Trump. A different take.

a reply to: DelMarvel

And, once again, I see none. Apparently, for you they do. I agree to disagree...

a reply to: DBCowboy

I've come to the realization that congress (who writes the laws) are the true power in DC.

No Dear. The true power in D.C. are the large corporations. They woo and pay the congressmen to vote the way that benefits them. The congressmen get rich, the corporations get richer, and life in D.C. rolls along. It's the status quo and getting worse everyday.

originally posted by: nwtrucker
a reply to: DelMarvel

And, once again, I see none. Apparently, for you they do. I agree to disagree...

And that's why so many of us are gobsmacked by this campaign. It's like he says himself: He could pull down his pants in the middle of Fifth Avenue and his supporters would still vote for him.

a reply to: olaru12

Your observations and intuition are shared by me. Trump is sinking the GOP, field left and right, all the while looking to take down the GOP itself. He's not running against any opponent, he's running against the system, specifically the GOP. He is ensuring a shoe in for HRC. The RNP is screwed. If they nominate Trump, he'll go blowhard on TV and scare even some of his most loyal supporters, ensuring HRC wins. If he doesn't get the nomination, he'll run as an Independant and split the Republican vote to ensure HRC wins. Lose-Lose for the RNP and GOP, Win-Win for Trump.

Trump will carry HRC to the White House, and he'll be rewarded for it in business. He has no care or interest in being POTUS, but if he can leverage/influence a POTUS, that's POWER.

He's already winding down his nomination push, his numbers are perfect to accomplish his goal. He's already won Hillary the Election. Now he speaks when he wants to, he shows up when he wants to...he's golden, and so is HRC.

originally posted by: Boscov
a reply to: olaru12


Trump will carry HRC to the White House, and he'll be rewarded for it in business. He has no care or interest in being POTUS, but if he can leverage/influence a POTUS, that's POWER.

He's already winding down his nomination push, his numbers are perfect to accomplish his goal. He's already won Hillary the Election. Now he speaks when he wants to, he shows up when he wants to...he's golden, and so is HRC.

For Trump to insult and show distain for Fox; shows me that he isn't really committed to getting the GOP nomination.
FOX is the GOP!

Of course his supporters won't be able to grasp this situation until Trump chumps them out, then they will blame it on the media just like they always do.

originally posted by: ladyinwaiting
a reply to: DBCowboy

I've come to the realization that congress (who writes the laws) are the true power in DC.

No Dear. The true power in D.C. are the large corporations. They woo and pay the congressmen to vote the way that benefits them. The congressmen get rich, the corporations get richer, and life in D.C. rolls along. It's the status quo and getting worse everyday.

With respect, if the congressmen had an ounce of ethics and morality, then the money would be meaningless.

But I will agree that it is all a corrupt cesspool.

a reply to: olaru12

And who else hates FOX/GOP? Obama, HRC. Trump wins, plain and simple, we are only now discovering his agenda. He is single handedly taking down an establishment, the death blow. Republicans will be forced to run Left, and that's the goal. One party, of moderate Dems and Leftists. One Party.

originally posted by: Boscov
a reply to: olaru12

And who else hates FOX/GOP? Obama, HRC. Trump wins, plain and simple, we are only now discovering his agenda. He is single handedly taking down an establishment, the death blow. Republicans will be forced to run Left, and that's the goal. One party, of moderate Dems and Leftists. One Party.

Exactly...the irony is that the conservative Trump supporters helped to bring down the status quo; but diametrically opposed to what they wanted. This myopic, blind support, engineered by Trump is brilliant in a surreal sort of way.

a reply to: olaru12

Most surreal, however, this was engineered by Obama, the Clintons, Kerry, and Trump, to ensure their policies become permanent.

Let us not forget what happened to Al Gore in 2000, when the Bush's/GOP reversed the election.

originally posted by: DBCowboy

With respect, if the congressmen had an ounce of ethics and morality, then the money would be meaningless.

But I will agree that it is all a corrupt cesspool.

No, if campaign donations were limited then the money would hold less significance. Where are all of the ethical and moral leaders? How come average people get swindled no matter who gets elected?

