US General Election 2016

{{ Its hard to know whats worse- how he treats indivduals like the family of the dead kid, or how he treats groups of people such as his utter and complete betrayal of the Kurds.

On the former I have noticed that it was barely, if at all covered in the US but it was a huge story here for days.

For those who dont know the wife of a US diplomat staying on a US base in th UK left the base driving on the wrong side of the road and prompted killed a 19 year old boy on his bike.
She was questioned by police and said she would cooperate with the investigation- only for her to then flee the country and the US to grant her diplomatic immunity.

Obviouly this caused a bit of a sitr prompting the government to tell the US government they wanted her back and the diplomatic immunity waved. In response Trump arranged for the family of the dead boy to come to the White House for a meeting, they went expecting a private meeting in which they could directly make their case for justice to be done.
Instead they got ambushed by Trump who only wanted some PR and not to actually discuss it and then, shockingly, he announced in the middle of it that the killer of their son was in the next room, with the press, waiting for them.
Understandably they declined the offer, a lot more tactfully than I would have done!

But what sort of sick fuck thinks like that and does that to a grieving family? }}

My guess is it was just total cluelessness. The man is addicted to the idea of trying to "make a deal" with no understanding of the emotional stakes he's playing with. He's a reality TV star, so he just assumed that if he could get all parties sitting down together in the same room and get them talking he could work his magic and a deal could be made because that's how it works on reality TV shows, right?
 
The story hasn't been missed over here, it's just that personal stories often get lost in all the campaign and impeachment noise. Very sad!

This is actually a badly done article, but given the theme it must be posted.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/21/trump-administration-mordor-failed-hegemon-tolkien/

I'll wait to start a general election 2020 thread until nominations are done.

Biden just said he thinks it's good to have a divided government, which is perhaps the smartest thing he can say if he wants to be elected by a divided country. No other democrat is willing to say that. I'm hoping Biden just clinched the presidency with that remark.

I can't see any other democrat beating Trump. Bernie would have beat him in 2016, but now that the economy is doing so well nobody is willing to risk such a change.

{{ Its such a long haul the US elections I dont suppose there is a rush- our election was called what about a month or so ago at most and we vote onThursday, thats more a time frame I can cope with. US elections are like a marathon, run in shitty weather! }}

Just saw how Biden reacted to a question about his son, and this may cancel out his gains. You don't tell a voter he's a damn liar in his face.

These are a big seller at work:

https://www.theworks.co.uk/p/novelty-gifts/donald-trump-toilet-roll-and-brush-set/5052089275393

I've seen other versions of that. It would be nice to photobomb him with one.

Problem is, he's been doing stupid stuff since day 1 and it hasn't made much of a dent on his political support.

I guess we can give him points for being reliably stupid?*

Honestly from interviews/articles I've seen/interactions with Trump supporters online (yes, I know online interactions aren't a fair or accurate way to judge as a whole) it seems a sizeable amount of his supporters realise he's doing stupid things, but as long as 'the other side' are annoyed or hurt by his actions, they don't care what he does, it's less about the country winning or moving in a different direction, and more their 'team' regaining the status quo and 'pissing off the liberals'...

''Change we can believe in''-2008
''Make America Great Again''-2016

*Though I am more and more convinced he is mentally unstable, and showing some signs of dementia

Coincidentally I just finished watching a two-hour Frontline episode on the polarization of American politics. One thing that jumped out at me came from the advisor who recommended that John McCain pick Sarah Palin as his running mate. He said that she was the first politician to utilize Facebook, and after Obama was elected was the first politician to use outright lies (the so-called and nonexistent "death panels" of Obamacare) and get a positive response out of the right-wing media for doing so.

The right wing media struck a nerve in the 40% of Americans who are die-hard Trump supporters, making it impossible for Republicans to go against them and make deals with Democrats.

Our political system is now totally broken, with no redemption in sight. We can't seem to use that 60% majority to get any action because roughly 15% of them are swing voters, and it's a volatile 15%.

halfwise wrote: Our political system is now totally broken, with no redemption in sight.  We can't seem to use that 60% majority to get any action because roughly 15% of them are swing voters, and it's a volatile 15%.  

As a confirmed Independent voter (as opposed to a swing voter), I'm a little confused at you speaking of a "60% majority" Halfy....
Have you just lumped all of us Indy's into that "majority" without asking us?

I mean the 60% non diehard Trump supporters. Our country is currently being run by 40% who can convince just enough swing/independents to go with them to hold on to a majority.

I'm an independent mainly so I can give the rasberry to democrats when they start acting stupid. I used to feel I could vote for republicans at times, but that door closed during the w bush era. (though these days even bush republicans ain't looking half bad).

