Donald Trump for President?

Fargo?

I think you guys miss one of the big points on immigration. We make it very hard for uneducated people from poverty stricken places to come over. Most of the immigrants I know who are now citizens, were illegal first. That's where the racism and repression aspect come in. I am not saying that our sysyem doesn't need an overhaul, it does. We need a common sense approach though and the one fuy who I think takes it, Rubio, flipped on it because most republicans are screaming get the brown people out. Finishing the wall will do next to nothing without us enforcing the laws we already have. The mass deportation Trump talks about is one of the stupidest things he says, and he has a very long list of stupid things. It is not even logistically feasible, setting aside the human rights issues. Your talking about people that have been here for years and have children born here. Don't think this is a race issue? Imagine if someone one running for president in the last 50 years talked about a mass deportation of two or three generations of Irish, German, or Italian immigrants. I don't think there would be the support Trump is getting. He is wrong on immigration, like he is so many things and it is sad to me that smart informed people are following his lead.

I don't give a damn how many companies he bankrupted or how much he spends on his election. I think the way we campaign right now is disgraceful but, just like the business bankruptcies, the candidates are working within the set parameters.

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Agreed with Seanc. Trump's approach on immigration is not at all thoughtful or in the best interest of America (in my opinion). It's one of his least appealing aspects to me (and there are many) and I consider myself a person who is relatively on the right when it comes to immigration.

About that last paragraph, Seanc:

I feel like some candidates are pushing or have pushed those parameters a little during this election, particularly when it comes to coordinations between the campaign/candidate and the Super PACs. The set restrictions are admittedly flawed, but any common sense person can see that the likes of, for instance, Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton are just laughing at those rules.

The only thing here that constitutes any meaningful threat are tariffs, IE: a trade war. And that would hurt ordinary people in America just as much. This is why you've seem him waffle on them: people point out that a trade war is a terrible idea, so then he says he'll just threaten it, which is a nonsense response. If it's just a threat, well, I'm pretty sure the Mexican government gets CNN. If it's not just a threat, then he's actually willing to do this incredibly foolish thing.

He's also inflated the cost more over time, and is almost certainly still over promising (a theme we'll hear more about in a moment).

No, he didn't. This is another thing he said during the primaries that has no basis in reality; "Nobody was talking about immigration before." Demonstrably, inarguably, ridiculously false. But anyone who likes him and wasn't paying as much attention to politics before just assumes it's true. Or does "took the lead" just mean "sound the angriest"?

Again, I point out that this is an argument for Trump over Hillary, not Trump over the other primary candidates.

Also, if part of being a legitimate country is having borders (a fair statement), so is having a functional immigration process. We don't have that right now. So it's all well and good to say "it has to be legal," but legal immigration is busted. We don't have lots of illegal immigrants because they like being here illegally. We have lots of them because if they try to do things the right way, it takes forever and doesn't always work properly.

It's interesting that you try to use this to hit his critics, when the person who's benefited the most from blurring this distinction is Trump himself. His bankruptcies came up in the debates many times, and he always said the claim was false, or even suggested the person was lying, even though they weren't. He could, of course, have said "those were business bankruptcies," but instead he just decided to pretend they were talking about personal bankruptcies so he could deny it on the stage, with the most people watching.

Only one of them happened after 2008. The first came in 1991, the next in 1992, the third in 2004, and the fourth in 2009. And how is it a defense to say he would have been a fool not to file after he screwed them up? The foolish thing was getting into that position in the first place.

And yes, lenders do price for it: and you know how they priced Trump after a couple of these? As a huge risk. They charged him very high interest rates, and on one occasion he had to show them proof that he was curtailing his lavish lifestyle.

If people were just pointing to four random businesses out of hundreds, and they failed for the normal, everyday reasons most business fail, that'd be fine. But that's not the case. All four were huge, high-profile bets, and they went bankrupt the exact same way all four times. And how was that? With Trump borrowing scads of money and promising more than he could deliver. Gee, what other profession, that he's currently trying his hand at, does that remind you of?

The problem isn't that he failed sometimes. The problem is he failed the same way, without learning from it, and failed in a way that has direct implications to how politicians spend money and promise things. And the fact that he tries to dodge responsibility for his failures, rather than own them and be better through them, doesn't seem like a great leadership quality, either.

Yeah, you mentioned this months ago, and I'm going to say the same thing now I said then (without response): Trump has spent less money because he said outrageous things for media coverage. How, exactly, does this strategy transfer to paying for government programs?

