Countdown to Extinction: The 2016 Presidential Election

[Gurn Blanston]

We in Western Europe look with amazement, that Trump got as far as he is now. Sure we have these idiots too in the Netherlands, but they never grow into anything else as the size of a midget!
For us it's pure amusement.

I can understand that, but you, no more than us, can afford to be amused until the election is over and he is safely returned to the Land of the Tiny Hands. Because if the loonies somehow manage to make this a reality, it's the end of the world as we know it...

[Harry]

I can understand that, but you, no more than us, can afford to be amused until the election is over and he is safely returned to the Land of the Tiny Hands. Because if the loonies somehow manage to make this a reality, it's the end of the world as we know it...

In this I agree with you!

[Karl Henning]

We in Western Europe look with amazement, that Trump got as far as he is now. Sure we have these idiots too in the Netherlands, but they never grow into anything else as the size of a midget!
For us it's pure amusement.

My dear chap, I long for him to be pure amusement for us, again!

[Karl Henning]

In an op-ed endorsing Hillary Clinton, Michael Morell noted that the Russian leader is a trained intelligence officer and said he had "played upon Mr. Trump's vulnerabilities" by complimenting him.

In endorsing Clinton, ex-CIA chief says Putin made Trump his 'unwitting agent'

Well, and what Russian autocrat would not want a dupe in the White House?

[Ken B]

Rauch has an interesting piece http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/07/how-american-politics-went-insane/485570/ 

[Florestan]

We in Western Europe look with amazement, that Trump got as far as he is now.[...]For us it's pure amusement.

I can assure you that we in Eastern Europe are not amused at all. At all. On the contrary, we are worried and apprehensive.

Sure we have these idiots too in the Netherlands, but they never grow into anything else as the size of a midget!

Never say never, Harry, never say never! You seem to underestimate man´s capacity of, and proclivity to, being duped and giving free reign to the most irrational, fearsome, brutal and destructive instincts --- happened time and again in history, even (or rather especially)  in eras when people believed firmly that reason and enlightment will usher in never ending progress, prosperity and universal brotherhood...

[Pat B]

How much richer than you can be your neighbors, I wonder? I doubt that low middle class citizens live in the same neighborhood as the upper class.

I acknowledge that my word choice of "surrounded by" was figurative and therefore vulnerable to semantic quibbling.

[Pat B]

Yeah, that's my impression of Cohen too.  But I think he has a point about groupthink having replaced debate.
I am not so het up about "ties". It's the evident admiration for Putin. Another example of his bad judgment.

I mostly agree with the latter. In particular, linking Russia to his tax returns (the main proponent being George Will) seems like a high-risk, low-reward attack. If he eventually releases them and they don't show anything shady regarding Russia, then Trump makes that the narrative, which could help him almost regardless of what else is in the returns and what else he has said about Russia.

I agree in general about lack of nuanced policy-oriented debate, but that's been going on for decades, and Trump seems like a strange candidate to hitch that wagon to.

[drogulus]

In endorsing Clinton, ex-CIA chief says Putin made Trump his 'unwitting agent'

Well, and what Russian autocrat would not want a dupe in the White House?

     This makes me uneasy because "unwitting" is almost certainly true about Trump, while false about the RussoTrolls.

     I conclude that people would rather downplay Russian involvement well beyond the point the case for it has been made.

     I also think the news that U.S. intelligence didn't tell the DNC and the Hillary campaign what they knew about the hacking in order to protect sources and methods is plausible enough to be considered true. It's a little less plausible that HRC was not informed. Trump, of course, was not.

[Madiel]

Rauch has an interesting piece http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/07/how-american-politics-went-insane/485570/

I read another article recently that picked up this specific idea:

Of course, Congress's incompetence makes the electorate even more disgusted, which leads to even greater political volatility. In a Republican presidential debate in March, Ohio Governor John Kasich described the cycle this way: The people, he said, "want change, and they keep putting outsiders in to bring about the change. Then the change doesn't come ... because we're putting people in that don't understand compromise."

And it seems to me that this encapsulates the problem neatly. On the Republican side in particular, with the Tea Party movement, voters are rewarding candidates that are basically about angry yelling, and then things get worse so the same kind of voters decide the solution is to pick someone whose yelling is even angrier and louder than the last time.

