
The Importance of Donald Trump - aerocapture
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/09/frank-rich-in-praise-of-donald-trump.html
======
Camillo
There seems to be a sizable number of people who do not feel represented by
the narrow range of options that the political establishment has deigned to
offer them, and who are tired of having to accept what the powers that be have
declared inevitable.

Because of the way the American political system works, this dissatisfaction
seldom finds expression ("what, are you going to waste your vote?"), but when
an outsider with deep pockets appears, suddenly it can coalesce around him.

Therefore, I suspect that the question of Trump's competence is moot for many
voters. If you just want to break the way the system works, four years with an
ineffective president may not seem like a high price to pay.

OTOH, I find it curious that the article found no room for a very obvious
real-world parallel amidst all the fictional characters Trump was likened to.
Twenty years ago, another first-world country saw a political void filled by a
boisterous tycoon who paid for his own campaign. It didn't turn out well, nor
was it over quickly.

~~~
cLeEOGPw
Exactly. Despite what media wants people to believe, may are sick and tired of
political correctness and bending down to everyone's demands for anything. And
Trump caught on to that and just throws vague remarks here and there in that
direction. And desperate voters say "fuck it, he might just be crazy enough to
not go back to the same line all the other presidents come back to after they
are elected".

Same with Sanders. Just on the opposite side. He found a niche where he can
cater to extremely politically correct liberals and minorities, who also feel
misrepresented and feel that america is actually not liberal enough. He has to
actually make an impression that he is listening to the voters if he wants to
get any attention at all, since he is not getting that much media attention.

Both cases I think shows people are tired of lack of options. Main party
candidates seem to be utterly incompetent, like Hilary, others seem to just
continue what has been done before, so there's dissatisfaction and search for
something to shake up the system. Trump fits it well.

~~~
lsc
>Despite what media wants people to believe, may are sick and tired of
political correctness and bending down to everyone's demands for anything.

If you are an average straight white man, yeah, it sure looks like things
aren't getting better. Your wages haven't increased much at all (adjusted for
inflation) since the '70s.

And yeah, women and the gays and men who aren't white (though, I think it's
mostly women; there are just so many more of them) are making gains every
day... if trends continue, it won't be much longer before _those people_ make
as much as _we_ do! and now they want to be treated with respect, too? Christ,
when will it end!

I mean, sure, I laugh at those who have this 'white rage' for complaining that
we, as white men, are now expected to treat other people with a base level of
respect (as that, at root, is the intent of political correctness.) - At least
where I live, this expectation is phrased more like "Please consider that
women are humans too, you know, if it's not too much trouble" than anything
really threatening to the status quo.

But there are a lot of people who feel genuine rage. And I don't know... My
own opinion is informed by the fact that I make really good money and work in
an industry where I get a really obvious (and fairly large) bonus for being a
white male. Would I feel that rage if I had to struggle to make ends meet? If
I had to seriously compete with women in the workplace? I like to think I
wouldn't, but who knows?

~~~
flipcoder
"Please consider that women are humans too, you know, if it's not too much
trouble"

No one is arguing against this in particular. Conservatives believe women are
human. They're also not all white males. I really hope I do not have to cite
sources on this.

~~~
Rusky
Maybe not explicitly, but conservative policies are often biased against women
and/or minorities.

~~~
jazzyk
I hate to be this guy, but: citation needed.

You just can't make such a sweeping claim without at least giving examples.

~~~
Lawtonfogle
Even deeper is a discussion of what counts as being biased against a
gender/race. Is supporting child support policies biased against men because
men are more often to end up in jail for not paying? Is supporting abortion
bans bias against women because women are more often to end up in jail for
seeking an abortion anyways? Is supporting university affirmative action being
anti-minority because they hurt Asians? Is opposing university affirmative
action being anti-minority because they help African Americans?

Asking for citations has, from what I've seen in the past, ended with people
giving citations of what they think constitute a bias that the other side
doesn't consider a bias.

------
eevilspock
This post got flagged and killed. Daniel kindly unkilled it at my request. I'm
not a Trump fan (and neither is the article) but I agree with its counter-
intuitive observation.

