U.S. 2016 Election

So to anyone who's been paying attention to recent news, Mr. Trump and Mr. Sanders have recently invaded my state (Mr. Sanders has occupied my current city with his supporters) and I plan on voting in the primaries. If I can't make a decision on who to vote for by Tuesday, I'm probably just going to vote for my local and state choices (judges, sheriff, etc.) to at least pay my two cents

So to any U.S. members on this site: who do you plan on voting for when you get the chance (most likely in November) and why?

 

Clinton because I'm a democrat (or at least lean democrat) and I find Trump's nativist arguments simple and abhorrent. By simple, I mean his rhetorical skill is all posture and no substance and his nativism if truly believed will lead to the world descending into chaos. So yeah, I'd like not to elect a guy who swaggers like a dictator and draws on the garbage fire of racism and xenophobia to fuel his campaign.
Clinton may have the charisma of a 6 month old gallon of milk, but I'd vote for every republican candidate of the last 70 years over Trump.

 

Either Clinton or Sanders, whichever one wins the primary. I do think Trump makes some points (am ready for all the fucking hate I'll get for that) he just does not have what it takes, at all, to be a leader. A good leader needs to be firm, but they need to have compassion, which Trump does not have. Granted, I don't think Clinton has any compassion, but she not only has more experience then Trump does, she also isn't as insane as Trump. I'm honestly glad that Ben Carson dropped out of the race. That guy was worse then Trump IMO.

 

Beat me to this thread. I was going to wait until I knew for certain who was going to climb out of the Democrat race. Probably Clinton but I wasn't sure how far Sanders wanted to go into the dirt and make it messy. He certainly could but he hasn't.

With that said I'm with Trump.

And NO, I'M NOT A

Misongynist
Racist
Fascist
Nazi
Idiot
Low info
Troll
White Supremacist KKK
Bigot
Islamaphobe
Homophobe
Bible Thumping
Gun totting
Redneck
BLAH BLAH BLAH
I probably missed a bunched of other crap so spare me that garbage.

Donald Trump has destroyed and exposed the last remnants of the weak and timid Republican party and is now ready to upset the political democrat establishment
When this is all over, win or lose, people will finally break free from the tyranny of this garbage self censor political correctness that has ruined the right wing and made them subservant to the political left.

I was going to leave the republican party forever before this started. Doesn't look like I have to anymore. The left says it's being lead by everything I said above. Ha!

Great, you guys go ahead and keep doing that. Don't bow down to their tyranny Mr.Trump. That's their game, they call a republican any of the above and cry foul. This time Trump doesn't give a damn and doesn't double talk like a politician. He says something and that's it. Looking forward to him calling Clinton the lying political hag she really is.

Prediction
I fully expect a dividing line between the liberals and new republican party by the end of the year. To me that's the important thing, at last something to challenge the Democrats of the left, not this Uniparty Club that goes on in Washington.

Oh and Trump in a landslide.

I probably lost a lot of respect now but I don't really care anymore. Expect any accusation of so much as "LEANING" of the lables above to be met with greater force. Speaking of which...

Yes that's right, I'm oozing racism and xenophobia right out of my skin. I'm full of so much hatred that I'm willing to follow dictators off of the proverbial cliff. The right wing is full of so much xenophobia and racism that we are marching down D.C with KKK flags and burn muslims at the stake banners /S

I'll tell you what's really fueling Trump's campaign.
No one wants another political junkie like Hillery Clinton to run this country. There is a very real movement of people who believe that this country is being run by politicians who are not representing their interest and instead are being influenced or bought by big money donors and lobbyists. Trump is owned by neither since he's so filthy rich he doesn't need them. Hell he probably owned a few of them himself back then.

I take it you don't understand the Sanders voters either who are rather similar. They get called communists, free loafers, druggies, and other sorts of things.

Hey both sides have their wackos, but the vast majorities of both movements are sick of Washington elites running this country.

