I was mostly talking about folks here in general, regardless of side, with accusations that if one person wins, the world will end, or similar things.The problem, though, is that sometimes the world does change, to the point that the world-as-we-know-it had ended and been replaced by something entirely different. Or, as British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey remarked in 1914, "The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time." While it's true that the planet did not literally end, the political and social structure that had held for most of the 19th century disappeared, millions died, and the old order with it.
I can easily see a Trump presidency shattering the world as we now know it. The United States is engaged in three independent games of saber rattling with nuclear-armed countries (Russia, China, and North Korea); one diplomatic misstep could put the US into war. Trump himself has threatened no longer to defend NATO members that haven't paid (in his view) their fair share, which could easily be read as encouragement for Putin to snap up some of the Baltic states and start a European conflict, which the US may or may not be able to stay out of. And, of course, Trump has claimed that climate change is a hoax during a stretch of the 16 hottest months on record; climate change will not cause the planet to vanish, but it could easily destroy civilization as we know it when the food riots start.
And much of that is stuff that's basically within the President's purview. Diplomacy and foreign policy, especially. Congress will have more to say on doing anything about climate change, though there's a lot of diplomacy involved as well.
Right. Plus Brexit wasn't just a fluke. Many EU countries have similarly Far Right authoritarian movements riding on a wave of anti-immigrant hysteria, over-hyped fear of terrorism, and bigoted nationalism. Whatever you think of the EU's economic policies, the EU has been a huge anti-war stabilizing influence. If the EU falls, things will get much much worse very quickly. If Trump/Pence is elected, I think a major multi-continental "hot" military conflict is not just possible, but very likely.
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Sadly, in our society is less acceptable for a woman to be cheated on than for a man to cheat on his wife.
Indeed.
The degree to which 'evangelicals' have embraced Trump raises them to a whole new level of hypocrisy in my estimation... and I didn't think there even WAS another level.
Well, the Detroit News thinks he's the best choice
Detroit News Endorses JohnsonWell, he IS a better choice than Trump, even if that is an admittedly low bar.
Like, Marianas Trench low.
Trump approaches the low bars set for him like a Limbo dancer.
Interestingly enough, Trump has picked up 30 percent of the Latino vote in Vegas which formerly went overwhelmingly for Obama. And those Cuban voters might remember that it was Obama that ended the Embargo.
Embargo is still in effect.
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Truthfully, the Kaine vs. Pence Vice-Presidential debate will decide the election, so it deserves it's own thread.
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Will it? I mean if Pence does well it might calm some republican voters, but I don't see either person really impacting the election results
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Will it? I mean if Pence does well it might calm some republican voters, but I don't see either person really impacting the election results
Yes, it will, or I would not have taken the time to write it. Please refer any further Kaine/Pence questions to it's own talkback that I started.
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Even if Pence doesn't come across as ass backwards, he'll still get plenty of questions about Trump being ass backwards, and even if he's still able to pull a halfway cognizant performance out of his ass, it won't matter.
Trump will just undermine it with more batshit crazy conspiracy theory midnight tweets.
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Even if Pence doesn't come across as ass backwards, he'll still get plenty of questions about Trump being ass backwards, and even if he's still able to pull a halfway cognizant performance out of his ass, it won't matter.
Trump will just undermine it with more b$&$+!@ crazy conspiracy theory midnight tweets.
WWhat would be worse is if Pence does significantly better than Trump did then Trump might shoot him in the foot for making Trump look bad. I could see Trump shooting off at the mouth because his second fiddle guy out plays him.
Yes, it will, or I would not have taken the time to write it. Please refer any further Kaine/Pence questions to it's own talkback that I started.
Oh, well in that case, it must be true. Whew!
Seriously though, I doubt it. Unless Clinton self-destructs before election day, Trump is gonna lose. And probably lose big.
...Where were you a week ago? Trump is competitive. The media has treated his scandals as equivalent to Clinton's for too long. It's going to depend on the swing states, like it always does.
Unless Clinton self-destructs before election day, Trump is gonna lose. And probably lose big.
I'm afraid that's unwarrantedly confident. Only one of the major poll-readers predicts better than 4:1 odds for a Clinton victory, and Nate Silver (fivethirtyeight.com) won't even give 2:1. The odds for "winning big" are correspondingly lower.
The chance of Clinton winning a simple majority of the popular vote is below 20%, and the chance of a "landslide" victory (double digit margin in the popular vote) is about 5%. Similarly, the poll-watchers who are publishing expected electoral college outcomes predict fewer than 300 electoral votes for Clinton. (ETA: A minor emendation; the New York Times predicts 341 votes for Clinton, but that's an outlier.) None of that is consistent with "winning big."
There are a lot of reasons for this, but the big one is that Clinton's "support" is, as the phrase has it, "a mile wide and an inch deep." So while it appears that most of the electorate wouldn't vote for Trump if he were the only person on the ballot, simply getting them to vote at all will be an issue. Democrats are unreliable voters at the best of times, and it won't take much to get Clinton's lukewarm supporters simply to say "Meh, it's too much hassle." Bad weather, a public transit strike, fear of being hassled by Republican Gestapo poll watchers,... there are lots of reasons not to get out to the polls.
