Countdown to Extinction: The 2016 Presidential Election

[Florestan]

What I would like to know is: if Trump wins, could he singlehandedly withdraw the USA from NATO, or render it ineffective by simply not complying with the Treatise´s articles? Because if he could indeed, then big trouble and dark times are the lot of us all, wherever we may live.

[Jo498]

Very probably this is not possible. These are entrenched treaties one cannot simply cancel, I think. (And it would hardly square well with "make America great again"...)
Although I have heard the (ridiculous) rumor that Trump would be assassinated quickly because the real powers in the US military etc. could not allow such a bumbling president into foreign policy.

[Karl Henning]

What I would like to know is: if Trump wins, could he singlehandedly withdraw the USA from NATO, or render it ineffective by simply not complying with the Treatise´s articles? Because if he could indeed, then big trouble and dark times are the lot of us all, wherever we may live.

No. And, yes, it's kinda goofy when some of his supporters think he could.

Something our snypsss (and (poco) sfz will enjoy...I just read a tweet:

"How can a COMPUTER read 650,000 messages in eight days? How can a TOASTER make my bread WARM? How can a CAR move faster than a TEAM OF OXEN?"

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[Karl Henning]

The upside of Mr. Bigot's campaign is, a motivated Latino turnout.

[BasilValentine]

I cannot imagine anything getting easier. In the unlikely event that Trump wins all bets seem to be off what will happen because he is so unpredictable. Clearly, he will be hated by most Americans (and the rest of the world will be afraid because of his inexperience, especially in foreign policy). There is a chance that in 4 years Trump will have made such a fool of himself that the voters will be happy to go back to any "establishment" candidate.

If Clinton wins she will also be hated by many Americans, it will be business as usual in many respects, maybe a slightly more hawkish foreign policy but most of the rest of the world will be content with somewhat predictable business as usual. But very little will be done about the tensions in the US populace. Without a "Trump disenchantment" the distrust and hate against the political establishment, the tensions between racial and social groups etc. will very probably only grow, so I wonder what kind of populist might become candidate in 2020...

Of course this assumes that the deeper economic and societal problems and tensions will not be successfully resolved by either president and everything will get tougher and more confrontational. Not the least because many of these problems will probably grow "by themselves", e.g. resource scarcity, off-shoring of US labor, instability in the near/middle East, instability in the EU, rise of China etc.

I imagine that regardless of who wins, there is going to be cataclysmic fragmentation in the Republican party. If HRC wins, they will take measures to be sure that a candidate like Trump doesn't get the helm again, like super delegate and uncommitted delegate strategies to  centrally concentrated power so they can screw over outliers the way the democrats screwed Bernie. Now there are many republican voters who are holding their noses and voting for Trump because the supreme court hangs in the balance. If they had any viable option but Trump they would take it, obviously. Tea party and fellow travelers will see that the fix is in and schism would follow. If Trump wins, his incompetence and ongoing legal problems will make him even more of a disaster than W was, wreaking permanent damage on the party, beginning with loss of control of both houses in 2018. I think they are circling the drain in either case. 

[Karl Henning]

The Republican base has apparently responded to the post-Romney "autopsy" with a resounding, "But we LIKE being the angry white guy party!"

[Turner]

Yes, that was the optimistic version. Especially if HRC wins by a narrow margin, then why not launch a similarly extreme candidate as regards public statements, but more manageable in reality, relying on the bonus of four years of further neanderthal anti-HRC hammering during her presidency?   

[ritter]

"Hillary Clinton is guilty. She knows it, the FBI knows it, the people know it, and now it's up to the American people to deliver justice at the ballot box on November 8". Donald Trump.

Are these the words of a true democrat?

The horror, the horror... 

[Turner]

A possible Trump cabinet (for real):

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2016-election-day/gingring-giuliani-priebus-eyed-top-jobs-trump-white-house-sources-n678881?cid=sm_tw

[Karl Henning]

Well, there remains the odd chance that he wins.  So, yes, that's exactly the chamber of horrors the American people can expect (and, arguably, which we deserve) 

[(poco) Sforzando]

Another example of the "when they go low, we go high" of the Clinton Campaign ... not.  This time, Barack Obama was out peddling the rumor that the Trump campaign blocked him from Twitter.

