Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by SEC_Chick

Ok then. The issue is people who frequently vote D for whatever reason (in state and local elections) are crossing over and voting for Trump in the open R primaries.

Cruz has won all but one of the closed primaries, and Donald Trump has won all but one of the open primaries.

Fyi, I think the last democrat a lot of those folks voted for was Wallace. It's been a long long time since dems won the white southern vote.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

You have no fucking idea how Trump will run the country. Nobody does. Because he says whatever he feels like regardless of whether it contradicts whatever he felt like saying yesterday. That was part of Oliver's point. Yeah, maybe he'll get into office and say that the Mexican wall thing was just a "metaphor" and that when he talked about banning Muslims, he really just meant preventing infiltration of the country by radical terrorists of all religions. But you don't know that and if you think you do, you're more full of shit than Trump is. And the reason the media keeps focusing on the wall IS BECAUSE TRUMP KEEPS FUCKING TALKING ABOUT THE WALL. And every time he does, his scary fucking xenophobic supporters scream their neanderthal heads off and create more racist t-shirts and buttons and signs. Yes he has some supporters who just like the fact that he is a gigantic mind fuck for the establishment Republican party. And as someone who believes the two-party system is hopelessly broken, I also got a visceral thrill in seeing this loud-mouthed moron turn everything upside down. But the thrill is over. You say the media focuses on the David Duke issue unfairly? Seriously? He gets asked what he thinks about David Duke and the KKK and you can actually see the gears in his head turning as he tried to figure out how he could dodge the question without alienating is strong white supremacist base. So he lied about not knowing who David Duke is and then later lied about having ear piece problems and not understanding the question. And everybody says he's a strong leader who is not afraid to speak his mind. What a bunch of fucking bullshit that is. But there is no point debating the issue because our pointless speculation about what Trump will or won't do in office, or what his true motivations are, or whether he is a liar or just demonized by the media does not matter. It's all too esoteric for Trump supporters. Which is why the idea of sitting and typing words like these into some cyberspace politics chatting forum is so laughably sad, so absurdly grim, that I would not engage in it even as a joke. Which is why I never ever visit this sorry little page. Ever.

You say this now WITH YOUR ALL CAPS SCREAMING but you would have dropped to your knees for him the last time around.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Primaries generally get scheduled by states, subject to party rules, and the rules for both parties aren't an awful lot different in how primaries get scheduled and have only been tweaked over the last half dozen cycles. Undoubtedly her campaign people did their best to encourage states to front load, thinking it would give her an advantage, but it's not an awful lot different than last time.

Scheduling debates is a negotiation. So what? That's part of the campaign.

Likewise, superdelegates? Yes, you have to campaign among a lot of people who have roles in the party, from governors to DNC members, and win their support, fickle as it may be (remember, Hillary's superdelegates started moving to Obama when the votes did last time). Bernie has had every opportunity to work with these people for the last thirty years, as a Congressman and Senator, and didn't build the constituency. Just as he didn't build it with African Americans. He didn't even manage to build that strong a base with unions - surprising for his message.

He got beat fair and square. These are the places you have to win if you want to be president. This isn't tiddlywinks.

I'll admit some bias here. I like Bernie. He elevated the discourse and he took on the banks. And though it was all pie in the sky, he was at least honest when he said he'd try to start a revolution.

Scratch a cynic and you'll find a pissed off idealist? Maybe that saying fits me here. Bernie's a good man, and I'd have liked to see him get a lot further, even if it doesn't square with my greedier instincts.

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

You're watching too much John Oliver.

You and I watched the same amount of John Oliver. Unless you didn't see the one about the New Zealand politician getting the dildo thrown at his face, which was a really good bit of television right there and I urge you to watch it, but I can promise you it did not affect my views on Trump, other than to think that if some woman threw a dildo at Trump, he would threaten to sue her (he wouldn't), call her a fat fucking hysterical bitch cunt on the rag on Twitter, and then publish her home address and phone number so that his fanatical thug supporters could hound her relentlessly and make her life a living hell.

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

You say this now WITH YOUR ALL CAPS SCREAMING but you would have dropped to your knees for him the last time around.

