The Big Thread For the USA 2016 Presidential Candidates [Poll updated!]

[Mithlomwen]

I have no words....

Carly is now hijacking field trips.

If my kid had been on that field trip I'd be all kinds of furious. 

[gaggedLouise]

I have no words....

Carly is now hijacking field trips.

If my kid had been on that field trip I'd be all kinds of furious.

As someone pointed out in the comments to that article, a few preschool teachers are going to be in trouble for letting her scoop up the kids into her roadshow.  ::)

[Oniya]

Every year, little Oni has to get a form signed about whether or not we will let her picture be taken for 'media uses'.  I'm wondering if these kids had those.  Regardless, I'd be sending one of my famously well-crafted letters to the superintendent after that 'field trip'.  There's usually a form stating what the kids are going to be doing as well as where they are going to be going.

[ThePrince]

So the Republican field seems to be lining up to take down... Cruz. Not Trump. Cruz.

While Trump and Cruz both have horrible opinions, Cruz is just a horrible person. Most of the republican base loathe him and a lot of people would rather see Trump get the nod than Cruz.

In some ways Cruz is a much worse person than Trump.

[gaggedLouise]

Seriously I can't see a Trump/Palin ticket winning - if he'd really get to that point. Palin would create publicity of course, but outside of the tea party base she'd become even more of a sinker now than back in 2008...

[Mithlomwen]

According to Trump, he could stand in the middle of 5th avenue and shoot somebody and still wouldn't lose voters.

How is it possible that this man is the leader for the Republican party?  My brain just cannot seem to grasp the concept.

[Skynet]

According to Trump, he could stand in the middle of 5th avenue and shoot somebody and still wouldn't lose voters.

How is it possible that this man is the leader for the Republican party?  My brain just cannot seem to grasp the concept.

This is why.

For the second time, Donald Trump retweets an obvious Neo-Nazi Twitter account.

The username is even "White Genocide."

As for the first time, he tweeted a factually misleading "racial crime statistics" image alleging that most white murder victims were killed by black people.  The image was made by a Neo-Nazi, and when called upon it Trump's campaign staff did not apologize, much less respond to any attempts to reach them.

By building a brand based on appealing to people's most vile and hateful instincts, the only way he could potentially lose a lot of voters is if he ever backtracks or denounces his earlier statements.

[Avis habilis]

He comes by it honestly, as they say.

[mannik]

How can Americans ever hope to live peaceful lives with a hatemonger like Trump in office?

Even if he isn't elected, Hillary is most likely just going to continue the campaign of fear that Obama's leading now. Neither fear nor hate are conducive to the existence of a peaceful society.

[theLeslie]

I'm not sure where you, or anyone, gets the idea that America, or for that matter a majority of Americans, desire a peaceful country.  Granted plenty of us keep saying that we want peace, and we protest and demonstrate and try to raise awareness for our external wishes, but that is only the cover which binds the book within.  The pages we don't like being seen show nearly constant war mongering since 1812, with little breaks between the fights to build up our supplies and help us maintain an image of peace.

It is more than war with other nations.  We war against everything, from drugs to high taxes.  Our debates are fueled by vitriol towards opposing parties, our words laced with heated emotion and unbending passion for what we each believe to be true.  We've forsaken the ideals of togetherness and compromise to settle on bipartisan outrage.  As an example I will use the good sir Trump, peace be upon his wallet.

If Trump wins we will see a complete reversal of what has happened for the past 8 years.  Where as the leftRight said that Obama was the new Hitler, we are already calling Trump the new Hitler.  There are parallels, that much is clear, but we do not take the time to find a way to compromise, to exist together, to find a common ground.  Instead we swing for the fences, cling to our very rigid ideologies, and declare that if it isn't exactly our ways, we hate whatever way is presently going.  Most on the left will take to the streets and take to social media to sling mud in the faces of the Right, and we will declare that everything is unconstitutional, Un-American, inhuman, or a new brand of Nazi social engineering.  We are no longer a nation that seeks the center, we are a mass of passionate, fiery zealots that think the only way, is our way.  Be we left or right, be we centrists or fringe radicals, we do not want to compromise what we see as infallible morals for the sake of fellowship.

