, uh, huh. I'm not sure this is an official campaign thing, but #FeelTheJohnson is certainly a thing.
#57 May 06 2016 at 8:42 AM Rating: Excellent
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Allegory wrote:
Eh, if you see it not as Trump trying to convince Hispanics he's not racist, but instead trying to convince his existing supporters that he's not racist then it makes sense.
I assume his supporters are already comfortable with who Trump is.

Just for laughs, it seems that the taco bowl photo also revealed that Trump is reading up on his ex-wife.
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#58 May 06 2016 at 8:59 AM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
That first quote was from Twiz, not me. Stop being a Gbaji.
The worst part is that I originally had it right the first time and for some reason thought it was yours. Brain must be fried by soda and popcorn overdose.
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#60 May 06 2016 at 9:49 AM Rating: Excellent
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Jophiel wrote:
Just for laughs, it seems that the taco bowl photo also revealed that Trump is reading up on his ex-wife.
One more thing that resonates well with his core supporters. Any wonder they like him, he's so easy to relate to.

Edited, May 6th 2016 8:50am by someproteinguy
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#61 May 06 2016 at 10:45 AM Rating: Good
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someproteinguy wrote:
Jophiel wrote:
Just for laughs, it seems that the taco bowl photo also revealed that Trump is reading up on his ex-wife.
One more thing that resonates well with his core supporters. Any wonder they like him, he's so easy to relate to.
What, are you saying you've never Facebook searched for people you don't talk to anymore to see what they're up to? An ex, an ******* former roommate who took your favorite mug, that kind of thing?

Not even while drinking?
#62 May 06 2016 at 10:50 AM Rating: Excellent
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The One and Only Poldaran wrote:
someproteinguy wrote:
Jophiel wrote:
Just for laughs, it seems that the taco bowl photo also revealed that Trump is reading up on his ex-wife.
One more thing that resonates well with his core supporters. Any wonder they like him, he's so easy to relate to.
What, are you saying you've never Facebook searched for people you don't talk to anymore to see what they're up to? An ex, an ******* former roommate who took your favorite mug, that kind of thing?

Not even while drinking?
Facebook is devilspawn. Smiley: tinfoilhat

Seriously, I don't facebook. I tried it out once, years ago, but haven't logged into it in 5+ years. It wasn't for me.
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#63 May 06 2016 at 10:55 AM Rating: Good
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someproteinguy wrote:
Facebook is devilspawn. Smiley: tinfoilhat

Seriously, I don't facebook. I tried it out once, years ago, but haven't logged into it in 5+ years. It wasn't for me.
I knew mentioning a platform by name was going to end up deflecting the whole point of the question. Smiley: rolleyes

Okay, Googling or whatever the hell the kids use these days.
#64 May 06 2016 at 10:57 AM Rating: Good
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If I wanted to seek out what past roommates and friends were up to these days I'd have to dig up the basement.
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#65 May 06 2016 at 11:05 AM Rating: Excellent
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The One and Only Poldaran wrote:
someproteinguy wrote:
Facebook is devilspawn. Smiley: tinfoilhat

Seriously, I don't facebook. I tried it out once, years ago, but haven't logged into it in 5+ years. It wasn't for me.
I knew mentioning a platform by name was going to end up deflecting the whole point of the question. Smiley: rolleyes

Okay, Googling or whatever the **** the kids use these days.
Nope, not that way either. I mean the closest I got was probably back when I realized I wasn't going to be able to make it to the high-school reunion. I looked up a couple of my old friends on facebook (back when I was using the thing) and messaged them to say hi because I wasn't going to get to see them. Other than that, I can't recall ever looking anyone up.
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#66 May 06 2016 at 11:39 AM Rating: Excellent
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All of my old relationships, I either know what they're up or don't care to know.

I don't give a shit who Trump looks up, but I did find it amusing that it'd make his little Hispanic photo-op.
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#67 May 06 2016 at 8:06 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
It's not the GOP though. That's what you're not getting. Trump has just effectively highjacked the GOP party nomination, but he didn't win with GOP party support. Therefore, those who don't like the GOP will like him.

He did it with GOP voter support...


Said voters, roughly 40% of whom are not normal GOP primary voters. Yes, I get that the fact that they voted in the GOP primary makes them GOP primary voters by definition. It does not mean that these are the same people who normally vote in the GOP primary, nor that his selection is the choice of those normal voters.

It's just strange to me that you have this need to pin the "blame" for Trumps nomination on some kind of theory that the bulk of Republican's just magically changed their minds about what they care about. What happened is that a large number of people who care about things completely different than Republicans normally do, showed up and voted. How do you not get this?

