American Politics the 2016 edition

micky wrote: LearsFool wrote: Trump has proven quite the charlatan  I could be wrong... perhaps I am.. but something tells me I'm not. He is not a charlatan. he is something American politics has never seen.  I do think he knows exactly what he is doing... he is on a mission from god .. to destroy the Republican Party as we have known it for the last 40 years. From within... he is as sick of its games and shenigans...  clowns like Romney.. W and anyone named Bush.  He means to remake the party. A hostile takeover so to speak  I think that is his game. Remember man.. the old rules don't apply him. He is not simply rich.. he's a f**king billionaire.  They think differently.. play by different rules... he didn't need to get into politics..not for power.. not for a gravy train career at the public trough...not such mundane reasons that drive the merely rich... he did for a specific reason.  Larger than life men tend to think in terms of larger than life notions.

LearsFool wrote: micky wrote: LearsFool wrote: Trump has proven quite the charlatan  I could be wrong... perhaps I am.. but something tells me I'm not. He is not a charlatan. he is something American politics has never seen.  I do think he knows exactly what he is doing... he is on a mission from god .. to destroy the Republican Party as we have known it for the last 40 years. From within... he is as sick of its games and shenigans...  clowns like Romney.. W and anyone named Bush.  He means to remake the party. A hostile takeover so to speak  I think that is his game. Remember man.. the old rules don't apply him. He is not simply rich.. he's a f**king billionaire.  They think differently.. play by different rules... he didn't need to get into politics..not for power.. not for a gravy train career at the public trough...not such mundane reasons that drive the merely rich... he did for a specific reason.  Larger than life men tend to think in terms of larger than life notions. He's a charlatan because he knows exactly what he's doing. For whatever reason, he's got his eyes on the prize of the Oval Office, and he's willing to not just backtrack but outright ignore everything he's ever said before - notably his repudiations of paleoconservatives of the type he markets himself as now - and cozy up to a religious right he doesn't truly stand with. He's a master at trolling the media and blowing dog whistles. And he may yet be the anointed champion this summer in Cleveland... only to inevitably fizzle out like Goldwater (who himself was an extremist outsider who had a meteoric rise through primary season). Another part of his conning is the whole idea of him being a f**king billionaire. He's often valued by third parties at numbers only in the hundreds of millions. Even after swindling investors out of so much through his bridge to nowhere real estate "projects", his only claim to big boy pants is his "brand", which can only lose value what with his clowning around.

I think the 'reason' the context of why he is in this.. makes all the difference.  Perhaps I have a narrow definition of charlatan.. perhaps an non academic view of it.  I see the word I think of a shyster.. a swindler.

Regardless of what he is in business life.. which is obviously done for his profit. I don't think that applies to him politically.  What does he stand to gain by running for President.  He won't get any richer.  He's likely smart enough to realize that the power of the Presidency also come with more chains and leather clad dominatrix's than he likely used to working with as captain and first mate of his real estate empire.

Personally I think he has as much contempt as many of us do for these types of .. *easy Micky*..  people to whom his campaign rhetoric appeals to. As likely many traditional politicians do.  Both left and Right 

Trump really is no different for other that have come before in remaking himself or changing positions to suit the audience.  That real issue is why... why is HE involved. Perhaps it is ego pure and simple...  perhaps not and he has higher abition than simply being a shackled and ineffective President... but a political figure that will still be discussed in history books hundreds of years from now for how he singlehandedly destroyed a political party and remade it in his image. 

If that is his goal.. to fight and defeat the massive inertia and power of the Republican establishment.. he would need to do... well.. what he has done..  form a coalition that we have not seen in modern American Politics. and to do so.. well.. you do need to tell various groups of completely dissimilar audience what they want to hear... completely remake yourself if you will.

regardless though if that is .. or is not his intent. The result would be that.. and that is why the Republican Party is reacting so violently to the possibility of him being the nominee. 


Edited by micky - March 03 2016 at 22:27

^ The problem is the potentially unshakable impression that the KKK would and indeed does support him.

As to his motivation, it could have something to do with global regs, but I suspect it has as much to do with having nothing left to conquer except the presidency.

Trump is a godsend for the US, in the UK we have a Jihadi sympathiser called Jeremy Corbyn in the running who might sell us to Saudi Arabia.

Matthew _Gill wrote: Trump is a godsend for the US, in the UK we have a Jihadi sympathiser called Jeremy Corbyn in the running who might sell us to Saudi Arabia.

Eh?

emigre80 wrote: I agree with this assessment. I think he's just in it to see his name emblazoned on bigger buildings.    I also think he's an idiot who really believes that being President is all about telling people, do this, and it gets done, except he has no real understanding of the system or how things get done.  It's going to be great, it's going to be huge and that's about all he knows.

Yeah I can't imagine a president Trump being anything more than an authoritarian windbag.

it looks as if a lot of members of the GOP feel like the sorcerer's apprentice from Goethe's famous poem now:

"Herr, die Not ist groß!
Die ich rief, die Geister,
werd' ich nun nicht los"!

"Lord, the misery is great!
Those that I called, them spirits,
I now can't get rid of"!

so has Trump jumped the shark with his penis comment... it seems he might have.

It has been entertaining but all good things must end.. and we return to the status quo I guess... Trump was a wild card that might have won. Cruz is a right wing lunatic with pretty much zero crossover to moderates. He'll get crushed by Hillary.


Edited by micky - March 07 2016 at 17:39

micky wrote: so has Trump jumped the shark with his penis comment... it seems he might have. It has been entertaining but all good things must end.. and we return to the status quo I guess... Trump was a wild card that might have won. Cruz is a right wing lunatic with pretty much zero crossover to moderates. He'll get crushed by Hillary.

^ pretty much as I'm seeing it Kelvin!