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#1 Fire Blazer

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Posted 14 November 2016 - 05:21 PM

A general politics thread, mainly in regards to the issues with the U.S. right now...

 

 

@blazer yeah that WAS the idea, however it severely reduces the representation of the general population. situations where the popular vote and the electoral college vote differ are easy to have happen

 

well sure, I'm just saying what people thought

 

 

and like someone else mentioned it makes it impossible for a conservative voter to have any voice in a state like California or a liberal voter to have a voice in Texas
anyone who didn't vote with the majority of their state is basically told that their opinion doesn't matter in the least

 

I get it dude, you're preaching to the wrong person, lol

 

 

Though in hindsight this is one election where the minority who actually follow their conscious truly had no voice

 

conscience, you mean? I think you mean? lol

 

 

As a statement of how utterly ridiculous the election was I voted for Bruce Campbell, I'm certain he would make a better president than either trump or Clinton. Though frankly of the two I would have preferred Clinton I guess...

 

I don't think this is making any good statement at all. granted, I don't know where you voted or if it really would have mattered, but voting for a 3rd-party candidate with no chance is almost as bad as not voting at all and telling everyone else "you pick my President for me"

 

I kind of understand the people who have serious ties to the other candidates and are basically obliged to vote for them, but not otherwise, because it's just pointless

 

 

(13 November 2016 - 09:48 PM) I think I'd end up voting for an inanimate carbon rod over Trump. Clinton has a hope and a prayer of things staying relatively close enough to status quo for 4 years that maybe the next Republican candidate is better. Or maybe she would have become unpopular enough that another Democrat would steal the primary from under her nose.

Stein and Johnson would have utterly damaged the country out of pure lack of knowledge of what their policies actually mean (Johnson entirely clear by his insanely wrong tax estimates, Stein by how she plans to cancel student debt). Trump the same, I guess. Clinton at least has hopes of keeping the boat steady.

 

exactly, Clinton's terrible but at least I feel like we would have had a chance at not destroying ourselves until the next election where hopefully a better candidate could swoop in

 

 

My conscience would not let me vote for either.

 

same thing as I said to zac. You should vote for the lesser of the two evils, because someone has to make it. I appreciate the sentiment, having done the same in the 2012 election, but this is so much worse than the 2012 election I was forced to vote for Clinton even though I think she's dumb and incompetent

 

 

Incidentally, if I were an American, I think I'd vote Clinton out of pure desperation to avoid him getting in. Not that I like her, but by the same logic that getting shot in the foot is better than getting shot in the head.

 

exactly. not voting to me is like saying "go ahead, shoot me in the head". just typing that was difficult.

 

this isn't the place for it, but reminds me of a scene in something where IIRC the main character has to choose between saving the life of a mother or a child, and because he can't choose, both end up dying. making a choice can be really difficult, but IMO choosing between the evil of Clinton and Trump is a much easier decision than that.

 

 

(13 November 2016 - 04:49 PM) A candidate who's not valid and in written is will officially be declared a spoiled ballot (that is, writing in "Screw you" and "Harambe" will yield the same result)

 

stupid people piss me off sometimes and I'm not sure if it's justified or irrational >_>


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#2 Blue Leafeon

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Posted 14 November 2016 - 05:48 PM


You should vote for the lesser of the two evils

See. That's it. That's the whole issue right here. This mindset. This is why we're stuck in the hole that we're in.

 

You do realize that, every year, a list of candidates that are not republican or democrat runs for office, yes? Yet our media will not even acknowledge their presence. Jill Stein showed up for one of the debates and wasn't even allowed on the premises for this reason. It's not even a matter of whether or not they would have actually gotten in because the law doesn't say "ONLY REPUBLICANS OR DEMOCRATS CAN GET IN OFFICE."

 

Everyone I saw this election, everyone I talked to about the final two candidates had this very mindset. "Well, I'm voting for x because the other is awful." I tried to talk to them. I tried to tell them that there were other choices, but they ignored me. Wouldn't even acknowledge that I said anything. Just kept going on about how x is awful and how they're voting for the other because of it, despite the other's flaws.