We want peace, we want togetherness, we want fellowship, but we want it on MY terms.  I say my, because it's hard to use the word our in a nation so divided and so fanatically passionate about our individual values.  Granted we each have our groups, we have our little niches of people that fit into the same general category each of us falls into, and because we have others who agree with most of the things we say we think it's possible to convince others that our side is right.  We've lost our grasp on the fact that we require diversity, we require opposing view points, descent, contrary opinions to validate the fact that we are not robots.  We are free thinking humans with our own individual values.  Individuality is not what makes a government.  Instead of accepting our diversity as what makes America the great nation our history books and modern media want to pretend that it is and was, we are instead prone to making villians of any and all who disagree with our individual opinions.

It is to the point where many people say things like "I'm going to leave the country if Trump is elected."  Worse still phrases like "America: Love it or Leave it".  These words we use perfectly demonstrate our unwillingness to bend, and our willingness to take our ball and go home if we do not get our ways.  We are divided not only into the parties, be they Repub, Dem, or Indie.  We break those down into yet smaller groups of centric left, far left, middle left, moderate left, extreme left, and the same for both those aligned centrally or to the right.  There is nothing in our nation that says to come together any more, nothing that says to love your fellow citizens in spite of their thoughts, in spite of their desires, or in spite of their die hard disagreement with everything you happen to believe in.  We are a nation of "my way or the highway", and we don't seem to want to budge.

What's to blame?  I would love to say media, I would love to say a lack of effective public education, I would love to say it was simply our passion as Americans, but I do not know if any of those are true.  I am sad for my nation.  I do not see change on the horizon no matter who wins, because no matter who wins, others will see themselves as losing.  We are a republic, and we can vote.  If we truly wanted something, we would have it.  If most of us desired peace, we would have it.  If most of us wanted non-partisan politics, we would have it. 

It seems to me that the only reason we don't have any of this, is because beyond our lip service, beyond our political proselytizing, we actually do not want peace, compromise, or fellowship.  But, this is just my opinion.  I am admittedly jaded.  Then again, my first experience with voting was in 2001, when Bush "beat" Gore.  I live in Florida.  My first vote, my first time being an American, was stolen from me.  At least that is/was my belief.  Was it?  I don't know.  People say yes, people say no.  I can only say, I honestly don't know anymore.

That's my rant. ^-^  No offense meant to anyone, and I apologize for my impassioned words.  I am, after all, an America, and I've been raised my whole life on the ideas of free thinking, and that what I think matters.

[ReijiTabibito]

How can Americans ever hope to live peaceful lives with a hatemonger like Trump in office?

Even if he isn't elected, Hillary is most likely just going to continue the campaign of fear that Obama's leading now. Neither fear nor hate are conducive to the existence of a peaceful society.

Because, quite simply, the following.  1: people don't care about the fact that he's an alleged hatemonger.  They care about the fact that someone is finally giving voice to their frustrations.  They care that he's going against the tide that says don't say this, don't do that, when in reality you can say this and can do that, but don't because the PC and SJW crowd will mercilessly pillory you for it. 

2: people don't care about having peaceful lives, they care about having comfortable ones.  The largely dominant strain in thinking today is, "Well, I have mine, and I'm okay, so I'm not gonna worry about anyone else."  How else do you explain the lack of empathy and concern exhibited towards people who live on government assistance - and I'm not talking about welfare, I'm talking about people who work and have a job and need help from Uncle Sam in order to live.  It's also worth pointing out that one of the last times we had peace in this country - IE, we weren't involved in any wars, or planning on warring with someone - we ended up in the Great Depression, which most people say we needed WWII (I'm not so sure) to bring us out of.  People had money, they were able to do this - it's not totally unreasonable to think that people might look back at that and say, "hey, we could use another one of those..."

[HannibalBarca]

I used to think there was a need for, at the least, a balanced pair of parties in the USA, so that the people would have a choice.  I stil believe that, but...one of our choices just isn't a choice anymore. 