 

Nah, I get Sanders. His argument is also simplistic (wall street and the 1% are the source of all of your problems), but it draws on a string of feelings that people of my generation feel, like the loss of the ideal of the American Dream, and the feeling that Wall Street is selling America down the river and getting paid to do it. Sanders is making the argument that the system is rigged from the inside and I believe that. I just don't think you need to burn the system to the ground to fix it. I also understand the feeling of what you seem to be using as your primary motivation because lord only knows I want money out of politics.
My main problem with Trump are his policies and how he seems to make snap judgments and lay blame of America's problems at the feet of foreign people. Terrorism happens? Keep out the scary muslims! Domestic economy is sluggish? China is wiping the floor with us and I can get you a better deal! Look at your community and see the brown people? I'm going to force the Mexicans to build a wall by stopping money transfers to Mexico! This is despite the fact that legal immigrants also do this as well as natural born citizens. Not to mention that will probably not cause Mexico to buckle, but instead sour relations. Protesters keep protesting your rallies? Pine for the days when police would beat protesters and say that they're all paid for and not real!
I know that politicians not willing to choose a favorite condiment without focus grouping is annoying, but they at least know what a country can and can't do. Trump acts like if you snap your fingers, the bad stuff will go away. That if you tell China you're going to increase import taxes that they won't just respond with making American goods harder to buy in China. He acts as though the world will buckle to America, when the current peace is built on a series of treaties and alliances that won't take kindly to being talked down to. Institutions don't turn on a dime and it doesn't matter how much you tell it like it is. Arrogance won't fix the world's problems and I feel like it will only make them worse.

 

Honestly, I don't think Sanders has a chance. He has a big chance in WV seeing that everyone here hates Hillary and Bill for their actions that led to the massive decline and closure of coal mines in this state. However, in the long run, he has to pretty much kick Hillary's ass in every state that's left in the primaries to even come close to the nomination

And to top it off, even if he does get inaugurated, I doubt he'll last long. He'd be older than Ronald Reagan when he got inaugurated into office, and the job in the Oval Office isn't exactly a cakewalk.

So that leaves Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump. Though I don't support her one lick, I think that Hillary's going to win the election come November. Mainly because she has much more experience in politics than Trump and Trump doesn't really seem like he knows how to play the game of politics; he seems like he's just winging it.

Also, fun fact:

If Sanders or Trump do get into office, they'll be the oldest president to be elected into office

 

I'll be voting for Sanders in the primary and the gen election (if applicable). If Clinton wins the primary, I'll definitely vote for her over Trump.

 

I will vote who ever is running against Clinton, if she ends up at the primaries. I will never vote for a traitor. She has failed to follow the federal guidelines and protocols since 2009. She was against securing the Embassy at Benghazi, ignoring their plea for additional security because a threat was imminent. Clinton would be another term for Obama's destruction agenda. Nothing will change for the betterment of the United States. She was a failure as a New York senator, she was a failure as the first lady, she will be a failure of a president. If we are going to have the "First Woman as President," let's actually make it worth the historical moment and have someone far more competent. We cannot vote for someone that will assist our enemies, foreign and domestic, in this country's destruction.

Bernie has great ideas, but is economically bat-shit crazy. We need someone with a better understanding of economics to formulate the best way to use his ideas. At this point, I cannot vote for someone that fails in economics. I'll reserve my vote if he has a competent vice president running mate that can help with the economics of his plans that won't financially destroy us.

At this point, it's going to be a hold your nose election and a babysitter president. Neither side has the ideal candidate.

The great thing about Trump however is the fact he scares the crap out of the current political system. He's changing the system, pushing the parties to either fix their shit or be thrown out of their comfortable lifestyle and career. Trump is not bought by corporations and despite having business deals for his companies being tossed out, he still hasn't backed down. We need more like Trump in that respect. He's brought the foundation of this political bullshit to it's knees. He has reached more people about the current problems we face in the United States. For better or worse, he has gotten more people active and paying attention to this country's problems. Just look at California with all the illegals rioting just because Trump was there for the republican debate. "Make America Mexico Again." Yeah, anyone who supports ignoring the illegal immigration problem is certainly not going to care about it's legal immigrants and citizens. People are being paid to protest Trump and by proxy, Trump is creating jobs and he's not even president yet. Is he ideal though? Probably not.