{{ Question for you Dave- saw Trump giving his speech to the farmers lot in Texas- he began by telling them about a poll sayng how 83% of farmers and ranch approve of Trump and what he has done. Is this true still? Given the very difficult posiiton he has put the farming indusrty into in the US I do find it surprising and would have expected to find approval for him slipping. }}

That's complicated and I can't speak to the numbers, but I think that most of the Trump supporters I know still see themselves as Trump supporters (though nowhere nearly as enthusiastic as they were 4 years ago.) They may not like the results of his tariffs but they'll still give him the benefit of the doubt that he was at least trying to correct some of the highly unpopular imbalances in the old trade deals. That's enough to justify loyalty. I see some Brexit parallels here. The initial enthusiasm faded quickly, but.....

Does the new USMCA agreement help things somewhat?  It has nothing to do with China (Mexico and Canada), but I'm seeing universal agreement that it's better than the NAFTA it replaced.  Farmers weren't specifically mentioned in what I've seen so I don't know if there's a relevant effect.

I don't know either. Unfortunately it's almost impossible to tell fact from rhetoric anymore....
In general i think it's healthy to revisit and update most trade agreements from time to time, but not as political footballs. I think USMCA would be a better agreement if it were simply thought of as NAFTA version 1.1
Same with the Affordable Care Act. It needs some updating, but the two political teams are so fixed on using it to score points against each other that any change will inevitably end up in court!

{{ Thanks for the insights Dave. I guess farmers figure they may as well stay the course and hope he comes good before the end.

'I think USMCA would be a better agreement if it were simply thought of as NAFTA version 1.1'- Dave

Thats largely how its being reported here- its NAFTA with some tweaks and that the idea its a whole new trade deal so much better than the terrible failed NAFTA is purely Trump spin. }}

{{ Perhaps some of the UShobbits can enlighten on this impeatchment trial.
From what I can gather the senate has to take an oath to act impartial right?
So why are republicans blocking the submission of evidence and witnesses? How can you have a trial without them?
And if someone like Bolton has publicly stated he has information pertinent to the subject of the charges surely its automatic he tesitifies? And surely preventing him doing so or stopping the presenting of evidence is not acting impartially as they took an oath to do?
Surely were it a fair impartial trial all the pertinent evidence would be heard and witnesses called from all sides and the validity of the testimony and evidence weighed?

Why having taken that oath are Republicans still allowed to block witnesses and evidence isnt that a contradiction? }}

It's pure politics, very little to do with an impartial search for the truth, but both may feel it is.

If this was a democratic president with the same rock-solid support from his base I'm sure things would be reversed.  This can be seen differently from either side with some justification.  I feel the republicans are on much shakier ground but not doubt republicans feel the opposite.

The Republicans are arguing that Trump was just doing his job to ensure that money was not being wasted on a corrupt regime.  He was interested in the Bidens because Hunter Biden (Joe Biden's son) had taken a job on the board of the energy company Burisma to the tune of $50,000/month even though he had absolutely no background in energy, Ukraine, etc.  It was clear that Burisma was hoping to use his influence on the Vice President.  Ukraine had a prosecutor/attorney general who has supposed to be investigating corrupting in Burisma, and Joe Biden actually withheld money from Ukraine in order to put pressure to have the prosecutor fired.  Looks pretty bad huh?  None of these details as I listed them are under dispute.  The Republicans seem to have a good case that the Bidens were involved in corruption and so he could be justified both in looking into them and withholding money.

But looking closer things begin to fall apart.  First of all, Biden wanted the prosecutor fired because he was not doing his job, which included investigating Burisma.  Getting him fired would actually make it more likely Burisma would be investigated, so Biden was not acting to the benefit of his son.  Secondly, when Trump asked Ukraine to investigate corruption, his singular focus was on having them publicly announce an investigation into the Bidens.  When they publicly announced an investigation into corruption, they were told that wasn't good enough, they had to say explicitly that the Bidens were being investigated.

So the Republicans want to keep the surface story intact in Republican minds, not mess it up with witnesses testifying about the details.   They are arguing that the Democratic impeachment is pure politics and it's in the interest of the country to throw out this sham and get on about the business of the country.   And so long as they can keep most of the base convinced this is the true reading of things, the votes keep them funnelled along the same path.  If they had enough courage to explain things to their base maybe they could swing the votes and keep their jobs; but Trump voters don't budge for anything, and 80% of the republicans are Trump voters.

 Oaths be damned, there's an election to win.  Actually more than one: not just presidential, but for their own seats in congress.  Job security is a powerful incentive to bend the truth.

While I had felt the Democrats put in a strong case for removing the president, the Republicans came back today and in about 2 hours I feel blew a hole in it. The main point was that the Ukrainians seemed oblivious to the fact that aid was being withheld, so it couldn't have been used as a pressure point.

Section of Trump's Wall Blown over by Wind

Best comment: "This was the only thing with Trump's name on it that couldn't dodge a draft."

  that's karma