I've found with time that the media plays a lot with false equivalencies.  95% of scientists agree on climate change, but most media discussions give equal time to deniers.  I don't suppose they'd do the same with flat-earthers, even if that has as much science backing it.

Conservatives find themselves in a quandary.  Their party, the Republicans, have been painted, through the Southern Strategy, into a corner.  The establishment Republicans, mostly the group of big money, have for years played the evangelicals and ignorant/racist Tea Party types like rubes, and gotten what they wanted--numbers to help them hold offices.  Travel too far down the rabbit hole, however, and you find yourself in wonderland. 

Republicans of today enshrine Reagan as a prototypical Conservative, ignoring that he upheld separation of church and state, welcomed immigration, and negotiated with terrorists.  Eisenhower was against the military-industrial complex.  Conservatives of the present have fallen into a black hole, the solution of which I can only see as a fracturing of the Republican party into three smaller parties.

Trump isn't really a Republican, or even a Conservative. He's a demagogue, and a sociopath.  He says whatever he wants, regardless of how it will play. The conditions in the Republican party, however, are such that a significant portion of them eat up everything he says.

In 2000, I voted for John McCain over GW in the primary. I don't belong to a political party, but California has open primaries, and I had no desire to see GW possibly run for President.  It didn't work, of course.

I used to think the nation needed a balance of Conservative and Liberal. I still think it does. But what the Republicans peddle isn't Conservatism in the classical sense at all.  It is fear. They have planted their feet for too long, and been left so far behind in our modern world as far as social and geopolitical concerns that many of their constituents are simply paralyzed with terror at where they find themselves.  Just looking at the number of them that bought guns simply because a black man was elected President was telling...a President that spent a significant amount of time bending over backwards to meet the other party halfway in legislation.  Fear doesn't allow Republicans to see what Obama really is--a social Liberal, but an economic moderate at best.

The nation, I have realized, doesn't need a balance, when that choice is between fear and humanity.  Humanity must win.  I have no glowing expectations of perfection from Liberals, but racism, feudalism, and hatred cannot return to what they were in the past. You can't go home again. Time marches on.  Nations, like people, grow up and mature.

I'm not sure where you, or anyone, gets the idea that America, or for that matter a majority of Americans, desire a peaceful country.

Our nation was built on three concepts:  Religion, wealth, and personal freedom.  The peculiar combination of seeking wealth and promoting Christianity is a uniquely American hybrid.  No sooner had Europeans come to America to practice their own religion than they persecuted others of different Christian sects who arrived on the same shore.  I won't even mention the indigenous people or African slaves.  Bigotry and hatred came with them from the Old World, fused with the desire for more: more land, more gold, more power. 

We got it in spades.

Fortunately, these were tempered by the search for personal freedom, and, fortunately, tempering that with empathy.  Minorities, women, the not-rich...they all saw their lots improve slowly over time.  What is disturbing now, though, is we see what has been gained being eroded:  the destruction of Glass-Steagall, the weakening of the Civil Right Act of 1964, the Citizens United decision.

We Americans have to admit one painful truth: we are incredibly spoiled. Those of us, regardless of political bent, who spend any significant amount of time in other nations, particularly impoverished ones, and among their people, have a chance to see just how lucky we are to live in such a wealthy nation...or perhaps not so lucky.  I hear the word entitlement bandied about by right-wing politicians a lot.  To be honest, all of us are incredibly entitled, compared to citizens of nations like Cambodia, Guatemala, or Zaire. Some of us are even more spoiled than others, and I'm not talking about the wealthy. I'm honest enough with myself as a middle-aged white man to know I likely won't be shot in the back by a cop, or turned down for a job because of the sound of my name.

We want peace, we want togetherness, we want fellowship, but we want it on MY terms.

I don't see a viable alternative on the Right.  Reasonable candidates seem to have gone out of style with Bob Dole.  There is a powerful Archie Bunker mentality to so many Republicans and their candidates now; a smugness and an arrogance that is hard to tolerate.  And should it be tolerated?  Dr. King said that all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

It seems to me that the only reason we don't have any of this, is because beyond our lip service, beyond our political proselytizing, we actually do not want peace, compromise, or fellowship.

