The First Presidential Debate

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
162

I appreciate your substantiation, but do disagree with the premise.

Of course, Trump is casting a vision. His greatest source of income is from branding, which is nothing less than selling an ideal. Greatest golf course, Best address, Successful investing, Winning negotiation,…

He has said Make America great again, renegotiate trade deals, put people and companies back to work, cancel our march into globalism, restore order. While these are on the other side of the see saw from Obama’s promises, how are they not vision? Recall Hope/Change, LGBT rights, ObamaCare, free college?
I don’t deny that you and others hate the vision, but probably to the same degree millions hate Obama’s.

Where is Clinton’s vision? In Jan debate she said she was the candidate most willing to carry on Obama’s platform - Obama(hilliary)care, same job and infrastructure plan, same disdain for energy producers, championing minorities while demonizing white men, abolishing private gun ownership, taxing the rich, using EOs to go around Congress on immigration, and so forth.

However your argument centered on support cast. I commend your work, as it does illustrate some hooligans and amateurish clowns. Let’s compare with this rogue’s gallery of maleficence:
Bill Clinton, Cheryl Mills, Philippe Reines,Sidney Blumenthal, Hassan Nemazee, Huma Abedin, The Podesta brothers, Robby Mook. Geez, how much time do you have before going on assignment again?

These people are neither stupid nor incompetent at their roles, but they are soulless predators.
That scares me more than Trump.

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163

That is my general experience with people. (For the record, while I believe that there is a very compelling case for Clinton in this election, it certainly doesn’t have anything to do with the fantasized hagiography your friends are posting on social media.)

Also it’s important to remember that most people are not like us. Those who post here tend to follow politics in a way that the average voter would find impossible to sustain. They see some memes. They have some opinions. They watch the debate and their pancreas tells them who seems more presidential. If they are mainstream run-of-the-mill Dems, they may have some vague sense about HRC’s corruption, but they also believe that the Right is looking to smear her for anything. Nonsense like “she let four people die!!!” doesn’t help to counter that perception. In fact, neither side does itself any favors in this regard, because they actually are looking to smear their opponents. Almost everything is theater, and almost every portrait is a caricature. You become proficient in some field – foreign policy or tax law or whatever – and suddenly you notice that there’s bullshit everywhere.

Aside re: something you wrote to Mufasa: I visited my family last weekend in affluent NYC suburban-rural fantasyland. In 2012 there were lawn signs and bumper stickers everywhere, 80/20 Obama/Romney. This year I’ve seen maybe five Clinton banners and two Johnson-Welds, plus one huge hand-written poster board on which somebody had scrawled “Tim Kaine 2016.”

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164

Yes. I’m not a white man, but I know a few. :wink: I relate to much of that.

Tangent on the name calling, but I’ve received many sort of backhanded compliments from Dem friends and neighbors who tell me that I don’t fit the stereotype, so they can’t understand why I’m not joining their party. It’s inconceivable that someone could love art, or cry for the refugees, or care about handicapped kids, or have gay friends, or work part-time for a group that does environmental education for low-income kids, or have an IQ above Forrest Gump and still hold mostly conservative values. They very much want to stereotype us all as racist, ignorant, misogynist, unsophisticated hicks from the fly over states. I will add, anyone with traditional religious values is increasingly seen as “doing it wrong” because you aren’t being more open and affirming of all behavior, in other words, you are likely a religious bigot who is hateful.

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165

This is good. I have a response I’d like to write, so I’m gonna throw it on the pile of stuff I owe to people. I turned in a near-fatal 30,000 word revision of part of a manuscipt this morning, so I might actually start getting to this stuff now.

166

smh, thanks for your reply. It’s nice to see you posting a bit again. Agree with your post entirely. I think there’s a lot of just this. [quote=“smh_23, post:163, topic:221940”]
They see some memes. They have some opinions. They watch the debate and their pancreas tells them who seems more presidential. If they are mainstream run-of-the-mill Dems, they may have some vague sense about HRC’s corruption…
[/quote]

When someone starts quoting Brietbart or Mother Jones, at least we’re aware that we’re hearing one side, and often a very skewed side at that. Not that it’s always WRONG, but it might not be the whole story, to say the least. I can respect my BFF when she says that she thinks Hillary is smart, and has experience. I just can’t stomach the fantasy that she’s somehow someone my little girl could look up to, or that the ethics of the Clinton Foundation are somehow legal, so they are OK.

I’ll tell you what really makes me sad. A friend of mine said, “Well, they’re all like this.” In other words, it’s all a bucket of snakes, and we accept that this is the way things are. This makes me empathize with @idaho when he said in another thread something to the effect that we’ve moved to a state of overall corruption and we seem to not have the will to do anything about it.

Yes. Very interesting. I don’t know if it’s sad or hopeful, but I’m going with hopeful.

