Sides, sides, everywhere sides
Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that, hey fuck your side

-Apologies to Electric Flag or 5 man Electrical Band.Whoever.

 kcar wrote: 
And how much are you charging the donald for renting space in your head ?

 Lazy8 wrote: 
I never said it was a one-sided failure but the GOP has moved more and more rightwards until it has boxed itself in, away from effective policies. Its answer to everything seems to be tax-cuts and reduced government at a time when voters—yes, even Republican voters—are looking for a more active and interventionist federal government. Trump has succeeded because he wants the federal government to build The Wall, raise tariffs, deport illegal immigrants, tighten immigration restrictions and bully American companies into bringing manufacturing jobs back to America. 

The GOP has no practical solutions to our most pressing problems. It can't even acknowledge the reality of global warming. It relies on wedge issues like gun control, gay rights, voting fraud and the use of freedom of religion to discriminate against individuals who somehow don't conform to a code of behavior. Trump succeeded so much because his opponents didn't have practical alternatives to his simplistic "solutions"—and because voters weren't too bothered with basing their opinions of Trump's idea in reality. 

So yes, I'd say that the GOP is intellectually bankrupt and morally bankrupt for pretending that it intends to help the vast majority of Americans. 

You can't say that Hillary is vague on proposed programs and policies. She's published a numbing amount of detail about her ideas. Obama's administration has tried to get a lot done over eight years; pulling the economy out of a near-total collapse and getting the ACA passed were HUGE achievements. I wouldn't say that the Democrats are intellectually bankrupt. 

Again, I don't think Clinton's prevarications/lies even approach Trump's prevarications/lies. If you'd like to detail why you think that Clinton is a moral bankrupt whom the nation shouldn't trust, have at it. I read a lot of sweeping generalizations about Clinton the Demon and Clinton the Unindicted Felon but a lot of the complaints seem focused on the $&*#! email server which has never really amounted to anything. Clinton AFAIK hasn't tried to circumvent the Constitution (FDR), had leaders of foreign nations overthrown or assassinated (Eisenhower and JFK), lied to get us into a war (LBJ and Bush II), allowed his underlings to commit crimes and then tried to cover it up (Nixon), lied to Americans about his knowledge of the Iran-Contra scandal and the actual nature of the Contras (Reagan and Bush I) or tried to hide an affair from a Special Prosecutor investigation (Bill Clinton). 

Do both parties control the primary process to the point that fringe or minor candidates typically have no real shot? Perhaps, but I wouldn't call that moral bankruptcy. Both parties gave extreme candidates strong chances of winning during this election cycle—and one of them won.
 

On another note: bad news for the mentally unstable guy that Red_Dragon pointed us to: Trump is Officially Senile. A rash Trump remark can't set you off if Trump changes his mind the next day. 

It must really suck to be a surrogate/enabler/bootlicker like Chris Christie these days.

 

Donald J. Trump tried to quash the latest controversy engulfing his campaign on Friday by claiming that he was not serious when he insisted several times this week that President Obama and Hillary Clinton were the “founders” of the Islamic State terrorist group. 

...

After making the suggestion at a rally on Wednesday night, Mr. Trump doubled down on the assertion on Thursday, insisting in interviews that he really did intend to say that the president and Mrs. Clinton had created ISIS. But in an early-morning Twitter post on Friday, Mr. Trump said that he was just being sarcastic.

...

The post was a reversal from just a day ago, when Mr. Trump said in a number of interviews that he was indeed serious about the charge. When the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt tried to help Mr. Trump soften the remark by reminding him that Mr. Obama wants to destroy ISIS, the Republican presidential nominee would not have it.

 

 aflanigan wrote:
All I can do is write 'em. Can't make anybody read 'em.

 Lazy8 wrote: 
Well if you want to lump all GOP leaning and DEM leaning voters together in assigning blame for the current political malady(ies) of our nation, what rhetorical trick are you relying on to exclude independents/libertarian leaning voters and so on from this finger pointing exercise?

Tribal behavior, whether political or religious or what have you, is not limited to the big tribes.

 Lazy8 wrote: 
When the one side spawns a candidate like Trump the focus naturally goes there. As it should.

In the end the real question becomes who is more fit for the position? Trump is not. But it seems like the Trump supporters (faced with his overwhelming incompetence) are no longer trying to support him on his merits now... probably impossible to do at this point. They have pivoted to an acknowledgement that Trump is bad while trying to claim that Clinton is equally as bad (or close to as bad). That's not going to fly with most people. Clinton is certainly not without her own problems, shortcomings and misdeeds and those should be acknowledged. However; stack those against Trump's and the two "piles" aren't even close at this point.
 
I'm going to hold my nose when I enter the polling booth this year but it's clear which of the two is creating the most stank.

 kcar wrote:
Your side doesn't get a pass here. This isn't a one-sided failure.

 VV wrote: 
lol oh no you haven't

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
Ok, now I've seen it all.

