The Donald for President

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  • usamamasan1usamamasan1 Posts: 4,695
    Trump tends his virtual community with care. Among the candidates, his 5.6 million Twitter followers are matched only by his counterpart at the top of the Democratic polls, Hillary Clinton. Trump has 5.2 million Facebook likes—three times as many as Cruz and 17 times as many as Bush. His 828,000 Instagram followers is nearly a third more than Clinton’s 632,000. For many, if not all, of these individuals, their networked relationships with Trump feel closer and more genuine than the images of the candidate they see filtered through middlemen.

    This can explain why Trump is unscathed by apparent gaffes and blunders that would kill an ordinary candidate. His followers feel that they already know him. When outraged middlemen wail in disgust on cable news programs and in op-ed columns, they only highlight their irrelevance to the Trumpiverse.

    Indeed, the psychology of disintermediation adds another layer of protection to a figure like Trump. For members of an online network, the death of the middlemen is not some sad side effect of this tidal shift; it is a crusade. Early adopters of Netflix relished the fate of brick-and-mortar video stores, just as Trump voters rejoice in the idea of life without the “lamestream” media. Trump gets this: mocking abuse of his traveling press corps is a staple of his campaign speeches.

    The fading power of middlemen is also visible in less garish manifestations than the Trump campaign. For example, voters used to judge candidates in part on their record of government service. Experience was a middleman, a sort of ticket puncher, that stood between the would-be President and the public. Not anymore. A stable of successful GOP governors–Rick Perry of Texas, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Scott Walker of Wisconsin–have dropped out, unable to understand the new calculus. As for the three current Senators on the trail–Cruz, Florida’s Marco Rubio and Kentucky’s Rand Paul–experience is the least of their selling points. All are first-term rookies known for defying party leaders, not for passing legislation. Rubio won office by challenging his party’s official choice for the seat. Cruz glories in his reputation as the least popular Senator in the cloakroom: he doesn’t need Washington’s validation. In fact, it’s the last thing he wants.

    The three Senators–and their colleague Sanders in the other party–have used the Senate as a foil. What they accomplished as Senators, which is next to nothing, pales in their telling compared with what they refused to do. They did not sell out. They did not compromise. They did not break faith with their followers–a virtue that has replaced the ideal of service to a constituency. With disintermediation, the power to set the campaign agenda shifts from the middlemen to the online networks, and those networks, this year, are very angry. Here, again, Trump is far outrunning his rivals in seizing the momentum. Americans are unhappy about an economy that punishes workers, according to opinion polls and conversations with voters. They are tired of politicians who don’t deliver on their promises. Trump’s strongest backers are angry about illegal immigration. Cruz channels anger over Obamacare. Sanders mines anger from the opposite end of the spectrum, targeting “Wall Street” and “billionaires” to the seething satisfaction of the Democratic base.

    These voters don’t want someone to feel their pain; they want someone to mirror their mood. Woe to the candidate who can’t growl on cue. Perhaps nothing has hurt the Bush campaign–whose money and endorsements, lavished by middlemen, have fizzled on the launchpad–more than Trump’s observation that the former Florida governor is “low energy.” Translation: he’s not ticked off. Voter anger in this sour season is less a data point than table stakes.

    At a late-December rally in Council Bluffs, Trump treated his audience to one of his trademark free-form speeches, which are like nothing in the modern campaign repertoire. He sampled alter egos from talk-radio host to insult comic to the fictional Gordon Gekko. (“I’m greedy,” Trump bragged. “Now I’m going to be greedy for the United States.”) When he wrapped up, Teresa Raus of nearby Neola, Iowa, waited another 30 minutes for Trump’s autograph. Why? “I feel real confident that he can make America better. I believe him,” she explained. And yes, she’s angry. Other politicians “are liars,” Raus continued. “They’re all liars. I’m sick of politicians. If he’s not running, then I’m not voting.”

    But if Trump voters are angry, that doesn’t mean they’re crazy. You meet more state representatives and business owners at his rallies than tinfoil-hat conspiracy buffs. In ways, they are a vanguard, catching sight of a new style of politics and deciding early to throw out the old rules. Their radical democracy helps account for Trump’s uncanny resilience: the less he honors the conventions of politics, the more his supporters like him. They aren’t buying what the political process is selling. They want to buy direct from the source. “It’s like this,” says Casady, the Army vet. “We’re going to go with this guy sink or swim, and we’re not going to change our views. It doesn’t matter. It’s time for us to do a totally insane thing, because we’ve lost it all. The times demand it, because nothing else is working.”

