Donald Trump

[Ten oz]

One day you're a happy European citizen, the next - bam - your peers decide to take that from you.

 

Don't take the risk.

Brexit was polling close, ahead within the margin of error.

[MigL]

D. Trump is falling fast in the polls. He cannot win.

Unfortunately, H. Clinton can lose.

Hopefully she, and the rest of the Democrats, don't have anymore 'skeletons in the closet' that'll put heat back on them.

 

( that's a pretty nasty word to use in a public forum, Phi )

Oh, and I hope J. McCain withdraws his support from D. Trump, as any principled Republican should .

I don't think D. Trump's endorsement will help J. McCain with his re-election as their bases are totally different.

[Ten oz]

He's playing the "the election is rigged card" early enough that he's clearly thinking failure is a possibility. I just don't think he's going to get much traction about the debate schedule objections. His base REALLY wants to see him call Hillary a cunt on national television. They won't care if she makes better points, shows more leadership and understanding of the demands of the job, and they certainly won't care if she brings up every crazy thing he's said. They want blood in the water.

 

But I think Trump knows his base won't win the election for him. I think he's worried about losing too many people if Hillary makes him look like an idiot. And I just don't see much hope for him debating Hillary Clinton on issues. There's too much he doesn't know and he's also unwilling to spend the time and effort to correct that. His knowledge of government is even more superficial than he is. Kneejerk reactions coupled with ignorance is a losing formula, and I think the debates will highlight this, if Hillary can keep her cool and not try to out-trump the Donald.

Trump has lowered the bar enough that it would be really hard for him to lose the debates. Provided he doesn't drop f-bombs or throw something at Clinton I think the media narrative will be about how surprisingly well Trump does all things considered. It is an expectations game. No one expects Trump to know things so provided he knows anything he will over achieve. While Clinton is expect to know everything so all she has to do to have a terrible night is not know every detail of one thing.

 

Trump supporters are getting everything they want. This is all a best case scenario. Trump supporters don't expect Trump to win. They just want their anger vented. Like an old man who complains that kids today dont whatever. The complaint isn't a call to action, it is just a complaint that serves no purpose beyond satisying their feelings. This year Conservatives broadly have turned their backs on their whole leadership: Bush family, Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, John McCain, and etc. They are acknowledging that they have supported bad politicians for decades. They are against everyone they previously voted for and refuse to admit some they previously voted against may have been better. They went too far down the Obama hatred spiral to admit Obama has done a decent job. So now they are all just falling on their swords. They know the swords will kill them but they rather dying insulting than live humble.

 

I already know how I will vote. I believe everyone in this forum does as well. The notion of any meaningful number of "undecided" voters at this point in my opinion is a media fallacy. Media plays on the cynical attitude that people have; that despite knowing their own minds won't be changed perhaps others still will. This has been going for over a year now. I think we all know where we stand.

[Willie71]

I think the "neither of the above" number is pretty big in this election. Clinton would be the last person I would vote for, except for Trump. I'm glad I'm not American, and don't actually have to vote.

[iNow]

Americans don't have to vote, either. Many days I feel that's one of the biggest sources of our political problems. We have one of the lowest voter turnouts of all developed countries.

 

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/08/02/u-s-voter-turnout-trails-most-developed-countries/

[Bill Angel]

What Trump has managed to do is engineer a hostile takeover of the Republican Party, much as a businessman might engineer a hostile takeover of a corporation. But the product he is attempting to sell, a political agenda tailored to the perspective of disaffected uneducated white males, doesn't have enough appeal to other groups of voters to enable him to beat his competition.

[Airbrush]

Americans don't have to vote, either. Many days I feel that's one of the biggest sources of our political problems. We have one of the lowest voter turnouts of all developed countries.

 

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/08/02/u-s-voter-turnout-trails-most-developed-countries/

 

Then you also watched Fareed's show today since that was one topic on GPS! Great info. Yes I believe the USA should fine it's citizens a little for not voting.... like Australia does. Any other countries agree?

Trump has lowered the bar enough that it would be really hard for him to lose the debates. Provided he doesn't drop f-bombs or throw something at Clinton I think the media narrative will be about how surprisingly well Trump does all things considered. It is an expectations game. No one expects Trump to know things so provided he knows anything he will over achieve. While Clinton is expect to know everything so all she has to do to have a terrible night is not know every detail of one thing.

