Trump

[gumboot]

How's he going to do it, anyway? Presumably it'd be part of that list of questions like "have you ever supported a terrorist organization?".

Not sure anybody would notice if it's on a big list of things where you have to tick the 'no' box all the way down.

[KlaxonCow]

This is just campaign talk to get the votes of scared right wing people afraid of more attacks in the US.

Of course it is, because it's unconstitutional and the Supreme Court will tear it down in seconds.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

It's an outright violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, as you can see. This is exactly what the First Amendment was written to prevent. Theocracy is against US law. This proposal is legally impossible to implement in the USA (you'd have to first tear down the Constitution itself and, well, you know, "never gonna happen").

So, I mean, that's not just an opinion that it's only campaign talk, it's simply a legal reality that it cannot be anything else but that.

The Supreme Court will not legally allow it. Congress would never back it (and they do have legal powers to veto Presidential actions). Individual States - though they have no direct control over borders, as that's (logically enough) a federal matter - would protest it to high heaven.

He might as well be proposing a law to rename the country "Trumpland" and give everyone free wigs on taxpayer money - because that would have far more chance of ever seeing the light of day than his "ban Muslims" concept.

Sanders hasn’t a hope.

And if Obama still holds any sway with voters, he's just effectively broken protocol in his emotional speech about new gun control laws.

Because though he named no names, he urged voters to "remember come election time" which leaders are standing in the way of sensible gun control laws. Hilary has come out strongly for gun control, Sanders has been much more wishy-washy and non-committal about doing anything.

It's not an explicit endorsement, of course, as it'd be wrong of him to do so, but you can read between the lines there fairly easily on what his recommendation would be. As Hilary is 100% behind him on this, where Sanders isn't.

[Portland]

[gumboot]

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

It's an outright violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, as you can see.

What I've seen claimed is that the religion is already established so (provided you don't read 'establishment' as 'something that is established') you can say that you're not interfering with the establishment of it, and (as they've already precedented the fuck out of this) the constitution is not about people who are not already present on US soil or naturalised citizens or brown or whatever. This is a move to mess with the rights of people who haven't entered the US yet, and those aren't people as defined by crazy-fuck interpretation of the constitution.

[pogo]

Clinton doesn’t need Obama’s backing to beat Sanders. She is already thinking about the campaign against the Republican nominee, whoever it will be.

The Democratic race this time is very odd. Often the incumbent is unopposed after their first term, so e.g. Obama did not have any serious opposition in the “race” to become Democratic candidate in 2012. But at all other times both parties are usually very competitive. The process is very open and pretty much anyone can run, and there are usually strong candidates on both sides that jump in.

But this time Hilary Clinton is the only serious candidate. Sanders certainly would like to win but his brand of socialism has little support in the Democratic party, even less outside. Martin O’Malley is polling even worse than Sanders. And those are the only three that are on the ballot of all the states, so with a theoretical chance of winning.

The last chance of upsetting her bandwagon was if Joe Biden, VP, entered the race. But he decided not to, only a short time ago, and it’s too late for anyone else. Absent a complete collapse of her campaign she will be the candidate. And the way the Republicans are going choosing her opponent she will very likely be president a year from now.

[Darkflame]

Sanders hasn’t a hope.

And if Obama still holds any sway with voters, he's just effectively broken protocol in his emotional speech about new gun control laws.

Because though he named no names, he urged voters to "remember come election time" which leaders are standing in the way of sensible gun control laws. Hilary has come out strongly for gun control, Sanders has been much more wishy-washy and non-committal about doing anything.

It's not an explicit endorsement, of course, as it'd be wrong of him to do so, but you can read between the lines there fairly easily on what his recommendation would be. As Hilary is 100% behind him on this, where Sanders isn't.

I think its a bit much given the US climate on things to expect Sanders to both argue that socialism isn't a defacto bad thing and that there needs to be stricter gun control.
One miracle at a time.