 _> In the short time since Trump declared his candidacy, he has performed a
public service by exposing, however crudely and at times inadvertently, the
posturings of both the Republicans and the Democrats and the foolishness and
obsolescence of much of the political culture they share. He is, as many say,
making a mockery of the entire political process with his bull-in-a-china-shop
antics. But the mockery in this case may be overdue, highly warranted, and
ultimately a spur to reform rather than the crime against civic order that has
scandalized those who see him, in the words of the former George W. Bush
speechwriter Michael Gerson, as “dangerous to democracy.”_

It's no surprise that Michael Gerson labels Trump "dangerous to democracy."
Trump is actually dangerous to the GOP establishment and Gerson stands for
that establishment.

What does it say about American democracy that it takes a self-aggrandizimg
billionaire to speak openly about buying politicians and offers to be bought
in a presidential election debate? It's the job of the moderators to force
such an issue into the open, but they don't dare anger the party for fear of
never hosting again. If you watched the first debate, you can see that Fox
News was tough on Trump (as they should be), but nowhere near as tough on the
rest (as they should have been). Even CNN seemed to be a proxy for the
Republican establishment in the second debate.

EDIT: Ross Perot was was the last candidate to truly upset the political
establishment, and he also was a billionaire. Hmmmm....

~~~
anigbrowl
It's a good call. I thought about posting it yesterday but was uncertain about
the political content. I think it's interesting to hackers insofar as it
identifies some meta-trends in politics that are characteristic of systems
disruption. Other organs such as the Economist have also observed that
Something is Amiss when the three leading candidates are all non-politicians
and easily outpoll candidates with experience in governance (even if you
dislike their policies).

[http://www.economist.com/news/united-
states/21665014-party-f...](http://www.economist.com/news/united-
states/21665014-party-faithful-are-keen-decapitate-politicians-experience-
politics-regicidal?zid=311&ah=308cac674cccf554ce65cf926868bbc2)

I've said for some time that the world is drifting back towards a place of
deep political instability, and this election has the unpleasant air of
looming disaster about it. Whoever is elected president is almost certainly
going to be regarded as illegitimate or intolerable by a large segment of the
population, due to a mix of the internet and demographic sorting _a la_
[http://www.thebigsort.com/home.php](http://www.thebigsort.com/home.php)

I feel we underestimate the influence of the internet on social dynamics. It's
much easier to get near-immediate social validation for any given identity
group, and something about the combination of anonymity and depersonalization
in discussion forums provides psychosocial rewards for
antagonistic/oppositional behavior when viewpoints collide.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Well, the last two presidents have been regarded as illegitimate and
intolerable by large segments of the population. I'm not saying that's _good_
, but we've survived it so far.

However, I share your unease, your feeling that Something Is Amiss.

------
dang
This story was killed by user flags, whereupon another user emailed to plead
the case for the article as more thoughtful and substantive than it sounds.

The median Donald Trump article is obviously off topic for this site, but
arguably his rise is also "evidence of some interesting new phenomenon" [1].
So let's try turning flags off on this post as an experiment and see if
everyone can keep the discussion thoughtful.

Edit: I read the article. Trump is a natural subject for Rich, a political
journalist with a (much longer) background as an entertainment critic. What
makes the article good is that he takes Trump seriously and uses him to make
'serious' politics look buffoonish, reversing the usual trope. If anyone knows
a better analysis of Trump, please post the link in this thread—I'm sure many
readers would like to see it.

1\.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
davidw
You could argue that the rise of Trump is not really anything new; Italy has
had Berlusconi in politics since the early 90ies, and there are a lot of
similarities:

[https://medium.com/conversations-with-tyler/watch-a-
conversa...](https://medium.com/conversations-with-tyler/watch-a-conversation-
with-luigi-zingales-c5ed3601a8f0)

~~~
dang
I think it's fair to see each of those two as new in his context.

The article makes a case for Trump as new: a pop culture character coming to
life in real politics. The fictional antecedents he brings up are fascinating.
It's a good article—so good it's too bad he didn't go the whole hog and resist
any usual partisan swipes, but that's probably too much to ask of Frank Rich.
I'd say it easily passes the HN bar for on-topicness in a political story,
though we'll still penalize the thread if it goes flamewar.