And yeah, as I mentioned in the other thread, I'd be concerned about this, because you want to dismiss this as a phenomenon that is occurring just among and within the normal block of GOP voters. Because if that's the case, then the total numbers don't change in term of a general election. The GOP just put up a candidate that will drive away even more of the voters that GOP candidates don't hold much sway with. But if Trumps support is coming from "outside" the normal party dynamics, then it completely changes the math, not just in the GOP primary, but also in the general election.

Only about 55-60% of the total possible eligible voters actually vote in a typical presidential election. That 35-40% who don't typically don't because they don't think that either party represents them, or they're fed up with them, don't like the process, etc, etc. Trump could easily grab a sizable number of those people, who, for the first time in their lives, are seeing someone running who isn't a rank and file guy, but is actually running on a major party ticket (and thus has a chance to win versus some random third party). We just saw 160% primary participation rate in the GOP primaries Joph. That can't be normal GOP voters showing up this time, but not in past primaries. Many of those are "new" voters. What those voters represent, and how that equates to "new" voters in the general is hard to know. But to assume that his mere presence in the race doesn't change the math is really really dumb.
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#68 May 06 2016 at 8:14 PM Rating: Decent
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someproteinguy wrote:
Jophiel wrote:
Just for laughs, it seems that the taco bowl photo also revealed that Trump is reading up on his ex-wife.
One more thing that resonates well with his core supporters. Any wonder they like him, he's so easy to relate to.


Maybe I'm confused here, but why is this a big thing, funny, or whatever? I mean, there's a lot of things you could say negative about Trump, but "OMG! He had a copy of a recent People magazine with a picture of one of his ex wives in it on his desk" isn't particularly shocking, or strange, or... well... anything at all. Guess I don't get the "just for laughs" bit here. Where's the laugh?
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#69 May 06 2016 at 8:25 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
It's just strange to me that you have this need to pin the "blame" for Trumps nomination on some kind of theory that the bulk of Republican's just magically changed their minds about what they care about.

Who said they changed their minds? I'm saying that the "They want REAL REAGAN CONSERVATISM!" people were just wrong. Not that they became wrong in the last eight months but they were always wrong. A significant portion of the GOP doesn't give a **** about conservatism or the philosophies of Jefferson, Locke or The Wealth of Nations -- they're nationalists, plain and simple.

But coming up with a thousand reasons why this isn't true and trying to convince yourself that your party is nominating a jingoist racist whose entire philosophy is "We'll stick it to the other guys and Make America Great Again" because of... ummm... Democratic sabotage votes or something... probably has a certain soothing affect on your psyche.

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Guess I don't get the "just for laughs" bit here. Where's the laugh?

That's okay. Don't worry about it.
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#70 May 06 2016 at 9:03 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
It's just strange to me that you have this need to pin the "blame" for Trumps nomination on some kind of theory that the bulk of Republican's just magically changed their minds about what they care about.

Who said they changed their minds? I'm saying that the "They want REAL REAGAN CONSERVATISM!" people were just wrong. Not that they became wrong in the last eight months but they were always wrong. A significant portion of the GOP doesn't give a **** about conservatism or the philosophies of Jefferson, Locke or The Wealth of Nations -- they're nationalists, plain and simple.


A. Keep telling yourself that.

B. Trump isn't running on a nationalist platform. He's running on a populist platform.

Quote:
But coming up with a thousand reasons why this isn't true and trying to convince yourself that your party is nominating a jingoist racist whose entire philosophy is "We'll stick it to the other guys and Make America Great Again" because of... ummm... Democratic sabotage votes or something... probably has a certain soothing affect on your psyche.


And again, you're clinging to the assumption that the voters who voted for Trump in the GOP primary are all voters who would normally vote for the GOP in the general anyway, so his numbers don't really change the general election math. Not because this is true, but because you want it to be true. I think that's foolish.

I think you're just plain dead wrong on that. Regardless of how we label them, a good portion of Trump's support is coming from people who don't normally participate in general elections, much less in primaries. And now that he's moving from the GOP primary and into the general election cycle, that number will grow even larger (cause it's no longer limited to just people who either could vote because it was an open primary, or happened to be registered republican, or registered republican just to vote for Trump in the primary).

That's going to be a huge obstacle for Clinton to overcome. And frankly, I don't think she can count on the normal number calculations to work. Trump has managed to tap into a very very large number of angry people. People who normally just sit on the sidelines and fume about how they don't have a choice that they like. We'll see if that's enough to offset his negatives with traditional voters, but my concern is that the same assumption that he couldn't do so in the primary didn't work.