Anyone voting Clinton, I dare you to share 1 thing that she has done in her career that positively worked for the United States and was successful at it. She might "have the experience" but she's far from successful at fixing the problems the United States has no matter if it was local, state, or federal.

If you don't like Trump, write in Sanders if he doesn't win the nomination. Just for the love of this country don't vote for Clinton.

 

Good because I lied and I still hate it when I get lumped together with everything I said before

As for everything else you said it's a fair point, Basically broils down to
"It's not realistic, you can't blanket blame everything on such and such and get results"

But that's why I'm voting for Trump, brash and provocative he may be but illegal immigration is a problem, unfair trade with China is a problem, and imo political correctness has run amok.

I know for certain Clinton will do nothing to solve any of those issues, at least with Trump there is a chance. I'm not concerned with the doom and gloom forecast of the economy with Trump because we are already living on borrowed time. We are in a bubble that's about to burst.

I want the guy looking out for the country first and not wall street fat cats and their political lap dogs.

 

I totally agree, although i personally wish Cruz was in Trump's place. Even though the personality and character of Trump abhors me, I would still vote for Trump over Clinton, because we do not need a Clinton Dynasty like the Kennedy's or Bush's. And even though Sanders will most likely not get the nomination, all though i do not agree with his agenda or policies, Sanders is The Grandpa everyone's been waiting for and Clinton is the Grandma everyone wants to forget.

 

CHIP's probably the biggest one that everyone likes. But truthfully its hard to judge foreign policy in the short term, because foreign policy is a longer term sort of project. In 10 years, maybe Iran will desire to extend its treaty and one of our biggest detractors will become a close ally. Maybe they're building the bomb right now. Hillary helped set up that treaty. What I'm getting at is her time as secretary of state is hard to judge. As senator she served in the opposition so rarely did her bills get anywhere. And she was first lady when I was 10, but I'm told CHIP was something she worked on.

Well formulated argument. I may disagree on the scale of those problems, but your argument is sound. I also don't share your taste in character, but thats all opinion. So my opinion has only gone up of you.

 

I already voted for Sanders in the primary but unfortunately at this point I don't think he has a realistic chance of winning. I will probably be voting Jill Stein again in the generals if it turns out to be Hillary and Trump.

The corruption in the political establishment is systemic. As long as you have nearly unlimited special interest money flowing into campaigns, it necessarily follows that politicians will not represent your interests. A Princeton University study broke down over 1700 survey questions on political positions and separated them by income level, then determined how often certain income levels saw their policy positions enacted. You may be unsurprised to find out that there was almost no correlation whatsoever to the legislation that was passed and the positions of average income Americans, but there was strong correlation among higher income levels and policy implementation. In other words, when Hillary says that she doesn't think all the millions of dollars she's taking from special interests is influencing her decisions, she is being naive at best or disingenuous at worst (I'm going with disingenuous).

Nearly every issue we're currently facing can be boiled down to money in politics at its root. For instance, if you're mad about the bad free trade policies that we keep making with China and other countries, then you should be mad about money in politics. Companies continually lobby for support of these deals because it allows them to save on cheaper labor overseas. Even if you vote for a candidate that vows to fight against atrocious deals like the TPP, unless you have major campaign finance reform and get special interest money out of the system first, deals like this will at best only be temporarily defeated and simply take another form under a new name when more money pours in.