------
peterwwillis
_“Now, there 's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about:
politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck.
Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out
of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come
from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools,
American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are
elected by American citizens.

This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our
system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant
citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't
going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of
selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians
who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here... like, the public. Yeah,
the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public
Sucks. F#ck Hope.”_

\-- George Carlin

~~~
sid-
Wow. Really loved that. Pretty insightful...maybe we should elect this guy

~~~
jqm
I agree. We should have. But it's too late now. He's dead.

~~~
venomsnake
He cannot do less than current congress if elected. So votes away.

------
yk
Dan Carlin proposed the theory that Trump understood that only trying to win
the GOP primary is a winning strategy for the primary.[0] Basically the
primary caucus is a lot more radical than the general electorate and normal
candidates have to run on a just a little bit more conservative platform than
the next leading candidate, while preparing to turn around as soon as they
have secured the nomination. A candidate like Trump can run on a platform that
is much better suited for the primary election, because he is not planning to
win the presidential election.

As an outside observer ( I am German), I think that the theory sounds
interesting. However, it is possible that he tries a different maneuver to win
the general election. His refusal to found a PAC may mean, that he plans to
run on an anti-corruption, Washington outsider platform and basically form a
analogous coalition as Syriza did in Greece. Syriza's coalition partner is a
right wing populist party, they basically formed a anybody but the old boys
club coalition. And my guess is, that assuming Hillary wins the Democratic
nomination, there are quite a few moderates who find such a candidate
attractive, even if he is a reality TV star.

[0] [http://www.dancarlin.com/product/common-
sense-295-trumping-t...](http://www.dancarlin.com/product/common-
sense-295-trumping-the-playbook/)

~~~
flycaliguy
Interesting theory. It's overtaking my currently conspiratorial feeling that
he is a Jeb stooge who is hogging to spotlight from anyone who can't afford to
fight a billionaire... only to putter out over the winter as everybody
embraces the newly "pro-hispanic" Republican establishment.

~~~
xlm1717
It's funny how everyone has a conspiracy theory on Trump. The right wants to
believe he's employed by Clinton to split the Republican vote, and the left
want to believe he's employed by the RNC to safely pander to the racist
element of the Republican Party.

Jeb definitely looks "pro-Hispanic" compared with Trump. He even learned
Spanish!

------
gliese1337
On a similar note:
[http://imgur.com/gallery/qpNZ7](http://imgur.com/gallery/qpNZ7) While NYMag
seems to be more about Trump revealing the ridiculousness of our political
system in general, the imgur guy focuses on how he's attracting republicans by
showing off specifically how useless their own leadership has been for the
last several years.

Both seem like valid points, which need to be understood by everyone who hates
the idea of Trump as president and hopes to find a way to defeat him (myself
included).

------
brandonmenc
> he’s exposing all its phoniness and corruption in ways as serious as he is
> not

Trump will definitely make a full run at the Presidency if he believes he has
a chance - and it appears he does. This guy wants to be the President. This is
not a publicity stunt, if it ever was.

Continuing to pretend he's a cartoon character will just make the hangover
worse.

Disclaimer: I am not a Trump supporter.

~~~
hga
Reminds me of the disparagement of the Reagan as a "B-movie actor".

He was playing _quite_ a "role" when he was the first president to try to end,
rather than contain, the Soviet Union, and then achieved that.

~~~
dragonwriter
> He was playing quite a "role" when he was the first president to try to end,
> rather than contain, the Soviet Union, and then achieved that.

There is no concrete way in which his policies were more substantially more
aimed at ending the USSR than containing it compared to prior administrations
(in many ways, it was perfectly within the range of approaches taken by prior
regimes; the most substantial differentiating element that people tend to
point to was the big ramp up in defense spending -- which was a policy
initiated by Carter at the end of his term.)

And his administration did not achieve ending the USSR, either.

------
kelukelugames
I don't want to believe this. Had to be a 4chan raid on the polls, right?

> It took a village of birthers to get Republicans to the point where only 29
> percent of them now believe that Obama was born in America (and 54 percent
> identify him as a Muslim), according to an August survey by Public Policy
> Polling. Far from being a fake Republican, Trump speaks for the party’s
> overwhelming majority.

Edit: [http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2015/08/trump-
suppor...](http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2015/08/trump-supporters-
think-obama-is-a-muslim-born-in-another-country.html)

someone please tell me that is a joke.

