Serious US Election Thread (read post #2014)

[Adamant Zoroark]

I wasn't aware that voting for Trump "because ISIS is more homophobic" was even a viable choice...

Oh wait, that's because it isn't. Maybe ISIS wanting them dead is worse than whatever Trump said last week or ever, but Trump is still homophobic. I've talked about this before, but the possibility of Trump appointing justices who would overturn Obergefell v. Hodges is just one of many concerns, and that's probably the most minor. A Trump presidency would rewind LGBT rights and, as has been stated already, the possibility of a terrorist attack is just too low for it to be a real concern.

And yeah, overall acceptance numbers don't matter that much - unless that number is close to 100%, the fact of the matter is that people who aren't accepting of homosexuality remain more than just a fringe group. As an aromantic bisexual, marriage doesn't mean that much to me (though it's not going to make me okay with a Hodges overturn), but the fact of the matter is that Trump would be totally fine with enabling all of those people who aren't accepting of homosexuality (which, reminder, is still more than just a fringe group, it wasn't that long ago that sodomy laws were ruled unconstitutional) to discriminate. Do we want a president who is okay with allowing landlords to evict tenants and bosses to fire employees just because they're gay?

Also, unrelated: Trump is an absolute idiot on trade. Most economists agree that we benefited from NAFTA. Free trade is a good thing, get over it.

 

[GatoDelFuego]

Man, I'm sorry for assuming that "pretty much every smoggay" didn't know these numbers when "pretty much every smoggay" liked the post that said "stop being ignorant, 70% of american christians want you dead".

All I wanted to do is point out that omfuga was wrong on this. Did I go too far by trying to back up what I was saying with "unimportant numbers" that are the actual facts? When Skitty has some different opinion and bughouse you say "hey every other smoggay has the 'right' opinion" and omfuga you say "stop being ignorant", is that honestly your only answer? And I don't even agree with skitty on this. I said clearly that I have no problem with the current immigration policy. I'm just pointing out where omfuga went wrong.

The whole population of Syria could enter the USA and the majority of people in this country who have an issue with gay people would STILL be white. And Syrian refugees entering, regardless of those statistics, would have a tiny effect on the amount of people who don't accept gays in the USA overall

I think it's unfair to complain about Syrian refugees' potential anti-gay views when they almost certainly wouldn't have an effect on gay people; at least, people like Mike Pence, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, who all have controlling hands in politics are far more threatening to gay people than Syrian refugees lol

I mean Skitty said "The idea that more people coming here that think I should die for being gay scares me". You imply that's not a valid criticism because...horrible politicians? Regardless of how stupid these conservative leaders are, adding more people where 50-70% hate gays isn't the solution in some people's minds. (not that I have a problem with our current immigration stance).

And finally don't imply that the Orlando attack and Syrian refugees are related. Omar Mateen, the Orlando terrorist, was an American-born Afghani man. He's neither Syrian nor a refugee. You're grouping an American Afghani second-generation immigrant with Syrian Refugees. Racist beliefs like these basically allow people like Trump to pin all terrorist attacks on American "Muslims" (using this as a term for Arabs, since he and ignorant trump supporters seemt o believe all Arab people are Muslims) and say they should be deported.

If you're arguing with Skitty byproxy then fine, but if you're arguing with me then I never said that. [yeah there's zero connection between orlando and syria, I agree]. But you said that a majority of arabs are not muslims? Only 20% of muslims are arab, yes, but an overwhelming majority of arabs are muslims. This doesn't have anything to do with terrorism at all, I'm just pointing this out, so sorry if you think I'm going to far or something but I don't like it when people say wrong statistics to prove a point (even one that I agree with, ffs).

 

[JES]

It's always the anti Trump people here getting angry and willing to use personal attacks while debating lol. Being able to stuff as many personal insults in your post as possible doesn't make your points any better.

That being said, if I had to choose between a person who said a woman "liked eating" 20 years ago or someone who ignores security procedures on purpose and lead to the death of 4 Americans in Benghazi, I'd choose the former. I care a lot more about Hillary Clinton's deadly actions and policies that she supports such as NAFTA and the TPP than Donald Trump's harsh words. I also think it isn't right to try to scare those voting for a 3rd party candidate into voting for yours, people have the right to vote for who they want to, no matter if they have a major chance of winning or not.

And that is another problem with Hillary, and why I understand why people don't want to vote for her. If only insults were the worst that Trump has done.

Fortunately, she no longer supports TPP, and if she knows what's good for her, she'll do what she can as President to make sure it remains a pipe dream for the filthy rich.