Sanders is the only candidate on the democratic side that has consistently brought the issue of campaign finance reform to attention, and has been consistent with his positions by denying donations from SuperPACs and large institutions. Similarly, Trump has been the only candidate on the Republican side that has brought this issue to voters' attention, though I long suspected that his position on this was disingenuous, given that he openly admitted to bribing several of the candidates on-stage during the debates, and that his own companies have engaged in outsourcing and benefiting from the very system he claims to be against. It's also easy for him to take the stance that he does while large donors are already inclined to shy away from his campaign and support other candidates. The real test for Trump will be to see where he intends to raise his money from come the general election when the donors have no other choice. I fully expect him to open the floodgates as soon as it becomes convenient.

Honestly though, I find Trump as a whole to be only one step removed from President Camacho with how laughably flippant and silly he has proven to be with his command of the issues. Building a wall between Mexico is quite possibly one of the grossest wastes of resources there is whether you magically make Mexico pay for it or not. A recent Pew Research study revealed that immigration from Mexico is actually below net zero, meaning there are in fact more Mexicans leaving the country than there are migrating to us. This wall would accomplish absolutely nothing except ironically perhaps make it harder for more Mexicans to leave. His idea of banning Muslims from immigrating until we "figure out what's going on" arguably tramples on the first amendment, and he seems to contradict himself on a regular basis, sometimes having such a shockingly low self-awareness that he flip-flops within the same sentence.

As a random side note, it's unfortunate that the modern liberal movement is being damaged by regressive political correctness, focusing on non-issues like safe spaces and misogyny in media often times where none actually exists. It's just distracting from the real issues and if something isn't done to move away from this mentality in the long run I think it's going to backfire.

Anyway GARcher/Ahri '2016.

 

You guys should get a better voting system, like ours.

 

Every country certainly has their own election laws. I always forget what the heck our electoral collage is capable of until the months leading up to the general election.

Still the U.S is such a large and arguably more diverse country then any other democratic nation. 50 states, each with their own agenda. Wouldn't want the folks from California dictating what Texas should do or vice versa. Wouldn't want New York to overrule Kentucky.
Country is a Republic, for good or ill I understand it could be pretty confusing.

So democrat guys I got to ask you, what's the deal with the super delegates? Is this something that needs to be changed because it seems very unfair for people from the outside looking in. It seems to me this is just fuel for people to get upset about and thus hurt the party. We all know that's what's keeping Clinton afloat after all. Momentum is pretty important and those early super delegates really put a dent in things. I haven't followed the democrat race too much since I thought Hillary was going to steam roll but it looks like Sanders is trying his hardest to make a point.
I think the point is understood that he had to start from behind but between you and me he should have pulled a Donald Trump and gone scorched earth from the beginning.
I guess it's not in his nature, or maybe he doesn't want to look like Trump. Either way he's behind and even if this goes contested convention I don't see how the democrats would pick him over Hillery

Even now I don't know what to make of Cruz. I don't feel particularly strong about him and something about his brand of conservatism doesn't fit with me. It's weird too because before this started I was ready to go full blown right wing. As events unraveled I started to realize that what I really wanted wasn't more ideology talk but some conclusions in congress. Cruz is divisive on people, especially to the left. I know the polls says he would do well but I don't put much stock on that this early (yes we are early still!)

I just can't shake the feeling that people would more likely vote against Cruz then they would Trump. Cruz goes after the left and liberals far stronger then Trump. This certainly has appeal to someone like you and me but I feel this is exactly the sort of thing that would probably get the left wing riled up. As soon as social issues gets brought up by a Republican Democrats grab their pitch forks and scream murder. Cruz can be assertive but I don't want this election to be dictated by the Democrats playbook, don't play it. Trump on the other hand seems to focus his attacks more on the general "these politicians are all bought!". It's kinda hard to get mad at the guy who would even throw George Bush under the bus. So instead he gets painted as unstable dummy.

