Trump to win?

[touchring]

It appears that the Saudis are on the way to reach their real goal - a trump win?

Bye bye democrats.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/0...mocrats-217855

[GRG55]

Re: Trump to win?

It appears that the Saudi are on the way to reach their real goal - a trump win?

Bye bye democrats.

Last time I checked Trump wanted to ban them all from the USA. Of course that doesn't stop one from mailing a cheque.

You might want to recall that it was a Republican prez that invaded Iraq, destabilized the region, allowed the Iranians to exert the most influence in that country, and set the stage for what we have in the region today.

[santafe2]

Re: Trump to win?

It appears that the Saudis are on the way to reach their real goal - a trump win?

Bye bye democrats.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/0...mocrats-217855

This may be the inside-the-beltway narrative tr but average folks in the US don't invest in, or care about, Wall Street. In the US average salaries haven't gone up for 35 years. Average folks who aren't racists and/or 19th Century throw-backs are leaning toward the other outsider, Sanders. Today in the US we have four parties. On the left we have FDR socialists and Clinton corporatists. On the right we have Bush corporatists and Trump nativists. It's not a great time to be an American. We've way too much power and not enough sense to direct it. Whenever I wonder if this is our low point I'm reminded that our voters elected Harrison, Tyler, Polk, Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce and Buchanan before they elected Lincoln. It could get much worse before we find our way and there is no guarantee we'll find our way. Maybe Trump is our modern day Buchanan, a person we elect that is so awful we finally understand our errant ways. But now we have nukes and a Buchanan level of stupidity may make our Civil War look like a playground fight.

[touchring]

Re: Trump to win?

Last time I checked Trump wanted to ban them all from the USA. Of course that doesn't stop one from mailing a cheque.

You might want to recall that it was a Republican prez that invaded Iraq, destabilized the region, allowed the Iranians to exert the most influence in that country, and set the stage for what we have in the region today.

I don't know if the Saudi royalty will actually disagree with Trump, I'm sure they have banned migrants/refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and Libya.

The Republican invaded Iraq, yes, and Saddam was a threat to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, but they did not withdraw from Iraq and let ISIS take over.

Post Iraq, the divide and conquer strategy (pitting Sunnis against Shiites) and arming terrorists for regime change (e.g. Libya and Syria) has left the Middle East in a state of a "regional world war".

However, that being said, I believe that a Trump win will be negative for China.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/poll-don...ace-1452808842

Donald Trump said during Thursday's Republican presidential debate that though the U.S. has great economic power over China, the current state of trade between the two countries is unfair and that tariffs may be necessary. Photo: AP

This may be the inside-the-beltway narrative tr but average folks in the US don't invest in, or care about, Wall Street. In the US average salaries haven't gone up for 35 years. Average folks who aren't racists and/or 19th Century throw-backs are leaning toward the other outsider, Sanders. Today in the US we have four parties. On the left we have FDR socialists and Clinton corporatists. On the right we have Bush corporatists and Trump nativists. It's not a great time to be an American. We've way too much power and not enough sense to direct it. Whenever I wonder if this is our low point I'm reminded that our voters elected Harrison, Tyler, Polk, Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce and Buchanan before they elected Lincoln. It could get much worse before we find our way and there is no guarantee we'll find our way. Maybe Trump is our modern day Buchanan, a person we elect that is so awful we finally understand our errant ways. But now we have nukes and a Buchanan level of stupidity may make our Civil War look like a playground fight.

Thanks for bring up Buchanan, I did a quick read on him on Wikipedia.

Is Trump really crazy? I don't know about that but I wouldn't read too much into the MSM says as I'm sure the bankers and Oligarchs are more wary of Trump because it will be harder to control him to serve their own interest as they could control Obama and Clinton.

As I see it, from an outsider point of view, the American government is gradually sliding down the slope of corruption. It appears to me that everyone has a personal agenda and is using the power of the US government for their own self-interest. The oligarchs and politicians they work with have their own personal agendas, be it to win some Nobel Prize, or to satisfy thirst for blood, e.g. Libya or to start a war because "he threatened his father" or to "bring democracy to Europe". The myriad of personal interests is starting to threaten national interest and world peace.