Too bad for you that we can actually read for ourselves. Obama was not "peddling a rumor." He was making fun of a rumor, which is a different thing. You'd think he had called Melania a dog.

[Karl Henning]

The thing is, we can all tell when the POTUS is making a joke, as opposed to El Tupé who needs to pretend that his dog whistles are "humor."

[The new erato]

The thing is, we can all tell when the POTUS is making a joke, as opposed to El Tupé who needs to pretend that his dog whistles are "humor."

Yes, he "jokes" while the world watches in horror.

[Karl Henning]

Yes, he "jokes" while the world watches in horror.

Not without reason.

[Karl Henning]

The really amusing thing about the repeated "Comey wuz yer hero" canard is, that is exactly the El Tupé storyline, per a tweet:

"COMEY:  nothing illegal
[El Tupé]:  FBI is corrupt
COMEY:  found more emails
[El Tupé]:  doing a great job
COMEY:  but it changes nothing
[El Tupé]:  rigged"

[The new erato]

Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned on Saturday that political debates devoid of facts present a "deadly danger" to democracy. Referring to the upcoming presidential election in the United States, the U.K.'s campaign to leave the EU, as well as an ever more assertive Russia, Steinmeier said the "audacity with which facts are hidden and denied in public, expert knowledge is discredited, and, simply, lies are being told in the West as in the East and beyond the English Channel, leaves one almost speechless."

pressthink.org/2016/11/miss-bigger-missed-story-final-reflections-trump-press-2016/

[amw]

Too bad for you that we can actually read for ourselves. Obama was not "peddling a rumor." He was making fun of a rumor, which is a different thing. You'd think he had called Melania a dog.

That "rumour" actually comes from this article which at least appears to be an inside look at his campaign. The public statements from Trump's team have tended to be.... somewhat short on accuracy by comparison.

[Karl Henning]

Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned on Saturday that political debates devoid of facts present a "deadly danger" to democracy. Referring to the upcoming presidential election in the United States, the U.K.'s campaign to leave the EU, as well as an ever more assertive Russia, Steinmeier said the "audacity with which facts are hidden and denied in public, expert knowledge is discredited, and, simply, lies are being told in the West as in the East and beyond the English Channel, leaves one almost speechless."
pressthink.org/2016/11/miss-bigger-missed-story-final-reflections-trump-press-2016/

I wish we could only be shocked by El Tupé's being a demonstrated pathological serial liar.  I wish we could be shocked only by, that, and by the the fact that so many of his supporters genuinely don't realize that he is conning them. But the real shock is all the Americans who know fully well that that is what he is, but want to send him to the White House regardless, and while protesting that Clinton is "dishonest."  Voting for El Tupé because Clinton is "dishonest," is something very distant from honesty.

[Karl Henning]

That "rumour" actually comes from this article which at least appears to be an inside look at his campaign. The public statements from Trump's team have tended to be.... somewhat short on accuracy by comparison.

Like the candidate she supports, Kellyanne Conway evades questions.

(But, you know, it's the Democratic campaign which is "dishonest.")

[Florestan]

Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned on Saturday that political debates devoid of facts present a "deadly danger" to democracy. Referring to the upcoming presidential election in the United States, the U.K.'s campaign to leave the EU, as well as an ever more assertive Russia, Steinmeier said the "audacity with which facts are hidden and denied in public, expert knowledge is discredited, and, simply, lies are being told in the West as in the East and beyond the English Channel, leaves one almost speechless."

pressthink.org/2016/11/miss-bigger-missed-story-final-reflections-trump-press-2016/

Isn´t he the same Frank-Walter Steinmeier who criticized NATO for "sabre-rattling" and "shrilling war cries"? Yes, that´s him all right.  Doesn´t seem to me the most qualified person to take a stance against an ever more asserting Russia.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-russia-germany-idUSKCN0Z40LE