~~~
fjarlq
There are a lot of people who believe surprising things. For example, from a
2013 Harris poll:

    
    
      58% believe in The Devil (26% don't)
      47% believe in evolution (29% don't)
      42% believe in ghosts    (37% don't)
      36% believe in UFOs      (35% don't)
      26% believe in witches   (54% don't)
    

\--
[http://www.harrisinteractive.com/NewsRoom/HarrisPolls/tabid/...](http://www.harrisinteractive.com/NewsRoom/HarrisPolls/tabid/447/ctl/ReadCustom%20Default/mid/1508/ArticleId/1353/Default.aspx)

------
alkonaut
This is the core paragraph of this article:

    
    
        The best news about Trump is that he is wreaking 
        this havoc on the status quo while having no chance 
        of ascending to the presidency. 
        You can’t win the Electoral College in 2016 by driving away women, 
        Hispanics, blacks, and Asian-Americans, no matter how 
        large the margins you pile up in deep-red states.
    

This whole clown show lets people express their dissatisfaction with the
status quo, yet the risk of the US going full retard politically is pretty
slim.

~~~
jrcii
[http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/28/donald-
trump...](http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/28/donald-trump-has-
huge-lead-among-republican-women-/)

[http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/21/donald-
trum...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/21/donald-trump-has-
black-supporters-really.html)

The idea that all minorities hate him probably sits well with your wishes and
that of the author of the article but it's not necessarily true.

~~~
alkonaut
I don't believe he's hated by women/minority voters, but he doesn't have the
support needed to win the presidency, and he certainly appears to do
everything he can to reduce that support.

~~~
bruceb
Hispanics and Asians are generally in non competitive states CA and TX come to
mind. Who says this? Nate Cohn:

"This idea may seem jarring, given that Mitt Romney took just 27 percent of
the Hispanic vote in his 2012 loss to Mr. Obama, according to the exit polls,
while George W. Bush won about 40 percent in his 2004 victory. But in 2016
Hispanics will represent just 12 percent of eligible voters, and between 9 and
10 percent of actual voters. That’s a lot, but it’s not large enough to grant
or deny Republicans the presidency.”

[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/21/upshot/hispanic-voters-
are...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/21/upshot/hispanic-voters-are-
important-for-republicans-but-not-indispensable.html)

Not an an endorsement of candidate or party but simply pointing out mis-
information by special interest groups.

------
JacobAldridge
I'm standing by my prediction that Donald Trump will withdraw himself from the
nomination prior to the Iowa primaries (and it will take these poll numbers
continuing past Christmas for me to think otherwise) [1].

If anyone has a chance at derailing my beliefs so far, it's been Scott Adams
(of Dilbert) and his ongoing series of blogs posts about the 'Master Wizard
Hypothesis' [2]. He's essentially arguing that linguistic wizardry can trump
(sorry) policy and credibility, and that the Donald is a master. Likely for
entertainment purposes only, but he's been right on this matter more than Nate
Silver so far! Every time you see 'low energy' Bush, 'nice guy' Carson, or
'that face' Fiorina in the press, Adams makes more sense.

[1]
[https://twitter.com/jacobaldridge/status/632163459388432384](https://twitter.com/jacobaldridge/status/632163459388432384)
[2] [http://blog.dilbert.com/](http://blog.dilbert.com/)

~~~
joezydeco
I kind of believe this as well, but why would you pull out with such large
polling numbers?

What if he parlays this into a VP position? Every other candidate would fall
over themselves to grab his market share.

~~~
JacobAldridge
John Garner, 32nd Vice President of the United States, wonderfully stated that
the office of VP "is not worth a bucket of warm piss."

I suspect Trump would view it the same way. Whereas Rubio is well-placed to
parlay a VP run in 2016 into a title fight in 2024, I can't see Trump wanting
to be someone's second in command.

It's part of why I think he'll drop out - when the poll numbers crater, he's
got nothing to fight for, and for his brand he's better off throwing some mud
(whatever Master Wizard is for _" the Establishment is working behind the
scenes to ensure I'll never get the nomination"_) and walking away than he is
waiting to record 2% of the votes in Iowa.

~~~
joezydeco
I'm not so sure.

You're pretty much Washington royalty without having to do very much (except
run the Senate, which he'd get a blast out of).

------
meeper16
Auto Summarized Content (Algorithm: Tuatara GS1)

And thanks to another unintended consequence of the GOP 's Citizens United
victory, the PACs it enables will keep hopeless presidential candidates
financially afloat no matter how poorly they are faring in polls and
primaries, thereby crippling the party 's ability to unite early behind a
single anti-Trump alternative...When Trump 's presidential rivals attended a
David and Charles Koch retreat, he tweeted: I wish good luck to all of the
Republican candidates that traveled to California to beg for money etc...

Auto Extracted Ranked Tags (Algorithm: Tuatara GS1)

trump, republican, candidate, gop, campaign, party, clinton, american,
political, grand, bush, debate, presidential, politic, voter, run, actor, guy,
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comic, fiorina, president, television

[http://52.11.1.7/TuataraSum/app/tuatarasum](http://52.11.1.7/TuataraSum/app/tuatarasum)

------
graycat
In one word, the OP plays with the accusation that what Trump says isn't
_real_. Okay, let's consider what in the OP is/is not _real_. Here I am not
talking for/against _abortion_ but about eighth grade civics on the SCOTUS and
US Constitution:

"But the party’s real stand on the sanctity of female biology had been
encapsulated in the debate by Walker’s and Marco Rubio’s endorsement of a ban
on abortions for women who have been raped or risk dying in childbirth."

 _Real_? That's about where I want to stop reading the OP.

Why? I know that for me eighth grade civics was a long time ago, but as I
recall (1) the SCOTUS case of Roe v Wade that made abortion legal is now 40+
years old; (2) to change that decision need (A) a _lot_ of what would be, say,
_unlikely_ new SCOTUS nominations or (B) a Constitutional amendment that would
take 2/3rds of the House, 2/3rds of the Senate, and 3/4ths of the states. So,
first-cut, intuitively, IMHO, for either (A) or (B), any way to have "a ban on
abortions" is decades away. Considering how often we have Constitutional
amendments, maybe centuries.

Real? Talking about "a ban on abortions" is _real_? I don't think so.

~~~
hga
Uh, no, although I'll admit it wasn't taught in my 1085 9th grade civics
class. The Founders profoundly distrusted the Supreme Court, and in Article
III, Section 2, there is a provision that's been used more than a few times,
including in the last few decades, to remove something from the Federal
Court's remit:

 _In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and
those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original
Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall
have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions,
and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make._

ADDED: See this for extensive discussion of the practice of
"jurisdiction_stripping":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisdiction_stripping](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisdiction_stripping)

That national level Republicans have never tried in the abortion domain
suggests to me how much they really care about the issue.

~~~
graycat
Interesting quote.

I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that, really, there is nothing
Congress can do about a SCOTUS decision such as Roe v Wade just by passing a
law and getting the POTUS to sign it. And should a US state pass a law against
abortion, the legal system would instantly use Roe v Wade to strike down that
state law.

If all that is so, then the only way to make abortion illegal is to reverse
Roe v Wade, and there are only two ways to do that, (A) have another case
brought to the SCOTUS and accepted for review by the SCOTUS and with enough
new justices to reverse Roe v Wade and (B) have a Constitutional amendment
with, as I mentioned, 2/3rds of the House, .... IMHO, the chances of either
(A) or (B) within 100 years look slim to none.

If all that is correct, then talking about laws against abortion is some form
of self-abuse or manipulation of others and less useful than a spit to
windward.

Again, I'm just talking about process, not the pros/cons of abortion.

~~~
hga
I apologize for not including this in my original posting:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisdiction_stripping](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisdiction_stripping)
It is a well established practice, and note the contemporary uses in the '90s
and '00s.

~~~
graycat
Interesting. That's much more detailed than covered in my eighth grade civics
class! My brother did a lot in constitutional law, but I didn't, and I'm not a
lawyer.

So, maybe with some interpretations of _jurisdiction stripping_ , Congress and
the POTUS might pass a law saying that the SCOTUS has no jurisdiction over
cases involving abortion and then pass a law making abortion illegal. Maybe. I
am getting a suspicion that maybe _jurisdiction stripping_ could not be used
for that little two step dance.

And, if that two step dance could be used, then, sure, it's curious why a
Republican Congress would not start to take those two steps. For me, I don't
know. And the OP didn't talk about such a dance step either! Mike Huckabee
seems highly interested in making abortion illegal, and the OP mentioned two
more candidates trying to outlaw abortion even in cases of rape and danger to
the mother, but, still, I've heard them say nothing about jurisdiction
stripping.

Out'a my depth!

~~~
hga
_And, if that two step dance could be used_

It can; as noted in the article, it's been used in the '90s and '00s, as well
as long ago, and for things much more fundamental than a right conjured by the
Supremes from the "penumbras" and "emanations" ofother parts of the
Constitution
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut)).

Note that ultimately the Supremes are just a group of 9 men and women (who
e.g. all went to the Harvard or Yale Law Schools...). The President, Executive
and the Congress can simply ignore them, impeach them, etc., they just can't
cut their salaries (" _The Judges ... shall, at stated Times, receive for
their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their
Continuance in Office._ ").

 _then, sure, it 's curious why a Republican Congress would not start to take
those two steps. For me, I don't know._

Curious indeed; I assume at 0th approximation that the majority of them, if
not the vast majority, don't give a damn about what they were ostensibly
elected to do.

Or perhaps prefer not being called bad names by the rest of the establishment
for doing that, in which case we're a lot closer to understanding Trump's
appeal.

In other words, the Supremes and lower Federal courts provide an important
political function by allowing politicians in the other two branches of
government to claim their hands are tied on a whole bunch of issues where
they'd otherwise have to take a real stand and maybe afterwards have to spend
more time with their families.

Typo correction: my 9th grade civics class was in 1975, not a few years before
the death of William the Conqueror ^_^.

------
mhd
There are other examples of intentionally silly candidates abroad, including
the UK's famous "Monster Raving Loony Party", Icelands's "Best Party" (several
seats in parliament) or Germany's "Die Partei" (1 seat in EU parliament).

But you really need someone who's supposedly in it for real for things to look
really, really weird. A case of the Uncanny Valley effect?

------
interesting_att
What I find so fascinating about the Trump candidacy is that it is more a
conversation about the current cultural climate of America than any specific
policies. It seems that we are more interested in talking about how we become
so PC than actual policies.

I, for one, have given up on hoping the government will enact forward thinking
policies.

------
rebootthesystem
It's interesting and confusing to watch. I have long thought we need far less
lawyers and professional politicians in government and a lot more (a LOT more)
people like us. In this age of technology it is truly sad to see dinosaurs who
would be challenged to use a scientific calculator running our country (all
parties, all ideologies).

I do believe there's something fundamentally wrong with politics as it exists
today. This is heresy in some systems but I am someone who believes texts
written hundreds of years ago cannot possibly remain viable, current and
applicable. Certainly not in their entirety.

Yes, I am daring to suggest that the US Constitution might need some tweaks
here and there. And, of course, the problem is this is just about as
impossible as me flying using two feathers.

You have people in Congress who simply will not go away. If we gave them one
or two terms and somehow encouraged young/er people to come to the forefront
things could look very different.

Then there's the question of how our form of government might very well have
devolved into something that conspires against the very progress we need to
make. The last few decades have been characterized by not being able to do
much of significance other than wage war. We do that very well. And it is
sick. Yes, yes, I get it. But, fuck me, when is the world going to figure out
how to coexist?

Yes, part of the problem is we still have whole regions operating from the
mentality of pre-medieval humans. That's a huge problem. I am not smart enough
to know what the solution might be. It could be somewhere between total
isolation and total intervention. Don't know. These things ultimately lead to
wars. I wish someone would come forward with the one genius idea to bring some