 

Trump supporters are getting everything they want. This is all a best case scenario. Trump supporters don't expect Trump to win. They just want their anger vented. Like an old man who complains that kids today dont whatever. The complaint isn't a call to action, it is just a complaint that serves no purpose beyond satisying their feelings. This year Conservatives broadly have turned their backs on their whole leadership: Bush family, Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, John McCain, and etc. They are acknowledging that they have supported bad politicians for decades. They are against everyone they previously voted for and refuse to admit some they previously voted against may have been better. They went too far down the Obama hatred spiral to admit Obama has done a decent job. So now they are all just falling on their swords. They know the swords will kill them but they rather dying insulting than live humble.

 

I already know how I will vote. I believe everyone in this forum does as well. The notion of any meaningful number of "undecided" voters at this point in my opinion is a media fallacy. Media plays on the cynical attitude that people have; that despite knowing their own minds won't be changed perhaps others still will. This has been going for over a year now. I think we all know where we stand.

 

Ok, yes I agree that Trump may do very well in the debates. And yet I disagree about "any meaningful number of 'undecided' voters...is a media fallacy." Anything can happen during the next few months and Trump may very well win and only because many people decide not to vote or think their vote does not matter.

Edited August 8, 2016 by Airbrush

[Ten oz]

 

Then you also watched Fareed's show today since that was one topic on GPS! Great info. Yes I believe the USA should fine it's citizens a little for not voting.... like Australia does. Any other countries agree?

 

Ok, yes I agree that Trump may do very well in the debates. And yet I disagree about "any meaningful number of 'undecided' voters...is a media fallacy." Anything can happen during the next few months and Trump may very well win and only because many people decide not to vote or think their vote does not matter.

Both can exist at once. People can have their minds made up and choose not vote. It isn't an either or.

[Delta1212]

If we're imagining that undecided voters are some people who simply can't decide whether they like Hillary or Trump better, no, there probably aren't a very significant amount of such people who will be voting in November left in the country. But that misses out on a huge number of voters who are still actually undecided in this election.

 

You have two candidates that both have large groups that they are very unpopular with, and those groups do not perfectly overlay voters for the other party. You have disaffected Bernie supporters that Trump is going to try to appeal to and strike a chord with about Hillary being corrupt in the hopes that they decide to either not vote, vote third party or even go over and vote for Trump, while Hillary is trying to pull them back into the fold on her end.

 

Trump's side is an even bigger mess, with plenty of Republicans who have either already decided they won't b voting for him and are trying to decide whether to vote third party or hold their nose and vote for Hillary, and other Republicans who hate Hillary enough that they are considering voting for Trump, but aren't completely comfortable with Trump either and could be convinced that voting for him isn't worth it and that they should go third party.

 

You are very unlikely to find anyone that you will flip from supporting Hillary to supporting Trump or from Trump to Hillary, but you might move a waverer from one candidate to a third party or from a third party to supporting one of the candidates.

 

And there are likely to be more people who fall into that category this year than in your typical election year. Which makes for a lot of "undecideds" whose vote could be swayed this year, even if there aren't many people left who don't already have strong opinions about the candidates. Thinking about the choice as being a binary for Hillary or Trump misses out on this fact.

[Ten oz]

@ Delta1212, let me start by saying I am not a huge fan of Clinton. Her foriegn policy is too hawkish and I do not trust her positions of trade. So please don't view the following as a ringing endorsement.

 

Far too much is made of how unpopular Clinton is. No candidate in the primaries received more votes than Clinton. Not Trump and not Sanders. Clinton won the Democratic Primary by a more comfortable margin than either Obama or her husband Bill won theirs. We can discuss how unfair the primary system is but this year was not special. Basically all the rules applied to Obama and Bill Clinton. Poll numbers currently have Clinton leading by average of 7 points in the polls and winning every swing state. This is also better than Obama in 08' or 12' at this stage in the race.

 

People say both Trump and Clinton are upopular. While true it isn't even or even close. Clinton has a 17 point favorability edge over Trump.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president/clintontrumpfavorability.html

 

Clinton is people at 76% amongst Latinos.

http://latinousa.org/2016/08/03/post-dnc-convention-latino-tracking-poll-clinton-76-trump-13-11/

 

Clinton is polling at over 90% amongst Blacks.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/290490-poll-over-9-in-10-african-americans-back-clinton

 

Clinton has a 23 point lead amongst women 58-35.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/national-poll-clinton-surging-among-women-leads-trump-by-8-226762

 

In my opinion too much is made of how unpopular Clinton is. She is currently performing very well in the polls. How much better can any presidential candidate honestly do in a 2 party partisan system? There is a cap on how popular any candidate can be. That said Clinton's numbers are very strong. Of course nothing is guaranteed. Wkileaks could drop proof of illegal activity by Clinton in October and force her out of the race. The current state of the election doesn't ensure Clinton will win. However we shouldn't conflate what could happen down the road with what it happening currently. We shouldn't parallel how unpopular Trump is with how unpopular Clinton is because they aren't equal. Clinton is in a historically strong position. I don't understand why so many are nervous about admitting that. Are we superstitious here in the Science Forum?