Not only does Trump have no track record of frugality in his businesses (just the opposite), he also freely admits he's not going to touch entitlements, even though they're the single-biggest strain on the budget. He also promised to save more money in a prescription drug program than the entire program cost to begin with. When it was pointed out to him that this was mathematically impossible, he said we could get it from "various places" and made some non-specific reference to "deals" in other places. In other words, it was nonsense, he was called on it, and he had nothing.

Heck, you could argue this issue just with Trump's own statements. Here's him talking about how we can just print more money if we need to:



And here's him saying he'll cut the debt in eight years, then saying he never said that (a demonstrable lie), and then refusing to say how fast he'll do it at all:



So where does this faith in his frugality come from? He hasn't done it in his personal life. He hasn't done it with his businesses. He refuses to tackle our biggest programs, and he's already pretending he never made those claims about the debt and says we can print money if things get bad.

This is what I mean when I talk about projecting onto a candidate: don't just tell me "Donald Trump will do this" and then give me quotes of him saying he'll do it. Show me where in his actual actions he's demonstrated the ability (never mind the propensity) for doing it. Because when you look at his actual record, you see the exact opposite. So the things you think he'll do are not evidence-based beliefs: they're just blind faith.

If this were actually your position, why would you defend him at every turn? I'm vaguely sympathetic to someone who says "look, I'm bothered by a lot of what he says and does, but I'm desperate and nothing else has worked, so I'm willing to try anything." I don't agree, but it's at least understandable. But that hasn't been your position.

In fact, can you point me to even one instance in this thread where you listed something he said or did that you disagreed with/didn't like?

Please elaborate on "trade deals that don't work out in the USA's favor." Because everything I've heard from Trump on this has either been vague, or economically illiterate. Either he doesn't understand trade deficits, or he does and is counting on his supporters not to, hoping they'll simply take his word when he tries to blame all of their problems on "bad trade deals."

Question for the Republicans... I never thought Trump would get this far... Pundits and so-called experts kept saying "Ok, NOW he is truly done, he can't say that about veterans, etc etc etc" -- But MILLIONS of people voted for him when they had a lot of choices.

Where is the question?

Now, since you listed a few things for me and others to address, I'll do the same. I'll even keep it to three, and I'll keep it nice and general:

1. Lying
We have proof of him lying on the campaign trail. A lot. Note that I use the word "lying" deliberately: I'm not talking about normal political exaggeration, or cherry-picking, or anything like that. I mean straight-up lies. Saying something, then saying "I didn't say that." I can literally show you the video and the transcripts of this happening, over and over. And it's not just ticky-tack things: he repeatedly says he was against the Iraq war before it happened, despite there being no evidence of this stance, and several quotes showing him supporting it.

Does this bother you? If not, why not? And, anticipating a common brush-off: it doesn't work to say this is just what politicians do, because a) as detailed above, this is way beyond normal political truth-bending, and b) it completely undercuts the idea that we should elect him because he's not like all the politicians.


2. Character
Trump criticized John McCain for getting captured. He referenced Megyn Kelly's menustral cycle because she had the temerity to ask him difficult questions. He said, about dating, that you "have to treat women like sh*t." He called Ted Cruz a "p*ssy." He fed multiple conspiracy theories by saying Cruz's father was involved in the JFK assassination, and said as President we'd find out who "really" hit the towers on 9/11. He made fun of a disabled reporter, not even for criticizing him, but for failing to play along with a story he'd essentially made up (see point #1). He promised to pay the legal bills of someone who would hit a protester for him, then said he never said that (again, see point #1). He said we have to kill terrorists' families, which is a war crime, and when asked what he'd do if a soldier refused to commit this war crime, said "They’re not going to refuse me. If I say do it, they’re going to do it." Please read that sentence twice to let it sink in.

Same question: does this bother you? Why or why not? And if you're willing to support him anyway, then please tell me what a Presidential candidate would have to do to cause you to conclude they lacked the character to be President.


3. Electability
Trump consistently trails Hillary Clinton in general election polls, despite insisting during the primaries that "every poll shows me beating her" (again, see point #1), apparently hoping that none of his supporters will bother to spend 30 seconds on Google (which he seems to be right about).

