Poll: Majority of Republicans say Trump better president than Lincoln

[Dashinka 24,493]

7 hours ago, OriZ said:

I don't call it being all over the spectrum, actually. I call it using common sense in place of tribalism.

There really seems to be a major lack of common sense among the Washington political and media elites now days.  To me, this is one of the reasons I support Trump, Washington needed a shakeup and though I doubt he, even in eight years, can drain the swamp that is DC, we might see some incremental improvements (at least I hope).

[Burnt Reynolds 5,058]

It's tough not to be in favor of Trump when you see what he's done. Justin (the French guy from Quebec) apparently makes fun of Trump with his white flag waving French buddy, helps create an environment where the government funded media (which includes all the major outlets now) talks more about Trump alone than all of Canada, to where a majority of Canadians have TDS (and you see #resist in Canadian profiles on social media, without irony), yet Justin screws the Canadian economy so bad companies in Canada are fleeing to the US (Texas, Colorado, etc.). Thanks Justin!

 

 

 

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

Saw this on another forum where politics are typically not brought up much, but I found it interesting.

 

"As an Independent from Massachusetts, I can honestly say, I couldn't vote for any Democrat that is currently running for President. I have democrat friends that are voting for Trump. That is unheard of where I live. If they keep this up, they will hand him the election in 2020. 

TRUMP 2020!!!"

[OriZ 3,157]

1 hour ago, Bill & Katya said:

There really seems to be a major lack of common sense among the Washington political and media elites now days.  To me, this is one of the reasons I support Trump, Washington needed a shakeup and though I doubt he, even in eight years, can drain the swamp that is DC, we might see some incremental improvements (at least I hope).

I have decided I am not interested in voting for the lesser of two evils anymore - if someone doesn't match the type of leader I want them to be(and none of the current candidates, including the sitting president, do), then I will just vote for myself, my cat, or the crypto project I'm involved with. I think Trump is still a big part of the machine...I have 3 tests for each candidate and he only passes one of them.

[Steeleballz 7,550]

39 minutes ago, OriZ said:

I have decided I am not interested in voting for the lesser of two evils anymore - if someone doesn't match the type of leader I want them to be(and none of the current candidates, including the sitting president, do), then I will just vote for myself, my cat, or the crypto project I'm involved with. I think Trump is still a big part of the machine...I have 3 tests for each candidate and he only passes one of them.

 

   Kind of ironic, but election day is a great day to actually get a lot of productive things done. Unfortunately voting is often no longer one of those things. 

[Dashinka 24,493]

48 minutes ago, OriZ said:

I have decided I am not interested in voting for the lesser of two evils anymore - if someone doesn't match the type of leader I want them to be(and none of the current candidates, including the sitting president, do), then I will just vote for myself, my cat, or the crypto project I'm involved with. I think Trump is still a big part of the machine...I have 3 tests for each candidate and he only passes one of them.

Yeah, used to feel that way, then we got the Clintons.

[Burnt Reynolds 5,058]

1 hour ago, OriZ said:

I have decided I am not interested in voting for the lesser of two evils anymore - if someone doesn't match the type of leader I want them to be(and none of the current candidates, including the sitting president, do), then I will just vote for myself, my cat, or the crypto project I'm involved with. I think Trump is still a big part of the machine...I have 3 tests for each candidate and he only passes one of them.

That's unfortunate. I've never voted for "two evils", still aren't, yet I find Trump the best candidate available, and that he's upsetting the right people.

 

It's not to say he doesn't deserve any criticism:

- Bringing in Pompeo and Bolton, for example, deserves it. The flip side of the argument that has merit, of course, is that he won't ever get his own Trumpian person in, which is true, the Senate GOP are largely compromised of the "swamp", and have shown Trump he won't get his own people into cabinet, or the courts, which is why Trump capitulated and went to the Federalist Society (largely made up of neocons/libertarians, the GWB/Koch/Cato/open borders types), he's shown he'll play along to a degree, and this is where he has.

- His treatment of Assange. He could end this quite quickly if he wanted, but is too worried about PR. I'm hoping he pulls this off after a 2020 re-election, and if he doesn't, this will be one of my chief criticisms, because Assange doesn't seem like he will last much longer with the psychological torture he's endured for years.