Edited August 8, 2016 by Ten oz

[Delta1212]

Which is why I said Trump is even more of a mess. I think there exists a segment of voters who could be swayed either to vote for Hillary or not vote for Hillary, but there is a very large segment of Republican voters who can be swayed either to vote for or not vote for Donald right now, and probably a surprising contingent who might even be convinced to vote for Hillary.

 

It's moving people over one category from major party voter to third party voter or third party voter to major party voter that is going to be the real battle for undecideds this election.

 

The campaigns have similarities in the kind of work they need to do and the types of voters they need to target to shape opinions, but yes, the scales are very, very different with Trump having more ground to make up and more potential ground to lose within his party's nominal base than Hillary does.

[Ten oz]

Which is why I said Trump is even more of a mess. I think there exists a segment of voters who could be swayed either to vote for Hillary or not vote for Hillary, but there is a very large segment of Republican voters who can be swayed either to vote for or not vote for Donald right now, and probably a surprising contingent who might even be convinced to vote for Hillary.

 

I disagree. Obama won 93% of the black vote and 71% of the latino vote in 12' while Romney won 60% of the white vote. Those numbers are nearly statistically identical to what polls reflect today. That implies no statistically significant group has been swayed this year despite how crazy Trump is or how unpopular Clinton is. We have a 2 party system and the overwhelming majority of people line up on one side or the other and generally do not move in the short term. Trends change with age through a persons life but not candidate to candidate, election to election.

 

We have been at this for over a year. We have known since April more or less who the major candidates would be. I believe people know whom they will be supporting in November. It will take something significant to sway people at this point. Again, I know who I will vote for and believe everyone in the forum does as well.

[iNow]

Obama won 93% of the black vote and 71% of the latino vote in 12' while Romney won 60% of the white vote. Those numbers are nearly statistically identical to what polls reflect today. That implies no statistically significant group has been swayed this year despite how crazy Trump is or how unpopular Clinton is.thing significant to sway people at this point. Again, I know who I will vote for and believe everyone in the forum does as well.

Except youth voters:

 

http://www.salon.com/2016/08/08/the-gops-youth-vote-disaster-donald-trumps-nomination-could-hurt-republicans-for-years-to-come/

Attracting the young ‘uns has been a problem of mounting significance for Republican presidential candidates for some time now. Back in 2004, a comparatively high 45 percent of 18-29 year olds voted to reelect George W. Bush. Four years later, John McCain took home a measly 32 percent of those votes. Mitt Romney performed slightly better among younger voters in 2012, but he still got blown out by Barack Obama in that age cohort.

 

Newly christened Republican nominee Donald Trump, however, is comically underperforming even McCain’s awful showing. The most recent McClatchy-Marist poll shows Trump running fourth among 18-29 year olds – behind both Green Party nominee Jill Stein and libertarian candidate Gary Johnson – with a miserable 9 percent. Fox News’ latest poll puts Trump’s support among voters under 35 at 23 percent, just ahead of Johnson. He’s at 15 percent with voters under 30 in the latest Economist/YouGov poll.

Females, especially college educated, are also moving heavily away from Trump relative to Romney or McCain.

[Ten oz]

Except youth voters:

 

http://www.salon.com/2016/08/08/the-gops-youth-vote-disaster-donald-trumps-nomination-could-hurt-republicans-for-years-to-come/

 

Females, especially college educated, are also moving heavily away from Trump relative to Romney or McCain.

That speaks to the numbers I presented. Minorities and women vote Democrat and white males vote Republican. Todays youth is more diverse ethinically that previous generations and as such it make sense they'd lean Democrat.

 

"U.S. Census Bureau estimates released today. Overall, millennials are more diverse than the generations that preceded them, with 44.2 percent being part of a minority race or ethnic group (that is, a group other than non-Hispanic, single-race white)."

http://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2015/cb15-113.html

[Delta1212]

Based on iNow's numbers, Trump's support among youth voters has dropped by more than half from what Romney's was.

 

There has not been enough of a shift in the racial demographics of America's youth in the last four years to account for even a majority of that loss all on its own.

[Ten oz]

Based on iNow's numbers, Trump's support among youth voters has dropped by more than half from what Romney's was.

 

There has not been enough of a shift in the racial demographics of America's youth in the last four years to account for even a majority of that loss all on its own.