I have no idea what you are talking about, but if you are suggesting I would have provided unsolicited no-strings-attached fellatio to Trump at some point in the past, then you sir have gone too far. Because Trump hates gays.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

You and I watched the same amount of John Oliver. Unless you didn't see the one about the New Zealand politician getting the dildo thrown at his face, which was a really good bit of television right there and I urge you to watch it, but I can promise you it did not affect my views on Trump, other than to think that if some woman threw a dildo at Trump, he would threaten to sue her (he wouldn't), call her a fat fucking hysterical bitch cunt on the rag on Twitter, and then publish her home address and phone number so that his fanatical thug supporters could hound her relentlessly and make her life a living hell.

I saw the dildo episode. I think Trump would have used the tape to market "Trump Dongs: The World's Hugest Dildos." (Available only at Sharper Image. Mfr'd in China.)

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I was not a Hillary hater (frankly, she'll run things like a moderate Reagan Democrat, so the GOP hatred for her is baffling).

It is? She's a Clinton and Clintons beat them. They don't like losing.

Also, she's a woman.

But the way she's gamed the system to screw Bernie?

How dare she be a politician. And while being a woman too!

And her plagiarism of his speeches? Fuck her.

Bernie ran explicitly to pull her to the left. He succeeded. Fuck her. Did you know she's a woman too?

Criminal justice reform?

You know she's Hillary Clinton, right? If she's elected, there will definitely be some small measure that doesn't go far enough. That's what she does.

Avoidance of pre-emptive wars and unnecessary interventions? Again, dead with Paul and Sanders. (Think Hillary is not going to be hawkish in the Middle East? Think she won't put boots on the ground? You're fucking deluded. It'll be hard finding daylight between her foreign policy and that of a neocon. Bank on it.)

Sigh. Yeah, she's too militaristic. But as militaristic as a neocon? Nope. She will talk as tough, but she won't be as rash about the use of force. Kinda like the last two presidential administrations she participated in, who kept their interventions largely in the air.

Sort of related was this week's Serial, which talks about Richard Holbrook's attempts at peace talks with the Taliban, and how she protected him from criticism within the administration (it's a damn shame he died suddenly).

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Except that he is worth over a billion, and has built a solid brand, garish as it is, so that part about business acumen... #justsayin And no. That he screwed people in r/e development workouts does not undo his success. First, that's an essential part of that business. Second, that only proves the guy can artfully work through a really tough deal.

First, Someone I know was in a Trump deal recently and took a look at his financials. They claim he isn't even worth a billion dollars. If this is true, then it is amazing that he has squandered daddy's money so epically. Also, if it's true, he is not a success. He's a complete failure because if he had simply invested daddy's money in the most conservative way, he'd be worth way more than he is now.

But I love how you are able to reclassify people mentioning bankruptcy after bankruptcy as an attempt to undo his success.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Still, I like one thing Trump is doing. Among the lies, there are occasional kernels of candor that are fantastic. His defense of Planned Parenthood (even though he has to claim he'll defund it to placate the Jesus Crazies) is great. And telling a bunch of corporate Bush stooges that W lied to get us into Iraq and did not keep the country safe was excellent. If nothing else, that pumpkinhead killed the Bush dynasty, and for that we all owe him a debt.

No. Dubya and Jeb killed the Bush dynasty. No one owes Trump anything.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Bullshit. Trump's attracting lower middle class voters who want protectionism. Our media is focusing on the David Dukes and the Mexican wall nonsense because nobody in the Establishment wants to address the criticism that globalization fucks over a lot of average people. It's all about money. It's always all about money. Trump is fueled primarily by poor folks who want to roll back globalization.

This is complete bullshit. The average Trump voter couldn't point to a globe. They like that he doesn't take shit, doesn't kowtow to the media even after they've identified his bullshit, hates muslims, Mexicans, and immigrants in general, and caters to racists by retweeting racist bullshit and winking at the white supremacists. Globalization. FOH.

The rest of your post isn't worth quoting. Trump will appoint people to important positions based on how they treated him in the last ten minutes, would completely destroy our standing in the world or any respect we've ever had, would rule via fucking twitter, and would act 10x worse than he currently acts because by winning the election he would believe he was right about all things. He would be waaaaay worse the Dubya. But I don't know if he'd be worse than Cruz.