From attempting kicking people out of their own homes so he could build a <redacted>-damned golf resort in Scotland for the well-to-do, and harassing those who didn't want to roll over and play ball, to even perhaps not paying taxes and outright justifying it, Trump is clearly a very bad candidate, and we're lucky that he has never held office (or unlucky. I bet he'd be a disaster if he ran for governor or something like Arnold Schwarzenneger, but at least he wouldn't ruin the entire country, and we'd know for certain what type of leader he'd be). I think he'd be a disaster as President, and only cares about one thing: himself, and maybe his family.

And that was only a warm-up. There is SO much dirt on this guy. He is a sack of dirt!

 

[dice]

u should be mad at the laws tht allow trump to avoid taxes instead of pitting tht against him. that's such a red herring to this election anyway alongside almost all of these scandals that both parties are vigorously scraping the bottom of the barrel for at this point

in other news we get to see my main man mike pence tomorrow in the vp debates. if he manages to appear at most unremarkable it will be quite remarkable

 

[Omfuga]

If you're arguing with Skitty byproxy then fine, but if you're arguing with me then I never said that. [yeah there's zero connection between orlando and syria, I agree]. But you said that a majority of arabs are not muslims? Only 20% of muslims are arab, yes, but an overwhelming majority of arabs are muslims. This doesn't have anything to do with terrorism at all, I'm just pointing this out, so sorry if you think I'm going to far or something but I don't like it when people say wrong statistics to prove a point (even one that I agree with, ffs).

I was referring to what Skitty said, that syrian refugees scare him because of the Orlando shootings.

"You're grouping an American Afghani second-generation immigrant with Syrian Refugees. Racist beliefs like these basically allow people like Trump to pin all terrorist attacks on American "Muslims" (using this as a term for Arabs, since he and ignorant trump supporters seemt o believe all Arab people are Muslims) and say they should be deported."

Where in this post do I say that the majority of arabs are not Muslims?? I said that not all Arabs are Muslims. Which is true. I posted no "wrong statistic". The "wrong statistic" that I posted was the one you made up where I said that the majority of Arabs are not Muslims. Please read my post next time before giving me an alert to respond to it!!

 

[GatoDelFuego]

I was referring to what Skitty said, that syrian refugees scare him because of the Orlando shootings.

"You're grouping an American Afghani second-generation immigrant with Syrian Refugees. Racist beliefs like these basically allow people like Trump to pin all terrorist attacks on American "Muslims" (using this as a term for Arabs, since he and ignorant trump supporters seemt o believe all Arab people are Muslims) and say they should be deported."

Where in this post do I say that the majority of arabs are not Muslims?? I said that not all Arabs are Muslims. Which is true. I posted no "wrong statistic". The "wrong statistic" that I posted was the one you made up where I said that the majority of Arabs are not Muslims. Please read my post next time before giving me an alert to respond to it!!

No, the wrong statistic you posted was 70% of american christians want gays dead

From the what I can find, statistics (wikipedia, by "X religion in Y country") seem to say that arabs are about 90-93% muslim, with christianity filling in the rest. 10%, while not 0%, is quite a small number in population terms. You can see how people could believe all arab people are muslim, because a massive (like seriously massive) majority of them are.

 

[Oddish is the best]

The fact that younger muslims, rather then older muslims in the UK have a more conservative outlook on Homosexuality and things like Sharia law concerns me as a trend whereas almost everywhere else tolerance goes up by age.



I just wonder what is making those younger people more conservative in thought in the UK (for muslims) when homosexuality acceptance among Muslims in the U.S has gone up.

 

[thesecondbest]

The fact that younger muslims, rather then older muslims in the UK have a more conservative outlook on Homosexuality and things like Sharia law concerns me as a trend whereas almost everywhere else tolerance goes up by age.



I just wonder what is making those younger people more conservative in thought in the UK (for muslims) when homosexuality acceptance among Muslims in the U.S has gone up.

They are more likely to segregate in to their own communities if younger, while the older ones probably had to assimilate. Self segregation is a dangerous problem that leads to cultural tensions. If Muslims are willing to assimilate, let them in. If not, nty.
And before you call me racist please note I am brown and some racists(like Bernie with the one Hindu at the town hall) probably mistake me for a Muslim too. This is based on facts, not irrational hatred.