The stats start in 04' when Bush won 45% then show a massive drop to 32% in 08'. No one in todays 18-29yrs demo was old enough to vote in 04'. Also more highly educated people lean democrat too and young people today are more highly educated. If you compare the shift is the ethnic diversity and the shift in education of 04's 18-29yrs old and todays 18-29yrs there is a large difference. That difference will only grow. In the 20' election the youth demo will be even more diverse and even more well educated.

[Delta1212]

The stats start in 04' when Bush won 45% then show a massive drop to 32% in 08'. No one in todays 18-29yrs demo was old enough to vote in 04'. Also more highly educated people lean democrat too and young people today are more highly educated. If you compare the shift is the ethnic diversity and the shift in education of 04's 18-29yrs old and todays 18-29yrs there is a large difference. That difference will only grow. In the 20' election the youth demo will be even more diverse and even more well educated.

But I'm talking about the better than 30% that Romney got four years ago to the 15% currently has. The racial and education makeup of the 18-29 demo did not change enough in four years to entirely account for that much of a shift in support.

 

If everyone in that cohort maintained their exact voting pattern from 2012, but the 26-29 year olds simply aged out and were replaced with new Democratic-leaning 18-21 year olds, then even assuming that the youngest in that cohort had absolutely no one who was leaning Trump, that would require almost 50% support for Republicans among the out-going group that left the 18-29 year old range between 2012 and now. If Trump has even single-digit support among 18-21 year olds, it means Romeny had over 50% of the 26-29 year old vote in 2012 in order to explain the current numbers.

 

Assuming, of course, that we're going with the theory that no one has changed their vote between last election and this one and it's solely a result of demographic trends as people age.

 

The idea that Romeny got over 50% of voters in their late 20s is utterly ridiculous, which means that some percentage of 18-29 year olds who supported Romney in the last election are not supporting Trump this time around and it isn't just a case of the group being made up of different people.

[Ten oz]

@ Delta1212, The youth vote goes Democratic and the margins grow just about every year. As more youth become more highly educated and more diverse the rate of growth towards the Democratic party should accelerate. Trumps numbers currently are worse than the trend would predict but worse numbers than Romney in the youth demo is to be expected. Also, we are comparing actual vote tallies from previous elections to the results of a recent round of polls.

http://www.pewresearch.org/2008/11/13/young-voters-in-the-2008-election/

 

 

Turnout accounts for the main differences in years where Democratic leaning youth isn't increased. There was a 6 point drop in participation of young voters in 12', 45% of young people, ages 18-29, voted in 2012, down from 51% in 2008. A lot at how youth voite make it obvious that provided turnout is increased so to will be the margins for Democrats.

These numbers only are getting worse for the GOP:

-Young White women’s influence in the youth electorate has decreased since 2008, while Hispanic influence has increased: 42% of young voters were persons of color, and for the first time, the Hispanic youth vote share surpassed the Black youth vote share. In 2008, the Hispanic youth vote represented 14% of the youth electorate. This year, it increased to 18%. Asian-American voters represented five percent of the youth vote in 2012.

http://civicyouth.org/support-for-president-obama-varied-greatly-by-gender-and-race/

 

"Young people who are registered to vote turn out in high numbers, very close to the rate of older voters. In the 2008 election, 84% of those youth 18-29 who were registered to vote actually cast a ballot. Youth voter registration rates are much lower than older age groups’ rates, and as a result, guiding youth through the registration process is one potential step to closing the age-related voting gap.

In 2008, on average, 59% of young Americans whose home state offered Election Day Registration voted; nine percentage points higher than those who did not live in EDR states."

http://civicyouth.org/quick-facts/youth-voting/

 

The GOP understand all of this which is why they try to prohibit election day registration and push for laws that don't allow college students to vote where they attend school. When looking at the numbers and discussing how people vote there is always a lot more to it than simply looking at the final numbers and saying this or that group was swayed. Some groups in various states are oppressed and that negatively effects turnout by race and income. Obviously we will know much more when we have exit numbers from November but I don't think one can simply look at currently youth polling and make too many conclusions.

Edited August 8, 2016 by Ten oz

[iNow]

And then today... This happened:

 

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-2nd-amendment-folks-stop-clintons-supreme-court/story?id=41239648

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump raised eyebrows Tuesday when he suggested there is "nothing" that can be done to stop Hillary Clinton's Supreme Court picks, except "maybe" the "Second Amendment people."

 

"Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment," Trump said to the crowd of supporters gathered in the Trask Coliseum at North Carolina University in Wilmington. "If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks.

 

"Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is. I don't know."