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167

To clarify, in my personal life, I’m mostly conservative, but am often socially liberal in terms of public policy and politics. I try to be pragmatic when it comes to all of us trying to live together, and personal freedom is a BIG thing for me so I generally try to be tolerant of other people’s choices, if that makes sense.

@Silyak
As a tangent to the caricatures and labels you were talking about, there’s quite a lot of research about how liberals view conservatives, and vice versa. Liberals are much less accurate in their guesstimates of how conservatives think and feel. When liberals are asked to put themselves in the position of a conservative and answer a questionnaire as if they are a conservative, they tend to “guess” that the conservative is much more uncaring and even hateful. If you’re a conservative, you must be heartless, probably hate gay people, and kick puppies. Of course, if you look at charitable donations to non-religious organizations like The American Cancer Society, liberals and conservatives demonstrate almost the exact same levels of generosity. Conservatives are slightly more likely to volunteer their time, but not by a lot. This would imply that we “care” about the same, we just have different view of what “caring” means, and what helps and harms.

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168

I’ve tried to explain this to my sis when she argues about politics, but she will hear none of it. She will literally try to shout it down and audibly block anything I say while shaking her head like a 5 year old.

Fwiw- she is of the so open minded that her brains fall out ilk of far left liberals.

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169

I recently had a retired professor tell me that “there are no moderate Republicans.” In other words, we’re all right wing nut job extremists. Haha. He’s a grouchy old man, so I’ll let that pass, but you have to wonder who’s holding an extreme world view when you feel certain that ALL the people right of center are extremists. Pretty funny. Feel free to picture Clint Eastwood telling me to get off his lawn here.

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170

Hillarys campaign manager sat as chairman on a board of an energy company that bagged a little bit of money from the Russian goverment if thats going to be your big claim against his campaign. What about Hilary Clinton and the Russian Reset? Also, The speech was way overblown. Both speeches werent written by either of the speakers for one, and also they were both run of the mill political speeches, it wasnt anything that stood out.

171

That type of thinking reminds me of those algorithms used on shopping sites like amazon that turn out If-Then results. If you like “candidate X” then you also like “Kicking puppies, keeping minorities down…” etc.

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172

It’s one of many big, dispositive claims against his campaign. It is, however, among the three or four most grave.

As for Podesta’s having “sat as chairman on a board of an energy company that bagged a little bit of money from the Russian goverment,” do you believe that this is remotely comparable to Trump’s disqualifying Russia-related history, positions, and problems? I’d be happy to make a list if necessary.

173

Whats his history with Russia thats concerning? So far from what I can see theyre pretty equal they both lobbied the government for money.

174

I thnk this is the number 1 thing that people just do not understand. You cannot have a conversation at all if you perceive the other side as evil and heartless.

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175

Funny in sad way…but true. I find that people on both sides tend to view the other as one giant monolithic block, but it has seemed to me that liberals have a far greater problem with it on the whole–almost as if the class theory they subscribe to has eliminated every need to view people as individuals…which is a hypothesis that I have held for a long time and seems to be something that the likes of Thomas Sowell and others have noted.

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176

@anon71262119

I hear you.

I think another problem that has been touched on.

If one tends to identify themselves as either “Conservative” or “Liberal”; they will tend to be identified with the “fringes” or “extremes” of the Political Spectrum.

Much like you; I tend to believe in fiscal responsibility; but I also believe that there is a place for a Federal Government and even Government Regulation. (Albeit limited). I don’t concern myself with the way others Live their Lives.

I believe that the the unbroken path that went from Slavery; to domestic terrorism against “freed” slaves; to Jim Crow; to “The War on Drugs” has left us as a Nation with a terrible problem as it relates to race and in particular our inner cities…yet I believe in personal responsibility and sensible immigration policy.

I believe that Middle Class job loss is a result of Technological Advances and Globalization; not poor immigration policy.

I believe in the Second Amendment.

I believe that President Obama has done a more than adequate job in a World that seems to be changing on almost a daily basis.

I don’t discuss abortion, even with close friends and family, so certainly not on message Boards.

So…what does that make me?

These stances have resulted in people putting labels on me that are as far away from the person I am, as one could possibly be.

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177

Can always count on Southpark to sum it up…lol

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178

Bill Clinton paid Paula Jones $850k to drop a sexual harassment case.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/jones111498.htm

Not exactly a stretch to me that he would rape a woman.

179

raj, I look forward to your second career as a criminal prosecutor.

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180

Without due process it should be pretty easy to convict.

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181

What’s funny is a conspiracy theorist from 15 years ago couldn’t’ve dream up half the stuff that is going on these days.

But believing a guy who paid off one of his sexual harassment victims, desecrated the white house, and is part of other shady dealings (Clinton foundation) raped a woman is far fetched.

I also believe OJ Simpson was guilty despite the verdict and Hillary is guilty in her email scandals regardless of what comey said I know crazy