The Republican establishment had, for six years, a monopoly on the Federal government: GW was President, both houses of Congress were majority Republican, and the Supreme Court was majority Conservative.  Was Roe vs Wade overturned?  Was government drowned in a bathtub?  Were rocket launchers made legal to own nationwide?  No, when we talk about Right vs Left, it is more complicated than that.

Look at the similarities between Trump and Sanders.  They inspire their followers.  They are populists.  They are so successful because they are responding to a very real dissatisfaction with the status quo.  The Conservatives who follow Trump are justifiably angry with the Republican establishment; they have been played for decades. Unfortunately, they still don't quite get it.  Voting for a billionaire anti-establishment megalomaniac won't get them what they need, but it will give them what they want, at least in the short-term: satisfaction.  Thumbing their noses at those who used them for so many years.

On the other hand...Sanders is the only candidate in the entire election at the moment who has a net positive approval rating.  Both he and Trump are honest, but whereas Trump merely gives voice to his id, Sanders is genuinely empathetic to people.  Trump is our own Le Pen.  Sure, Ted Cruz is worse, as close as I can be sure to a psychopath with only taking four years of psychology courses and no doctorate...but Trump as President would be a disaster just as well.

I can't play the false equivalency anymore.  Not as a rational, empathetic human being.  The parties are not equal, and they are not balanced.  I see Hillary as in bed with the monied interests of Wall Street, but at least she won't try to strip hard-won rights away from women, the LGBTQ community, and minorities.  She won't nominate justices like Scalia to the Supreme Court.  She won't help the majority of people economically, but she won't bury us socially.

Trump is hated by a majority of independent and moderate voters.  Say what you want about the socialist Bernie Sanders, but he's a more decent human being.  It really comes down to that in my book.  I think the momentum is swinging Bernie's way, and he will take the nomination.  He will win the Presidency because he wrecks Trump in a face-to-face matchup.  Whether he finishes his term due to his age, or runs again, I do not know.  But there is nobody on the Republican side who is humane enough to be the leader of our country...no one who cares about all of us.

This is not about politics in my mind.  This is about humanity, and basic human decency.  The Republicans have forfeited the field as far as that is concerned.

[HannibalBarca]

It's also worth pointing out that one of the last times we had peace in this country - IE, we weren't involved in any wars, or planning on warring with someone - we ended up in the Great Depression, which most people say we needed WWII (I'm not so sure) to bring us out of. 

We needed the policies Franklin Roosevelt instituted...like the 90% tax rate on the wealthiest Americans, to redistribute wealth that had become hopelessly entrenched in their personal lives.  The Depression wasn't brought on by regular Americans--it was brought on by, among other things, speculation that was ended by the Glass-Steagall Act.  Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Much of the wealthiest lose their empathy for the rest of us, or never learn it if they're born into wealth.  Walk a mile in another man's moccasins, and you have a hard time screwing him over.

[ReijiTabibito]

We needed the policies Franklin Roosevelt instituted...like the 90% tax rate on the wealthiest Americans, to redistribute wealth that had become hopelessly entrenched in their personal lives.  The Depression wasn't brought on by regular Americans--it was brought on by, among other things, speculation that was ended by the Glass-Steagall Act.  Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Much of the wealthiest lose their empathy for the rest of us, or never learn it if their born into wealth.  Walk a mile in another man's moccasins, and you have a hard time screwing him over.

Oh, for certain.  The general historical view on that was that while FDR's policies did help, and if we had continued them long enough, probably would have helped us climb out of the Depression, the thing that did it was the war.  (Of course, the more things change, the more they stay the same, right?)

Consider this, though - the Roaring Twenties were a time of wealth and speculation and prosperity...and also of immense corruption (only partly because of Prohibition) and bad risk management and stuff that eventually resulted in the 1929 crash.  But everything had a veneer of glitz and glamour: The Great Gatsby was written as much as a criticism of the 20s culture as anything else.  The point I want to make is that when everything looks okay, people tend to care less if everything is okay.