- Some of his EO choices/lack of choices. Whether it's on healthcare, or on DACA, he could've implemented policies on this that his own voters wanted, opted against it, even knowing legislation will not happen, unless its for open borders or worsening healthcare, at this rate.

 

But this criticism pales in comparison to the good he's done:

- Enormously successful economy

- Tax cuts, business/production coming back to the US

- America First policies (actual patriotism and targeting Americans for help, rather than the phony freedom fries garbage that GWB/neocons facilitated leading up to the Iraq War), outstanding negotiating efforts, for diplomacy, countries to pull their own weight, negotiate fair deals, etc.

- Not a warmonger (yet) like the prior handful of Presidents

- While not sufficient semblance toward immigration enforcement, he's tried endlessly to build a wall (starting to get success as the courts clear up all the pointless lawsuits and lower court overreaching policy injunctions), rapidly deport illegals, rid of the backlog on immigrant courts, punish sanctuary cities (which are toxic hellholes beckoning crime)..

 

The US has been in dire need of serious overhaul and while Trump isn't doing it in every way I like, it's by far the best result, and it's bringing out the corrupt people to the surface, who have went so far as to partake in the gaslighting of a political demographic unlike anything the country has experienced yet (they've mentally compromised the left in a way that easily rivals the psychological experiments of early last century, it's something I study myself), revealing the stranglehold the people Trump is against have had on the nation.

 

Edited December 5, 2019 by Burnt Reynolds

[yuna628 9,676]

2 hours ago, OriZ said:

I have decided I am not interested in voting for the lesser of two evils anymore - if someone doesn't match the type of leader I want them to be(and none of the current candidates, including the sitting president, do), then I will just vote for myself, my cat, or the crypto project I'm involved with. I think Trump is still a big part of the machine...I have 3 tests for each candidate and he only passes one of them.

If only more people came around to this idea... 

[Dashinka 24,493]

11 minutes ago, yuna628 said:

If only more people came around to this idea... 

That can be tough as it could result in the greater of two evils being elected.  All-in-all, our Party system is horrible, but realistically, I don't see it going away anytime soon.

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

41 minutes ago, yuna628 said:

If only more people came around to this idea... 

If more people did, then less people would vote, and the only criteria for the winner would be who had enough money to buy the most votes.  Not my idea of a viable solution.

[Burnt Reynolds 5,058]

59 minutes ago, Bill & Katya said:

That can be tough as it could result in the greater of two evils being elected.  All-in-all, our Party system is horrible, but realistically, I don't see it going away anytime soon.

It's entirely psychological, and in its own way, both a unique American problem, and in other ways, the human condition.

 

I think the more people are self-aware, the more they understand we are hard-wired to be irrational. We're constantly fighting an uphill battle against nature that requires resilience. And when/if we let our guard down (which is natural), we open the door to exploitation. 

 

When I say self-aware, I mean critical comparison, introspection.. having a look around the world, seeing a plethora of countries that don't have this two party problem. Looking at where we facilitate this problem perpetuating itself. 

 

And in the end, we'd realize its "us", individually. Over 95% of the populace in federal elections now vote "D" or "R" cycle after cycle. So when people talk themselves up as independents, the vast majority are lying, their actions don't align with how they portray themselves. This is one of those things that make up the human condition. We're wired to think of our actions in respect to what we think they are, rather than what they are. If I vote D or R, election after election, I can call myself independent as much as I like, but I'm not, unless I literally have two choices every single time, but that's rarely the case. There's almost always third parties and write-ins. People nowadays have more information in front of them then ever, and even with that, they're, even more-so, behaving in ways that can easily be steered. 

