[ohiophil]

Trump is one of those love em, or hate em type of people. So I ask this...Would anyone here vote trump for president just to avoid a democratic president?

Maybe you can't stand him, think he is full of shit, or has no real experience as a politician, and would never vote for him if you had another choice. But, what if?

Or maybe you love the guy, in which case, this question is irrelevant

[ohiophil]

Or......

Assuming you are republican...

Would you vote democrat, to keep trump out of office?

[masklofumanto]

Originally Posted by Ohio Or...... Assuming you are republican... Would you vote democrat, to keep trump out of office?

No.

But I think it is still too early to be thinking about this dilemma. After all, there hasn't been a single vote cast in a primary or caucus yet. The picture might look different a few months from now.

[ohiophil]

It's just a hypothetical what if

[masklofumanto]

Originally Posted by Ohio It's just a hypothetical what if

We are 19 trillion dollars in debt ... and counting. All while the federal government is collecting record levels of revenue ... so why is the national debt still rising?
Obamacare is already collapsing (note that the largest health insurance company in the country, United Healthcare, has just announced that it is losing too much money and will probably exit Obamacare).
Despite zero interest rates over an extended period of time, the U.S. economy is anemic, with labor participation rates at their lowest in 40 years. Yet small businesses are being strangled by regulation, the unwieldy tax code is over 70,000 pages, and we have the highest corporate tax rate of all developed countries.
Our highways and bridges are crumbling (remember the stimulus package of Obama's first term -- wasn't that supposed to be spent on infrastructure? So where did the money go?), the coal industry has been stamped underfoot while taxpayer dollars are wasted on the likes of Solyndra.
Social Security and Medicare are both on track to insolvency, state and local governments are burdened by unfunded public pension liabilities that are unsustainable, and while education reform has been talked about nonstop since I was a child, and we're spending more money on public education than ever, yet English and Math skills have steadily eroded. And, though we desperately need people to fill vocational jobs, what has become of our vocational schools?
The police have become targets of assassination, inner city crime is rising, and we're debating a $15 minimum wage in some places at a time when minority youths cannot even find entry level jobs.
Our military, at a time of growing global threats, is the smallest it has been since before the Second World War, military morale is low, and the Veterans Administration is a mess.
We have utterly no control over our borders and, despite the fact that ISIS has actually told the world that they are embedding their agents among the refugees, we're looking at taking at least 10,000 refugees that cannot possibly be vetted because they are coming from a failed state (and that's even assuming that all of them are, in fact, Syrians). Meanwhile Europe is being overrun in what is probably the largest "invasion" there since the Middle Ages.
Our allies don't trust us, and our enemies don't fear us, we've been bound to an agreement with Iran opposed by all of our allies in the region, and a genocidal, fanatical terrorist movement controls an area the size of the state of Indiana, yet we've denied the requests for arms from the Kurds, Jordan, and Egypt -- all of whom are willing to fight ISIS. I heard on the news that night-vision goggles would be a great help to the Kurds, but we won't even give them those, because the incompetent, feckless, pro-Iranian government in Baghdad doesn't want them to get military assistance.

Can we afford four to eight more years of this?

So, to answer your hypothetical question, even a Trump presidency has got to be better than more of the same.

[filter man]

I'm not interested in politics generally-but on the BBC News he keeps popping up.He seems a controversial figure.Apparently 380,000+ people here have signed an on- line petition to the Govt saying Trump should be barred from entering the UK.That number of signatures means Parliament MUST debate the issue-but I don't know if he's wanting to come anyway or for what reason.
I do recall huge controversy in Scotland a while back concerning the then 1st Minister up there Alex Salmond personally granting planning permission for a Trump sponsored golf complex near Aberdeen.

[masklofumanto]

Originally Posted by filter man I'm not interested in politics generally-but on the BBC News he keeps popping up.He seems a controversial figure.Apparently 380,000+ people here have signed an on- line petition to the Govt saying Trump should be barred from entering the UK.That number of signatures means Parliament MUST debate the issue-but I don't know if he's wanting to come anyway or for what reason. I do recall huge controversy in Scotland a while back concerning the then 1st Minister up there Alex Salmond personally granting planning permission for a Trump sponsored golf complex near Aberdeen.

My growing sense is that Trump uses controversy as a tactical ploy. He says something that is bound to be controversial, which gets him a lot of media attention, and moves the debate to his issues, giving him a "home court" advantage and the opportunity to negotiate the issues towards his direction. Then he invariably dials it back and qualifies what he supposedly meant. This has happened far too many times in the course of this clearly unconventional campaign. I believe he is using his skills in marketing, public relations, negotiation and showmanship very effectively. You simply can't take the first thing he says too seriously, it is never his final word on the subject.

I heard about the U.K. petition on our national news. Pardon me for saying so, but I think this petition drive is childish, and your MPs are just going to embarass themselves by debating it. What if, hypothetically speaking, he were to become our head of state? Is the U.K. government seriously going to ban entry of the head of state of its most important ally? I still doubt Trump will be the Republican nominee--bear in mind that it has been a large field of candidates without precedent--and that once the field is winnowed Trump is going to get more of a run for his money. If his support has a ceiling, and I believe it does, then there isn't a pathway to his becoming the nominee. But I won't bet on it--so far the only thing you can predict about Trump's candidacy is that it is unpredictable!

Another thing, and again please pardon me for saying so: We should not elect as president a candidate whom Europeans love (I haven't forgotten the love affair Europeans had for Obama back in 2008--look how that has turned out). Instead, we should elect someone who either scares them or who they hate (like Reagan, at the time many Europeans and even Canadians for that matter thought we were crazy for electing him president). Basically I'm saying that our best strategy is to take our presidential candidates' popularity, or lack thereof, in Europe as a contrarian indicator.

[ohiophil]

I agree. Our president should be someone that is hated, or better....feared, by other countries. Our leader shouldn't be buddy-buddy with anyone. We have to keep other nations on their toes

[masklofumanto]

Originally Posted by Ohio I agree. Our president should be someone that is hated, or better....feared, by other countries. Our leader shouldn't be buddy-buddy with anyone. We have to keep other nations on their toes

That actually wasn't my point, though given current developments, I agree with you. My point was Europeans have a REALLY BAD track record when it comes to whom they favor in American presidential elections. Fortunately, they don't get a vote.

[cats&dogs]

It will probably come down to Hillary vs. a Republican. I'll vote for the Republican who ever it may be. I think Donald says a lot of things people are already thinking, just not saying them. He could take a lesson in diplomacy tho.