Also, FWIW, I think people who live in CA should seriously consider voting for a third party candidate, since HRC is certain to win the state.
They, too, should reconsider.
First: Trump could very well win. The polls before Brexit leaned slightly towards its success, but that depended on how you read them: almost as many polls showed it headed for defeat as success. Brexit took Europe by surprise. It's part of a wave of populist nationalism that we can recognize in many countries. Trump, too, is a part of the popular nationalism movement. Not only that, but there's still 3 weeks of election to go. If you believe Sam Wang, this has been an extremely stable election, and it's unlikely to tip. But if you believe Nate Silver, this has been one of the most volatile elections since we've begun tracking it, and the two previous big swings in opinion took less than a week each.
Second: there will be no getting around the tens of millions of people who will cast a vote, in effect, for American Fascism. If Trump loses, he'll create his own cable news network, which will have a built-in audience of millions. That network will drag Fox News further to the right. Trump will spend four years running a campaign against the legitimacy of the 2016 election, and will probably have little trouble capturing the nomination in 2020.
Remember: the GOP may not have believe Trump to be an existential threat to democracy in 2015, but they were sure as shit aware that Trump was a grave threat to their chances at re-taking the White House. His was a joke campaign. And yet he took the nomination from the party establishment, almost effortlessly. He will do it again. The forces aligned against him in the GOP proved themselves impotent.
Who's "we"? Learned economists/sociologists, or internet randomers?
Trump wants to "make america great again", Brexiters want to regain their sovereignty from an unaccountable other; they aren't the same thing.
> in effect, for American Fascism
Which way do you think the country was going before Trump came along? Greater freedom, accountability and transparency of government? Does prism, Snowden etc not mean anything?
But I'm glad you brought Snowden up. Because that gives me the opportunity to remind you that one of Donald Trump's campaign promises is to put Edward Snowden to death.
I guess we'll see what happens.
That is heartbreaking. Thank you for informing me. Whoever we elect, this absolutely cannot happen.
He has also suggested, "going after their families" as a strategy to combat terrorism. Can we elect someone, to stand over the world, who has made such statements? We really need a third option. A quote from some wise-guy somewhere [0]: "315 to 320 million people; this is the best two that we can come up with?"
Remember Hillary suggested that we should use a drone to take out Julian Assange.
But we should be reminded about Trump taking this position and we should all forget that Obama and Hillary are arguably worse?
There is no reliable original source for this. Try not to present unsubstantiated quotes as fact.
I certainly haven't heard Trump defending Snowden or promising to get rid of programs like Prism.
I agree with you, I think this is playing with fire. But I have no idea if getting a little bit burned is what's needed, or if it quickly turns into Donald actually trying to get the Speaker of the House removed.
"They'll be there...I would think that Ryan wouldn't be there--maybe he would be in a different position," Trump said on The O'Reilly Factor.[1]
Does he really think he can do this? i.e. autocrat. Or does he not know how our government works? i.e imbecile. Or is he trolling? i.e. troll as head of state is great! I mean really? People are so deranged with anti-Hillary sentiment they don't really get how unstable a presidency this would be, just like this whole 18 month shit show has been.
http://insider.foxnews.com/2016/10/11/donald-trump-speaker-p...
They don't agree with you. Why should they take the time to internalize what you think a Trump presidency would mean, if you're wrong?
Have you followed all the problems related to people losing their jobs because of tweets, and Nobel laureates losing their jobs because of jokes that got blown out of proportion?
This is not quite the same as that; Trump's statements are not one-off tweets or jokes.
But you assume Trump's statements are literally what he wants to enact. Only #nevertrump actually believes that; everyone else thinks Trump is making statements that are just the right-wing version of Open Borders and Universal Income, and Trump and his supporters actually expect those radical right-wing positions (consider them an initial negotiation position) to be negotiated down to something centrist. They don't want all Muslims banned (well, some Trump supporters do, but not many), nor an economy-damaging trade war with China, nor a literal wall running the entire Mexican border, nor refusal to defend NATO allies. What they do want is some respect for enforcing existing immigration laws (congress made it illegal to immigrate by walking across the border, but the Democrat propaganda seeks to frame Trump as a bad person for suggesting enforcing the law Congress wrote). They want some attention paid to long-term economic consequences of outsourcing so much production, and restructuring the costs of the U.S. playing World Policeperson. They want some indication that the government is aware of the difficulty of "vetting" immigrants from a war-torn region without stable government, and that there are social and political externalities from accepting not-well-vettable immigrants when those war-torn regions are known for terrorism (that we may or may not be funding to try to topple Assad), and when even those who are not "terrorists" have what most Americans would consider an undesirable propensity for supporting things like Sharia law.
