It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
@dalton, thanks for being here and reminding us that there are Republicans who are unhappy with the direction their party has gone in the last several years. Good luck taking back your party from the extremists who have stolen it from you, and I mean that most sincerely. Please don’t sit out this election. Support the down-ticket candidates you find acceptable or vote for 3rd party candidates. They desperately need your support to prevent our choices from being reduced to “A” or “B.“ Write in a vote for Topolino if you have to. The system can’t fix itself unless we all join in to work on the fix.
Once upon a time, President Ronald Reagan and Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill (“R” and “D” respectively) used to get together regularly in the evenings, share a drink and a few jokes, and figure out ways to craft solutions to the problems of the day. They would be astonished and appalled by the rancor that is a standard part of the Washington culture today. The idea that a refusal to ever, ever compromise is some sort of virtue rather than a deeply held character flaw would have been entirely foreign to those worthy gentlemen. I would modestly suggest that a return to that spirit of co-operation in determining the will of the people ought rightly be the first step in “making America great again.”
I am in no way mollified by the claim that “building The Wall” or “carpet bombing the Middle East” or “rapists and drug addicts” are just overstatements for effect. Trump uses his language very precisely and entirely too carelessly both at the same time. Republicans used to use coded statements as dog-whistles to imply things they couldn’t say out loud with suffering an enormous backlash; today Trump says them with a bullhorn rather than a dog whistle and gets praise for his refusal to cowtow to the demons of “political correctness.” There is a very real reason that minority attendees of his rallies -- and members of the press who dare to move beyond their assigned places -- are beaten or harassed or simply ejected. Some people who really ought to know better have tried to claim that Trump isn’t REALLY a racist, he just -- what? Is only attempting to APPEAL to racists? Oh, please. Don’t even go there. If he walks like a Klansman and talks like a Klansman and is ENDORSED by Klansmen then he’d better stop lying down with swine because he’ll wake up being forbidden for consumption by either Jews OR Muslims.
And finally, let’s consider the argument that Trump is the champion of those who object to the way our politicians are bought and sold by “the special interests.” Trump is HIS OWN SPECIAL INTEREST -- he’s one of those who’s been doing the buying and selling for the past few decades -- and your solution to this (admittedly substantial) problem is to eliminate the middle man in this atrocious equation? That’s right, some people would claim that the best way to fix the problem of zillionaires buying off our politicians is just to put those zillionaires in charge of the whole bloody system. Are you kidding or just not thinking these things through? Here’s an idea: let’s have a President Trump, a Speaker of the House Koch and a Senate Majority leader Koch as well! Just for kicks, how about Vice-President Soros to seal the deal? That should make everybody happy!
More to come as the election trundles on. BeatlesSansEarmuffs will return in, “How I Learned Not to Worry About Hillary’s Relationship with Wall Street”…or maybe it’ll be “I Can Stop Yer Illegal Immigation Without No Stinking Wall” first, if I can work out a deal with Kevin McClory’s estate without surrendering too many ownership options…
The man isn't even a politician, He's a businessman with no political or government experience. Would some of you really want someone with that little to no experience in power? It's like making a child work in a steel mill with no experience. Talk about sheer stupidity.
or like a line cook at McDonalds being put in charge of a slaughter house... just because one has made a burger, doesn't mean he is qualified at slaughtering the cow.
and you can also add the USFL Football League to that list of things that Trump had run into the ground.
Onto the Democratic Convention in Chicago and McCarthy was considered the eventual nominee, but not so fast. Party bosses selected VP Hubert Humphrey(who had not won a single primary) and ignored the McCarthy campaign and the voice of the voters. The convention was noted for its fights inside and outside the convention. Police assaulted protestors, news people and even delegates. Humphrey ran against Nixon and that did not end well.
As the Republican Party bosses are busy trying to stop Trump at any costs, could history be repeating itself.
asshole can vote for them. That's why so many assholes get into po!itics. ;)
As every day passes, he is creating a formidable movement. That only happened once before recently, with Obama (or Bernie, currently on the left). They are very difficult to stop once they get going. Insulting the voters doesn't help and insulting the vessel doesn't help either - it only makes the movement stronger.
I see it playing out in a few ways:
1. Republican establishment will have to make a decision in the next month if it's going to get behind Trump or forfeit this election to save their power base.
2. Trump has to make nice with the top brass and see if they can work together. It is incumbent on him to 'reach out'. He will have to kiss up to some notable lobby groups who have already started crying as well. We all know who they are
3. Trump has to put 'meat on the bones' of his platform. It began yesterday with his health plan, but much more is required - much more. He also has to stop talking in soundbites and be more detailed
4. Trump will have to survive the next two weeks of vehement and incessant take-down attacks. He will also have to survive the upcoming Fox debate and act presidential - in particular ducking Rubio's new found comedy act while making him look small (and I'm not referring to hands or fingers)
5. Assuming he is the nominee, he has to fine tune his debate skills and discuss policy clearly and coherently. Hillary is a skilled and very formidable debater. That doesn't guarantee her victory in the debates, but they do favour her.