Many thought the same of Trump six months ago, that he did not have a hope. Many still think it. But he has been leading polls and dominating media. Unlike the Democrats, where Clinton seems unstoppable,

Dominating the media certainly. I am not sure you are correct there with the poll comparison though, pretty sure that Sanders is fact beats Trump quite healthy there.

Its all, of course, largely meaningless at this stage. But if we are looking at like-for-like, Sanders is only "less likely" due to stiffer competition, rather then doing worse in absolute terms.

[pogo]

Dominating the media certainly. I am not sure you are correct there with the poll comparison though, pretty sure that Sanders is fact beats Trump quite healthy there.

Its all, of course, largely meaningless at this stage. But if we are looking at like-for-like, Sanders is only "less likely" due to stiffer competition, rather then doing worse in absolute terms.

I don’t have the numbers in front of me but I can believe Sanders numerically beats Trump in the polls. But they are not in the same contest. Sanders is essentially in a two horse race with Clinton. Say he’s polling at 30%. Then Clinton has almost 70% and is trouncing him. The Republican contest is much more fragmented with at least six people still considered in the running (Trump, Carson, Cruz, Bush, Rubio, Christie). 30% of the vote there is enough for a commanding lead.

News companies sometimes run polls between parties, where they pick two candidates, such as Trump and Sanders, and ask voters which they would vote for. But such polls are meaningless. The general election is almost a year today, the campaign proper has not even started. Some candidates improve from the primaries to the general election, some get worse. In particular policies and positions that went down well among primary voters can be vote losers among the broader electorate.

That’s why Republicans are so worried about Trump. His nativist, racist even, policies and positions may go down well with some whites, but will drive away non-white voters, which include the fastest growing demographic groups in the US. Republicans need to appeal more to these groups, Hispanics in particular as the fastest growing group. That’s why they hoped Jeb Bush (speaks Spanish, Hispanic wife) or Marco Rubio (actually of Hispanic descent) would be the candidate, not Trump.

[Darkflame]

Historically speaking all the polls are meaningless at this stage I think. Pretty sure I read statistically they have been wrong just as much as correct.

Say he’s polling at 30%. Then Clinton has almost 70% and is trouncing him.

That said, this (randomly googled) site seems to compare them;

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls ... president/

Sanders seems to be getting 30-35s with Clinton a solid 50 in most surveys.
Sanders clearly losing, but it doesn't seem nearly as clear cut as proportionality TV coverage would seem to infer.

That’s why Republicans are so worried about Trump. His nativist, racist even, policies and positions may go down well with some whites, but will drive away non-white voters, which include the fastest growing demographic groups in the US. Republicans need to appeal more to these groups, Hispanics in particular as the fastest growing group. That’s why they hoped Jeb Bush (speaks Spanish, Hispanic wife) or Marco Rubio (actually of Hispanic descent) would be the candidate, not Trump.

Dog with two bones.
They want to be loved by everyone, yet also get the raciest vote.
They party needs to just dump trump and probably a lot of other people too in order to gain relevance.
Forget winning this election, they need to fight to stay in the race for the one after if there current status quo doesn't change.

[pogo]

Forget winning this election, they need to fight to stay in the race for the one after if there current status quo doesn't change.

The problem for the Republicans is their position gets worse each election cycle. The people who make up their core voters are mostly on the wrong side of demographic history. The fastest growing segments of the US population are non-white groups, blacks and Hispanics in particular. They already skewed heavily Democratic and the antics of Trump and the rest will only drive more of them away from the Republican party.

This is a long term problem for the Republican Party. Since 1996 1988 Republicans have only won the popular vote once, in 2004. In 2000 George W Bush won but Al Gore actually got more votes, and the election was eventually decided by the Supreme Court. Every other election Democrats got more support, going back 28 years. And it gets harder for them every election, as noted above.