Watch for yourself:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcxkkrNSv-4

 

The Secret Service was overwhelmed with calls for the to investigate Trump and responded thusly: https://mobile.twitter.com/SecretService/status/763142627202048000?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

[Phi for All]

Watch for yourself:

 

That glib toss-off tells me he meant what we're all afraid he meant. He's used that style of delivery for bombshells before.

 

This shouldn't be protected under free speech. He might as well be running his finger across his throat after saying, "Well, there's one way to stop her".

[Arete]

 

That glib toss-off tells me he meant what we're all afraid he meant. He's used that style of delivery for bombshells before.

 

This shouldn't be protected under free speech. He might as well be running his finger across his throat after saying, "Well, there's one way to stop her".

 

His defense has been that he was suggesting that gun rights supporters should vote in a bloc against her: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/us/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton.html?_r=0

 

Only, he posed the insinuation in the future tense, after Clinton had already hypothetically won the election. So at "hold the situation at arms length and go cross eyed trying to see the positive image" best case scenario, is he gaffed and accidentally insinuated that his supporters should shoot Hillary Clinton. Or he more likely did it deliberately. In either scenario I would imagine it's nigh on impossible to argue that he makes a suitable president.

[MigL]

Or, he could just be THAT ignorant and not have a clue what the second amendment states.

[Ten oz]

More frightening than any Trump statement, more disconerting, is that it appears that regardless of what Trump says there will be close to 40% of the electorate voting for him in November. Sure he implied gun owners kill Clinton if she appoints judges they don't like, whatever. Last week he asked Russia to prepetrate further crimes against her campaign. And lets face it he wasn't wrong about how the media would reward them for it.

 

Trump is the canary in the coal mine. He has been able to accomplish this, a major party nomination for POTUS, when seemingly nothing but a twitter account. He kicked off his campaign to a room full of fake supporter paid to be in attendence and that story went nowhere. He criticized McCain for be a POW and that story went nowhere. Meanwhile his attacks and slogans for his rivals went viral. After several tough years media outlets finally have ratings this year because they provide live breaking updates of Trump's twitter account and ask the hard hitting questions like was Jeb Bush really "low energy" and where exactly was Megyn Kelly "bleed from". If Trump has accomplished this what is next?

 

In the world of billionaires Trump is a light weight. A quasi successful New York real estate mogul who inherited most of everything he has. There are others far more dangerous than Trump out and Trump's success may inspire them to because more active than they already are. Trump has shown that with branding and entertaining, just get cable news rating and online blogs likes, the cost of running a major campaign isn't very high.The door is wide open to billionaires and Foriegn Gov'ts to overtly manipulate the system. The quid pro quo is to do so in a way that social media finds interesting and cable media can profit from.

[geordief]

More frightening than any Trump statement, more disconerting, is that it appears that regardless of what Trump says there will be close to 40% of the electorate voting for him in November. Sure he implied gun owners kill Clinton if she appoints judges they don't like, whatever. Last week he asked Russia to prepetrate further crimes against her campaign. And lets face it he wasn't wrong about how the media would reward them for it.

 

Trump is the canary in the coal mine. He has been able to accomplish this, a major party nomination for POTUS, when seemingly nothing but a twitter account. He kicked off his campaign to a room full of fake supporter paid to be in attendence and that story went nowhere. He criticized McCain for be a POW and that story went nowhere. Meanwhile his attacks and slogans for his rivals went viral. After several tough years media outlets finally have ratings this year because they provide live breaking updates of Trump's twitter account and ask the hard hitting questions like was Jeb Bush really "low energy" and where exactly was Megyn Kelly "bleed from". If Trump has accomplished this what is next?

 

In the world of billionaires Trump is a light weight. A quasi successful New York real estate mogul who inherited most of everything he has. There are others far more dangerous than Trump out and Trump's success may inspire them to because more active than they already are. Trump has shown that with branding and entertaining, just get cable news rating and online blogs likes, the cost of running a major campaign isn't very high.The door is wide open to billionaires and Foriegn Gov'ts to overtly manipulate the system. The quid pro quo is to do so in a way that social media finds interesting and cable media can profit from.

Damn right but canaries in coal mines were useful .

 

40 % is disappointing but should we have known that ahead of time ? Do we know it now?

 

Does democracy need education to work? If we dodge the Trump bullet how can we ensure there is no repeat?

[DrKrettin]

 

Does democracy need education to work?

 

It would need it for a radical democracy (e.g. Ancient Athens) but for a representational democracy, even the uneducated should be able to elect politicians who are actually capable of something and know something about economics and the foreign countries they would have to deal with. On the other hand, there is Corbyn.....