The 2016 Republican Field

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He's polling about even with Jeb and Carson is much much more conservative than Trump but has an amazingly impressive life story along with a very soft spoken intellectual style that contrasts with Trump's being a no filter bombast. A lot of people don't really care or understand issues in any coherent way, this honestly probably makes up the majority of voters. Trump leads the GOP in pretty much every demographic now including moderates so I think it's just the contrast in Carson's personality along with with his personal backstory that is fueling his rise in the polls, it's not like he made some tax proposal that's super popular.

A lot of people pick who they're going to vote for based on personality and some vague sense of competence, Trump like him or not is a magnetic charismatic guy who runs circles around the bunch of stiffs that are supposedly the "strongest and deepest Republican field ever". Politics in the US is reality tv now, cable news is literally reality tv, and in this arena there isn't anybody in American politics or culture that knows how to manipulate it better than Donald Trump does.

People pick presidents like NFL teams pick draftees, people see Trump as a powerful very successful man that doesn't take any gruff from anybody. He's beyond the political process and isn't beholden to any special interest, that's something that appeals to a lot of people. I remember the former Democratic Senator from Wisconsin Herb Kohl who was independently wealthy from his family business running as "nobody's senator but your own" to reiterate that same quality. Trump is the guy these people want sitting across from Putin and to be fair I actually think Trump would handle our bilateral relationship with Russia better than anybody in either party since I think he could appeal to Putin personally and Putin is a guy that loves to get wined and dined and always has been. Putin was close friends with the former prime minister of Italy Silvio Berlusconi(who a lot of people compare Trump too) and was a lot better with Dubya than he is with Obama now.

He's convinced me that he can get the nomination at this point and I think he might even be able to win it all especially if these polls are right about him attracting a lot of non-traditional Republicans. Ronald Reagan was able to build a coalition of voters too, I think Trump is trying to appeal to that same group of blue-collar and middle class white voters who are deeply dissatisfied with the state of the country right now. People don't want the country to be fair and equal with the rest of the world, they want to use our power and wealth as leverage to our benefit which is what Trump pretty clearly says he will do.

Crazy times we live in.

I'm sorta coming around on Trump, not because I like him or any of his positions, but more as chemotherapy for the cancer that is our political system. If he's the republican nominee and Hilary is the democratic one, I might just vote for chaos. At least it would shake things up in a way they haven't been in years.

Ordo Ab Chao.

Part of Trump is to the left of Bernie.

His immigration vs. American jobs is a shot at unemployment and underemployment.

Black youth have very high unemployment, and fill prisons. The two are connected.

Besides prisons, the murder rate for being Black is Vietnam combat level.

Trump said plainly, get rid of illegals, and STEM Visas, demand market rates, because our graduates are underemployed. Cut back all immigration until Americans are employed at living wages.

Blacks, University Grads, Women, heard that.

Bring back industrial jobs. Blue Collar and Union heard that.

Tax imports, cut taxes on domestic corporations. Labor is a small part of manufacturing, and transport charges are high. Managing offshore involves travel and hotel costs.

If Japan and Korea can make car parts in America, so can America.

Mexico makes the VW Bug, it is not allowed in America. Mexico makes Ford parts that are. Ford can keep it's plant and sell to South America, by exporting the rest of the parts from the USA.

Trump is Leftist, Labor, Union.

! !! !!

Trump is an unknown as far as being a politician goes. He's never held a seat in congress or been a governor or anything else along those lines. Whatever he says is no better than a sales pitch from a used car salesman. He has no record to examine of him voting on any bill, supporting one, drafting one, sponsoring one, opposing one or vetoing one, etc....

I think it's safe to say he's a capitalist and that's about the only thing we can surmise.

The sad thing, is that's not really any better or worse than any of the other major party candidates who are running...

Trump is running as a populist, whether or not he'll govern that way I dunno. His message economically I think is something that will appeal to a lot non-traditional Republicans, the question is how important the economy really is to voters and the polls always say that's the most important. He might be able be able to really build a coalition of voters, the question is what is the extent of the appeal of his personality which has defied all logic at this point.

For me it will come down to voting for the lesser evil and I won't even be sure that I'm 100% right.

It seems to be a commonly held impression down here that Trump is a buffoon, and should he ever become president, it may cause a lot of damage to relations between America and its close "friends" - particularly those five countries (including New Zealand) which are part of the "five eyes" network and Western Alliances like NATO.

Possibly there would be other negative flow-on effects too. However at this stage it seems unlikely (at least I hope so). It is certainly fascinating watching this from a distance and seeing all of the competing interests from the perspective of an outsider.

Actually, the reaction of the rest of the world would be one of the primary positives to a Trump victory for me...

Something tells me he wouldn't be getting any peace prize just for getting elected.

You know, I really, really hate that style of pragmatic voting, even though I've done it myself in the past, simply because it reinforces the f*cked up partisan system that's straitjacketing us. The thing about Trump, and let's be honest here, I loathe the man personally, is that he's got the traditional political class sh*****g their pants cause they can't control him, they can't stop him, and he's kicking over the apple cart, and whatever his personal failings may be, I think that's a good thing. Perhaps a buffoon of his caliber getting elected is what it's going to take to wake people up to the sickness of our system, at this point I'm willing to give it a shot.

Trump isn't scary to me since I hold everyone else in such low regard, Trump reminds me a bit of Pat Buchanan but he's obviously no where near as articulate but his style is probably also why those views seem more palatable. I don't know if Buchanan was ever polled in a general election, he probably was and I was too young to remember it but I doubt he ever did as good as Trump is doing now. I also don't trust Trump to stick with any of his positions, I guess a positive way of looking that is that he's open minded maybe relative to thge ideologues and bought/paid for politicians. Trump is running less on positions than just this idea of a general competence from his genius business acumen, it's basically "Trump knows best" and he's making his appeal straight to masses and using the establishment's system against them. The question then, does Trump actually care about making this country "great" again like he says or does he only care about power?

I think outside of social issues I probably lean a bit paleoconservative on some issues rather than libertarian, they overlap a bit but I'd say I'm way more skeptical free trade and immigration than most libertarians especially the big L ones. I think the open border people are crazy and will lead us to ruin when combined with modern welfare state, you'd either have to be a globalist new world order type or a pure anarchist to want that. I think my views have softened a bit economically, I can see value in infrastructure and certain safety net programs, whereas my views on pretty much everything else have drifted further out of what I guess you call the mainstream.

There is sort of suicidal ****-it-lets-see-what-happens type appeal with Trump too, it's like right out of a movie almost and I'm bored and hate my life so what's the worst that could happen? It's a gamble, roll of the dice, the normal s**t wasn't working out. **** it.

The Rand Paul campaign on the other hand is just depressing.

Last edited by Jacoby on 14 Sep 2015, 10:42 am, edited 2 times in total.

Yep! I'm going to hold my nose when I vote, and then I will probably projectile vomit afterwards.

And then there were 14 with Scott Walker dropping out.
He had somewhat more support than Perry at 2.5%, once a frontrunner, his drop followed Trump's entry.