[RD] The Republican nomination

[Sommerswerd]

I would agree with the important caveat that it only applies if Trump stops his recent right-ward leaning tilt in his policies. Even during the last debate he disavowed every one of his own liberal (or at least less-conservative) policy positions to appease the conservative audience. Now I can easily see him once again reversing himself in office to govern more to the center on a lot of policies. But I can just as easily see him sticking with his newfound 'true conservative' approach to policies. If he does that, he'll have no problems with a Republican controlled congress.

This. And the centerpieces of Trumps platform are increased military spending and building more of "THE WALL" on the Mexican border. He will literally have zero trouble getting the current Congress to pass that. Trump's platform has the genius of essentially promising the Republican-ideology status-quo but selling it as "The Awesome! Terrific! status quo That will be so Great it will make your Head Spin!" And its not so much that the voters like the story more... its the same story they know and love. They just like the way he tells it a lot more.

In essence, yes. And the Republicans of course are pushing policies that will increase the wealthy's share of income even further, at the expense of everyone else.

So you do get it... and agree, you just needed to hear it from someone other than me... fine, I thought as much... glad I didn't bother with the other thread, which I suspected was more about you wanting the last word... which clearly it was.

Then their only rational reason for voting for Donald Trump is to deliberately break the system. Whether conscious or unconscious is unclear.

Its definitely conscious. I have said before that I don't buy the "Republican voters are stupid" ideology.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I'm still wondering if he wants to win to actually apply his "program" because he's "the best" and can't be wrong or if he'd sell out to any position if it's in his political advantage. If the latter then you're probably right.

Yeah that's a tough call for me as well. However, I do have hope that some of the crap he says now is just a run to the right to drum up the base and he won't be so hard-core as a president if elected. Which is why I see him as the least dangerous Republican nominee - all the rest I know are genuinely hardcore teahadists and have 0% chance of coming to the center. At least with Trump there is a non-zero chance of him moving to the center.

 

[jackelgull]

So you do get it... and agree, you just needed to hear it from someone other than me... fine, I thought as much... glad I didn't bother with the other thread, which I suspected was more about you wanting the last word... which clearly it was.

I don't see the connection. You were arguing that people don't have the skills to be useful to capital, so capital won't give them money. How this related to the wealthy using the Republican (and the Democrats for that matter) to give themselves a bigger slice of the pie is mystifying to me. Perhaps I missed something.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I don't see the connection. You were arguing that people don't have the skills to be useful to capital, so capital won't give them money. How this related to the wealthy using the Republican (and the Democrats for that matter) to give themselves a bigger slice of the pie is mystifying to me. Perhaps I missed something.

quwan

 

[Lexicus]

So you do get it... and agree, you just needed to hear it from someone other than me... fine, I thought as much... glad I didn't bother with the other thread, which I suspected was more about you wanting the last word... which clearly it was.

People don't normally use 'skills' and 'decision-making power' to mean the same things.
The difference between 'skills' and 'power' is not trivial, not merely semantic, and of central importance to either argument.

I don't see the connection. You were arguing that people don't have the skills to be useful to capital, so capital won't give them money. How this related to the wealthy using the Republican (and the Democrats for that matter) to give themselves a bigger slice of the pie is mystifying to me. Perhaps I missed something.

There is no connection; they are two different arguments. I don't see how he doesn't get this.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I would agree with the important caveat that it only applies if Trump stops his recent right-ward leaning tilt in his policies. Even during the last debate he disavowed every one of his own liberal (or at least less-conservative) policy positions to appease the conservative audience. Now I can easily see him once again reversing himself in office to govern more to the center on a lot of policies. But I can just as easily see him sticking with his newfound 'true conservative' approach to policies. If he does that, he'll have no problems with a Republican controlled congress.