 

[Shrug]

im also excited for a national debate featuring mike p. we're gonna see just how trump-enlightened this man has become while admiring how he somehow always looks to be administering and receiving a colonoscopy simultaneously. hopefully he defends his greatest hit, the claim that tobacco isnt linked to cancer.

an idea that is very good: first lady/gent debates. the idea of a bill / melania debate to me seems very very amusing. this idea holds up in past elections aswell, mostly because i would have liked more exposure to the extremely badass mother (michelle) of my future wife (malia)

 

[Soul Fly]

^(with thick east-european accent) "we must ban ze immigrants"

 

[sunny004]

an idea that is very good: first lady/gent debates. the idea of a bill / melania debate to me seems very very amusing. this idea holds up in past elections aswell, mostly because i would have liked more exposure to the extremely badass mother (michelle) of my future wife (malia)

Bill: Balloooooooooooooooons

Meliana: *copy/pastes most recent Michelle Obama speech*

 

[Sam]

pence probably won the debate on style, kaine on substance

I definitely think Kaine is going to win the news cycle (lots of soundbits for the clinton campaign to use of pence denying things he and trump said as well as pence just straight up lying). I think that's a little more important since historically the vp debate doesn't actually shift the polls much if at all.

 

[sunny004]

Also, GG GOP
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...y-for-mike-pence-90-minutes-before-it-starts/

 

[Bughouse]

The strategy for Kaine was pretty clear: tie Pence to Trump

The problem is when the candidate's unfavorables are based on the candidate as much as if not more than the policies, this is a hard line to take. I don't think it was particularly successful. Pence is not Trump. I may think Pence is an idiot, but he's a smart idiot. Very different thing from Trump to be a smart person who just happens to reach dramatically different conclusions about the world. Pence also afaik has no corruption issues. He, like Kaine, is exceptionally boring. The only particular issue with Pence is his own inappropriate use of christian conservatism in governing, but Kaine is mr. middle america for the clinton team. He can't go on the attack on this issue. It would be far too likely to backfire.

Pence definitely will be seen to have won the night by more people. Despite the fact that he didn't actually do anything particularly effective. Kaine just looked like a bit of a fool for constantly talking about Trump in a VP debate with pretty direct questions to be answered... by the two candidates on stage, not the ones at home. This is muted by the fact that Pence really did struggle to handle these charges. He played the "this is low, even for you" card quite a few times. But it really only works once per debate. If you have to keep using it, it becomes obvious you don't actually have a response.

In any case, Pence doing substantially better than Trump did shouldn't change anything. The top of the ticket is so polarized already and no one is honestly looking to the VPs as a "well [candidate] is 95 years old..." They're both old-ish but neither is gonna die in office.

And as proof... here's some statistics. Oh looky at the basically totally uncorrelated data points!

 

[Heracr055]

I think Kaine did pretty well yesterday. He had a mission to make Pence own Trump's political sins last night, and I think he succeeded on that front. In the days to come, I think we'll see Pence's performance come back to bite Trump's candidacy. Here's three reasons:
1) Fact checking will heavily favor Kaine
2) Pence did not defend Trump's positions or statements he's made. He either didn't respond or denied that Trump made such claims, which will hurt in the long run due to aformentioned fact checking
3) The VP is looking more presidential than the star of the show, Trump. Steve Schmidt spoke with a Trump insider, and supposedly Trump's pissed about this (and that Pence didn't defend him)
In a nutshell, I think this debate will work out for the Clinton campaign in the coming days. At the very least, it's not the blowout that Breibart and other conservative sites say it was; if they want to see a blowout, they simply need rewatch the first debate, which was a debacle for Trump

 

[KM]

Man, I'm sorry for assuming that "pretty much every smoggay" didn't know these numbers when "pretty much every smoggay" liked the post that said "stop being ignorant, 70% of american christians want you dead".

All I wanted to do is point out that omfuga was wrong on this. Did I go too far by trying to back up what I was saying with "unimportant numbers" that are the actual facts? When Skitty has some different opinion and bughouse you say "hey every other smoggay has the 'right' opinion" and omfuga you say "stop being ignorant", is that honestly your only answer? And I don't even agree with skitty on this. I said clearly that I have no problem with the current immigration policy. I'm just pointing out where omfuga went wrong.

I mean Skitty said "The idea that more people coming here that think I should die for being gay scares me". You imply that's not a valid criticism because...horrible politicians? Regardless of how stupid these conservative leaders are, adding more people where 50-70% hate gays isn't the solution in some people's minds. (not that I have a problem with our current immigration stance).