[Mega]

Re: Trump to win?

By March Hillary will be history..........the ticket will be given to "Amtrak Joe"...Bern will not see wot happened. The Press will side with Joe, more women will vote for him............he will win.

[verdo]

Re: Trump to win?


I don't really see Trump (or any of the leading republican candidates) winning this, and here's why: If you are a republican running for office today, particularly the office of president, you have to make an important choice. You have to choose whether or not you want to win the republican primary, or if you want to win the general election...because you probably aren't winning both. Of coarse, that's a bit of a catch 22 since you sort of need to win the primary to even have a chance at winning the general election as a republican...but that's really my point. Why do I say this? Well its come to my, and a lot of observers attention that in order to win a republican primary these days, you need to say the most radical, backward, and downright wrong things in order to excite a sizeable number of your constituency. Then somehow like magic, you need to unwind all of that crazy and convince democrats and independents (which combine easily make up the majority of the country) that you aren't a lunatic. The result of that is an almost guaranteed victory for the opposing party who comes out with even the most lukewarm of candidates in my view.

Still not convinced? Well then, lets rewind back to what happened in 2012. As most of us know, Obama had a fairly sound victory (all things considered) against Mitt Romney in the 2012 election cycle. What a lot of people are unaware of though is that Obama made history yet again when he won a second time, but this time it had nothing to do with the colour of his skin. In 2012, Obama was the first president since FDR to win reelection with unemployment as high as it was.

So how did Obama do it, given his approval rating was nothing special, given how much of an obvious corporatist he was, given how little he actually did to change business as usual in Washington (despite this literally being the #1 issue he ran on in 2008), the divisiveness created over Obamacare, the lack of any visible signs of at least a little real growth in wages and of coarse, given the unemployment numbers? Well, I don't believe he really had to "do" anything. Obama did not win again because he was so great. That much should be obvious. He won again because the Republicans were so bad. This is the lesson i took from what happened in 2012. Romney was a terrible choice by the republicans because he said and did things that were completely unfavourable to the changing American demographics. Well actually, maybe he wasn't a terrible choice. As bad as he was, he was probably the "least bad" of what the republicans had to offer at the time. He and the other republicans were much too visibly anti-poor, anti-immigrant, anti-women and anti-sanity/pro war when it came to foreign policy to appeal to democrats and especially to independents, who easily make up the majority of people that you need to convince of your competency to lead. Republican candidates continue to fail to acknowledge/understand the changing demographics of the country they live in. You can't win by being a super religious zealot/war monger anymore.


So now that we've taken a trip down memory lane, lets fast forward to what we have today. Today, unemployment in the USA is even lower than what it was when Obama made history again in 2012, and instead of being more moderate, the republicans have by and large become even more radical than they were in 2012. What the last election cycle has taught me is this: when republicans go too far right, too crazy, democrats make history. Obama did it in 2012 by being the first president since FDR to win re election with unemployment so high. If Hilary is the democrat nominee, she will do it too by being the first woman elected as president of the USA (despite how bad of candidate I personally think she is) or if he is the nominee, Bernie Sanders will do it by being the most extreme socialist to win the general election without an economic catastrophe like the Great Depression in the backdrop. Take a look at the platform Bush ran on in the early 2000's. As much as he is hated today, he didn't run on a platform as far right as the republicans routinely do now. The only thing that could allow Trump to win would be if Hilary became the nominee and the stock market tanked fast enough in 2016 so that it could actually have time to percolate and affect people on main street. Barring a catastrophe like that, I don't think Trump stands a chance...and frankly, he doesn't currently poll well at all against someone like Bernie in a general election either. Polls can and do change, but if the democrats are smart enough to provide the country with their own outsider candidate, people wont need to go the Trump route if they want to shake up Washington. They'll just pick Sanders.