 

If everyone. EVERYONE. who didn't like either candidate had voted for an independent, Donald Trump would not be in office.

 

We wouldn't be in this mess.

 

Because 90% of people didn't like either candidate. They just hated one more than the other. They felt that they had no choice but to "pick the lesser of the two evils." They felt like voting for anything else was "throwing away your vote." Yes, yes it is. But you know why it's throwing away your vote? Because everyone thinks that way. Because nobody will step up and vote for what's RIGHT, because "my vote won't count if I do."


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#3 ^Leo^

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Posted 14 November 2016 - 05:52 PM

@councious: yeah it was a typo. idk where my head was on that

 

@lesser of two evils: ...was either one the "lesser evil" in this case? and i'm not trying to be contrary here at all. there wasn't really a clear worse candidate to me. both of them are horrible people that should be in prison, and not in any kind of political position. they both had faults, but when i took a close look it was more of a lateral shift of evil between voting for one or the other. i really couldn't bring myself to vote for either. i gave it plenty of thought, believe me. i was in support of gary johnson for awhile(mostly because not trump/hillary rather than i actually like johnson), but then he flaked out hard. doing stupid crap all over the place. Jill stein has ok ideals i guess, but i can't see half of them coming to fruition. 

 

@leafeon's post: yup. been saying that since trump actually got some real support. i'm still hoping that someone is going to tell me it was all a big joke, and trump doesn't actually have any political power. the media has too much control over what we see in all aspects of the news, but it's especially true with politics.



#4 Blue Leafeon

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Posted 14 November 2016 - 06:00 PM

 

@lesser of two evils: ...was either one the "lesser evil" in this case? and i'm not trying to be contrary here at all. there wasn't really a clear worse candidate to me. both of them are horrible people that should be in prison, and not in any kind of political position.

Agreed 100%. I wanted desperately for us to find them both guilty for something (they have plenty of things to take them to court for) and redo the election.

 

Alas...

 

Jill stein has ok ideals i guess, but i can't see half of them coming to fruition.

To be fair, MOST presidential candidates' ideals (or "ideals" in some cases...) never come to fruition lol.


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#5 Fire Blazer

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Posted 14 November 2016 - 06:07 PM

See. That's it. That's the whole issue right here. This mindset. This is why we're stuck in the hole that we're in.

 

You do realize that, every year, a list of candidates that are not republican or democrat runs for office, yes? Yet our media will not even acknowledge their presence. Jill Stein showed up for one of the debates and wasn't even allowed on the premises for this reason. It's not even a matter of whether or not they would have actually gotten in because the law doesn't say "ONLY REPUBLICANS OR DEMOCRATS CAN GET IN OFFICE."

 

Everyone I saw this election, everyone I talked to about the final two candidates had this very mindset. "Well, I'm voting for x because the other is awful." I tried to talk to them. I tried to tell them that there were other choices, but they ignored me. Wouldn't even acknowledge that I said anything. Just kept going on about how x is awful and how they're voting for the other because of it, despite the other's flaws.

 

If everyone. EVERYONE. who didn't like either candidate had voted for an independent, Donald Trump would not be in office.

 

We wouldn't be in this mess.

 

Because 90% of people didn't like either candidate. They just hated one more than the other. They felt that they had no choice but to "pick the lesser of the two evils." They felt like voting for anything else was "throwing away your vote." Yes, yes it is. But you know why it's throwing away your vote? Because everyone thinks that way. Because nobody will step up and vote for what's RIGHT, because "my vote won't count if I do."

 

well, first of all, the other candidates were trash too

 

but anyway, the problem with this argument is that it's an ideal. I agree with the ideal. ideally, we would actually get a significant amount of votes going for more than two people. and everyone would have a fair chance.

 

but it's precisely because America is stuck in this trap that it's pointless to hold to that ideal without first handling the trap.