stability to this planet. As intelligent as we are we seem want to prove we
are a species that is content allowing a very small percentage of our people
to just fuck things up beyond recognition. Most people are good. Yet, most
people do nothing when the assholes piss all over what's been built for
centuries.

Back to Trump. I have long contended that we, the US, need professional
accomplished business people running the show. Contrary to what some might
want to believe, business people, even those running large corporations, are
not evil. Yeah, some are. The vast majority, by far, are not.

What Trump is putting on the table in no uncertain terms is the difference
between "normal" people and politicians. And, to go farther, entrepreneurs or
business people in general and politicians. When you listen to the two dozen
professional politicians in the presidential race it isn't hard to see
everyone is playing back the same old recordings. Sometimes I wonder if they
have a pull-cord on their back like Woody that plays back the same old shit
over and over. They say the same things, with the same neutered-human tone
they've been saying for the last 50 years or more.

Trump comes along and their brains short-circuit. They have no clue. There's a
general approach to business and entrepreneurship that does not jive with the
way politicians work. The idea of attacking problems head on, proposing and
testing solutions, quickly discarding what doesn't work, throwing fuel at
things that do, being fiscally conservative yet not being shy about making
large investments that will pay off with time and, in general, operating from
the idea that we don't have to know everything before we get going.

How many of you started your businesses knowing absolutely everything there
was to know about that business and having it all planned out before you even
launched? Right. The more likely scenario is that you launched without fear,
wearing your ignorance as a badge, and figured it out as you went along. Some
things you just can't know or plan.

I am not proposing Trump is the solution. For me he still sits somewhere
between a clown and a genius. I have no clue where this is going. Right now,
it's interesting. I wish he'd spend more time showing the world how things are
done outside of politics rather than lobbing insults at people. I sometimes
secretly hope this is part of his media plan. One where, once half the herd
has been killed off will have him get in front of the camera to spend a solid
hour or two explaining his plans and theories as one might expect from someone
who came out of Wharton and has as much real-world experience as he does.

Yes, I am disgusted with politics in the US. We are going nowhere. We are
certainly not moving forward. With every passing year we fail to change our
ways it will become exponentially more difficult for anything to have an
effect. One has to be in awe of what a country like China has accomplished
during the last, say, 25 years. Without really bold action we are all living
through an era that is producing a massive industrial, financial and
intellectual shift in the world.

I am convinced that not one of the professional politicians running today,
regardless of party, has the ability to do a darn thing about anything. They
are in it to win for their own sake. Once in, they'll be gutless and
powerless. Not saying Trump is the solution. Yet, "they" are not the solution
either.

------
sandworm101
NewsRadio 29 s3e01 - Jimmy (Stephen Root) runs for president.

@18:39 "With all due respect sir, are you running for president just to meet
women?"

I was going to provide a youtube link, but this isn't the place for piracy.
Feel free to find it yourself.

------
bra-ket
God forbid America will be ruled by Trump and Russia by Zhirinovsky, this is a
recipe for a nuclear extinction event

~~~
ars
Nah. A good president really only needs just one skill: Knowing how to hire
good people.

Other than that the president himself can be just a figurehead for
entertainment.

Trump clearly knows how to hire good people, so while I would not vote for
him, I'm also not really worried about what will happen if he does win.

If you think about it, the skillset needed to win an election, is not the same
skillset you need for making good calculated decisions.

So IMO we really should not be evaluating candidates on their personal
qualifications, but rather on how good they are at hiring good people to do
the real work.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
You're assuming that Trump's definition of "good" is the same as yours. Trump
may know how to hire people who accomplish what Trump wants accomplished, but
that doesn't mean the results will be good for you or anyone.

~~~
mikeyouse
He's also assuming that Trump will hire "good" people.. Is there evidence
whatsoever that he possesses that skill? How would he evaluate what's "good"
in areas that he literally knows nothing about?

~~~
PhasmaFelis
That, too. The fact that he's run four companies into bankruptcy in the recent
past suggests that, if he does hire "good" people, he doesn't listen to them.