[HannibalBarca]

The point I want to make is that when everything looks okay, people tend to care less if everything is okay.

+1 this.

We Americans tend to not look behind the curtain.  When you get too comfortable, too rooted, you don't usually want to upset the apple cart...even if it needs to be ripped apart and burned in a bonfire.

[ThePrince]

It's also possible that Trump is just a very charismatic candidate in a field of boring and weak candidates. Keep in mind that Trump hasn't actually won any delegates yet, we have a week before the Iowa caucus and it won't be till June till a republican presidential candidate is chosen. While I do think Trump could very likely take IA, NH and SC it's still very difficult for such a outside and unorganized candidate to win. But we will see next Tuesday.

Also note that the republican primary focus only on a small and fringe part of our population. They don't represent the overall values of our country. Case in point, these are people who like Rick Santorum and Ted Cruz.

[AnneReinard]

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-republican-party-may-be-failing/

For the stats nerds here, there is a very nice article about Trump and the Republican Party right now. What people are finding most shocking at the moment about the nomination in broad terms is that the Republican establishment is making steps to push Cruz out of the frontrunner spot, while allowing Trump to take that point.

So either they don't buy that Trump will be able to get enough delegates to win the nomination or they are slowly starting to warm up to the idea of Trump. The latter is a little more odd, considering the current circumstances (e.g. people feel the economy is bad) make it an uphill party for the Democrats to win the general election.

[Saidi]

Well... this happened

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/fox-responds-to-trump-dropping-out-hes-still-welcome-but-there-are-conditions/

[TheGlyphstone]

Even Fox is sick of Trump's shenanigans, it seems.

[Saidi]

Mhmm. 

About time too.  This circus (in my opinion) has been going on for far too long.  I don't even like or trust Fox News, but I had hoped they would get their act together about this a long time ago.

[theLeslie]

Eh...  Megan Kelly has been as bad as Trump, for longer.  If it gives her a headache, I'd almost like to see Trump in the debate.  This is the same woman the comforted our children by assuring them all that both Jesus and Santa were White.  I checked, Saint Nicholas was far from white, and we already know about Jesus..

[Saidi]

Eh...  Megan Kelly has been as bad as Trump, for longer.  If it gives her a headache, I'd almost like to see Trump in the debate.  This is the same woman the comforted our children by assuring them all that both Jesus and Santa were White.  I checked, Saint Nicholas was far from white, and we already know about Jesus..

Heheh True.  I don't agree with her either, but the way Trump was talking about her (the way he talks about anyone he doesn't like -to be quite honest) was ridiculous.  I'm ok with him throwing his tantrum and not being at the debate, hopefully it will cost him some voters but the way things are trending leaves me skeptical.

[theLeslie]

That's the one thing I've said is good about trump.  Not his honesty, because I don't believe that he's being honest with half the things he says.  I think he's just capitalizing on fear and playing to the base emotions of pain and anger.  But, at least he is costing Fox some viewers.  If we're lucky, and I mean reeeeeally lucky, both with crash and burn.

[Saidi]

If we're lucky, and I mean reeeeeally lucky, both with crash and burn.

Fingers crossed.

[ReijiTabibito]

That's the one thing I've said is good about trump.  Not his honesty, because I don't believe that he's being honest with half the things he says.  I think he's just capitalizing on fear and playing to the base emotions of pain and anger.  But, at least he is costing Fox some viewers.  If we're lucky, and I mean reeeeeally lucky, both with crash and burn.

You can hope, but I don't think Fox is going anywhere.  Media outlets are part of the party apparatus these days, they're the mouthpieces that espouse the viewpoint of their associated party.  If Fox self-destructs, it's because the Republican party is in the same process at that time.

Also, just to point out, St. Nicholas is Greek, and there are some Greeks who settled in the area near the Caucasus Mts, though he came from Asia Minor, which is today Turkey.  Also, trying to divine the actual ethnic background of modern races today can be, surprisingly, pretty damn hard.