 

most people don't even know the other candidates. why? because they're not highlighted by the media, in the debates, by commercials, etc., because they aren't talked about as much, because the candidates aren't clear, because people really only think in terms of republican/democrat, conservative/liberal, left/right, blue/red, whatever it is

 

your idea sounds great on paper but it's not realistic at all. before you go voting for another candidate, you need to convince other people to vote for that candidate so that you aren't just wasting your vote. however, they will fear wasting their vote just like you, and so it's an endless cycle, and yes, it sucks and no one seems to know how to get out of it. there are efforts made every election to increase the presence of the 3rd vote but the downside is that all they are really doing to affect the election is taking away votes from the only 2 actually plausible candidates. the fact that the party system extends to the house and senate and that people in general tend to side with one or the other (whether it's out of obligation or because they actually agree with their views to some extent) doesn't help either, of course.

 

not only would you need a strong 3rd candidate that people actually want to vote for, you'd need to give them the same level of attention, advertisement, backing, etc. that the democratic and republican nominees have. the reason why people are ignoring you or whatever is because it's futile. if the cycle is going to be broken, it's going to take either a very quick and dramatic change (e.g. changing how the President is elected in general) or a slow, well-calculated change (by slowly building up a party and maybe even a person over the years, coordinating efforts, and actually having enough of an impact for people who actually care enough about politics to say "wow! this is a legitimate candidate! my vote won't be wasted if I vote for them, so I should consider them too!")

 

in short, your post is nice, but it represents an ideal. yes, it's people's mentality that's hurting things, but it's not something you can just fix on the spot. I stand by the opinion that it is better to focus on the now and vote for someone that might actually win and that the problem of having only 2 real candidates/parties running for president is something that has to be solved through some other method.

 

in the end whoever you voted for lost anyway, so you ended up going with the flow after all, just by force. just as I did, since the person I voted for didn't win either. the flow is the problem, but fighting against it by myself has no merit. you have to prepare to fight the flow of things before it starts flowing.

 

I'm not a politician or political activist or whatever so it's not my job, but if a 3rd-party candidate ever supported my views or the like, I would certainly consider voting for them, without needing convincing from someone else. but it's their job to convince the people who won't even consider them, and to spread information and awareness, if this country is to ever get out of this dumb election process.


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#6 Fire Blazer

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Posted 14 November 2016 - 06:12 PM

@councious: yeah it was a typo. idk where my head was on that

 

@lesser of two evils: ...was either one the "lesser evil" in this case? and i'm not trying to be contrary here at all. there wasn't really a clear worse candidate to me. both of them are horrible people that should be in prison, and not in any kind of political position. they both had faults, but when i took a close look it was more of a lateral shift of evil between voting for one or the other. i really couldn't bring myself to vote for either. i gave it plenty of thought, believe me. i was in support of gary johnson for awhile(mostly because not trump/hillary rather than i actually like johnson), but then he flaked out hard. doing stupid crap all over the place. Jill stein has ok ideals i guess, but i can't see half of them coming to fruition. 

 

@leafeon's post: yup. been saying that since trump actually got some real support. i'm still hoping that someone is going to tell me it was all a big joke, and trump doesn't actually have any political power. the media has too much control over what we see in all aspects of the news, but it's especially true with politics.

 

well, Trump wants me deported and/or dead and basically endorses racism, discrimination, and hate crimes. the KKK was like, celebrating his election. I'm biased because I'm not a white male christian, but I'd rather not have to live in fear at the absurdity of a guy comparable to Hitler in a country that's supposed to be welcoming, tolerant, and free, than deal with a lying, incompetent, stupid idiot (all of which Trump is anyway).

 

at least with Hillary a fear might be that she's so incompetent she'll let the country get invaded, but that's a more solvable issue and one that most Americans can probably agree is not ideal, unlike topics like immigration and discrimination where people are divided.

 

not to mention Trump's staff is basically equally terrible as him, so that's another point loss for Trump. I'd say he's a 13/10 on the evil scale, and Hillary's like an 8/10. at least she's not nazi level.


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#7 ^Leo^

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Posted 14 November 2016 - 06:22 PM

you're not wrong. i won't argue with you at all. trump is a scary person to have as a politician of any kind, much less as the face of the country. he's the worst kind of person really.

 

actually the one point i might change a little is that trump's staff is far worse than him. pence especially. he's closer to himmler than hitler, but when you think about it which one was worse during the holocaust?