Heck, I myself am in that camp. I'll be traveling on business on Election Day, and I just looked up the procedure for getting an absentee ballot here in West Dakota. Let me just say that I need to be really motivated to jump through those hoops. How many others like me are looking at the same procedures and saying "the hell with it"?
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I'm somewhat fortunate in that my whole state is pretty much vote-by-mail now, so I don't have to worry about lines.
I was wondering when that was going to happen. Amazing that it got produced after the debates, isn't it?I'm waiting for Thursday October 20th. Then I'll know who's going to win.
EDIT
OK, make that Tuesday October 4th.
Meh. You only play your trump card (pun not really intended) when you're going to lose the trick otherwise. If Clinton had tanked the first debate, there wouldn't have been any need to start a new smear campaign.
Or, if you don't like the bridge analogy, try a football one. You don't throw a Hail Mary pass when you're [i]winning[i], do you?
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You never THROW the ball when playing football. That is against the rules. You KICK the ball, you know, with your FOOT. FOOT-BALL.
You mean rugby? Only with tons of body protection? =)
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And what you call democracy is not what we call democracy. =)
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Well, there is a pretty sincere risk that you guys inflict Trump as president of the US and A on us. That is going to be fun, isn't it? It's going to be a huge blow to all of us if it happens, and the willingness to deal with America in any way, shape or form is going to be severely impacted. Trade deals don't usually prosper unilaterally. Nor will people actually dare to risk cooperation in security and military matters with a country run by someone as unpredictable as Trump there. Expect HUGE fallout from it, and it is quite likely that the role America has now will end very quickly with Trump as POTUS.
This is, of course, just as I understand things. It is a huge mistake coming. Deal properly with it.
EDIT: I shouldn't call presidential candidates that. Bad Sissyl. Even when they deserve it.
Oh, that is certainly true. I am not talking about people managing to get Clinton elected against the wishes of the American public. I am talking about other Western nations reacting and adapting to the fact that he gets elected. If it happens, it is going to be all on you guys, since, as you say, foreigners haven't managed to do much about it.
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Well, there is a pretty sincere risk that you guys inflict Trump as president of the US and A on us. That is going to be fun, isn't it? It's going to be a huge blow to all of us if it happens, and the willingness to deal with America in any way, shape or form is going to be severely impacted. Trade deals don't usually prosper unilaterally. Nor will people actually dare to risk cooperation in security and military matters with a country run by someone as unpredictable as Trump there. Expect HUGE fallout from it, and it is quite likely that the role America has now will end very quickly with Trump as POTUS.
This is, of course, just as I understand things. It is a huge mistake coming. Deal properly with it.
EDIT: I shouldn't call presidential candidates that. Bad Sissyl. Even when they deserve it.
How do you think the Mexicans and Canadians feel?
Like we do, only it will hit them faster? Oh, and when he nukes Montreal because someone from there said something he didn't like, I am sure that will make things better.
I thought i was watching the debate again
Seriously, they don't need to change trumps lines at all.
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Like we do, only it will hit them faster? Oh, and when he nukes Montreal because someone from there said something he didn't like, I am sure that will make things better.
I know nukes get joked (except not really) about a lot but I like how we got the people overseeing them set up.
The people in charge of them aren't there to press the button, they're there so when some idiot tells them to launch em they can tell said idiot to f&#% off.
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You mean rugby? Only with tons of body protection? =)
And with committee meetings. Tons and tons of committee meetings.
I understand. I just find it odd that the consequences of electing Trump regarding foreign relations is virtually invisible in the debate. It is going to change things enormously for everyone.
I do understand... but. During all the trade deals, all the shitty laws American diplomats pushed through the EU and various countries, all the military joint ventures, etc etc etc, we accepted it because the US is powerful, at least vaguely sane, and above all predictable.
He gets elected, none of it is likely to remain true. Our politicians will not even dare to suggest furthering cooperation with the US (which is already pretty strained) for fear of inciting riots and parties never getting elected again. Old deals will be reexamined - because the context when they were written has changed too much. The slightest hint that the US is trying to punish those who break those deals - further anti-American sentiment, and a harder backlash.
My point is: YOU GUYS AT LEAST GET TO VOTE. We don't.
You actually throw the ball in all forms of football. :)
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Like we do, only it will hit them faster? Oh, and when he nukes Montreal because someone from there said something he didn't like, I am sure that will make things better.I know nukes get joked (except not really) about a lot but I like how we got the people overseeing them set up.
The people in charge of them aren't there to press the button, they're there so when some idiot tells them to launch em they can tell said idiot to f@!$ off.
You're right. There are enough safeguards that something as blatant as nuking Montreal over an insult won't happen.
However, it's far more possible he could blunder us into a shooting war that escalates tensions to the point where such a launch order would be obeyed.
Now that is, unfortunately, very foreseeable.
I understand. I just find it odd that the consequences of electing Trump regarding foreign relations is virtually invisible in the debate. It is going to change things enormously for everyone.