That's my 2 cents

[jk]

Re: Trump to win?

hillary is still likely to be the democratic nominee and i think trump would beat her. scott adams' "master persuader" analysis of trump's candidacy is interesting and itself persuasive.

i think hillary generates little to no enthusiasm among people whose support she needs. her running "as a woman" is imo a mistake. obama didn't run "as a black man." he never said "vote for me because i'm black." also hillary is inextricably tied to big money and wall street.

sanders is surging at the moment but is unlikely to get past super tuesday. i wish it were otherwise

[GRG55]

Re: Trump to win?

hillary is still likely to be the democratic nominee and i think trump would beat her. scott adams' "master persuader" analysis of trump's candidacy is interesting and itself persuasive.

i think hillary generates little to no enthusiasm among people whose support she needs. her running "as a woman" is imo a mistake. obama didn't run "as a black man." he never said "vote for me because i'm black." also hillary is inextricably tied to big money and wall street.

sanders is surging at the moment but is unlikely to get past super tuesday. i wish it were otherwise

Link?

[jk]

Re: Trump to win?

Link?

the first trump post is on this page. you'll have to go forward page by page, searching for trump's name, from there to find the relevant posts. it doesn't get interesting until about the 3rd post on the subject.

on aug13 he predicts trump to win the general election in a landslide. we'll see. but in the interim he's been the most accurate commentator i've found to both deconstruct what trump is doing linguistically, and predicting the effects of trump's moves.

his basic argument is that trump is a master persuader, using language not primarily for conveying literal content, but for manipulating his listeners on a level of symbolism and suggestion, in the manner of a hypnotist.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Trump to win?

Personally, I think Trump could stand a mediocre chance of beating Clinton in the general election, but he's got big trouble with the female vote. He stands no chance of gaining female Democrats and risks losing unaligned females in the political centre.

Certainly if this was 2020 after a 3rd Clinton term looking to a 4th.

But I think Trump would be decisively beaten by Sanders.

-----

Trump is all about portraying himself as unowned, "self made", powerful, and going to bring back the glory days of Rome.

Trump would have fit in well as a candidate in post-Soviet, pre-Putin Russia.

Trump = crass Reagan 2.0 nationalism

Sanders is all about destroying special interests(banks to big to fail), higher taxes(wealthy),and free(er) stuff(poor).

Sanders = post industrial FDR 2.0 populism

-----

Every Democrat I know is supporting Sanders and seems as reluctant to openly support Clinton as I suspect many fear to openly support Trump.

-----

I am shocked Trump has made it this far.

I will openly admit I was convinced he would run for office well before he committed, but I strongly believed he'd pull out once he had maximised his free personal brand value tail wind.

I think the success of Trump is a growing indicator of:

*public frustration with "two party, no choice" candidates

*"strength 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and last" nationalism as we shift from a unipolar to multipolar world, knowing we will never reclaim the title once relinquished

I just don't think the pain thresholds are high enough to cut thru the sloth of American voter political apathy for a Sanders or Trump win.

-----

Unless there is a Black Swan that achieves persistent cut thru:

A persistent economic disaster

A persistent strength perception disaster (US Navy personnel on hands and knees submitting to IRGC x 10)

Hillary wins and is coronated as the special interest Shah and the Supreme Court will see significant change and not for the better.

2020 could be a dangerous nationalist/populist divide.

[jpatter666]

Re: Trump to win?

Link?

This is the latest and has back-links.

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/1371373...see-the-future

[GRG55]

Re: Trump to win?

This is the latest and has back-links.

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/1371373...see-the-future

the first trump post is on this page. you'll have to go forward page by page, searching for trump's name, from there to find the relevant posts. it doesn't get interesting until about the 3rd post on the subject.

on aug13 he predicts trump to win the general election in a landslide. we'll see. but in the interim he's been the most accurate commentator i've found to both deconstruct what trump is doing linguistically, and predicting the effects of trump's moves.

his basic argument is that trump is a master persuader, using language not primarily for conveying literal content, but for manipulating his listeners on a level of symbolism and suggestion, in the manner of a hypnotist.

Some interesting reading. Thank you gentlemen!

I can't say I have paid a great deal of attention to the nomination campaigns so far, but perhaps I will need to reconsider.

[shiny!]

Re: Trump to win?

Yogi Bhajan (founder of the quasi-Sikh kundalini yoga cult, 3HO) was a master hypnotist. He was highly trained in NLP among other things. He gave long, rambling speeches, used odd sentence structures, repeated words and phrases, went off on tangents, took his listeners on emotional rollercoasters using shame and praise. None of his verbal quirks were accidental or random. He used them very precisely to put his audiences into a trance state at which point he implanted suggestions.