It's not a political problem, it's a human problem. If you throw a few million in someones coffer or offer future preference for a cut in profit margins 90% of human beings will take it without thinking twice. Ethics and morality are a nice idea, but an idea is all it is. Reality is quite different.

How would I act? I'd like to think I'd do the moral and ethical thing, but I don't really know. I've never had a few million thrown at me when I have an upcoming election. It's easy to criticize from afar, it's an entirely different thing to actually play the game.


It's not that most people in Congress are bad, it's that they're human.

a reply to: DelMarvel

Try re-reading the OP.
That, I think, explains it fully.

a reply to: olaru12

Personally, I think you two come from the same planet.


The GOP has made it very clear for a while now they are against Trump.


Likewise Fox-whichever wags which-they've even gone so far as to convince a staunch Tea party leader, Trey Gowdy, to declare for Rubo, a hard core Establishment selection for the nomination now that Jeb is dead and gone.


That leaves the T-party and the Establishment united in their efforts!! (Note, there was no protest or even query by other leaders of the Tea Party on Gowdy's act.)


Where I will agree with you two is Trump will not get the delegates in sufficient numbers to receive the nomination.(Ironically, you two should be happy campers knowing Trump won't receive the nomination yet you persist in dumping on him and accusing him of bringing down the GOP when he has in fact united it....against him...my BS meter is clanging in the red.)


As I cannot figure out his long term goals and the time in nearly out for an independent run, the only answer I can come up with that makes any sense at all, is his strategy is to use his following to form a third party AFTER this Presidential election...with him the leader , of course.


Once again, let me be clear, I will vote for Trump
, if nominated or as an independent. I will NOT vote for anyone else nominated by the GOP.


I hold the current lot in far more contempt than Trump by a country mile. Trump by default.

People like Donald Trump's style. They like his confidence and his optimism. They like his personal track record in business. They think America has been doing poorly and they believe that Mr. Trump can work the magic that he is famous for on the country as a whole.

I can understand that. I'm in that group except that I don't think Mr. Trump can work his magic on the country as a whole. The problem is that most of what Mr. Trump says in his speeches is demonstrably false.

www.politifact.com...

PolitiFact has been documenting Trump’s statements on our Truth-O-Meter, where we’ve rated 76 percent of them Mostly False, False or Pants on Fire, out of 77 statements checked. No other politician has as many statements rated so far down on the dial.

They don't even address the big lie that Mr. Trump repeats to big applause in every one of his campaign speeches:

"We gave Iran 150 billion dollars and got nothing in return."

This is a multi-part lie. It is also a gross exaggeration. It's a classic "BIG" lie, like the ones that German guy told: "We lost the war because we were stabbed in the back."

Here's a good statement explaining how Mr. Trump's statement is a lie:

www.quora.com...

Part of the severe sanctions that were imposed on Iran included restrictions on banking. Iran had sold, and delivered, large quantities of oil to several countries, including China, India, Japan, and South Korea (and the United States-ipsedixit). But they were not able to pay for the oil (due to the sanctions on trade with Iran), so the money was kept in banks in those countries. As part of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (Page on state.gov) negotiated between Iran and the P5+1, and unanimously approved by the UN Security Council, those banking restrictions will be lifted. Iran will then be able to receive its own money, that had been sequestered.

NOTE: The $150 billion number that was cited here, and in other news reports, is just an estimate. And I believe it is a rather exaggerated estimate at that. The amount first came up as $100B in the early stages of the P5+1 one, based on an Iranian parliamentary committee report, which I tend to think was intended to build domestic support for concessions that Iran would have to make to remove sanctions. It has since become accepted, and even increased, by supporters AND foes of the deal.)

By my estimates, the actual amount is perhaps half of that. The Chinese owe the greatest portion at $20 to $30B, while India, Japan, and S. Korea each owe about $5.5B. (See: Who owes Iran’s oil payments) Further, not all of this money will actually be returned as a cash transfer. Iran will be forced to accept some of in the form of goods and services to be purchased from those countries holding it.

If you want to know what is going on in relation to Iranian money frozen by the United States in particular, and that is what Donald Trump is talking about particularly, go to the following link.

www.washingtoninstitute.org...