You and other Thiel-haters reject the principle of charity as it applies both to Trump and to Thiel; you paint a caricature of someone's positions, and go on a witch hunt against anyone who supports those people. When that isn't enough, you go on a witch-hunt against anyone who associates with those people. I consider that dangerous and politically damaging. Obviously everyone has a right to express their opinions, and to choose their associations, but that presumes some level of respect, caution and restraint that is not generally being shown by modern liberals.
I am exhausted by all of the requests by Trump supporters to somehow magically read the tea leaves and interpret what Trump really means to do, while ignoring everything he consistently says he will do.
Like how Trump claimed he sexually assaulted women, then many women came forward and said, yes, he sexually assaulted them, and now we are expected to not believe Trump then, and not believe any of these dozen or so women, but instead only believe Trump today, who of course would never possibly be trying to deny something that's true but politically (and maybe criminally) damaging to himself.
How about we just go back to people running for office actually saying what they intend to do, and voters taking them at face value?
(Which, by the way, is surprisingly close to how most politicians actually behave. George W. promised to cut taxes, and cut taxes. Obama actually passed something embodying a lot of his health care ideas and negotiated with our enemies like Iran. There are many other examples of politicians actually trying to do what they promised, so I think it's a little dangerous to assume a politician won't actually try to do what he says he will do.)
Well get un-exhausted and stop pretending not to understand negotiation techniques (this community is primarily about start-ups, is it not?).
Trump is a negotiator. He has been a negotiator his whole life. An aggressive opening bid is openly part of his style.
Trump is also an entertainer, he knows how to push people's buttons and get people engaged using visual imagery and drama. He does this to combat the hostile and equally (usually more) dishonest mudslinging that all modern politicians engage in.
He also knows how to use his skill at PR as leverage. Someone negotiating with him knows that he can rally the public to push for, say, Term Limits or something. Or, if you're cooperative, maybe he'll use that same rhetorical entertainer skill to help you out. Have you noticed how often Trump, usually in a seeming offhand manner, praises the people and groups who do business with him?
It's really not that hard to understand. You should not be getting exhausted over this.
> How about we just go back to people running for office actually saying what they intend to do, and voters taking them at face value?
This is due to the methods that modern politicians use to win votes. Their published platforms are always vague and lack REAL details. And even if and when they have real details, any thinking person knows that there are two huge problems to implementing any proposed change: (1) opposition from system (eg congress) (2) circumstances change and the policy no longer makes sense. So instead of going into all the details about how they're going to implement their free ice cream policy, they spend massive amounts of money on PR (friendly press hits, TV ads, attack ads) to influence voters using rhetoric and exposure.
Of course Clinton's campaign has been legendarily dishonest and unethical [1]. But they all do it to some extent.
You cite Obama's campaign? Other than healthcare, what do you actually remember about his platform? What I remember is a lot of vague rhetoric about "Hope and Change." He was heavily critical of Bush's wars, and yet Obama's foreign policy has been full of violence and war.
> Which, by the way, is surprisingly close to how most politicians actually behave. George W. promised to cut taxes, and cut taxes.
GW Bush invaded Iraq. I don't remember that being on his platform, do you?
[1] http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/10/17/exclusive...
> Like how Trump claimed he sexually assaulted women,
Except he didn't. This is a blatantly ignorant interpretation of the conversation that ignores the implied levity and non-seriousness of the exchange and the explicit claim that consent is granted.
But of course, the bigger problem here is that I'm not here to convince you not to support Donald Trump. I hope you won't. But if you do: fine. Sam Altman does not agree with you. He likens Trump to a dictator. If you're a Trump supporter, you are not the audience to whom my argument is addressed.
Oh come now. The reason you shouldn't have to crawl inside his head is that you can engage in discussion to learn what he thinks.
If the issue is a dispute between what I believe Trump is saying and what you believe Trump is saying, we could have a discussion where we break it down and identify what parts we share and what parts we don't share, and why.