    Some powerful forces inside the GOP will continue to fight Trump to the bitter end. As strong and durable as his support appears to be, the number of Americans who tell pollsters they would not vote for Trump is bigger. Trump’s intemperate remarks have alienated millions of Latino, Muslim and women voters. His rash pronouncements are the antithesis of the moderate approach that many citizens still value. His proposed religious test for foreigners who want to come to this country is as inconsistent with America’s self-image as linoleum floors in a Trump hotel.

    The problem is that the party is weak at the national level, deeply divided into hostile camps, while Trump has the strength of a technological epoch at his back. Finding a way to live with Trump might not be a choice for the GOP; those might be the terms of surrender that he dictates at the national convention in Cleveland in July. And in private, even top party officials occasionally admit it.

    Unless Cruz can continue to rise through the primaries—aided by members of the congressional Freedom Caucus who share his maximal conservatism—or a candidate like Rubio manages to push aside all mainstream rivals to consolidate the anti-Trump vote, the pot-stirring plutocrat may well steamroll through winter into spring with the lion’s share of the delegates. They won’t stop Trump because they can’t stop Trump.

    In that case, party insiders may be forced to decide whether to pull every trick in the rule book to keep Trump from the nomination, with all the havoc that would ensue–including a very real chance that the party could split in two. Faced with that prospect, they may decide instead to swallow hard and follow Trump’s glowing blond nimbus into battle this fall. “The pundits don’t understand it,” Marco Rubio told an audience at a recent campaign stop in New Hampshire. “They don’t understand why in this election, why aren’t the things that worked in the past working again? Why is it that the people with the most money, or the most endorsements, or the one that all the experts thought would be in first place–why aren’t they winning?”

    Donald Trump will be happy to tell them.
  • Gern BlanstenGern Blansten Posts: 20,286
    Remember the Thomas Nine !! (10/02/2018)
    The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)

    1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
    2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
    2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
    2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
    2020: Oakland, Oakland:  2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
    2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
    2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
  • usamamasan1usamamasan1 Posts: 4,695
    says the lady who didn't even get in on the next debate. Trump is a born leader. Our current President was a fucking community organizer in Chicago. Have you seen what a shithole Chicago is....STILL
  • Gern BlanstenGern Blansten Posts: 20,286

    says the lady who didn't even get in on the next debate. Trump is a born leader. Our current President was a fucking community organizer in Chicago. Have you seen what a shithole Chicago is....STILL

    actually he was a community organizer (something that you would be unable to do) right out of school then he taught Constitutional Law at the Univ of Chicago for 12 years prior to getting into politics...eventually being elected to two terms as POTUS

    What have you done with your life other than glorify a dipshit with a bad combover who was born with a silver spoon up his ass?
    Remember the Thomas Nine !! (10/02/2018)
    The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)

    1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
    2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
    2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
    2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
    2020: Oakland, Oakland:  2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
    2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
    2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
  • usamamasan1usamamasan1 Posts: 4,695
    Ah, getting personal huh. Don't cry, dry your eye.
  • usamamasan1usamamasan1 Posts: 4,695
    image
  • Gern BlanstenGern Blansten Posts: 20,286

    Ah, getting personal huh. Don't cry, dry your eye.

    Not really....what do you do? That was a real question.
    Remember the Thomas Nine !! (10/02/2018)
    The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)

    1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
    2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
    2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
    2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
    2020: Oakland, Oakland:  2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
    2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
    2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
  • usamamasan1usamamasan1 Posts: 4,695
    I sell Banks
  • usamamasan1usamamasan1 Posts: 4,695
    and have two awesome sons and a beautiful wife, what the fuck does it matter what I do?
  • usamamasan1usamamasan1 Posts: 4,695
    oh, and ive been to over a hundred more shows that you. ha
  • brianluxbrianlux Posts: 42,051
    This thread...


    image
    “The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
    Variously credited to Mark Twain or Edward Abbey.