I guess I just don't see how you don't get that your basing your assumption on the same logic that says that his negatives are so high with <insert list of groups here> that he can't win. But that didn't work in the primary. Now, you're falling back on an assumption that it failed in the primary because the GOP is really just a bunch of racist bigots who don't care about those negatives. And I suppose that narrative works for you, for the obvious bias reasons, but I think it's a terrible mistake to assume that this is the case. I think that there are just as many people in the general electorate who will clamor for Trump, not because they are racists, or bigots, or hate women, or gays or whatever, but because his populist message resonates with them and the other things don't matter.

You're trying to frame his victory within the context of your own assumptions about Left vs Right politics. But that's not how Trump is aligned.
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#71 May 06 2016 at 9:18 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
A. Keep telling yourself that.

B. Trump isn't running on a nationalist platform. He's running on a populist platform.

Keep telling yourself that Smiley: grin

Of course, if my party just nominated a nationalist for president, I'd possibly be telling myself that as well so maybe I shouldn't judge.
(Edit: To be fair, Trump is a right-wing populist; it's just that nationalism is a major component of right-wing populism. Hence the answer to wanting jobs is "We're going to punish Mexico for stealing all the factories and punish China and we're going to force them to pay us back and they have to pay us to build a wall to keep all their job stealing rapists from coming here and raping all of our jobs and that'll Make America Great Again..." etc)

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I think you're just plain dead wrong on that

You're welcome to think that. You're traditionally very wrong during presidential election cycles so you thinking that I'm wrong isn't a big concern for me.
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I guess I just don't see how you don't get that your basing your assumption on the same logic that says that his negatives are so high with <insert list of groups here> that he can't win. But that didn't work in the primary.

Do you understand that the general election population looks nothing like the GOP primary population? And that the groups he had to win to get a plurality in the GOP primary aren't representative of the groups he has to win to get a majority of the general population vote? Because it honestly doesn't seem like you understand this.
Quote:
Now, you're falling back on an assumption that it failed in the primary because the GOP is really just a bunch of racist bigots who don't care about those negatives. And I suppose that narrative works for you, for the obvious bias reasons, but I think it's a terrible mistake to assume that this is the case.

Quote:
Here’s what PPP found among likely Republican primary voters who support Trump in South Carolina:
Should the Confederate flag should still be flying over the South Carolina State House?
Yes – 70%
No - 20%

Do you wish the South had won the Civil War?
Yes – 38%
No – 24%
Not sure – 38%

Do you support Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims?
Yes – 80%
No-9%
(The poll also found 31% of Trump fans would support banning gays from entering the United States, something no more than 17% of other candidates’ supporters think is a good idea.)

Do you support creating a national database of Muslims?
Yes-62%
No-23%

Do you support shutting down all mosques in the United States?
Yes-40%
No-36%

Should the practice of Islam be illegal in the U.S.?
Yes-33%
No-44%

PPP surveyed 897 likely Republican voters Feb. 14 and 15. Of those, 35% said they supported Trump.


Edited, May 6th 2016 10:36pm by Jophiel
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#72 May 09 2016 at 8:10 AM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
You're traditionally very wrong during presidential election cycles
And between election cycles.
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#73 May 09 2016 at 8:40 AM Rating: Excellent
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Well, he was probably right about predicting Democratic congressional losses in the off-cycles but then so was everyone else. He did fail to realize the problem with putting unelectable candidates on the ballot (shades of today) and insisted that they were really great and I was just misjudging them -- a process that saved the Democratic senate until 2014.
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#74 May 10 2016 at 5:13 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
Of course, if my party just nominated a nationalist for president, I'd possibly be telling myself that as well so maybe I shouldn't judge.
(Edit: To be fair, Trump is a right-wing populist; it's just that nationalism is a major component of right-wing populism.


You're using the term "nationalism" in a bait and switch manner though. Clinton is just as much a nationalist as Trump. Heck. Depending on which version of nationalism we're talking about, Sanders is more of a nationalist. You use the term in a negative, alluding to things like fascism, but apply it to a form of nationalism that isn't that at all. All "nations" employ nationalism. And all parties within modern nations have a nationalist platform. All of them. It's a meaningless term when used so broadly.