#8 Fire Blazer

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Posted 14 November 2016 - 06:41 PM

bad people are bad.

 

I more than most people would prefer someone besides Trump & Hillary, but I gotta think about how I'm going to survive these next 4 years. especially now that Trump is actually gonna be president.

 

the worst thing is that depending on how this goes, he could be re-elected, which is somehow both unimaginable and terrifyingly imaginable (given that we never thought he'd be elected in the first place, but here he is... >_>')


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#9 Blue Leafeon

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Posted 14 November 2016 - 06:45 PM

 

in the end whoever you voted for lost anyway, so you ended up going with the flow after all, just by force. just as I did, since the person I voted for didn't win either. the flow is the problem, but fighting against it by myself has no merit. you have to prepare to fight the flow of things before it starts flowing.

That doesn't matter. What matters is that I personally feel like I made the right choice, even if nobody else wanted to do the same. I voted for what I thought was right. In the end, I didn't vote for a lying witch who sold out our country to our enemies, and I didn't vote for an overgrown child who should have never been allowed to be president.

 

That's the thing about politics, though. People will always find fault with you no matter which way you voted. Might as well vote for what you felt was right, so that YOU feel good about your decision.

 

 

in the end whoever you voted for lost anyway,

Thank you for reminding me of my track record for making every candidate I ever voted for lose by voting for them </3


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#10 kirant

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Posted 14 November 2016 - 07:26 PM

You do realize that, every year, a list of candidates that are not republican or democrat runs for office, yes? Yet our media will not even acknowledge their presence. Jill Stein showed up for one of the debates and wasn't even allowed on the premises for this reason.

 

This is because, IIRC, you need to have a specific percentage of the popular vote.  Stein was trying to get in despite knowing this limitation and was polling behind Gary Johnson, who also didn't meet the criteria for minimum popular vote to be eligible for the debate.

 

It's not specifically a case of not knowing about any alternatives.  It's a limitation in FPTP voting period.  A Tea Party Republican has no reason to vote Gary Johnson if Johnson has <0.1% chance to even win any electoral college votes.  He'd prefer to see Trump in office any day of the week over Clinton.  So he swallows his pride and goes Trump.  Same with many people who'd naturally gravitate Green but can't stand Trump.  As unfortunate as it is, strategic voting is a part of FPTP voting.  A system I absolutely despise and wish was gone from politics...but still a part of the system as it exists.  I mean, Stein's ~5% of the poular vote, IMO, should count for something as should Johnson's 6%.  But the system is so fundamentally screwy that anybody but the two major parties will get destroyed.

 

Everyone I saw this election, everyone I talked to about the final two candidates had this very mindset. "Well, I'm voting for x because the other is awful." I tried to talk to them. I tried to tell them that there were other choices, but they ignored me. Wouldn't even acknowledge that I said anything. Just kept going on about how x is awful and how they're voting for the other because of it, despite the other's flaws.

See above.  Strategic voting is why this keeps happening.

 

This is also one of the worst elections for candidates period.  Even the third party candidate are horrible.  I think John Oliver put it best: it's not the worst of 2 evils, but the worst of 4 evils. 

 

The president was either doomed to having some combination of zero knowledge about how policies actually work, being far too cozy with special interests groups, being hawkish, being hypocritical, being an overall horrible human being, and pandering to the conspiracy theory group.

 

If everyone. EVERYONE. who didn't like either candidate had voted for an independent, Donald Trump would not be in office.

First, there's nothing to say that everybody who didn't like either candidate would vote for an independent.  If you rated Clinton 4/10, Trump 2/10, Stein 3/10, Johnson 1/10...you'd still vote Clinton even though you think she'll be a bad president. 

 

Additionally, I kind of feel that likely would have ensured a Trump presidency assuming no massive shift to the House of Representatives. 

 

The role of determining the president goes to the House of Representatives if the electoral college doesn't have a majority winner (270 voters), a likely situation if we saw voting by popular vote.  Let's even be generous to the third parties and say for sake of argument that it was a bit better than the popular vote for them.  Clinton gets ~45%, Trump ~43%, Johnson ~6%, Stein ~4%, remainder 2%.  And let's say they got exact proportional representation in the Electoral College.  Then you end up with a hung College and the House of Reps gets to decide, as 50 states, who wins.  And Trump, who won a majority of the states, likely would take that.