[Turner]

1)
This is one sentence - one masterful sentence - from Donald Trump:

"Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart—you know, if you're a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world—it's true!—but when you're a conservative Republican they try—oh, do they do a number—that's why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune—you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we're a little disadvantaged—but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me—it would have been so easy, and it's not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right—who would have thought?), but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners—now it used to be three, now it's four—but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven't figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it's gonna take them about another 150 years—but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.()".
(https://twitter.com/d_jaishankar/status/761440604580634624, http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2015/07/31/donald_trump_this_run_on_sentence_from_a_speech_in_sun_city_south_carolina.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_tw_ru ;
sorry, wrong second link when first posted, now corrected)

2) Donald #Trump's many, many, many, many ties to #Russia:
http://time.com/4433880/donald-trump-ties-to-russia/

[Karl Henning]

"That's why Romney was a weak candidate! He didn't yell loud enough!"

[(poco) Sforzando]

"Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart—you know, if you're a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world—it's true!—but when you're a conservative Republican they try—oh, do they do a number—that's why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune—you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we're a little disadvantaged—but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me—it would have been so easy, and it's not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right—who would have thought?), but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners—now it used to be three, now it's four—but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven't figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it's gonna take them about another 150 years—but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.()".

Such eloquence, worthy of the Party of Lincoln.

[Florestan]

Such eloquence, worthy of the Party of Lincoln.

Did you really have the patience of reading it all? I gave up after the first line. 

[Herman]

We in Western Europe look with amazement, that Trump got as far as he is now. Sure we have these idiots too in the Netherlands, but they never grow into anything else as the size of a midget!
For us it's pure amusement.

That is only because there are still remnants of a kind of parochial, village-like mentality in the Netherlands  -  the idea that nothing serious will ever happen as long as you stay neutral. That idea went overboard in May 1940, but some Dutch are still catching up.

It's not just that Geert Wilders, a comparable nationalist politican from Holland, spoke at the Trump, sorry, GOP convention in Cleveland. It's that Trump has sketched various plans that would affect western europe hugely, were Trump elected and were he in that case still able to recall his plans.

So there are plenty of reasons to look at this election with great concern, even if you're safely in some European outpost.

[Florestan]

[...]Trump has sketched various plans that would affect western europe hugely, were Trump elected and were he in that case still able to recall his plans.

Sometimes I wonder: if Trump were elected and really tried to really have his way, would the world witness the first ever military coup north of Rio Grande?     

[Ken B]

I read another article recently that picked up this specific idea:

And it seems to me that this encapsulates the problem neatly. On the Republican side in particular, with the Tea Party movement, voters are rewarding candidates that are basically about angry yelling, and then things get worse so the same kind of voters decide the solution is to pick someone whose yelling is even angrier and louder than the last time.

It's not one party, it's both. The dems have gotten extreme too. Hillary spent much of the campaign disavowing her husband's policies. The base is extreme.

Fundamentally I blame abortion. Abortion really should not be an issue in presidential politics at all, but it is because both sides want to pack the Supreme Court . And abortion debates are always emotional, rarely coherent or respectful.

And the truth is abortion policy at a high level will not change via elections. About a third want no restrictions, about a third want severe restrictions, and about a third want something close to what we have. Absent a successful court packing that means we keep pretty much what we have. That being the case it really shouldn't be an issue at all!  But it's always the biggest issue.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Did you really have the patience of reading it all? I gave up after the first line. 

Henning should set it to music.

[The new erato]

Henning should set it to music.

An aleatoric style would fit the words.

[Florestan]

It's not one party, it's both. The dems have gotten extreme too. Hillary spent much of the campaign disavowing her husband's policies. The base is extreme.

Fundamentally I blame abortion. Abortion really should not be an issue in presidential politics at all, but it is because both sides want to pack the Supreme Court . And abortion debates are always emotional, rarely coherent or respectful.

And the truth is abortion policy at a high level will not change via elections. About a third want no restrictions, about a third want severe restrictions, and about a third want something close to what we have. Absent a successful court packing that means we keep pretty much what we have. That being the case it really shouldn't be an issue at all!  But it's always the biggest issue.

My position on abortion.

It should be allowed as the default --- but not mandatory --- option in cases of rape (including incestual rape) or mother´s life being threatened.

In all other cases it should be allowed as well, but only after the couple --- or the single mother --- has been counseled about what it really means in psychological and phsyical terms, and this includes videotapes of real abortions being showed to them.

Case in point: recently --- that is, this year --- a teenager in a Romanian highschool fainted while watching an abortion video; several pro-choice NGOs protested against the video being played in the class; several pro-life NGOs retorted --- absolutely right, in my view --- that what is legal (ie, abortion) can not be harmful and should be publicized. Either what is legal is good for the society and the society should be informed about it, or what is legal is actually not good for the society, but then again why is it legal?