It gets very technical, but a generous (to Mr. Trump) estimate of how much Iranian money, money that is Iran's through trade or investment, which is, or was frozen in the United States is much less than 20 billion dollars.

People who agree, when Donald Trump says that the United States gave Iran 150 billion dollars and got nothing in return, are like people who agree with me, when I say I got cheated out of Michael Jackson's millions.

It's called cognitive dissonance, folks. It is sincerely believing something that is demonstrably false, sometimes even after being shown that it is false. That's neurosis, wonky wiring in the brain.

People who support Donald Trump are going by something subliminal, not by what he actually says, which is mostly false. It's faith. It's wishful thinking. Call it what you want, but just as it was in Germany in the 1930s, it is very troubling.

Don't vote Trump. Vote Michael Bloomberg when he gets into the race. He's richer than Trump and he's sane.

I have yet to pick my dog for this fight, but I'm certainly intrigued by Trump from the general view of society. I have a fairly wide-ranging cast of conservative friends-- Facebook and real life alike-- and the only ones I know who support him are my contacts in the small business world. None of my evangelical Christian block shows any support-- they're all split between Cruz and Rubio (well, and Fiornia up until today).

In our world, people don't care about "facts" because everyone believes that anyone who believes different than them is lying, anyways. The appeal to Trump for me is that I feel like I know where he stands. I have not come close to supporting any candidate, though I leaned more towards Paul than anyone else. What Trump says as "fact" is irrelevant in a world where "facts" are thrown at us all the time-- the existence of ATS is in part a reality of the "fact" that we generally don't believe all the facts around us are true.

His whole campaign certainly feels like there is a key piece missing, but I'm not convinced it's simply the "Get Hillary Elected" piece. If anything, I'm wondering somewhat cynically if it's "Get Bush v. Clinton". A few weeks ago, I was wondering why Bush was in the race-- now I'm wondering if that has been the set-up all along. The only way a Bush could get past his name and get the R. nomination is to have a foil that is clearly not a traditional Republican. If the endgame is to keep traditional powers in office, what better way than to give us the "choice" of a Bush or a Clinton. Tell me I'm wrong...

*Rubio's blunder killed his momentum
*Kasich likely too liberal to unite the base
*Cruz perhaps too conservative to unite the base and still has a lot of time to have a Rubio-like-debate-blunder
*Fiornia & Christie now out
*With all of that, maybe Bush could play the "more conservative than Trump" card

Anyway, the whole thing is intriguing to me, for sure.

originally posted by: SuperStudChuck
The appeal to Trump for me is that I feel like I know where he stands. .

How can you possibly know where he stands? He's flip-flopping all over the place with non stop stream of consciousness. He has no serious policy, there's no real way to know what he might do if he were elected beyond his claim that he's going to surround himself with competent people. Which he has not done with his campaign.

I didn't say I know where he stands-- but that I feel like I know where he stands-- perhaps it's just the soundbites that come out. like I said I have no dog in this fight. But something feels less like he wants to be an electable politician and more like he wants to share where he stands on some issues. It doesn't seem like he really has a plan.

And seriously, what politician is not a flip flopper? When I hear Rubio or Cruz, I feel like they are trying to sell me something. I don't feel like Trump has that attitude-- it's "Here's where I am right now, take it or leave it." The only thing I've seen that seems not genuine was his speech at Liberty-- I don't buy

I'm still trying to figure out the people who are voting for him (again, not me), but I can still be intrigued by a candidates campaign without supporting them.

My take is Trump will win and a lot of people will have their head on the chopping block. Not sure if it will be in the literal sense at the moment. Trump can only postpone the inevitable if he isn't what he says he is. People who have been taking advantage of America will get what is coming to them. If there is one thing I'm certain of in life it is that.

originally posted by: GuacBowlMerchant
People who have been taking advantage of America will get what is coming to them. If there is one thing I'm certain of in life it is that.

Do you mean the corporate oligarchy that pull the strings of the politician puppets? How?

Or do you live in the Rush Limbaugh world an blame everything on liberals?

a reply to: olaru12

I know who I mean and I know what I say and I stand by what I say. There is nothing to be gained by elaborating, so I won't.