  • Gern BlanstenGern Blansten Posts: 20,286

    I sell Banks

    image

    Remember the Thomas Nine !! (10/02/2018)
    The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)

    1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
    2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
    2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
    2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
    2020: Oakland, Oakland:  2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
    2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
    2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
  • says the lady who didn't even get in on the next debate. Trump is a born leader. Our current President was a fucking community organizer in Chicago. Have you seen what a shithole Chicago is....STILL

    not all born leaders are good leaders. seriously, he'll fucking start WW3.

    new album "Cigarettes" out Spring 2025!

    www.headstonesband.com




  • rgambsrgambs Posts: 13,576

    says the lady who didn't even get in on the next debate. Trump is a born leader. Our current President was a fucking community organizer in Chicago. Have you seen what a shithole Chicago is....STILL

    not all born leaders are good leaders. seriously, he'll fucking start WW3.

    That's what most of his supporters want. They talk constantly of going nuclear in the Middle East (they don't even know which geographic regions are actually considered Middle East and which aren't) and they are spoiling for a fight with Islam in general (they don't even know where most Muslims live) and they want to role play some cold war fantasy where Putin gets depantsed and spanked by Ted Nugent, Donald Trump, and Jesus.
    Monkey Driven, Call this Living?
  • PJ_SoulPJ_Soul Posts: 49,958
    rgambs said:

    says the lady who didn't even get in on the next debate. Trump is a born leader. Our current President was a fucking community organizer in Chicago. Have you seen what a shithole Chicago is....STILL

    not all born leaders are good leaders. seriously, he'll fucking start WW3.

    That's what most of his supporters want. They talk constantly of going nuclear in the Middle East (they don't even know which geographic regions are actually considered Middle East and which aren't) and they are spoiling for a fight with Islam in general (they don't even know where most Muslims live) and they want to role play some cold war fantasy where Putin gets depantsed and spanked by Ted Nugent, Donald Trump, and Jesus.
    Lol, I actually get the impression that they like Putin. It's bizarre.
    With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy. ~ Desiderata
  • Gern BlanstenGern Blansten Posts: 20,286
    PJ_Soul said:

    rgambs said:

    says the lady who didn't even get in on the next debate. Trump is a born leader. Our current President was a fucking community organizer in Chicago. Have you seen what a shithole Chicago is....STILL

    not all born leaders are good leaders. seriously, he'll fucking start WW3.

    That's what most of his supporters want. They talk constantly of going nuclear in the Middle East (they don't even know which geographic regions are actually considered Middle East and which aren't) and they are spoiling for a fight with Islam in general (they don't even know where most Muslims live) and they want to role play some cold war fantasy where Putin gets depantsed and spanked by Ted Nugent, Donald Trump, and Jesus.
    Lol, I actually get the impression that they like Putin. It's bizarre.
    Yeah Trump got stuck on Meet the Press Sunday...he was making comments about how we should be afraid of Putin then Chuck Todd reminded him that he had just complimented Putin a few weeks ago.
    Remember the Thomas Nine !! (10/02/2018)
    The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)

    1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
    2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
    2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
    2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
    2020: Oakland, Oakland:  2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
    2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
    2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
  • usamamasan1usamamasan1 Posts: 4,695
    "Yes, I think it's possible,'' Biden when asked whether he could imagine Trump taking the Oval Office.
  • josevolutionjosevolution Posts: 29,570

    Trump tends his virtual community with care. Among the candidates, his 5.6 million Twitter followers are matched only by his counterpart at the top of the Democratic polls, Hillary Clinton. Trump has 5.2 million Facebook likes—three times as many as Cruz and 17 times as many as Bush. His 828,000 Instagram followers is nearly a third more than Clinton’s 632,000. For many, if not all, of these individuals, their networked relationships with Trump feel closer and more genuine than the images of the candidate they see filtered through middlemen.

    This can explain why Trump is unscathed by apparent gaffes and blunders that would kill an ordinary candidate. His followers feel that they already know him. When outraged middlemen wail in disgust on cable news programs and in op-ed columns, they only highlight their irrelevance to the Trumpiverse.

    Indeed, the psychology of disintermediation adds another layer of protection to a figure like Trump. For members of an online network, the death of the middlemen is not some sad side effect of this tidal shift; it is a crusade. Early adopters of Netflix relished the fate of brick-and-mortar video stores, just as Trump voters rejoice in the idea of life without the “lamestream” media. Trump gets this: mocking abuse of his traveling press corps is a staple of his campaign speeches.