It depends on where you stand (and what you read).
Part of Trump's appeal is specifically that he doesn't give a platypus turd about "foreign relations," which plays extremely well among a fairly large segment of Americans -- well, US citizens (yes, I do know that Montréal is not in Europe, thank you). Isolationism verging on xenophobia has a long history in the US, and Trump specifically borrowed his "America First" bumper sticker from a 1940s pressure group focused on isolationism.
So saying "but this will bother other countries" isn't actually a very good debate point when half the audience regards that as desired outcome. That's rather like my trying to dissuade you from buying a ski lodge on the grounds that there's snow on the ground eight months of the year. ("Well, yeah, it's a ski lodge. That's the point, innit?")
During all the trade deals, all the s++#ty laws American diplomats pushed through the EU and various countries, all the military joint ventures, etc etc etc, we accepted it because the US is powerful, at least vaguely sane, and above all predictable.
I understand that. You put up with the nonsense because the rest of the deal that the US offered (basically, access to the US economy and protection by the US military) was worth it. The US offered access to the economy and military protection because having those laws passed, policies changed, and so forth was worth it to the US, or at least was worth it in the opinion of the diplomats and policy makers who pushed for it.
It's not clear (especially to Trump supporters) that the diplomats were right. Or, perhaps more accurately, it's not clear that what was good for the diplomats is good for the rest of the country. Let's face it, if you're paying money for something you don't even want to have, that's a bad deal. ("Wait a minute, why am I paying $500 a month for cable when I don't even own a TV? Why am I paying $2000 a year for car insurance when I don't drive?")
My point is: YOU GUYS AT LEAST GET TO VOTE. We don't.
You get to vote, too. If the hassle of doing business with Sweden is too much trouble for the US, then the US will simply stop doing business with Sweden. But the opposite is true, too. If you think that the hassle of doing business with the US is too onerous,... well, you know who your MP is. It's not like this particular issue is new, or confined to the US. The United Kingdom just decided that the hassle of dealing with European immigrants is too onerous, a decision that I think was foolish, but that's not my call to make.
The question that will ultimately need to be addressed -- in the US, in the UK, and in most of the EU as well -- is one of quality of life of the ordinary person-in-the-street. What does Maja in Göteborg get out of the current geopolitical situation? And what does Ted in Nashville?
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The problem, though, is that sometimes the world does change, to the point that the world-as-we-know-it had ended and been replaced by something entirely different.
...
I can easily see a Trump presidency shattering the world as we now know it. The United States is engaged in three independent games of saber rattling with nuclear-armed countries (Russia, China, and North Korea); one diplomatic misstep could put the US into war.
Right. Plus Brexit wasn't just a fluke. Many EU countries have similarly Far Right authoritarian movements riding on a wave of anti-immigrant hysteria, over-hyped fear of terrorism, and bigoted nationalism. Whatever you think of the EU's economic policies, the EU has been a huge anti-war stabilizing influence. If the EU falls, things will get much much worse very quickly. If Trump/Pence is elected, I think a major multi-continental "hot" military conflict is not just possible, but very likely.
So, here is the thing, and I'll be upfront and mention that this is very small population and very much based on my personal experiences, but the vast majority of the folks I speak to in the military, where I work, generally agree that they think Hillary is significantly more likely to get us into a war than Trump. Trump seems more like someone that uses his voice, body-language, posture, and other physical clues, (his temperament), to intimidate threats down, rather than to actually blow up and loose his reason. If Trump does get us into a war, it's more likely to be one we want to be in, with an actual goal, and one that will be very mindful of the financial strain that war brings.
Hillary on the other hand, they strongly believe will instigate a war(s) for her own purposes, and attempt to either use it to cover up some slimy stuff, or fill her own pocket. The key differences are that it's less likely to be a war we want to be in, more likely to be financially ruining to us and others, (we are at war until she gets what she wants, not until the stated mission is achieved, because that will just change). Another really big threat they are concerned about is Hillary essentially starting another civil war, this one probably less intentional and more of her blundering it up over things like the right to own Firearms. In both cases, it's also very concerning that more likely than not, Clinton's war(s) will leave is significantly weaker as a country.
Now, outside of this thread, this doesn't seem to be an uncommon concern, though it's entirely possible everyone I've spoken to is wrong. I'm just pointing out that this idea that Trump will ruin the world is hardly a near universally held one, with at least some segment of the population logically and reasonably holding Clinton to be the one more likely to do so for the worse.
Oh, that is certainly true. I am not talking about people managing to get Clinton elected against the wishes of the American public. I am talking about other Western nations reacting and adapting to the fact that he gets elected. If it happens, it is going to be all on you guys, since, as you say, foreigners haven't managed to do much about it.
Assange is doing his best to sink Clinton's ship, but that's more of a matter of personal vendetta than any care about how US politics shape up, I'm fairly sure that he's the "anyone other than Clinton mentaliy". So I assume that he's going to shoot his wad late October.
Ummm, DM Beckett I don't know who you're quoting but it wasn't me.