Trump

[(o)(o)]

The Labour Party in its wisdom decided it too should leave the choice of leader and PM candidate to its members. And of course they went for the most extreme...

Jeremy Corbyn "is extreme" because he's honest, rational, logical and uses reasoning. "Extreme" is a projection of the establishment- because he poses a threat.

The other options were 3 so obviously plastic twats.. no true Labour supporter respects a fake.

[PFVA]

Sanders winning in Washington is not a big surprise. In that State lots of people defend the National Health he defends too. They are very close to Canada, have a lot of exhange with it and have always defended a health system similar to Canada. That proximity may influence support for some of social democratic measures that exhist up there too.

I don't know much about Alaska so i won't venture on them.

The other thing is from the interviews i saw here on telly i got the feeling that Sanders was not exactly expecting to win. He was using the election demystifie Democratic Socialism and to explain people what it was about. That is something you hardly used to see on American television, where social democracy was almost a tabou issue. He is however openning the way for a new generation with new ideas, in terms of US, and who is not that happy with the way the economy is going over there.

It's possible that Hillary has a lot more support in the African-America Communities even though there is a lot of them specially in the NE that have similar ideas to Sanders. A lot of her support comes from the fact they, she and Bill supported Martin Luther King in the 60s and specially because Bill was the President that most did for the African Americans before Obama was elected.

The Hispanic Comunity is more difficult to read. At least the one in California is quite conservative, a lot of them are Republican supporters. They may not like Trump but they probably would go for Hillary and not Sanders. Even though among the younger generations there is also support for a change in the U.S. I'm curious to see the California primaries results but that's not till June.

[Darkflame]

The polls that match up Sanders and Trump are misleading I think, as they do not truly show how Sanders would do in the general election.

How is this any different from Trump though?
Polls can certainly be unreliable. But a poll asking "would you vote for A or B" should be a half-decent benchmark of the preference of voters - assuming the sample range itself wasn't bias.

And there is a lot in his platform to attack. Although universal healthcare seems as a no-brainer for us it would have significant costs and problems in the US. Even Obamacare which was far less ambitious has faced numerous challenges because of the disruption and losers under it. Sanders plan would be many times more disruptive

Your acting like Sanders is fighting someone that doesnt have the same issues with his ideas though.
Trump has proposed a ACA replacement with no decent explanation to how it would be funded. Sanders plan might not work due to being unable to implement it fully, but Trumps plan doesn't even explain how it would work in theoretical conditions.
Much like his wall - $15billion is looking like a conservative estimate, and then you got upkeep costs which will also be huge. There's so many different angles to attack Trumps seemingly main policy its hard to know where to start. A Ladder could defeat it? Theres no economic benifit? You need to repossess land and property to do it? Or the rather dirty fact that the US benefits from illegals anyway? [url=news.vice.com/article/unauthorized-immigrants-paid-100-billion-into-social-security-over-last-decade](social security wise[/url] and the more well known issue of farm workers)

If we are talking of things with "costs and problems" Trump breaks all scales here. His own reality distortion field is keeping him immune, but not sure that can keep up. His standard answer so far has effectively been "trust me".

Also worth noting Trump, if you minus his bluster and racism, isn't all that right-wing himself. At least, if you go with some of his past ideas. Although he is so unreliable its a bit hard to say what he currently thinks.


In terms of electability , I honestly think Sanders could beat Trump with ease. That doesn't mean he will get anywhere with congress being what it is.....but then, the flipside is Trump wouldn't either.
Sanders normally wouldn't stand a chance - but I cant see much which can be said negatively about Sanders that doesnt apply many times over to Trump.

[F-ZeroOne]

Its notable in interviews with Trump - even in print - that he seems to pause a lot between sentences; the more I see of him the more I'm convinced hes making it up as he goes along, sometimes within a few seconds of whatever his last idea was.

His proposed wall is almost certainly going to be unbuildable, certainly at least in the form in which he envisions it. John Oliver has pointed out Trumps own estimates have changed, in the upwards direction, by several billion dollars, as time has gone on and a study estimated that maintenance would, over time, cost several times that.

[pogo]

In terms of electability , I honestly think Sanders could beat Trump with ease. That doesn't mean he will get anywhere with congress being what it is.....but then, the flipside is Trump wouldn't either.
Sanders normally wouldn't stand a chance - but I cant see much which can be said negatively about Sanders that doesnt apply many times over to Trump.