    The fading power of middlemen is also visible in less garish manifestations than the Trump campaign. For example, voters used to judge candidates in part on their record of government service. Experience was a middleman, a sort of ticket puncher, that stood between the would-be President and the public. Not anymore. A stable of successful GOP governors–Rick Perry of Texas, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Scott Walker of Wisconsin–have dropped out, unable to understand the new calculus. As for the three current Senators on the trail–Cruz, Florida’s Marco Rubio and Kentucky’s Rand Paul–experience is the least of their selling points. All are first-term rookies known for defying party leaders, not for passing legislation. Rubio won office by challenging his party’s official choice for the seat. Cruz glories in his reputation as the least popular Senator in the cloakroom: he doesn’t need Washington’s validation. In fact, it’s the last thing he wants.

    The three Senators–and their colleague Sanders in the other party–have used the Senate as a foil. What they accomplished as Senators, which is next to nothing, pales in their telling compared with what they refused to do. They did not sell out. They did not compromise. They did not break faith with their followers–a virtue that has replaced the ideal of service to a constituency. With disintermediation, the power to set the campaign agenda shifts from the middlemen to the online networks, and those networks, this year, are very angry. Here, again, Trump is far outrunning his rivals in seizing the momentum. Americans are unhappy about an economy that punishes workers, according to opinion polls and conversations with voters. They are tired of politicians who don’t deliver on their promises. Trump’s strongest backers are angry about illegal immigration. Cruz channels anger over Obamacare. Sanders mines anger from the opposite end of the spectrum, targeting “Wall Street” and “billionaires” to the seething satisfaction of the Democratic base.

    These voters don’t want someone to feel their pain; they want someone to mirror their mood. Woe to the candidate who can’t growl on cue. Perhaps nothing has hurt the Bush campaign–whose money and endorsements, lavished by middlemen, have fizzled on the launchpad–more than Trump’s observation that the former Florida governor is “low energy.” Translation: he’s not ticked off. Voter anger in this sour season is less a data point than table stakes.

    At a late-December rally in Council Bluffs, Trump treated his audience to one of his trademark free-form speeches, which are like nothing in the modern campaign repertoire. He sampled alter egos from talk-radio host to insult comic to the fictional Gordon Gekko. (“I’m greedy,” Trump bragged. “Now I’m going to be greedy for the United States.”) When he wrapped up, Teresa Raus of nearby Neola, Iowa, waited another 30 minutes for Trump’s autograph. Why? “I feel real confident that he can make America better. I believe him,” she explained. And yes, she’s angry. Other politicians “are liars,” Raus continued. “They’re all liars. I’m sick of politicians. If he’s not running, then I’m not voting.”

    But if Trump voters are angry, that doesn’t mean they’re crazy. You meet more state representatives and business owners at his rallies than tinfoil-hat conspiracy buffs. In ways, they are a vanguard, catching sight of a new style of politics and deciding early to throw out the old rules. Their radical democracy helps account for Trump’s uncanny resilience: the less he honors the conventions of politics, the more his supporters like him. They aren’t buying what the political process is selling. They want to buy direct from the source. “It’s like this,” says Casady, the Army vet. “We’re going to go with this guy sink or swim, and we’re not going to change our views. It doesn’t matter. It’s time for us to do a totally insane thing, because we’ve lost it all. The times demand it, because nothing else is working.”

    Some powerful forces inside the GOP will continue to fight Trump to the bitter end. As strong and durable as his support appears to be, the number of Americans who tell pollsters they would not vote for Trump is bigger. Trump’s intemperate remarks have alienated millions of Latino, Muslim and women voters. His rash pronouncements are the antithesis of the moderate approach that many citizens still value. His proposed religious test for foreigners who want to come to this country is as inconsistent with America’s self-image as linoleum floors in a Trump hotel.

    The problem is that the party is weak at the national level, deeply divided into hostile camps, while Trump has the strength of a technological epoch at his back. Finding a way to live with Trump might not be a choice for the GOP; those might be the terms of surrender that he dictates at the national convention in Cleveland in July. And in private, even top party officials occasionally admit it.