If you're arguing with Skitty byproxy then fine, but if you're arguing with me then I never said that. [yeah there's zero connection between orlando and syria, I agree]. But you said that a majority of arabs are not muslims? Only 20% of muslims are arab, yes, but an overwhelming majority of arabs are muslims. This doesn't have anything to do with terrorism at all, I'm just pointing this out, so sorry if you think I'm going to far or something but I don't like it when people say wrong statistics to prove a point (even one that I agree with, ffs).

the point is that ultimately "45% of christians don't like us" is a much bigger deal than "64% of muslims don't like us" in the United States because Muslims make up around 1% of the popl'n whereas Christians make up the vast majority. The number 70% that was thrown out was hyperbolic, and obviously so, but being pedantic about it isn't really getting anything accomplished, yeah? It doesn't matter if it's 45% or 20% or 70%, it's still such an astronomically more relevant number than the amount of Muslims who are anti-gay in this country that it's really all that matters.

At the end of the day, the point is that social progress is far more likely to regress when we have a commander in chief and vice president who are either actively anti-LGBT or neutral at best [i put this in here because I really do not want to entertain some 3=page argument about how Trump's toleration of that shithead Milo Yiannopoulus makes him a flag-waving power bottom], and it is far more likely to improve when we have a president who actively speaks out about LGBT issues and supports them publicly, even if they only do so when it is slightly more politically acceptable. This might sound heartless, but frankly I don't give a single shit if Clinton "actually wants" LGBTQ rights - as long as she goes thru the motions because it's required of a modern Democrat, that will lead to real progress, point blank.

 

[RoadsterUFO]

The real winner of the VP debate was Bill Weld in 140 characters or less on Twitter. Jokes asides, Pence won imo, more or less because Kaine kept coming off like some annoying far left white knight SJW tumblr poster with his interruptions. Pence didn't really return much substance himself either, but he came off more presidential than Kaine.

It was a good debate. Wish I had been there. Unfortunately, there was a gaping ideological void left between two candidates representing polarizing tickets.

While unconvincing to those of us who have heard it before from Republicans, Gov. Pence presented a bit more fiscal restraint. But, he enthusiastically embraced a social agenda that makes most Americans uncomfortable.

Senator Kaine, on the other hand, rightly rejected the Trump social and immigration extremes, but is saddled with Ms. Clinton’s spending and tax plans.

- Bill Weld

 

[Haruno]

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/783451469349400576

Want a free trip to the presidential debate? All you have to do to be eligible is to donate :]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]

 

[beej]

It ought to be said that we shouldn't discriminate against refugees in terms of basic rights just because we don't like their political views. I find the views of a large percentage of the religious right repugnant in the United States, especially their beliefs about homosexuality. But I don't think they should be deported, or not have access to housing. I even think they should be allowed to vote on their disgusting beliefs. That's what living in a secular democracy is about. The truth is, if we really cared about the homophobia of immigrants, we would also care about the homophobia of our citizens. We don't. It's not really about the homophobia, it's the fact that they represent a demographic--Muslims--that we have worked for a very long time to turn into a bogeyman in American politics, and we don't want to give that device up. They are an effective scapegoat for a lot of our social problems. Just look at how we're pinning the problem of homophobia on them, as if that's not something native to our country.

 

[UncleSam]

Would anyone be interested in playing in a Fantasy Election 2016 Pick Em competition? I envision basically a few steps:
1. I list ~20-50 of the closest races (senate and presidential states)
2. People rank predictions for each one and get points based on their confidence (so if there's 25 races your most confident prediction gives 25 points if correct, least confident gives one)
3. If there are unanimous and high-confidence picks then those races will be removed

If ~4 or more people indicate interest either here or privately to me I'll happily run this either in a separate Cong thread or in Circus; I think it would be fun but don't wanna make a thread without any notion of how many might want to make picks.

I'll post an example of what the picks might look like later/in the new thread if people are interested.

 

[gali]

http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/10/07/donald-trump-women-lewd-comments-origwx-cs.cnn

How can anyone seriously consider Trump fit to lead the United States?

 

[ZoroDark]

Yeah it appears that this is gonna be the one that finally sinks him. It's been said about plenty of things before, but there's really no coming back from those absolutely disgusting quotes.

Good fucking riddance

 

[TheValkyries]

We've seen about 400 things that "Will finally sink him". How easily we forget how forgiving people are of sexism... let alone how racism as policy is largely desirable to many.

 

[brightobject]

id argue this is different because there are white women

 

[Adamant Zoroark]

Trump was always losing the female vote (and, as far as I remember, by more than is typical for the GOP,) so if anything, this just serves as confirmation as to why he's doing so poorly among women. That being said, it will probably affect anyone still in the undecided camp.