Trump's speech patterns strongly resemble Yogi Bhajan's. Bhajan was also a psychopath with a hypomanic temperament. Again, I see hypomanic similarities with Trump, only I don't think Trump is a psychopath. Ruthless businessman, yes. Psychopath, no. I agree with Adams that Trump could depose a world leader with just words.

Another post by Scott Adams (thanks, jk, for pointing him out).

Ranking the best political pundits of 2015

As I hinted in a prior post, Trump isn’t just changing politics. He is changing our understanding of reality by brushing aside the illusion that humans use reason to make important decisions. This extends well beyond politics.

To put a size on Trump’s skill level, I believe that as president he could depose a foreign leader with words alone. It would not work in all cases. But his skill set in persuasion is, in my opinion, weapons grade. I have never seen that level of skill. Luckily, he has a history of opposing unnecessary wars. I can’t think of a better way to prevent a war than removing a dictator with words alone.

I remind new readers that I do not endorse Trump or anyone else for president. I’m not smart enough to know who would do the best job. All the candidates look qualified to me, assuming their health holds out.

But I am a certified hypnotist with decades of study in the field of persuasion. My predictions are based on my knowledge of that skillset and the recognition that Trump has mastered those tools. (He says so often when speaking of his negotiating skills and how he “knows psychology.”) In other words, I see that Trump is bringing a flamethrower to a stick fight, but most of you only see a stick in his hand and a lot of random, rude behavior. I can tell you with certainty that none of it is random.

[gnk]

Re: Trump to win?

Very interesting link, thanks.

I think there is another even simpler explanation for Trump's success and oratory.

Decades of lobbyist driven globalization and open borders has had its effect on the average Joe. And the average Joe isn't happy to lose his well paying manufacturing job so long as he gets to see a Christmas Tree in front of the local municipal building.

What's wrong with today's politicians?

They have all been bought and paid for. When a politician wins, who does he really remember first - those that voted for him, or those that donated?

No one owns Trump. When he speaks, his mind is unencumbered by donor monetary obligations and political party side deals. That's why he speaks the way he does. His mind doesn't function the same way as a traditional politician's mind does. There's no internal mental juggling act going on in his head. That's why to the intellectuals, he seems unpolished. He is unpolished because his world is more right and wrong, good deal, bad deal... there is no balancing of interests to force him to speak in terms of those beloved nuances intellectuals love to argue about.

Call me crazy, but he could be the next TR. I'm watching and keeping an open mind.

He has shown he can work the bully pulpit, he is waving the big stick, and he's not afraid of corporate interests. Last I saw that was in '92 with Ross Perot. I guess Perot was too ahead of his time.

(Trump just needs to be taught how the global monetary system really works though, or he could inadvertently do some damage.)

Why does the media mischaracterize and overemphasize his muslim comment yet essentially ignore his unique views on Super Pacs and lobbyists?

[Milton Kuo]

Re: Trump to win?

Why does the media mischaracterize and overemphasize his muslim comment yet essentially ignore his unique views on Super Pacs and lobbyists?

Because Trump throws a monkey wrench into the political (Democrat or Republican) machine. He is bypassing the kingmakers and he is not propagating the message of the kingmakers. If Trump were doing badly in the polling, the media would just ignore him. However, it seems Trump has struck a chord and, I believe, represents a genuine threat to displacing the puppets of the kingmakers. They've set their media dogs on Trump but Trump so far has done a reasonably good job of playing the media to his advantage. I recall a site somewhere showing how much each Republican candidate has spent on advertising. Candidates that kowtow to special interests had each already spent millions (some had spent tens of millions if I remember correctly) of dollars. Trump had not even spent $1mn. I can't help but wonder if his over-the-top language is designed to get him a bunch of free publicity.

I was recently just thinking of the money issue and realized that the kind of money that's usually waved to get politicians to sell out their country is probably not enough to interest Trump. Bill and Hillary Clinton sold out the U.S. for about $100mn - $200mn; Timothy Geithner for less than that. If Trump is as rich as he claims (~$10bn), $200mn is chump change. It'll do nothing to improve his lifestyle.