    Unless Cruz can continue to rise through the primaries—aided by members of the congressional Freedom Caucus who share his maximal conservatism—or a candidate like Rubio manages to push aside all mainstream rivals to consolidate the anti-Trump vote, the pot-stirring plutocrat may well steamroll through winter into spring with the lion’s share of the delegates. They won’t stop Trump because they can’t stop Trump.

    In that case, party insiders may be forced to decide whether to pull every trick in the rule book to keep Trump from the nomination, with all the havoc that would ensue–including a very real chance that the party could split in two. Faced with that prospect, they may decide instead to swallow hard and follow Trump’s glowing blond nimbus into battle this fall. “The pundits don’t understand it,” Marco Rubio told an audience at a recent campaign stop in New Hampshire. “They don’t understand why in this election, why aren’t the things that worked in the past working again? Why is it that the people with the most money, or the most endorsements, or the one that all the experts thought would be in first place–why aren’t they winning?”

    Donald Trump will be happy to tell them.

    I hope for your sakes he wins it since you've been backing the losers for the last two elections you seem to like the losers ...
    jesus greets me looks just like me ....
  • InHiding80InHiding80 Posts: 7,623

    image

    image

    Damn, that liberal propaganda agenda that's actually proven fact!
  • InHiding80InHiding80 Posts: 7,623

    Ah, getting personal huh. Don't cry, dry your eye.

    But enough about your 7 years complaining about your Messiah from Texas being replaced by a black person left of Hitler.

    Cool passive aggressive deflect and self projection, brah.
  • InHiding80InHiding80 Posts: 7,623

    I sell Banks

    image

    I'm interested if it's Elizabeth. :heart:
  • InHiding80InHiding80 Posts: 7,623

    says the lady who didn't even get in on the next debate. Trump is a born leader. Our current President was a fucking community organizer in Chicago. Have you seen what a shithole Chicago is....STILL

    not all born leaders are good leaders. seriously, he'll fucking start WW3.

    Further proof he hates captured troops.
  • Go Nickelback!
    http://www.torontosun.com/2016/01/12/donald-trump-should-like-nickelback
    This just might happen then you guys really are screwed. Ha, ha,
  • brianluxbrianlux Posts: 42,051

    Go Nickelback!
    http://www.torontosun.com/2016/01/12/donald-trump-should-like-nickelback
    This just might happen then you guys really are screwed. Ha, ha,

    " If you don’t like Nickelback, buzz off. Go read Ulysses or watch a Woody Allen movie with all the other snobs."

    Ummm... yeah, well OK then! :lol:
    “The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
    Variously credited to Mark Twain or Edward Abbey.













  • InHiding80InHiding80 Posts: 7,623
    edited January 2016
    brianlux said:

    Go Nickelback!
    http://www.torontosun.com/2016/01/12/donald-trump-should-like-nickelback
    This just might happen then you guys really are screwed. Ha, ha,

    " If you don’t like Nickelback, buzz off. Go read Ulysses or watch a Woody Allen movie with all the other snobs."

    Ummm... yeah, well OK then! :lol:
    If they don't like David Bowie, they can buzz off and watch Kirk Cameron and Chuck Norris crap and listen to Ted Nugent with the philistine snobs.
  • brianluxbrianlux Posts: 42,051
    edited January 2016

    brianlux said:

    Go Nickelback!
    http://www.torontosun.com/2016/01/12/donald-trump-should-like-nickelback
    This just might happen then you guys really are screwed. Ha, ha,

    " If you don’t like Nickelback, buzz off. Go read Ulysses or watch a Woody Allen movie with all the other snobs."

    Ummm... yeah, well OK then! :lol:
    If they don't like David Bowie, they can buzz off and watch Kirk Cameron and Chuck Norris crap and listen to Ted Nugent with the philistine snobs.
    And if we are Bowie fans but don't like those guys I guess that puts us in " hoity-toity circles"!

    “The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
    Variously credited to Mark Twain or Edward Abbey.













  • josevolutionjosevolution Posts: 29,570
    His gonna be the candidate ...
    jesus greets me looks just like me ....
  • usamamasan1usamamasan1 Posts: 4,695
    woot
  • josevolutionjosevolution Posts: 29,570
    At this point i don't care if he gets the nod as long as the the other career politicians don't special dick head cruz ....
    jesus greets me looks just like me ....
This discussion has been closed.