US Politics Thread 2016-2020

[MaDef]

It must be hell living inside your heads ever since Trump took office.

[vienna]

Originally Posted by Platapus

I think there is a chance he will resign. I don't think he ever really wanted to win. If he does leave, he will want to leave on his terms. He may declare that while he is the best president in our history, the fact that everyone is against him (courts, press, congress, the people) that he feels that he really can't get anything done and that we don't deserve as awesome a president as he clearly is.

Then he can do what he wanted to do all along -- start another career as a political commentary celebrity safely blaming who ever is on office. I predict that his next reality TV show will be entitled "see, I told you so!"

I pretty much agree with you. I think he'll resign amid much huffery and puffery, declare he's actually "wiinning" and go on to make beaucoup bucks on the speaking/TV circuit and write (or have some one write for him) book(s) about his tortured life...

The really odd thing is, he's really done all this damage to himself, needlessly. His obsession with his being investigated for collusion is baffling since he was never accused of collusion by any credible entities, certainly not by the Justice Dept.; the only people actually being investigated are those members of his campaign who had contact with Russian operatives; he could have (and should have) just let the investigation(s) play out and let his suspect cronies take their lumps. Instead, he decided it was a better tactic to try and derail the investigations; this has now led him to needlessly put himself in the position of actually being investigated for obstruction. If he'd just shut up about matter, he would not be in the bind he's created...

I think if anything is going to do him in, it won't be collusion, it will be his finances and the specter of conflict of interest. After he announced his candidacy last year, the subsequent months saw the publication of several articles in reputable and respected periodicals detailing the extent of his financial 'empire'. Among the details was the fact Trump could no longer obtain loans from any major US banks due to his very poor credit and payment history, highlighted by a number of bankruptcies to avoid payment of debts. Since he could no longer get the very large loans he needed to back his projects, he sought financing from foreign banks; the one big bank that bit was Deutsche Bank, but even they were leery of Trump. According to the articles, big money depositors of the bank quietly stepped in to offer references and vouch for Trump and helped him secure the loans. The parties who stepped in were Russian oligarchs and their connections were with the Russian VEB Bank. The potential connections with Russian money interests and Trump's holdings could set up a very sticky ethics and conflict situation for Trump. He might be faced with having to either shed completely some of his 'tainted' assets, preserving, for the moment, his tenure in office, or face what would be certainly a very hard legal battle and a public relations disaster. I think, faced with the actual possibility of having to whittle down his 'empire', he will resign...

So, in the end, his connections with Russia might well make him leave office, but it won't be because of collusion...




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[August]

I think he'll not only make it through his first term but he'll get reelected for another.

[Reece]

My thoughts exactly!

[Platapus]

Ultimately, it will be up to the Democrats. If they put up, again, someone unelectable, Trump may very well be re-elected.

2020 is very lose-able. We can only hope they learned their lesson.

[vienna]

Well, the DEMs actually did run a winning candidate, at least in the terms of the popular vote; Clinton beat Trump by nearly 3 million votes, winning the popular vote by a good majority, and 54% of the voters voted for a candidate other than Trump; Trump was never the US voters' choice. Clinton, flaws and all, was actually 'electable', mainly because, for the majority of the actual voters, she was the lesser of two evils. Trump won office not by direct election, but, rather, by the arcane 'handicapping' system that is the Electoral College. Where Clinton and the DEMs failed was in not working the "game" of the Electoral College as effectively as the GOP...

Trump was never the popular People's Choice and has seen his popularity slide to dismal depths near or below the dismal level when he took office; that is an absolute fact. If the trend continues, and it shows no immediate prospect of change, if Trump manages to cling to office til 2020, the DEMs stand a better than good chance of regaining the Oval Office, dependent of who they run. I don't think they will forget the lesson about the gaming of the Electoral College, much as the GOP learned a valuable lesson when, in 2012, Obama raked in far more Electoral votes than the GOP anticipated (actually more than Trump managed to pull in 2016)...