I don't know, I don't think the guy is abhorrent as advertised. There are certainly positive stories about Trump. It's hard to separate Trump the showman and Trump the businessman. I think he says outrageous things on purpose just to get the attention. He uses the media the same exact way he uses the government and the politicians his whole life.
I know that sounds horrible but he wouldn't be here if he hadn't. The way the party system works now someone like Cruz may have been crushed by the combined forces of Jeb Bush and the others. And then here comes someone who beat (or used) the system. I should be mad, but as far as I can tell he has no strings above him. Also since running for president is the dumbest thing you could do for your brand then the only thing left for me to assume is the guy is doing it because he's a patriot.
So for my right wing friends who are holding out, I say we put those strings on him ourselves. We may not like his murky policies and wishy washy political leanings but at the very least we could own this beast ourselves. Don't turn away and reject the person who crushed and exposed the corrupt Republican establishment. Trump is a wildfire and if he does win it will cause the Democrats to reevaluate themselves in much the same way the Republicans have to. To me that's a necessary step to bringing back real political dialogue into the government because the status quo of the two parties is unacceptable.

And to my left leaning friends, look past the exterior of the man. I know they say you can't win with low favorable numbers. However Clinton herself isn't likable either. So what does that leave us? We look at policies and Clinton ranges around the middle (as much as it pains me to say it). However what she says is often total opposites which makes her the often called "deceitful" person (and that's putting nicely).
In my view (and probably the view of lot's of Cruz people), both candidates are the same liars.

At least Trump is his own man. I say go for it! (Or vote Sanders). You may really believe Trump is a wacko but In my experience, rich and successful people know what they are doing. Clinton is neither and has relied on donors to get where she is.
No matter what could be said, I find this the most abhorrent of all the candidates standing today.

I think that's it from me, I made my pitch. I think I articulated my point to the best of my ability. We'll see how this unfolds, I think people are really excited this year and it's awesome.

 

Now, I didn't agree with all of Cruz's agenda, but totally agree with life issues! To be honest, i just don't know if Trump would be any better than Hillary. I mean, they are totally different as far as demeanor and personality, but Trump's "so-called" conservative doesn't cut it for me, i mean, the man has changed his position on so many issues so many times, do you really think a narcissistic,changeable billionaire is any better than a progressive and blatant liberal at protecting our interests? Now, I am not saying i support Clinton in any way, which I don't, but just think about it!

 

Clinton has been more flip-flop than Trump. She's a career politician that says what people think is popular and she does it in hopes of getting votes. Trump, I'm not so sure he's quite as much of a flip-flop, at least not as much as Clinton. Sanders, however I think has mostly stuck to his convictions and may have only flipped to compromise on issues that he can agree with and that others can at least agree on, which at least gets it in the door and can be improved on. Trump has risked business deals by doubling down on his stances on issues, even if it costed his businesses the deals they were seeking to close on. It's not something you see from very many politicians, including the ones who made it a career. Trump got every ones attention, for good or bad. Now he needs to refine his policies when it comes time to reveal them in detail when asked for specifics if he wants people to continue supporting him with their vote. Despite what the media wants you to believe, Trump isn't quite as "evil" as every politicians tries to make him out to be. They are scared that he will uproot the political system that the politicians have become so comfortable with in their corruption. We don't really know if a business man like Trump will make this country worse or better, but under Clinton, it will be another 4 years of Obama's destruction agenda that much is certain.

 

I'd sooner vote for Trump or abstain than Clinton. I'd rather have a nutter in office with a cabinet that will hopefully set him straight (or a Congress that can impeach him if he goes insane) than a person that lied through her teeth in order to secure votes even if it meant covering up a scandal that cost the lives of innocent nationals

 

I'm going to have to disagree with Clinton being competent enough to run this country. She would rather throw the American people under the bus just to line her own pockets. She won't follow the federal guidelines and protocols. She is a failure at following the proper security protocols for communication. She would sooner sell state secrets than to be truthful to the American people. She won't do her damnedest to protect our embassies when they request additional security because of immanent threats. Voting Clinton would be worse than your fears of a Trump presidency.

 

Earlier today I heard a radio campaign for Clinton with her saying "I'll fight for you!"

This video came to mind: