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Re: 2016 Presidential Election Thread
Along with other "red" states moving toward blue, there's this. Donald Trump only leads Hillary by 7 points in Texas. That's insane. There's now way she'll win Texas, but to be that close shows how terrible a candidate Trump is.
AZ is awash in Red, yet he holds a lead that is almost within the margin of error.
Likewise earlier this month in Utah he TIED with Hillary at 35%, with Gary Johnson picking up 13%.
63% of Utah Mormons also had an unfavorable view of Trump.
Conservatives in the upper echelons of the GOP hierarchy have not only dismissed Trump over the last week or so, but have left the GOP altogether.
Re: 2016 Presidential Election Thread
Extracts from a very long article:
A Psychologist Analyzes Donald Trump
In 2006, Donald Trump made plans to purchase the Menie Estate, near Aberdeen, Scotland, aiming to convert the dunes and grassland into a luxury golf resort. He and the estate’s owner, Tom Griffin, sat down to discuss the transaction at the Cock & Bull restaurant. Griffin recalls that Trump was a hard-nosed negotiator, reluctant to give in on even the tiniest details. But, as Michael D’Antonio writes in his recent biography of Trump, Never Enough, Griffin’s most vivid recollection of the evening pertains to the theatrics. It was as if the golden-haired guest sitting across the table were an actor playing a part on the London stage.
“It was Donald Trump playing Donald Trump,” Griffin observed. There was something unreal about it.
The same feeling perplexed Mark Singer in the late 1990s when he was working on a profile of Trump for The New Yorker. Singer wondered what went through his mind when he was not playing the public role of Donald Trump. What are you thinking about, Singer asked him, when you are shaving in front of the mirror in the morning? Trump, Singer writes, appeared baffled. Hoping to uncover the man behind the actor’s mask, Singer tried a different tack:
“O.K., I guess I’m asking, do you consider yourself ideal company?”
“You really want to know what I consider ideal company?,” Trump replied. “A total piece of ass.”
I might have phrased Singer’s question this way: Who are you, Mr. Trump, when you are alone? Singer never got an answer, leaving him to conclude that the real-estate mogul who would become a reality-TV star and, after that, a leading candidate for president of the United States had managed to achieve something remarkable: “an existence unmolested by the rumbling of a soul.”
Fifty years of empirical research in personality psychology have resulted in a scientific consensus regarding the most basic dimensions of human variability. There are countless ways to differentiate one person from the next, but psychological scientists have settled on a relatively simple taxonomy, known widely as the Big Five:
Extroversion: gregariousness, social dominance, enthusiasm, reward-seeking behavior
Neuroticism: anxiety, emotional instability, depressive tendencies, negative emotions
Conscientiousness: industriousness, discipline, rule abidance, organization
Agreeableness: warmth, care for others, altruism, compassion, modesty
Openness: curiosity, unconventionality, imagination, receptivity to new ideas
Most people score near the middle on any given dimension, but some score toward one pole or the other. Research decisively shows that higher scores on extroversion are associated with greater happiness and broader social connections, higher scores on conscientiousness predict greater success in school and at work, and higher scores on agreeableness are associated with deeper relationships. By contrast, higher scores on neuroticism are always bad, having proved to be a risk factor for unhappiness, dysfunctional relationships, and mental-health problems. From adolescence through midlife, many people tend to become more conscientious and agreeable, and less neurotic, but these changes are typically slight: The Big Five personality traits are pretty stable across a person’s lifetime.
The psychologists Steven J. Rubenzer and Thomas R. Faschingbauer, in conjunction with about 120 historians and other experts, have rated all the former U.S. presidents, going back to George Washington, on all five of the trait dimensions. George W. Bush comes out as especially high on extroversion and low on openness to experience—a highly enthusiastic and outgoing social actor who tends to be incurious and intellectually rigid. Barack Obama is relatively introverted, at least for a politician, and almost preternaturally low on neuroticism—emotionally calm and dispassionate, perhaps to a fault.
Across his lifetime, Donald Trump has exhibited a trait profile that you would not expect of a U.S. president: sky-high extroversion combined with off-the-chart low agreeableness. This is my own judgment, of course, but I believe that a great majority of people who observe Trump would agree. There is nothing especially subtle about trait attributions. We are not talking here about deep, unconscious processes or clinical diagnoses. As social actors, our performances are out there for everyone to see.
A cardinal feature of high extroversion is relentless reward-seeking. Prompted by the activity of dopamine circuits in the brain, highly extroverted actors are driven to pursue positive emotional experiences, whether they come in the form of social approval, fame, or wealth. Indeed, it is the pursuit itself, more so even than the actual attainment of the goal, that extroverts find so gratifying. When Barbara Walters asked Trump in 1987 whether he would like to be appointed president of the United States, rather than having to run for the job, Trump said no: “It’s the hunt that I believe I love.”