For example, we could start by agreeing that Trump is opposed to immigration. You could claim that this is racist. I would suspect this is a deeply held prejudice so I would just dispute it and move on. I would claim that "Building a Wall" is just a rhetorical device to focus people's attention on the more abstract and tedious problem of an insecure border. You could point out how Trump or his surrogates have used various examples of actual border walls in other parts of the world, which would lend credibility it being a real promise, not mere rhetoric. We'd both have learned something. And so on.
Alternately, you could just go opposite direction and just start throwing around vague, obsolete terms like Fascism and the discussion would go nowhere.
If your best chance is that the president has been lying and exaggerating things for the last year and a half, you're totally screwed.
I also don't believe his positions exaggerate his beliefs. He is a racist sexist xenophobic con man, and his policies reflect that.
"When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time", said Maya Angelou. Trump has been showing us who he is for decades, yet people like you still think maybe he's someone else. Fancy.
I always find it laughable (in a very sad way) when people forget that solving the problems of tomorrow with the solutions of today usually doesn't work very well.
This "he doesn't really mean what he says" defense is not only naive: even saying what he says with such blatant disregard for civil society invites violence against non-whites, against politicians, against voters!
Enough of his supporters legitimately believe the election is rigged that we're looking at the delegitimization not only of our likely next president but the entire political system. "Burn it down" sounds fun until you realize Venezuela or Zimbabwe are potential outcomes.
You realize that any attempt to implement Hillary's proposed no-fly zone in Syria would require the US to shoot down Russian aircraft? You realize that is an act of war?
We are way closer to World War III than you realize, and it's most definitely not Trump's rhetoric that has brought us here.
> Enough of his supporters legitimately believe the election is rigged that we're looking at the delegitimization not only of our likely next president but the entire political system.
Hillary's team[1] is the one training protesters in methods of provocation and escalation to violence and then sending them to Trump rallies to cause chaos and anarchy. Hillary's team is the one celebrating that their covert operations succeeded in having a rally in Chicago shut down. Hillary's team is the one subverting democratic institutions and promoting escalations of violence and anarchy.
These shenanigans wouldn't even have been attempted if the Clinton Machine operatives thought that the press would cover the stories fairly and objectively. (Or, if they really buy into their own propaganda that bird-dogging provocation is somehow blameless, they would claim hostile press). Either way, it took an independent journalist (who is maligned and whose credibility is still attacked by corporate media) to expose the operation and offer the people the chance to really understand what happened in Chicago, San Jose, and elsewhere.
Without a functioning 4th estate, you cannot have real democracy.
[1] Yes, she had "plausible deniability" but that's irrelevant at this point. Whether Hillary is actually the calling shots makes very little difference. Her so-called "political machine" is all she has going for her.
He did it because Europa isn't spending the promised bnp on military spending and he is saying they need to step up their game and can't just expect for the US to come saving them every time.
Some of Trumps comments are obviously absurd, but many of them are taken out of context just like you did here.
Russia will reclaim the Baltic states if we give Putin reason to believe we won't honor our commitments. Hell, Trump's been so eager to embrace Russian propaganda he'll probably just gift them.
There is no point to wild speculation about Russia invading the Baltic states at some future date when the possibility of war with Russia exists RIGHT NOW over Syria and the allegations of cyberwarfare from Hillary Clinton and the current administration.
Trump's rhetoric is entirely focused on doing what's best for the American People, without regard to idealistic, imperialistic, abstract Neocon ideology of expanding US hegemony and influence.
The usual complaint about politicians is that they rarely make good on their pre-election promises. It is interesting that even Trump's supporters are fervently hoping that he won't be true to his campaign proposals.
[1] http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/donal...
Well I think he is less likely to start a war with Russia. I base that on the evidence I have observed about the behaviors of each candidate.
Which ones?
The only serious one I oppose is aggressive rounding up of illegals. Others I oppose are relatively minor, compared to my opposition to the massively corrupt and sick Hillary Clinton
I was hoping his nomination will serve as a wake-up call for the GOP. More specifically, I'm hoping they drop the strict requirement to pretend to be a fundamentalist Christian lunatic in order to have a real shot at running as a republican. We need more moderates from both major parties. Partisan politics are destroying us.
This is how we got to Trump in the first place.
> Partisan politics are destroying us.
I absolutely agree, though I don't see how all this demonizing of conservatives is going to help.
IMHO The forces against Trump acted too late. In a field with 17 candidates, one of whom appeals to a significant percentage of the base, the outlier will usually win. I wouldn't be surprised if the RNC forces out weaker candidates earlier in the process next cycle.
> It's part of a wave of populist nationalism that we can recognize in many countries.
True, HRC too makes many, many appeals to populist sentiments. Hers is less of a "National Greatness" populism, mainly because Trump has cornered the market for that in this election.
Trump has appealed to all the people who buy American cars because they are American or who think that eating a burrito will give them diarrhea (and assume that all people who routinely eat burritos must be plagued by it constantly), etc. etc.
I see this as less of a threat because frankly most of those people are simply old, and they are dying off rapidly. HRC and Obama support gay marriage today because enough of them died off to make homophobia a losing political position.
In the next four years, many more will die off, and that element of society that idealizes 1950s America will be much smaller. Though there is a younger generation that is sympathetic to the 1950s narrative... The television show Mad Men has been hugely popular, and its protagonist is essentially a more handsome Donald Trump. He grabs women and kisses them, he's erratic, he's loud, he's a womanizer, a self-saboteur. This television show captured the imagination of millennials because Don Draper is unlike most young men today. It's that same virility and unapologetic machismo that has led Trump voters to rally behind him. How can we go from being a society that loves Don Draper to a society that hates Don Trump? I don't think it's possible, and I think Trump's ideas will be around for a while even in the younger generation, albeit with a different spokesperson. This is why focusing on the surface layer of Trump is a mistake and why we should be addressing the deeper themes that are going to be alive and well no matter what happens in November.
We'd previously had a lot of presidents who tried to embody the cowboy aesthetic. GWB, born in Connecticut, talked about how much he loves "cold beer and barbecue", owns a ranch, etc. Chris Matthews claims that the winner is always the one the American people can picture squinting into a sunset.
> tens of millions of people who will cast a vote, in effect, for American Fascism
Totally agree, I believe a vote for Trump or HRC counts as this.
> Trump will spend four years running a campaign against the legitimacy of the 2016 election, and will probably have little trouble capturing the nomination in 2020.
TV news is now predominantly entertainment. This is a problem that goes deeper than Trump. It seems natural that an entertainment industry guy like Trump would want to get in on it now that there's zero need for any journalistic merit.
You are also out of touch with reality like Altman admitted about liberals not understanding almost half of America. He was right that they've totally ignored their motivations. The Trump supporters are mostly Republicans and people in rural areas. These people have kids, raise them to mostly have similar beliefs, watch similar media that's pro-Right, and often vote for same people. Trump supporters in Mid-South are across all ages with more older ones but plenty in 20's-30's. Almost all the rural people I've asked are pro-Trump because they'd never vote for Democrats but especially not Hillary. They think Trump is more likely to deal with things they care about than a "snobby city-dweller" who doesn't care about them at all.
This will take a long time to die off thanks to the effects of isolation and close-knit communities on new generations. It's not going away in 4 years. Best thing to do is get some Republican candidates in that tap into that who aren't as dangerous as Trump for next election.
Why? Because young people everywhere (red states and blue states) all like sex (gay and straight), drugs (legal and illegal), and music (country, hiphop, pop). The top 100 list on Apple Music is 50/50 country and poppy hip hop, for example.
The main reason young people affiliate with socially conservative groups (churches, etc.) is to signal membership in a system engineered to get them into a relationship (aka attraction, flirting, sex, etc.). A young male joins the group and immediately gains credibility as being a good person, etc. A young female joins the group and immediately can relax because the males she's meeting are vetted via their membership in the group. A young gay person joins because his/her young gay friends are also members, and they can use the org as cover to spend time together without needing to come out.
Institutions have a label, but their purposes can change very rapidly. Humans are superb at leveraging institutions to achieve their goals.
There are going to be some groups of young people who claim to have highly prejudiced beliefs, etc., but those are fairly common and rarely hold up to scrutiny as the belief holder gets older.
In other words, there is not any sort of youth-oriented grassroots social conservatism in the US. There will always be economic populism, but increasingly there is not a "golden era" in memory for young people to harken back to. Chances are among the stereotypical Trump demographic things were never very cushy economically, and chances are very high that all have had good friends who are African American, latino, hispanic, asian, or any variety of multi-racial backgrounds. Chances are they've had a crush on a multi-racial person and consider the person's humanity far more heavily than their isolated grandparents did (who likely never had many peers or friends from other groups).
I think the Internet will take us to a new age that looks strangely like a much older one.
New social conservatism on the Internet does not look like old social conservatism because it is out of living memory. It is a return to what I could only describe as aspirational Victorian Era with updates from the Diamond Age. It pines for a new Golden Age. Exploration and feats of strength. Great Men and Women. Charity for the weak. Gifts for the strong. Perhaps people can earn points to elevate themselves in the class system, which you can think of as an immersive MMORPG with AR but with real life consequences and rewards. There would be tea, iron railings, umbrellas, crumpets and art galleries with beautiful art once more. All UPVC would be replaced with timber.
The neoreactionaries would produce a government and society focused on artificial intelligence, advanced genetic engineering, nuclear power. The history books would be written to explain to schoolchildren that an evil cabal of religious marxists attempted to wrest control of the West. You may have formerly known these people as 'Social Democrats' (shudder). The entire history of the 20th century would be reframed in Spenglerian terms. A typical school exercise might read "Compare and contrast the 3 Demotic Terrors: Democracy, Fascism and Communism" and it should be understood that democracy and religion would be considered socially inappropriate since they were the reason the Third World War began. You can believe in them, but proper people don't. We shall also have an excellent array of hats to choose from, far from the dismal hatless tyranny we reside in today.
Since this world knows a vast amount about people's preferences, voting is not required. Your interests are duly noted and factored into a personalization of your local government's offerings. You are of course free to leave to the next Seastead or Landstead (formed by Climate Change and Demotic Warfare!), since each group has different interpretations we take the ability to opt out seriously.
Would this be a dystopia? Or a radical improvement on our age?
This is largely because our powerful class has found ways to circumvent it democracy... no matter which party wins, things will stay pretty much the same. Voter turnout reflects this.
I find your point interesting. I think the deep question at the heart of it has to do with the idea of "how important are rules if we can just change them as we go and be better off?"
Economic examples abound, but we've also seen our system of laws evolve into a vastly weakened rule of law such that law enforcement can simply choose from any number of laws that a person might have wittingly or unwittingly violated. This is not an outrage because we are trained to trust those in power.
Notably, Justice Sotomayor on the SCOTUS is "liberal" in some ways but very compliant when it comes to issues of law enforcement privilege, etc.
I think with the currently developing scandals (especially sexual assault allegations), and likely many more scandals between 2016 and 2020, they'd need someone even less liked than Hillary for him to have a shot.
The bigger threat is indeed whatever media empire he might try to launch after the election. (Scarily, I could picture him doing so whether he wins or loses.)
Note that it's almost unheard-of for the sitting president not to run for a second term. (I certainly can't remember a case in my short life.) So either Trump or Clinton will almost certainly be on the ballot in 4 years.
1. I'm gay. Hillary Clinton has campaigned against gay marriage here entire career. Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act (not coincidentally on the day I stopped being a democrat.) Trump doesn't care about homosexuality (literally when asked what he would do if he found out an employee was gay he said "it makes no difference"). While HRC supporters like to portray him as anti-gay and wanting to overturn the decision legalizing gay marriage, that's not honest. He correctly disagrees with the basis on which the decision was made, which is different from disagreeing on the outcome. (There really is no power for government to regulate marriage, especially at the federal level.)
So, I hope Trump wins because Hillary is the anti-gay bigot between the two.
I'm not even going to get into the allegations of racism because that boy-who-cried wolf has been going on since Obama got elected and merely disagreeing with him makes you a "racist" now.
2. The claim that Trump represents "american facsism" is a misrepresentation of Fascism. Fascism is an economic system whereby the economy is privately owned but controlled dictatorially by a central government. That means Obamacare ("private" insurance companies, total control over the government) and the GM takeover are examples of American Fascism. The total surveillance society we have under Obama and W and would continue under Hillary is fascist.
To portray this as "liberalism" vs "fascsim" is wrong, and more right if you reverse the roles. (at least Trump is a bit economically liberal.)
3. You guys seem to grab "code phrases" and repeat them as mantras. The one you used is "existential threat to democracy". Remember in 2000 when Gore lost the election and we had 8 years of W as a result? Remember the massive scandal about voting fraud and how widespread it was? That's a literal threat to democracy. Like the Snowden revelations it was news for awhile, and there was talk of reform, but nothing was ever done.
How can there be a democracy when the votes are not even honestly counted? How about the fact that we cannot audit the software of the counting machines?
Isn't that a literal threat to democracy? Much more serious than some obnoxious reality TV star who's slightly more economically liberal than a woman whose entire career has been beset with scandal and allegations of misconduct-- almost all of which were just proven true with email leaks? Who had an investigation by the FBI where the agents say the outcome was predetermined? Isn't that level of corruption a serious existential threat to democracy?
You don't have to agree with me, that's fine- MY objection is to this delusion that there is a only one way to look at this and anyone who disagrees is somehow evil.
I'ma gay guy who wants to legally marry and I'm not going to vote for someone who has denied me my rights.
Tell me that makes me immoral!
1. Hillary never voted against marriage equality as a senator. You blame her for what her husband did in 1996, which he has since said was a mistake. Do you hold any of the over 300 Republicans who voted in favor of DOMA accountable? Do you hold any of the Republicans to this day who disagree with the Obergefell ruling, including Donald Trump, and want to unwind it at a local level?
Saying Hillary is a bigot is demonstrably wrong, at least she is completely committed to the Obergefell ruling at the national and local level. Unlike Trump who has clearly said he does not favor gay marriage.
And yes, Trump is a blatant racist. You have to be exceptionally oblivious to ignore even the recent examples of birtherism, and the Central Park 5 - who by the way are innocent and Trump still said last week nope, nope, they were guilty. He's a loon or he's a con, take your pick.
3. Wrong, something was done. Counties across the country got conned into buying fancy electronic voting machines, which are now sufficiently obsolete the companies that sold them do not exist, do not support that hardware anymore, and we're at a net higher risk than we were before. We had a bunch of high tech nut cases who sold governments across the country a bill of goods. Next time, try pen and paper.
She was against it at some point, for sure.
And which is the better moral position: flip flopping, if in fact she did, on gay marriage where today she very clearly supports it and has precisely articulated why including fully supporting the Obergefell vs Hodges ruling; or someone who explicitly stands against it, in favor of states making their own decisions, and is in favor of a judge who was no friend of the LGBT community?
Trump says he would defend the LGBTQ community. How? By nominating another Scalia, he has said.
Scalia in Lawrence vs Texas, is lamenting that mere disagreement with people's choices (i.e. sexual behavior) can no longer be a reason for putting them in jail. That's who Donald consistently claims he wants as a judge on the Supreme Court.
Whether it's bigotry or bad judgement, it is bad policy. And only one party right now stands on the side of LGBT rights, and it is not the Republican party at all by a very wide margin.
Trump doesn't pander. He doesn't care about gays much he's not courting the gay vote, but that's appropriate- government should be out of our lives not denying our rights.
Obama could have taken action in 2008. He didn't. He continued to oppose gay marriage.
Did hillary stand up to him? Of course not.
You guys think we have to vote for you otherwise we're self hating or some other bullshit.... but we don't. You are going to be in big trouble when the republicans implode and are replaced by libertarians, or they loosen up on social issues and obsolete the libertarian that way.
The religious right is dying out. So when a serious party offers both economic freedom and social freedom, the democrats-- who pretend to offer social freedom and don't even pretend to offer economic freedom -- are going to be DOA.
Unless you fool all the people all the time that all the people are racist and sexist.
Consider this, in addition to your position: Your assertion that Hillary is pandering to the LGBTQ community may be based on a faulty premise. You're convinced of Donald's position on gay rights as laissez-faire, and that informs your view of Hillary's "pandering". But what if, as is the hope of anyone who speaks out about their beliefs to a political leader whose support would help their cause, Hillary was truly convinced that she was wrong, and has legitimately changed her mind? Isn't that the outcome the LGBTQ community would want? To have effectively changed the mind of such a political leader?
Further, is it possible that it's closed-minded to refuse to acknowledge that Hillary may have learned something? That she accepted new facts, and adjusted her position as a result of them?
Finally, can you appreciate the perspective that others may have, when they witness a gay man deny that Hillary may have actually, sincerely, really and truly changed her mind, and that she now stands with the gay community? The perspective: "This guy is just as closed minded as he claims Hillary is."
Which is the better political bet? To vote for the person who gives you what you seek? Or vote for the person who states, without reservation that they are opposed to gay marriage, support states right to unwind the Obergefell ruling, and nominate socially conservative judges like Antonin Scalia who happened to vote against Obergefell, the very ruling that grants you that which you claim to seek.
You're simply not credible on this. You're willfully delusional or ignorant on the topic. You have grossly and very obviously mistaken the forest for the trees.
TRUMP: I'm against it.
O'REILLY: Why?
TRUMP: I just don't feel good about it. I don't feel right about it. I'm against it and I take a lot of heat because I come from New York. You know, for New York it's like, how can you be against gay marriage? But I'm opposed to gay marriage.
O'REILLY: They say, the gays, that this violates their rights, that they are American citizens and they should have a right to live the same way heterosexuals live, and you say?
TRUMP: Well, I think it's a tough situation, and I'll tell you what I say. I say that we have other problems. We have other problems in this country. And I don't think a president should be elected on gay marriage or not gay marriage because we have some very big problems. Based on everything I see, Obama, who said basically the same thing as I do, I think he is going to come out in favor of gay marriage.
O'REILLY: Yes, he will. But you remain opposed?
TRUMP: I am opposed, yes.
http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2011/03/30/donald-trump-si...
That's hugely softer than Hillaries absolute denouncement of it.
He was spot on about Obama pretending to be in favor of gay marriage (though wrong in his timing- Obama didn't "learn his lesson" until after the Supreme Court ruling. Talk about leading from the rear.)
Like his comments about the court ruling, I read this as him being opposed to the issue as an issue, not the right.
This is the guy who invited Theil to speak at the republican convention-- the first openly gay speaker who in fact stated he was gay at the podium and was applauded for it.
That sure undermines the spin democrats want to spin, but it's the reality.
And basically, this is a turning point for republicans. Trump is the first non-openly homophobic candidate from either party to run for president. It sucks that he's such a doofus and doesn't give good soundbites, but there it is.
You believe it's a good thing that he's homophobic but not open about it? So he denies his homophobia in public, but hates gays in private anyway. And chooses Mike Pence as his running mate. You call that progress?
Next you're going to tell me that gay people can't be homophobic or act against their own self interest [1], like you appear to be doing. Good luck overcoming your own self-hatred, and achieving your own Sister Souljah moment.
"Fascism is a form of radical authoritarian nationalism. Fascism opposes liberalism, Marxism and anarchism and is usually placed on the far-right within the traditional left–right spectrum.
Fascists believe that liberal democracy is obsolete, and they regard the complete mobilization of society under a totalitarian one-party state as necessary to prepare a nation for armed conflict and to respond effectively to economic difficulties. Such a state is led by a strong leader—such as a dictator and a martial government composed of the members of the governing fascist party—to forge national unity and maintain a stable and orderly society. Fascism rejects assertions that violence is automatically negative in nature, and views political violence, war, and imperialism as means that can achieve national rejuvenation. Fascists advocate a mixed economy, with the principal goal of achieving autarky through protectionist and interventionist economic policies."
What does that sound like to you? Far-right, encourage violence, strong leadership, protectionism. Obama? HARDLY! Trump in a nutshell!
https://ballotpedia.org/2016_presidential_candidates_on_LGBT...
Will need a citation for that one. Just saw a headline about a study saying about 13 counts of fraudulent votes were found over a period when 1 billion votes were cast.
Which shouldn't convince you (I don't even have a link right now), but I hope you understand why I'm not just going to take your word for it, either.
"I'ma gay guy who wants to legally marry and I'm not going to vote for someone who has denied me my rights."
Which is your prerogative, but aren't you also concerned about rights for other groups of people? (And if you're denying there haven't been any statements by Trump indicating he wants to deny rights to certain groups of people, you need to pay closer attention.)
That might be true in theory, but the federal government has pretty unrestricted power to e.g. say gay marriage spouses "don't count" for purposes of SS benefits, for income taxation, for adoption benefits, etc.
That is my point. In this area and many other areas of human rights, the government is corrupt and a criminal organization violating these rights.
Have an upvote for a reasonable reply.
Yeah, right. You do know that Trump wants to appoint clones of Scalia to the Supreme Court, right[1]? The same Scalia who was opposed to gay marriage and gay rights? [2]
> I'm a gay guy who wants to legally marry and I'm not going to vote for someone who has denied me my rights.
... but you don't mind supporting someone who will continue to deny you your rights?
[1] http://www.advocate.com/election/2016/10/10/donald-trump-vow...
Scalia's arguments weren't completely unreasonable. His dissent essentially said that the matter should have been solved by a constitutional amendment.
I think the best possible solution would have been to introduce an amendment that clearly states the federal government has no authority to regulate marriage while also clearly stating that the right to pursue a marriage to the consenting adult of our choice falls under the protection of "inalienable rights", thus stripping from the states the ability to individually pass laws oppressing homosexuals.
However, I think that the passing of such an amendment was and is unlikely. So, while I see Scalia's point on that particular issue, I don't necessarily think the rest of the supreme court had much of a choice.
There are many other decisions where I disagreed with Scalia, but I think there's something to be said for maintaining a somewhat balanced supreme court (not that I'm willing to vote for Trump to make that happen).
The supreme court was designed in a way that was intended to keep the justices free from the influence of politics. However, it has pretty much always been a political competition.
Why should a fundamental right require a constitutional amendment? IMHO, this is a cop-out for Scalia: he knows how hard it is to put together a constitutional amendment, so instead of just saying "no" and appearing like a bigot, he punted the question as a constitutional amendment. I'm sorry, but I don't buy his argument.
Because the constitution says what it says and it doesn't say what it doesn't say. It is a fundamental right, but the drafters of the constitution failed to mention it in explicit enough terms to adequately protect people. In fact, the people that voted in favor of gay marriage must have agreed that the constitution didn't adequately protect these rights, because they heavily referenced amendments (AKA modifications) to the constitution in their decision.
The constitution isn't perfect. If it was, we wouldn't have needed amendments to give women the right to vote, or to make minorities count as whole people. We need amendments to make it better.
For all I know, Scalia may have had bigoted alterior motives for his vote. However, I'm simply evaluating his argument (which if you'll reread my statement I wasn't actually agreeing with).
In an academic manner, you are right. Its silly that we have to do anything to keep any government from interfering with things that we consider to be fundamental rights.
I didn't suggest that the constitution mentions marriage. However, its failure to explicitly state it as a fundamental right is a large part of the reason gay people were oppressed for so long in our country. Historically, rights not outlined in the constitution fall under the authority of state governments.
Also note that the constitution and the bill of rights are more of a statement of rights we already have. The document isn't intended to actually grant the rights. No one can grant fundamental rights. However, having a constitution as a statement of rights can help protect them when others want to take them away.
Why do the Bill of Rights, the 13th, and the 19th amendments exist? They're all designed to protect fundamental rights. An amendment would afford non-traditional marriage the same protection.
“The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
An Amendment is also useful to avoid a right being lost in future rulings, or to raise the bar on what is considered a compelling reason to abridge that right. Remember, DOMA was overturned not just because the Courts recognized freedom to marry as a right, but because the Federal government was unable to offer a compelling reason why it was in the public interest to remove that right from same-sex couples.
Consequently, a Constitutional amendment may well have been necessary to end slavery, because even if the Courts were willing to recognize both slaves as citizens deserving of rights and "not being a slave" as an unenumerated right in 1865 (hint: they weren't), the Courts almost certainly would have been willing to hear arguments that slavery was in the public interest, even if it was an abridgement of the rights of slaves. They are certainly willing to allow de facto slavery of non-citizens and of prison inmates to continue.
In any case, demanding that we refuse to recognize a right until it is enumerated in the Constitution or its Amendments, when the Constitution itself both declares the existence of unenumerated rights and demands they be recognized is just fucking asinine.
To be clear: I don't have a problem with your answer itself, but the tone in both of your replies to my honest questions hasn't been helpful. You need to work on your presentation, or you're going to turn more potentially interesting information into something of shit value.
The problem is, the states legalized gay marriage at the state level, and DOMA which is invalid under the 9th amendment and powers clause caused a problem.
They should have struck down DOMA and let the states have their choice, as they do under the 9th amendment.
When Section 3 of DOMA (the portion prohibiting the Federal government from recognizing same sex marriages) was overturned, it was partially on a Tenth Amendment argument.
It was in overturning Section 2 of DOMA (the portion allowing States not to recognize same sex marriages performed in other States) that the Supreme Court recognized marriage rights as something which could not be restricted on the basis of the sex of the participants.
I am not certain you could construct an argument that would allow the Supreme Court to overturn Section 2 of DOMA without also declaring all State laws unconstitutional; once the Supreme Court recognized that right, the 14th Amendment applies.
This is why the right to self defense cannot be restricted by any interpretation of the second amendment. Same with speech and the first amendment.
Those amendments are restrictions on government, not creators of rights.