 

@lesser of two evils: ...was either one the "lesser evil" in this case? and i'm not trying to be contrary here at all. there wasn't really a clear worse candidate to me. both of them are horrible people that should be in prison, and not in any kind of political position. they both had faults, but when i took a close look it was more of a lateral shift of evil between voting for one or the other. i really couldn't bring myself to vote for either. i gave it plenty of thought, believe me. i was in support of gary johnson for awhile(mostly because not trump/hillary rather than i actually like johnson), but then he flaked out hard. doing stupid crap all over the place. Jill stein has ok ideals i guess, but i can't see half of them coming to fruition.

I think there was. From an economics point of view, Trump is poised to do some serious damage.  He preaches small governance but his promises are likely to add on way, way more debt than Clinton's ever would.

 

From a tax point of view, he'll reduce income tax across the boards.  This might sound good at the start but creates a massive government income shortfall which he doesn't make up for in spending cuts (~5 trillion over a decade).  Even accounting for increased investment in the US due to lower tax rate, this is sill a massive amount of money the government must borrow.  The vast majority of the benefit also goes to the extremely wealthy (top .5%).  This is one of his biggest platforms and it falls apart at the most basic of analysis.

 

From a policy point of view, I don't think I need to say much.  Trump's policy is basically "we've got the best policy".  He's already showing signs of flip flopping all over by doing 180s on the Affordable Care Act and his stance of the USA generals.

 

Not to mention everything else about him ranging from setting race relations back, spending on a fence (now that he's changed his mind) across Mexico, pandering to conspiracies about media out to get him, and the fact that I don't think I'd trust this man with the nuclear football given his handling of his Twitter account.

 

Not saying I like Clinton's policies either.  She basically is the same as Obama and does nothing to solve the current failings in US budgeting.  She's also hawkish and seems all too willing to drop the US military hammer.  Not to mention, she has very little policy in many areas and only gets ignored on that front as Trump is just as ugly for lack of policy.

 

Johnson is ugly as well.  His tax policies are better than Trump, sure.  But it's shocking to find out that Johnson has a foreign policy knowledge even less capable than Trump.  I mean, all you had to do was name a politician.  Any of them.  And his estimates are really far off the mark too in terms of how much a consumption tax you'd need to mark off stuff...and he has no clue which departments will actually be relevant.

 

Stein...well...I can't even get through a sentence on her without stating her lack of knowledge on quantitative easing.  No, it's not an easy thing to understand.  I basically got an hour session with my economics major brother and I'm not sure I get it yet based on our conversation.  But I already got to the point where it's clear that this isn't how she claims it works.  It's not some magic wand but a very uncertain art which had economists shaking in their boots because they were concerned it would do extremely serious damage to the nation (thankfully, there was no currency to really change to at the moment so nothing happened...but many were wondering if the US dollar would turn into the Peso in terms of value).  Then her AMAs on Reddit...what a nightmare.  No, Reddit is typical Reddit.  I expected that.  Her answers were horrible.  She cozies up to the conspiracy theory crowd by hedging her answers on 9/11, autism/vaccines, and phones/wifi causing cancer.  You're a goddamn doctor.  The first one is defensible, if only slightly.  The last two...you just finished working in the field.  Don't go pretending you don't know what the truth is.  And her response to the very public calling out by John Oliver?  Just keep repeating the same points that got her in trouble with him to begin with.

 

I'm only half kidding when I'd have voted for Cthulhu over any of the above if I were to pick the best candidate.  At least then I know I'm getting the greatest evil.