Could beat him? Yes. With ease? I don’t know. I anticipate there being a large number of negatives for Sanders which would only come into play if he were candidate. They would both harm him and help the Republicans as they rallied around their candidate to keep out the socialist. Trump has many negatives against him too; the difference is we know what Trump’s negatives are, how voters are responding to them. But we really don’t know what Sanders’s negatives will be and how voters will respond. Some even we probably can’t know now as they will come about through Republican dirt digging or even fabrication.

Clinton we at least know what her negatives are. She is not liked, is not a very inspiring speaker. But she is mostly not liked by Republicans who would not support her anyway. She should be strong against Trump who has shown himself singularly unable to treat women as equals. She should beat him easily in debates. She could win with just strong majorities of women and minority voters.

Trump might win a majority among white males but still lose to Clinton. Romney in 2012 won among males and among whites but Obama was much stronger with women, Hispanics and Blacks, enough to win easily. And this time Blacks and Hispanics are an even larger share of the electorate. The Republican approach of focussing on white male voters is an increasingly losing strategy.

[gumboot]

Would they accuse him of playing the Jew card?

Or the I'm-not-Donald-J-Trump card?

[merman]

Forget the Grand Old Party, it's rapidly turning into the Childish Party.

"You said something nasty about my wife"
"Well, I won't support you if you win"

They all signed a "pledge" last November to back whichever candidate got the eventual nomination, but with Cruz and Kadish refusing to say publicly if they will back Trump, Trump has announced he's not going to back them.

[pogo]

Not surprising really; if Trump does not amass enough delegates to win before the convention (or even if he does) there could be a massive fight at the convention to insert someone else. In which case both Trump and his opponent(s) will look to paint each other as illegitimate. Refusing to support each other now is just part of that.

And today there's this:

Donald Trump: Punish women for illegal abortions

Which will only serve to further alienate the majority of voters who are women.

[funkstar]

What is this I don't even

[gumboot]

It looks like a lot of people have fun manipulating Trump into saying dumb shit. Just think how much more fun it would be if he were president!

[PFVA]

Those of you who believe Sanders doesn't have support among non-whites should read this

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-35930999

And it's true Hawaii has never been a "white" state.

[pogo]

It’s not the proportion that are non-white so much as the proportion that are Black. Washington, Alaska and Hawaii are only 4-5% Black. Black voters are much better represented in other states, and they tend to be members of the Democratic party.

And they are voting for Clinton, sometimes overwhelmingly. She got 92% of the Black vote in Alabama for example. Why? Probably a lot to do with Obama, and her seeming to be the natural or chosen successor.

The other factor that seems to help him is caucuses, where his people can turn their enthusiasm into support. But there are only two of those left in small states. He is already behind in the delegate count and things are only going to get harder for him going forward.

[pogo]

This does not contain Trump, but it’s too good not to share.


edit: and here‘s Trump’s foot-in-mouth moment on abortion. He’s since tried to walk it back but he has done real damage here, to himself and the pro-life (i.e. anti abortion) movement. They try and make abortion as unpleasant and inconvenient as possible, mostly by passing laws at local level. But they do it by targeting doctors, or clinics, or information providers. They don’t go after women, even though in practice women are punished under current laws, and would be more so if abortion were outlawed as they want. Well, Trump has just blown a hole in this charade. Yes, it is all about punishing women for being immoral, the leading Republican candidate has just said so.

[F-ZeroOne]

They don't go after women directly, but if some of the questions Doctors are forced to ask them or "information" they have to provide to patients already in a vulnerable condition were somehow applied to men I rather suspect more Republican candidates would be a bit cooler about the issue.

[pogo]

The thing is if you make abortion illegal, the ultimate aim of the pro-life movement, then it does end up punishing women, as they will be the ones still doing the abortions once all clinics are closed or barred from doing abortions. Women are already being prosecuted and locked up for performing abortions in the US.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/mor ... ed-before/

It’s not about protecting children, or unborn babies. Republicans do not care at all about the children of people like Purvi Patel. It is in the end about punishing women for their lack of morals. Republicans normally try and avoid saying so as, with 1 in 3 women having abortions in their lifetimes and women making up more than half the electorate, it alienates a lot of voters across the political spectrum.