Trump is already changing his tune. He has backed off of his torture position from the other night. I'm sure more moves to the left will be forth coming.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/04/politics/donald-trump-reverses-on-torture/index.html

 

[Nexlev]

Cruz won Kansas, leading in Maine (still early). Trump is not matching his poll numbers

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Cruz won Kansas, leading in Maine (still early). Trump is not matching his poll numbers

According to numbers so far, Cruz won Kansas with 51% to Trump's 24%. This will give Cruz a huge political selling point because he will be able to say that he got 51% of the republican vote for the first time and Trump got less than 30%. He will be able to use this result to argue that he is indeed the best candidate for unifying the republican party against Trump.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

And let me also add that if Cruz wins Maine as it seems he will, this will bust the argument that Cruz can only win the right-wing states. Maine is in the more liberal Northeast so winning there is big for Cruz.

 

[Nexlev]

Yes, he has a strong selling point for that. A win in Maine , even by a little, is equally huge for Cruz because it's out of his territory.

Still a long shot, Trump will win the big prize in Louisiana and will make adjustments.

 

[Bootstoots]

It seems that Trump just does uncharacteristically badly in caucuses.

edit: Excluding Nevada, for some reason.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Cruz won Kansas, leading in Maine (still early). Trump is not matching his poll numbers

I think we've reached the point where we're far enough off the rails that nobody has any idea what is going on in this race anymore.

As far as the structure of the race goes, it's starting to look really really dark for Rubio. If Rubio indeed forced out, Cruz may have a shot against Trump. Which makes no sense since by any logic Cruz should be dead and buried by delegate math and the left-leaning states, but Cruz is winning Maine after getting walloped in Massachusetts and if he can win there then he can win anywhere.

 

[metalhead]

I disagree. Maine is a caucus, in a state where Ron Paul basically tied Romney in 2012. They aren't an electorate that follows any kind of logic in their voting, so drawing a conclusion based on the results there is pretty difficult.

 

[Cutlass]

Considering I want the Dems to win the presidency and both houses of congress, I'm not.

I seen "conservatism" and it doesn't work.

We, as a country, have never tried "Liberalism" in terms of public health care and lowered college expenses.

We're afraid to try these things because they "might not work" but what we've been doing(conservatism) we know won't work.

I'd rather try something that may or may not work instead of sticking with something that's been failing for decades.

This is a side of you I don't recall ever seeing before.

 

[Nexlev]

The results from Maine could still flip. I think the closed caucus, and strongest case against Trump, helped Cruz.

 

[metalhead]

Regardless, Rubio is going to finish 3rd or 4th everywhere tonight. Can't wait to hear his victory speech.

 

[Kennigit]

i have never known a single thing about maine politically but how the heck is like cruz going to come out with a win in a northern state like that?

Whatever, guess maine is crazies (and is a caucus)

 

[Zkribbler]

We, as a country, have never tried "Liberalism" in terms of public health care and lowered college expenses.

"As a country," sure, but California had free public universities in the 60's and became the most technologically advanced state in the U.S., and the wealthiest state in the nation. California also passed a government-paid-for universal healthcare plan, but Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed it.

 

[Fr8monkey]

Trump has followers pledge to him: scary!



Link to video.



Next he is going to hand out brown shirts...

 

[Martin Alvito]

I disagree. Maine is a caucus, in a state where Ron Paul basically tied Romney in 2012. They aren't an electorate that follows any kind of logic in their voting, so drawing a conclusion based on the results there is pretty difficult.

I don't like 'caucus' as an explanation, especially in the context of the degree of the result in Kansas.

A caucus is basically a biased sample of a state's prospective primary voters. Said voters are going to tend to be partisan and unusually politically active. That bias doesn't necessarily mean that we can expect any given result one way or the other. Trump did unusually well in Nevada. Early returns put him about where we'd expect in Kentucky.

The fact that Trump underperformed in Iowa and also badly underperformed in Kansas while apparently doing fine in Nevada and Kentucky would seem to indicate that the explanation is more "Midwest" than "caucus". I'll agree that Maine's a weird state politically, but it has a history of being extremely middle-of-the-road. The state that gave us Bill Cohen and Susan Collins coronating Ted Cruz would be more than a bit odd. "Early returns" sounds like a more likely explanation than "caucus" to me.