[pogo]

Also: one of the more striking sequences in his advert is the one on migration. Not migration in the USA though, but in Africa, or more precisely Morocco:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter ... southern-/

Shows how out of touch with reality the US debate on this is. They don’t have a migration problem anything like much of Europe and the Middle East. The people supporting Trump see more and more non-white faces on TV, hear more and more Hispanic accents, even hear and see more and more Spanish being spoken and used. They think it’s an illegal immigration problem but it’s not, it’s much more a demographic “problem” – it’s due to the large and growing number of Hispanic Americans.

[venusian]

The Tories in this country are a bunch of over-privileged, over-entitled, self-interested toffs working to further enrich and entrench the top 1%. However they've managed to convince a high enough proportion of the 99% that they're for them that they've stayed in, or close to, power. They've done this at least partially through a divide-and-conquer approach.

Like Cameron, Osbourne and May, Trump doesn't need to stop being a hate-filled bag of shit. He only needs to convince each of the various sub-groups that his bigotry and prejudice against all the other groups is somehow beneficial to them. It's not impossible. One slice of cake in the bag of horse dung and everybody thinks it's theirs.

[F-ZeroOne]

Great policy. What else is he going to do? Because he has trouble understanding the tax code, he's just going to shut down the entire tax system until he can finally figure it out? Because he clearly doesn't really understand how women work, he's just going to ban women from doing anything, until he can figure out what the hell is going on with them?

Republicans actually have something of a track record in not having the faintest idea about how women work. Just yesterday, a candidate was claiming that men should be allowed to grab the nipples of any woman who breastfeeds in public. I wish I was making this up.

[F-ZeroOne]

He is going to temporarily stop all muslims from entering the US?

All Muslims?

Including the rich Saudis, Koweitians, UAE, etc, etc that have all that money invested in the US? And all their families, relatives, and friends?

yeah, sure.

Thinking things through has not been a habit of Trump or the Republicans recently...

[F-ZeroOne]

How's he going to do it, anyway?

Do they look foreign? If answer is "Yes", they're not getting in.

[Darkflame]

Forget winning this election, they need to fight to stay in the race for the one after if there current status quo doesn't change.

The problem for the Republicans is their position gets worse each election cycle. The people who make up their core voters are mostly on the wrong side of demographic history. The fastest growing segments of the US population are non-white groups, blacks and Hispanics in particular. They already skewed heavily Democratic and the antics of Trump and the rest will only drive more of them away from the Republican party.

This is a long term problem for the Republican Party. Since 1996 1988 Republicans have only won the popular vote once, in 2004. In 2000 George W Bush won but Al Gore actually got more votes, and the election was eventually decided by the Supreme Court. Every other election Democrats got more support, going back 28 years. And it gets harder for them every election, as noted above.

Thing is, is that reflective of the US getting more left-leaning in general, or rather that regardless of political principles people are being progressively more put off by the rest of the stuff being bundled into the republican party?

I am pretty left leaning myself, but I can picture people being right leaning, but still having to vote democratic in the states because (for example) they believe in radical ideas like gay marriage rights or global warming being a thing.

I could almost see America splitting into a 3 party system in the long run here, if the demand for "right leaning but non-republican" creates a big enough vacuum.
Or, alternatively, the republicans ditch all their weird social problems - thus creating a vacuum for the racist biggot vote which Trump could mop up.

Shows how out of touch with reality the US debate on this is. They don’t have a migration problem anything like much of Europe and the Middle East. The people supporting Trump see more and more non-white faces on TV, hear more and more Hispanic accents, even hear and see more and more Spanish being spoken and used. They think it’s an illegal immigration problem but it’s not, it’s much more a demographic “problem” – it’s due to the large and growing number of Hispanic Americans.

I have seen folks talking about syrian refugees negatively influencing the culture of the US.
Given that America has only offered to take...what...10,000(?) It also seems like many people dont have a particularly good grasp of population scales.