Like Bush, a President Trump might try to swing for the fences in an effort to deliver big payoffs—to make America great again, as his campaign slogan says. As a real-estate developer, he has certainly taken big risks, although he has become a more conservative businessman following setbacks in the 1990s. As a result of the risks he has taken, Trump can (and does) point to luxurious urban towers, lavish golf courses, and a personal fortune that is, by some estimates, in the billions, all of which clearly bring him big psychic rewards. Risky decisions have also resulted in four Chapter 11 business bankruptcies involving some of his casinos and resorts. Because he is not burdened with Bush’s low level of openness (psychologists have rated Bush at the bottom of the list on this trait), Trump may be a more flexible and pragmatic decision maker, more like Bill Clinton than Bush: He may look longer and harder than Bush did before he leaps. And because he is viewed as markedly less ideological than most presidential candidates (political observers note that on some issues he seems conservative, on others liberal, and on still others nonclassifiable), Trump may be able to switch positions easily, leaving room to maneuver in negotiations with Congress and foreign leaders. But on balance, he’s unlikely to shy away from risky decisions that, should they work out, could burnish his legacy and provide him an emotional payoff.
The real psychological wild card, however, is Trump’s agreeableness—or lack thereof. There has probably never been a U.S. president as consistently and overtly disagreeable on the public stage as Donald Trump is. If Nixon comes closest, we might predict that Trump’s style of decision making would look like the hard-nosed realpolitik that Nixon and his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, displayed in international affairs during the early 1970s, along with its bare-knuckled domestic analog. That may not be all bad, depending on one’s perspective. Not readily swayed by warm sentiments or humanitarian impulses, decision makers who, like Nixon, are dispositionally low on agreeableness might hold certain advantages when it comes to balancing competing interests or bargaining with adversaries, such as China in Nixon’s time. In international affairs, Nixon was tough, pragmatic, and coolly rational. Trump seems capable of a similar toughness and strategic pragmatism, although the cool rationality does not always seem to fit, probably because Trump’s disagreeableness appears so strongly motivated by anger.
In domestic politics, Nixon was widely recognized to be cunning, callous, cynical, and Machiavellian, even by the standards of American politicians. Empathy was not his strong suit. This sounds a lot like Donald Trump, too—except you have to add the ebullient extroversion, the relentless showmanship, and the larger-than-life celebrity. Nixon could never fill a room the way Trump can.
In sum, Donald Trump’s basic personality traits suggest a presidency that could be highly combustible. One possible yield is an energetic, activist president who has a less than cordial relationship with the truth. He could be a daring and ruthlessly aggressive decision maker who desperately desires to create the strongest, tallest, shiniest, and most awesome result—and who never thinks twice about the collateral damage he will leave behind. Tough. Bellicose. Threatening. Explosive.
Re: 2016 Presidential Election Thread
Why hasn't she been indicted? And will she be? Should she be?
Re: 2016 Presidential Election Thread
johndivney wrote:Why hasn't she been indicted? And will she be? Should she be?
No x 3.
Do the other guys on here agree with you?
Re: 2016 Presidential Election Thread
I just find it bemusing how anyone in good conscience could support her. More than the (clearly illegal & clearly stupid) email scandal, more than the shocking hypocrisy of her handouts from the Saudis, is this global slush fund issue (CGI!). How the hell haven't the authorities, or right minded (I don't mean right-wing minded) people, not raising alarms against her. Maybe they are but are just being shouted down or closed out.
Surely that old police adage, follow the money, must come into play on the matter of her behaviour. She acts as if she's above the law ffs! & people seem to not even just stand idly by, but actively ignore this criminal in their midst?!
Maybe I'm missing something? From what I can see its head scratching.
Tbh I'm starting to see the appeal of the protest vote going for Trump, giving him a one term presidency just to stop Hillary & the sheer brazen injustice of her.
It's a testament to her thick skin i suppose, how's she's able to slime her way through these controversies. Certainly looks to be one of the more corrupt & morally bankrupt presidents you guys will have. Good luck.
Re: 2016 Presidential Election Thread
Donald Trump breaks a record, and it's not a good one
Donald Trump enjoys pushing boundaries – though he is unlikely to brag about pushing this one.
Gallup reports that Trump is more disliked than any general election candidate in the last 60 years. Even Barry Goldwater at his lowest point was not viewed as negatively as Trump is now. The polling organization’s latest survey looked not just at whether people view a candidate favorably or unfavorably, but to what extent.
Participants grade the candidate’s appeal on a 10-point scale. Forty-two percent of those surveyed gave Trump either the lowest or second-lowest possible rating. It was a record for Gallup, though Trump was not alone in besting Goldwater there. Clinton had 33% of voters giving her such low grades, which far exceeds the 26% Goldwater received at his low point in 1964.
But where Trump excelled in record setting was the total number of people who found him unfavorable to at least some extent. For every two people who view him positively, another three view him negatively. Clinton about breaks even, just as Goldwater did on the Gallup “scalometer” back in 1964.
It’s worth noting, though, that such dubious distinctions hardly stand out the way they did when Goldwater set records. Voters were far less likely to express a dim view of candidates then. Dwight Eisenhower received rock-bottom favorability scores from just 4% of voters in 1956. Lyndon B. Johnson and John F. Kennedy got the lowest scores from just 5% of voters in the elections that followed.