Almost all of your arguments about Trump are comparisons to Hillary. I get why: because that's a lot easier to defend than defending the candidate himself. But it doesn't explain why you'd back him over other primary candidates. If stopping Hillary were the most important thing, why would you want him as the nominee, when all the evidence we've seen over the last six months suggests he's the single worst person to go up against her? You can't play the "MUST STOP HILLARY" card after fighting for the worst general election candidate in the primaries.

He's asking how Trump got this far? Well I'm not Republican and even if I was I wouldn't have an answer.

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The fact that they had lots of choices is the reason he won; it makes the win less impressive, not more. Millions voted for him...and more voted for someone else. Most of them didn't want him.

Also, it's fine to say "hey, you never know, people were wrong about him before." But when they were wrong before, it's because they didn't believe the polls saying he was winning. So it doesn't really work to say he'll win in spite of the polls now. Sure, anything can happen, but he's very likely to lose, and fairly likely to lose badly.

And that's without even getting into the fact that the general election electorate is much bigger (and very different) from the Republican primary electorate. It takes a shockingly small number of people in early primary states to win, so a candidate with a small group of die hards can make a lot of headway. But that doesn't scale. There's a saying that you have to be "willing to lose the primary to win the general." Trump did the opposite: he burned every bridge in the general to win the primary.

I said I agreed with Trump's immigration policy solely based on the post by Nostro, who posted this:

BUT I agree with Sean on this:
I don't know where Nostro got Trumps Immigration Policy from but it's VERY interesting that it doesn't mention rounding up and deporting people (which I'm not for). This is the problem with politicians, they are always vague.

I want to make it clear that I support immigration only by legal means...but I don't support rounding up and deporting people who have been her for decades and have families.

To do that would require door to door searches and a network of informers, in effect, to actually deport all illegal immigrants out of America would require Nazi-fication of the USA.

Yeah, the deportation thing is bad on so many levels. Not only is it questionable morally (there's no way you can round up that many people with major human rights problems, tearing families apart, and deporting people who are just here to work honestly), but it's also hugely costly from a financial perspective and wildly implausible from a logistical one. It's largely a symbolic position.

By the way, immigration work visas is one of the things Trump reversed himself on most blatantly: during a debate he said he was changing his position (which is amazing in its own right)--"I'm changing, I'm changing" is a direct quote--before issuing a statement right after the debate saying he wasn't actually changing it.

So tell me again how Trump is "leading" on immigration, and the most trustworthy one on the issue, when he changed his position on work visas twice in a single evening.

Be grateful you have Barack Obama currently. We have to put up with David Cameron - and if you get Donald Trump in, you'll know how we're feeling in the UK at the moment.

I'm not a Republican, but I was rooting for Rand Paul... Most partisans want the other candidate to be a dope; I actually want two great candidates, that way we can live with either result.. And I'll root for the new administration next year, whoever it is.

I liked Rand Paul too. I wish there was no 'run offs' and all candidates who had x-amount of signatures would be on the ballad for President. I'm sure that would create a set of new problems. But that way it wouldn't be a horse race and people like Rand Paul could still be in it.

o_o What are entitlements?

That sounds weird following that whole religious spam debate thread.

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"Well, at least your intentions behind the UTTERLY DEVASTATING FAULTS IN YOUR LOGIC are good." - Captain Steel

Not sure if this is facetious or not, but if not: basically any government benefit you're "entitled" to simply by virtue of being a citizen. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. They take up a huge portion of our budget and are projected to grow massively over the next couple of decades. Talking about curbing spending without reforming these in some way is kind of like cutting coupons while leasing a Ferrari. With a credit card.

Ah, duh. Name didn't click with me.

What's wondrous to behold is the depth of the hatred people have for Trump. The mainstream media went crazy taking things Trump said and then extrapolating and misrepresenting, which actually played directly into Trump's hands and his principles he laid out in The Art of the Deal. All those McCain, Megyn Kelly, the disabled reporter, and all that stuff. If you have doubts, this video provides you the opportunity to begin to understand all this madness more clearly.



Yoda's clicking into new levels of dump-on-Trump mode along with the mainstream media thought police spinsters and their character assassination tendencies. Their heart studieth destruction.

The political system is finally getting what's coming to them. The Donald. The guy who isn't afraid of people hating him, who doesn't care what anyone says, and they just can't get rid of him.

Something new and different is good for the world.

Trump will win.

Nostro, you should be supporting Sanders. He doesnt lie, doesnt take payoffs, can stand up for himself and still keep their respect.....what do you think Donald Trump can bring to office that Bernie Sanders cannot?