Ladies and gentlemen, your Republican party.

TM

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

This is a stretch. Forbes has him at $4bil. (I think it's more like $2bil.) He also didn't get $200mil. He has brothers and sisters, and the old man wasn't even worth that much.

I don't think the details matter that much, but that the general story holds is an important lesson about how wealth works and why we should be wary of assigning it merit.

Anyway, here's Bloomberg:

The simplest version of the comparison seems to be that if Trump had taken his $40 million inheritance from his father in 1974, converted it into cash, and invested it in the S&P 500, reinvesting all dividends and spending no money along the way, he'd have about $2.3 billion or so today, depending on how you do the math. Bloomberg computes his actual net worth as $2.9 billion, so he's modestly outperformed the S&P over his career, again depending on how you do the math.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

But above all, they feared that actually enacting immigration reform would give Obama a "win", and that was unacceptable.

It's not just that. It's also that they feared they'd get primaried over it and wind up out of office. Because they know the forces that back Trump are out there in their party.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I was not a Hillary hater (frankly, she'll run things like a moderate Reagan Democrat, so the GOP hatred for her is baffling). But the way she's gamed the system to screw Bernie? And her plagiarism of his speeches? Fuck her.

What is lost to you is that this is exactly why Bernie got into the race in the first place. To push the debate to the left. It wasn't to win. He may think he has a chance now (and he doesn't), but making Hillary take a position further left than she would have liked in the primaries was the original goal. And he did it well.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

You can't win in this election.

This is absolutely irresponsible. I can grant you the argument that we can't win with these candidates. That's fine. But we can sure as hell lose really fucking badly if we choose wrong. It's like the difference between getting slapped and getting run over by a fucking freight train. Neither is good, but one is a helluva lot worse.

TM

[Adder]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

First, Someone I know was in a Trump deal recently and took a look at his financials. They claim he isn't even worth a billion dollars. If this is true, then it is amazing that he has squandered daddy's money so epically. Also, if it's true, he is not a success. He's a complete failure because if he had simply invested daddy's money in the most conservative way, he'd be worth way more than he is now.

But I love how you are able to reclassify people mentioning bankruptcy after bankruptcy as an attempt to undo his success.

No. Dubya and Jeb killed the Bush dynasty. No one owes Trump anything.

This is complete bullshit. The average Trump voter couldn't point to a globe. They like that he doesn't take shit, doesn't kowtow to the media even after they've identified his bullshit, hates muslims, Mexicans, and immigrants in general, and caters to racists by retweeting racist bullshit and winking at the white supremacists. Globalization. FOH.

The rest of your post isn't worth quoting. Trump will appoint people to important positions based on how they treated him in the last ten minutes, would completely destroy our standing in the world or any respect we've ever had, would rule via fucking twitter, and would act 10x worse than he currently acts because by winning the election he would believe he was right about all things. He would be waaaaay worse the Dubya. But I don't know if he'd be worse than Cruz.

Ladies and gentlemen, your Republican party.

TM

I don't recall if it was said here, but the most apt comparison I've see is that Trump would likely be Berlusconi. Complete, utter, corrupt, self-aggrandizing shit show.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I'll admit some bias here. I like Bernie. He elevated the discourse and he took on the banks. And though it was all pie in the sky, he was at least honest when he said he'd try to start a revolution.

Scratch a cynic and you'll find a pissed off idealist? Maybe that saying fits me here. Bernie's a good man, and I'd have liked to see him get a lot further, even if it doesn't square with my greedier instincts.

He did damn well given that he had no national profile before he ran. But he shouldn't get bitter or throw shade over that, he should kick himself for not doing a better job laying the groundwork. Because he could have been somebody.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

I have no idea what you are talking about, but if you are suggesting I would have provided unsolicited no-strings-attached fellatio to Trump at some point in the past, then you sir have gone too far. Because Trump hates gays.

I'm not saying you'd do anything that Mitt wouldn't have done himself.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Adder

I don't recall if it was said here, but the most apt comparison I've see is that Trump would likely be Berlusconi. Complete, utter, corrupt, self-aggrandizing shit show.

He has grander ambitions than this. He was to be more like a Chinese plutocrat.