Now that I know what the "mentally unbalanced" think... I wonder what's on the minds of: arsonists, rapists, pedophiles & insurance cheats?
 

 kurtster wrote: 
I'm thinking you're lapsing into Trump-like shit stirring. Which is - sincerely - too bad.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
Well, fooey.

 Red_Dragon wrote: 
Link should work now. It had two hyphens in it which the RP grinder turns into a — dash. I clicked the "share via email" link and copied the short link it used there...

Mentally Unbalanced Man Still Waiting For The Right Trump Comment To Incite Him

 BlueHeronDruid wrote: 
Yea, this argument is like the one which says that Trump is down in the polls because his supporters, who have no compunction about being filmed assaulting other humans at campaign events, are too askeered to answer truthfully when asked by an anonymous pollster who they'll never meet about their voting preferences.

 

I bet no one would care if the guy's house went up in flames with the sign and someone inside died.

Thanks, Hillary ...

 Pro-Trump ‘installation’ torched on Staten Island. Owner wants hate crime investigation

 kurtster wrote: 




Come to the southeast, you will feel better though strangely it looks like Clinton is actually going to win Georgia and South Carolina too which is positively cray, cray. As hard core as the Trump supporters are the opposition is overwhelming. I just lament the wasted money and tire of the delusion of a Republic, the players are pretty much irrelevant pawns to me and am aware that we the people have already lost, but must keep fighting for the future.

 kcar wrote: 
Good post. Cruz might have beat Clinton, yes, and I still think he'd do more damage than Trump. With Trump, it won't be long before he's sandboxed and we just drift along for 4 years. With Cruz (or Pence, once a President Trump gets bored and quits) would have a Congress more willing to go along with them. And they don't like me. Trump doesn't care about me, that's bad. Cruz and Pence do care about me in a bad way, so that's even worse.

 Steely_D wrote: 
A lot of RPers in these forums forget that Republicans demonized and disrespected Bill Clinton in his time as much as they do the same things to Hillary today. Bill was known as "Slick Willie" and condemned for triangulating his opinion to maximize support for policies from the right and left. Lazy8's post of 8/10/16 @ 9:51pm reminded me of the GOP's treatment of Bill by mentioning Christopher Hitchens'  book "No One Left to Lie To", published in '99 and updated in '00.

Hitchens was not initially a conservative but moved considerably to the right over time and was the book apparently was a scathing critique of Clinton. One thumbnail review of the book states that it claims Clinton unleashed attacks on training camps for Islamic terrorists and a pharmaceutical factory (suspected by the CIA of making nerve gas) in an attempt to distract the public for Monica Lewinsky scandal. (This notion was popularized by the movie "Wag the Dog", which came out a month before the Lewinsky story broke).  Actually, Clinton was acting on intelligence and trying to kill Osama bin Laden and disrupt Al Qaeda. 

Republicans have had a field day with Hillary Clinton since '92, partly because Bill's cheating suggested that Hillary was just as cold and rigid as the Republicans claimed. Hillary is not a natural politician and apparently dislikes the press, which will return the favor in its articles when it feels that politicians are arrogant (Al Gore found that out in 2000). The Republicans have turned Hillary into the stereotype of a cold career-oriented woman: a ball-breaker, more man than woman, a policy-fixated shrew, a joyless calculating Lady Macbeth with an inability to behave naturally or be truthful...She hasn't learned how to publicly laugh that kind of stuff off. 

But hey, the Democrats do the same sort of thing to the Republican candidates.

Part of the problem, I think, is that this election was a hangover from the idealistic optimism that Obama brought forth in '08. Things didn't turn out as wonderfully as Obama had promised and many people were angry that the economic recovery hadn't included them. There's a lot of cynicism about our parties and politics right now, and even the best candidates for both sides would have faced a lot of skepticism and reservation. The two establishment candidates—Jeb and Hillary—were stiff, out of touch with populist anger, and tied to the past. Once you say "Jesus, Jeb/Hillary sucks!", it becomes a lot easier to say "Wow, Trump/Bernie tells it like it is!"

I see Trump as the anti-Obama. Instead of "Yes we can" it's now "I alone can help you". A desire to include more people  in politics and a desire to reach across the aisle turns into a call to keep people out of the country and take back a white-ruled America, with Trump acting as king. It's actually a blessing that this guy is so unhinged and bad at campaigning, because someone like Cruz might actually beat Clinton. 

 buddy wrote: 
It's pathetic that our discussion about Presidential candidates is boiling down to which is more disliked.
Why is that happening? Because the GOP wants to intentionally steer the discussion away from who is most qualified. If he were a good candidate, that's what they'd talk about.
Instead, their only rejoinder is "Hillary sux, amirite?"

 kurtster wrote: 
LOL for days. You're delusional. I'm up here in northwestern Pennsylvania and I've seen more Trump signs and confederate flags than I've seen in the goddamn southern state I live in. 

Maybe I should feel fortunate that nobody's shot at the back window of my car, you know, the one with the Hillary sticker on it.