My dad was a good ol’ boy from a small town in the south, but I grew up in the big city, so I don’t have my positions “straight” on various issues. The second amendment is actually one that I don’t have a hardline stance on. I do think the government should be afraid of the people to an extent. That was the point of that amendment.
Edit: the government should be terrified of the people, like we’re a demanding boss. I think we can all agree that we’re not in a perfect democracy. One of the weapons the public has to tilt the balance back is… well, weapons. I’m not advocating violence, but I understand the resistance to mass public disarmament. The cops and feds aren’t going to give up their weapons too. I think anyone who is calling for a ban on certain “scary” weapons should be honest and say they really favor a full repeal of the second amendment.
I find this line of reasoning absolutely baffling. Not sure if you are joking or not, but many people seem to find it is a good way to validate Trump as a candidate because hey, at this point, with him, everything is possible and things will surely be different, so why not?
What about… actually listening to what he says? Because the other option is … well, hey, like he is a contradictory mess of idiocy moved only by narcissism, then it is in the realm of possibility that he will actually not rule to satisfy the actual people that applaud him, but me! Yes, it is “possible” so lets just gamble that ALL THE SHIT HE SAYS AND KEEP SAYING actually has nothing to do with what he will do!
I’ve seen this before, I’m not American, I was born in Venezuela and I left when Chávez won, and it was the same shit. Lots of people willing to ignore what he was actually telling them because hehe, such a funny guy, thats just for the rubes, but see he is such a new and unplanned factor in politics that I’ll vote for him because sure it is possible it will not be EXACTLY what he is saying he will be - an authoritarian asshole.
I think he’s probably a really bad guy. I think you made a good argument and we need more of that. I was playing “devil” and “advocate” against each other earlier in the hopes of seeing a higher level of debate.
His rise is the manifestation of the public’s dissatisfaction, and I wanted to express my own. People are emotional, and they’re not going to drop their “beliefs” because of another stupid thing he said at this point. Bernie definitely would have won, but the other side of the establishment doubled down, and part of me wants to see them punished for it. Maybe people just want to watch it burn. I can see the appeal. Maybe they want to be on the right side of history, even if it’s the wrong side in every other context.
I do think his “unfiltered” style is carefully pre-planned. “Be offensive as hell for mass appeal” is his strategy. It’s working. I think there are a ton of flaws you an ascribe to him, but “dumb” just isn’t one. He completely reversed every single position he used to hold. He became the opposite of who he advertised himself as, just as soon as he started running for office. If I was running and thought the majority were idiots who were wrong about everything important, that’s what I would do too. His lack of moral compunction in pursuit of his goals… well, I’ve lost opportunities because I couldn’t lie. We like that ability in our movie and folk heroes. His appeal is understandable.
I think most people got over “everything is possible” with Obama, BTW. I was proud to see him win and hated almost everything he actually did.
I am really looking forward to seeing the more vocal ones (who said on record) that Obama was The Antichrist, would repeal term limits and institute a One World Global government and install himself as dictator of it, force Marxist Sharia on the planet, bring down the US with an inside terror act, etc. I actually have a family friend who earnestly believed the first two on that list, and grimly warned me to be ready. I will be making it a point to reconnect with him right around February to catch up on his current advice on what will appear to be Obama gracefully handing off the reigns to _________, but will no doubt just be an act, designed to lull us into letting our guard down while he finishes the physical transformation into a Muslim Marxian Lucifer in an underground vault (he’ll probably even be listening to hip hop while he does it).
Dude, those people just ignore stuff they don’t like. You think they’ll say “I was wrong”? You don’t get to the point where you’re able to hold stupid views like that if you can admit to being wrong. (ever)
They’ll just find an error in the calculations and tell you that the bible predicts the world will end six months from NOW.
Yes, this same quality is a major red flag with Trump.
Maybe the only way to get the powers of the presidency rolled back to a sensible level is to have a loose cannon like Trump in there, so that Congress will start realizing that the president is the administrator and commander of the armed forces, and no more.
And maybe the American public will start to realize that the president is there to administer the laws. He’s not there to make all their dreams come true.
I hate saying this about Trump. But I’m increasingly drawn that way.
If you want the power to be vested in Congress instead (not opposed to that, I like Parliamentary systems), you’ll have to fix the gerrymandered districts first, at least.
I really really love all you guys here and I think this community is intelligent and insightful, and I participate because of that old adage ‘talk with people smarter than yourself’. But I have mixed feelings about people being banned for having unpopular opinions. Maybe there is more to it than that? I don’t really know him. Why was he banned?
The Presidency has always been more than that (symbolically and literally) but even if it wasn’t, putting a “loose cannon” in charge of the most powerful military in the history of the world strikes me as a terrible, terrible idea.
You mean, a few thousand WHITE people will die, instead of the much higher (and ongoing) death toll of blacks at the hands/guns of LEOs? Oh, the horror! That would be a tragedy, right?
Besides, freaking out at the thought of a potential future terrorist attack literally means the terrorists have achieved their goal. It’s a cowardly mentality that proves America isn’t so great anymore.
He started his political career earlier than most people think. Also, you do kinda have me there, but really check out the video posted earlier. There’s a version of Trump in there that I would actually vote for:
He is definitely a sociopath. It’s amazing how effective he is. He can be everything to everybody because they’ll ignore what they don’t like. I do remember him being much more reasonable when I saw him in interviews before. It might be a bad memory, but if you did a low pass filter for orange cut of that video, you would see a guy who you could vote for.