What differentiates Trump from traditional GOP candidates is that instead of running on the normal small government, constitutionalist, free market, platform, he's just strung together a set of things that are 'wrong' with the current state of things, and insisted that he can fix these things better than the traditional agendas of either party. And, given the state of things in the country right now, this is a message that resonates strongly. It's "popular", even if unrealistic. Hence the label "populist". I call him that because that's the label that most differentiates him from any other candidate.


Quote:
Hence the answer to wanting jobs is "We're going to punish Mexico for stealing all the factories and punish China and we're going to force them to pay us back and they have to pay us to build a wall to keep all their job stealing rapists from coming here and raping all of our jobs and that'll Make America Great Again..." etc)


Uh huh. A distinction without a difference. What exactly do you think Clinton is selling to the masses when she says she's going to punish companies that send jobs overseas? You get that both are promising Americans (as in "citizens of this nation" which is a component of nationalism in both cases) more jobs. Both are identifying foreign job markets as the obstacle. The language is different is all.

Quote:
Do you understand that the general election population looks nothing like the GOP primary population? And that the groups he had to win to get a plurality in the GOP primary aren't representative of the groups he has to win to get a majority of the general population vote? Because it honestly doesn't seem like you understand this.


I do understand this. Do you?

Quote:
Quote:
Here’s what PPP found among likely Republican primary voters who support Trump in South Carolina:
Should the Confederate flag should still be flying over the South Carolina State House?
Yes – 70%
No - 20%

Do you wish the South had won the Civil War?
Yes – 38%
No – 24%
Not sure – 38%

Do you support Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims?
Yes – 80%
No-9%
(The poll also found 31% of Trump fans would support banning gays from entering the United States, something no more than 17% of other candidates’ supporters think is a good idea.)

Do you support creating a national database of Muslims?
Yes-62%
No-23%

Do you support shutting down all mosques in the United States?
Yes-40%
No-36%

Should the practice of Islam be illegal in the U.S.?
Yes-33%
No-44%

PPP surveyed 897 likely Republican voters Feb. 14 and 15. Of those, 35% said they supported Trump.


Ah... Yup. You're the one who doesn't get this. Let me repeat this again: Trump is running on a populist platform. That means he's going to say what he thinks will resonate with the voters he needs. It's not about platform or ideology. It's about selling himself as a leader. The voters he appealed to in order to win the GOP primary are not representative of the voters in the general (they're also not representative of typical GOP voters either, which should be your first clue that your starting assumption is flawed). But the funny thing about a populist is that voters in the general will find other things that they care about and other reasons to prefer Trump over Clinton.

He's not going to make this about policy. It's not really about building a wall and making Mexico pay for it. It's not really about tax policy, or foreign policy, or frankly any policy at all. He's going to make the race about Trump vs Clinton. Who do you like more? Who's the better person? Who do you trust? And if Clinton isn't prepared for this (and it really looks like she isn't even close), she's going to get slaughtered. Trump sold himself in the primary, not any specific platform. What the people who bought into his BS themselves think about various things is largely irrelevant to that calculation. I think you're making the mistake in thinking that only people who match the demographics of "trump voters" in the GOP primary will be inclined to choose Trump over Clinton in the general. As you said, the general election population does not match the GOP primary voter population.

If he were running as a standard Republican, you'd be correct. But he's not. Because if he had, he would not have won the primary. Watch for him to make this election less about issues and more about the people running. Cause that's what he did in the primary, and it worked. It was "low energy Bush", "lying Ted", and "little Rubio". Yes, that shouldn't be a winning strategy, but he's tapping into a large population of people who are just plain sick and tired of the existing party politics going endlessly back and forth and never getting anything done, or when something is done, it's not remotely what they want. Obviously, I happen to think that's a terrible platform, and is pretty much doomed to ensure that even less gets done going forward, but that's the opinion of someone who actually follows politics and has opinions on political platforms and agendas 365 days out of every year, and not just for a few months every four years like the vast majority of the voting population. They'll buy the populist rhetoric because it sounds good to them. And the harder the Clinton camp tries to convince them that they're wrong and Trump's wrong, the more they'll just not believe her because she's "part of the problem" in their eyes.

If she gets too far behind in the rhetoric game, I don't think she can recover. It's really going to be a question of "who do you trust?", and Clinton is already on the downward slope on that one.

Edited, May 10th 2016 4:57pm by gbaji
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#75 May 10 2016 at 6:07 PM Rating: Excellent
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The lengths you'll contort yourself to defend Trump just because he wears a Republican badge are... well, depressingly familiar, I guess.
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#76 May 10 2016 at 6:40 PM Rating: Good
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Gbaji is a trump supporter now. His GOP masters have spoken.
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