The 2018 mid-terms are a toss-up: the GOP has been doing the right thing by pretty much trying to carry on with business without being sucked into the Trump sideshow. As long as they continue to strive to conduct their business as if Trump is not the albatross he is, the GOP can, at least, curry favor with the voters who are seeking remedies to more personal, pressing issues they face. The Senate should be secure since none of the GOP members has really done anything to cause real concern and the Senate is seen as the 'grown-ups' of Congress; the House is another issue; given that a sizable number of the GOP House members have more or less signed on to some of the highly questionable Trump causes and that a few have even gone out of their way to seemingly abet Trump, there is a perception the GOP leadership of the House has lost control of even their own members; the faith the voters have in the House has never, regardless of whoever were the majority party, in the past couple of decades or so, been very high and it is falling; unless they right ship and try to regain a semblance of order and unity, 2018 could be a very interesting election...




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[sh3rules]

I'd be surprised if Trump doesn't self-destruct before 2020.

[Skybird]

America has equipped its presidency with almost untouchability. More difficult than in most other Western countries to get a pest out of state leadership or to cancel immunity. Candidates deserving that there have been several ones in history, but how often has it actually succeeded? On the other hand, nobody tries as hard as Trump to get kicked. So never say never... No, America will need to live on with this shame. And rightly so. You allowed it - you suffer from the fallout.

[Jimbuna]

Just an advisory: If and when the US Politics thread is reopened, this thread will be merged to that.

[u crank]

Originally Posted by Platapus

Ultimately, it will be up to the Democrats. If they put up, again, someone unelectable, Trump may very well be re-elected.

2020 is very lose-able. We can only hope they learned their lesson.

I agree. I think Clinton was a flawed candidate right out of the gate. The email scandal alone should have disqualified her.

Also, I'm just thinking... If a candidate is not smart enough to win an election that they should have won...would you want that person to be President?

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by vienna

Trump was never the US voters' choice.

I would disagree.

The intent of the electoral college is for the winning candidate to get the majority of the votes in the majority of the states. This is different than a simple majority of the population. It is more a representative majority over the set of states.

Yes, Clinton got more of the population's votes, but they were concentrated in a fewer number of states. The methodology of how we elect our president is, as always, a compromise between the desires of the largest population states (who would would favour a simple majority) and the smaller population states (who would favour a more representative majority).

This is, of course, compounded by the states deciding (and it is the individual state's decision) to have an "all or nothing" electoral vote tally. We don't need to get rid of the electoral college, we need to fix it so it records a more representative tally of the votes.

So Trump winning the majority of the votes in the majority of the states would indicate that he was the choice of the voters as represented by the individual states.

[Skybird]

The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. - Douglas Adams


Politics: the art of using euphemisms, lies, emotionalism and fear-mongering to dupe average people into accepting--or even demanding--their own enslavement. - Larken Rose


Voting is not a right. It is a method used to determine which politician was most able to brainwash you. - Dennis Adonis


The only people truly bound by campaign promises are the voters who believe them. - Christopher Hitchens

[STEED]

Age may get the better of him.

[Bubblehead1980]

Absolutely will make it and win in 2020 "big league" because the so called "deplorables" will ensure it barring illegals are not permitted to vote, left is working on that. Amazes me the hysteria some people are in over this man because he does not play by the rules of DC and actually wants to help the people. Obama was far more dangerous to the country and the world. Personally, I've enjoyed the turmoil his election has caused, our nation needed it and continues to do so.

[vienna]

This Friday, 23 June, should be interesting: since Trump made that Tweet suggesting the possible existence of recording of his meetings with Comey, calls for either Trump to produce any such recordings or admit there are no such recordings or recording system(s) led to Congress issuing an ultimatum for the production of the recordings by Friday, 23 June. I guess we will either see recordings to either substantiate Trump or Comey, or, much more likely, we will see, again, Trump is lying to and/or misleading Congress, and, more importantly, the US public...

I wonder who he will try to blame this time? Maybe Obama; maybe Hilary; maybe the DEMs, the "Deep State", the media; maybe the dog ate the tapes, if they existed at all. Certainly he won't blame the one person responsible who seems to get him in all these dilemmas, the one who shoots off his mouth (well, thumbs...Tweets, you know) and who seems to be jamming Trump's foot into his mouth up to the knees: Donald J. Trump...




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