 

The primary way it happens is because few people want to take individual responsibility for what is entirely an individual act. People vote for someone, they behave in a corrupt way, time after time after time, but they vote for them again. Endless incumbency. Their solution, every time, is these magic systemic regulators (the system regulating itself magic bullet) -- "pass term limits", "pass campaign finance reform", blaming the term limits, or blaming money, or blaming government, when it's actually the voters' fault. They're delegating responsibility of how they vote to others (also called blame shifting), so it's no wonder they're making the same screw-up's over and over, with the same/worsening results, but expecting different. So few people want to actually make what is, in reality, a ridiculously easy change. You just change your criteria, vote for who you think is the best, ignore all the other psychological fakeouts (e.g. "you're wasting your vote if you vote _____"), go vote, check a different box/write-in a name. Bam, done. Not hard. But apparently, it is.

 

If people behaved differently, it would result in systemic changes. 

 

29 minutes ago, ALFKAD said:

If more people did, then less people would vote, and the only criteria for the winner would be who had enough money to buy the most votes.  Not my idea of a viable solution.

Money only buys votes if people allow the things money buys to dictate their vote. And they do, at a very high rate.

Edited December 5, 2019 by Burnt Reynolds

[Randyandyuni 2,682]

If there is no one deserving of my vote I do not vote that line

[OriZ 3,157]

10 hours ago, Burnt Reynolds said:

That's unfortunate. I've never voted for "two evils", still aren't, yet I find Trump the best candidate available, and that he's upsetting the right people.

 

It's not to say he doesn't deserve any criticism:

- Bringing in Pompeo and Bolton, for example, deserves it. The flip side of the argument that has merit, of course, is that he won't ever get his own Trumpian person in, which is true, the Senate GOP are largely compromised of the "swamp", and have shown Trump he won't get his own people into cabinet, or the courts, which is why Trump capitulated and went to the Federalist Society (largely made up of neocons/libertarians, the GWB/Koch/Cato/open borders types), he's shown he'll play along to a degree, and this is where he has.

- His treatment of Assange. He could end this quite quickly if he wanted, but is too worried about PR. I'm hoping he pulls this off after a 2020 re-election, and if he doesn't, this will be one of my chief criticisms, because Assange doesn't seem like he will last much longer with the psychological torture he's endured for years.

- Some of his EO choices/lack of choices. Whether it's on healthcare, or on DACA, he could've implemented policies on this that his own voters wanted, opted against it, even knowing legislation will not happen, unless its for open borders or worsening healthcare, at this rate.

 

But this criticism pales in comparison to the good he's done:

- Enormously successful economy

- Tax cuts, business/production coming back to the US

- America First policies (actual patriotism and targeting Americans for help, rather than the phony freedom fries garbage that GWB/neocons facilitated leading up to the Iraq War), outstanding negotiating efforts, for diplomacy, countries to pull their own weight, negotiate fair deals, etc.

- Not a warmonger (yet) like the prior handful of Presidents

- While not sufficient semblance toward immigration enforcement, he's tried endlessly to build a wall (starting to get success as the courts clear up all the pointless lawsuits and lower court overreaching policy injunctions), rapidly deport illegals, rid of the backlog on immigrant courts, punish sanctuary cities (which are toxic hellholes beckoning crime)..

 

The US has been in dire need of serious overhaul and while Trump isn't doing it in every way I like, it's by far the best result, and it's bringing out the corrupt people to the surface, who have went so far as to partake in the gaslighting of a political demographic unlike anything the country has experienced yet (they've mentally compromised the left in a way that easily rivals the psychological experiments of early last century, it's something I study myself), revealing the stranglehold the people Trump is against have had on the nation.

 

Interesting, we pretty much see things the exact opposite. Most of the criticisms you mentioned are actually some of the things I think he's done right and most of the "successes" you've mentioned include some of the things I criticize him most for. I totally understand @Steeleballz confusion.

Edited December 6, 2019 by OriZ

[OriZ 3,157]

11 hours ago, Bill & Katya said:

Yeah, used to feel that way, then we got the Clintons.

Well, I used to not feel that way till I realized the only way to change the system is to not play by its rules. Maybe my anarchist buddies are finally rubbing off on me.

[OriZ 3,157]

10 hours ago, Bill & Katya said:

That can be tough as it could result in the greater of two evils being elected.  All-in-all, our Party system is horrible, but realistically, I don't see it going away anytime soon.

It will never go away if people keep doing exactly what they're expected to do.