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#11 ^Leo^

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Posted 14 November 2016 - 07:43 PM

since it hasn't really been talked about yet i'm gonna say it. i'm far more scared of pence. he's an experienced politician with the same problems that trump has, and his experience means that he actually knows what he can do with the powers he has. half of my friends and i are terrified of what might happen when pence starts doing the same things he did in indiana with the rest of the country. it's already legal to discriminate against gays in indiana. you can straight up tell a gay couple to get out of your place of business, and you are protected by a law that pence signed personally(also this may not surprise you, but he went through the trouble of keeping it quiet until it was signed). if that happens to the rest of the country we're screwed. i'm not entirely open about my sexuality(especially with strangers since it isn't really any of their business), but some of my friends are relatively flamboyant and already discriminated against to some degree. the trump administration is pretty much anti-anybody-that-isn't-white-cisgender-male and it's really scary imo that they can get away with it in a place where people seemed to be moving towards being more and more tolerant of other beliefs and racial descents. 



#12 kirant

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Posted 14 November 2016 - 10:43 PM

since it hasn't really been talked about yet i'm gonna say it. i'm far more scared of pence. he's an experienced politician with the same problems that trump has, and his experience means that he actually knows what he can do with the powers he has. 

This is something I've seen discussed a bit in Canada...the world is 1 bullet away from having a president who argued for electroshock therapy for homosexuals.

 

I'm not as scared of Pence from a global perspective.  He seems less likely to press the big red button and doom parts of humanity.  But I'm more scared of Pence from an interior perspective.

 

I would also posit that Trump is more open to many of these points than people think.  He's already backtracking faster than me when I lose my wallet.  No wall, just a fence.  Maybe parts of ACA will stay.  Time to select established politicians.  I don't believe he stated anything blatantly anti-homosexual before running for president and it might become a case that he just kind of ignores the fact that non-heterosexual individuals exist at all.  It's typically been the other candidates and his crowds which were horrible people in that regard. 

 

What I am concerned about with a Trump presidency is that it validates these feelings.  That the homophobic take it as a sign that they were right and it's time to claim back America in the name of all that's good and holy.  We saw it with racists already (to which now Trump is trying to curtail with pleas to stop).  Time will tell if the same will happen again.


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#13 ^Leo^

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Posted 14 November 2016 - 10:49 PM

What I am concerned about with a Trump presidency is that it validates these feelings.  That the homophobic take it as a sign that they were right and it's time to claim back America in the name of all that's good and holy.  We saw it with racists already (to which now Trump is trying to curtail with pleas to stop).  Time will tell if the same will happen again.

that's the point though. politicians by themselves have very little power, it's when you have a large group of people that are empowered by them that things get hairy. i've been saying this whole time that i'm not worried about trump being president as much as i am about the people who voted for him knowing that he and his administration support horrible ideals that we've been fighting against for decades.



#14 kirant

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Posted 14 November 2016 - 11:15 PM

that's the point though. politicians by themselves have very little power, it's when you have a large group of people that are empowered by them that things get hairy. i've been saying this whole time that i'm not worried about trump being president as much as i am about the people who voted for him knowing that he and his administration support horrible ideals that we've been fighting against for decades.

I think the question may come down to how much he'll wrestle control over his cabinet.  Again, Trump himself isn't a big supporter of all that stuff and he really didn't let Pence fly off the handle.  Trump actually seems reasonably close to Democrats in terms of his 'live and let live' approach to these issues.  So if they're looking to him, they won't get validation.  The validation has to come from the atmosphere at his rallies or by having Pence freewheel (something that hasn't happened yet...really, the only words we got out of Pence was that he and Trump disagreed on Russia).

 

Trump to me seems like a CEO.  He wants all the power centralized around him.  I mean, that stokes his ego and probably his basic business expertise.  Early signs are that he'll become the key man on all things and his cabinet will act on his will.  So if he keeps a short rope on guys like Carson, things might not change all that much.  But if Trump himself begins going back to campaign Trump or if he gives his cabinet a lot of leeway in terms of what they can say and do (and they do start repeating the statements of the past), things could get ugly fast.  I mean, the instant kick to a "white" America can be traced back to his fear mongering about Mexicans, Muslims, and the ever present 'gina stealing jobs.  People were clearly riled up by his words there.  Not sure there same instant connection can be made for homosexuality as Trump is pretty mute on the issue.  It, at least in my mind, requires free statements from his cabinet, something he's had locked down for a while.  Watch out if he loosens that.

 

I think we're probably in agreement that we're in a holding pattern now.  If the shoe drops, things get messy.


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