I have no idea if all the above is possible. It's not going to be easy because the forces against his candidacy are huge. As they were against Perot, who was also an insurgent (although running independently). If he goes down in the next month, at least he started a conversation and may generate much required changes on the right.
----
If he ends up being the nominee, there are wild cards of course, and they all favour Trump. 1) A terrorist threat or attack on US soil. 2) The African American voter (the deciding factor this year imho) peeling away from Hillary and moving towards Trump and 3) the Republican establishment fully backing the Trump card, including the Kochs.
It will be a very interesting election imho, with huge turnout. Both Hillary and Trump are deeply polarizing candidates who will energize their respective bases like no other candidates.
Look for a lot of vehement criticism of Trump on this thread, which will no doubt be very active in the upcoming months. There are lot of folks panicking right now on both sides of the aisle. One thing to keep in mind - both the top candidates know each other very well and actually don't dislike each other all that much personally (despite campaign rhetoric).
Donald Trump really is just the culmination of the direction the Republican party has been drifting. Because of the weak leadership within the party, the racist and bigoted element in the party has gotten more and more power, despite being a minority within the party, primarily because they are louder than everyone else. It's been disgusting to watch.
As for down-ticket races, I'm in the middle of Tea Party territory, although the state as a whole doesn't lean quite that far to the right. There really is no point, since it's a choice between either a Democrat or someone from the insane wing of the Republican party.
The best thing Republicans can do in November is to simply stay home. It may deliver the election to Clinton, but it also shows that we're not going to support someone who runs under the party banner who spews racist and bigoted rhetoric. It would be a great thing for the country as as a whole, in my view, to sit this election out, since from what I've seen discussed on the news, the two candidates that will represent the major parties in the general election will have the highest unfavorable ratings in the history of US presidential politics. In other words, the two most hated candidates in election history will win their primaries and face each other for the highest political office in the world. How does that happen?
I may be persuaded to vote if something drastic changes between now and November. If Clinton somehow finds a way to stake out a position on the political spectrum that makes her a bit more tolerable, or actually shows some semblance of remorse for some of the wrongdoings such as the email issue or Benghazi (for the record, I'm not gung-ho like the Republicans in trying to see her jailed and disqualified from the race because of these issues, but there were lapses in judgement in these particular cases that do need to be acknowledged rather than the shouting match between her and Republican leadership that has been going on for the better part of a year now). Or if a scenario presented itself where Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, John Kasich, or someone else from the potty-trained wing of the Republican party can seize the nomination in a brokered convention, then I'd be back on board. But a vote for Trump will not happen. At some point it's something that I'll have to answer for, and I'm not going to stand up and have to admit, even to myself, that I voted for a man who spews racist, neo-fascist rhetoric as the base platform of his campaign.
Edit: Also, Mitt Romney is set to take the stage to deliver his address in less than an hour. Good luck to him. Someone speaking some semblance of reason has to finally get the message across and coalesce the majority of Republicans who despise Trump around one candidate. Hopefully Romney can begin that process with his remarks.
This will backfire big time, Romney like no other represents the corrupt Republican elite the Trump followers so hate.
The Romney attack was half baked. It won't have an impact. Most already know these things about Trump. Romney is a spent political force and until I see people with something to lose coming out and speaking up (and I don't mean Lindsay Graham) I believe the effort is also half baked. They will back him if he can survive the next two weeks:
Where Romney will have his problem is just from the fact that he's Mitt Romney, a two-time loser in the presidential race. Everything he said was completely on point. If the establishment could somehow convince the duo of Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio out of the race and then somehow managed to convince John Kasich to go on the attack with the kind of precision that Romney displayed today, there would be a chance to stop Trump. John Kasich delivering the Romney rebuttal of Trump is the only hope the party has of surviving the 2016 election.
A brokered convention or a Trump candidacy means that conservatives are done in the United States, we will no longer have a party that represents us or supports our ideas in any way shape or form. Not that the Republican party has been great with that (you know, it is possible to be conservative and not agree with every social concern of the Tea Party), but at least its a forum for conservative ideas. We're a couple of months away from the end of all of that. Thank you Reince Priebus, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and the rest of the Republican clown car that didn't take this seriously until you already lost to it.
What they don't realize IMO is, that this man MIGHT be able to put up an ACT, but what then? Did it change his personality or his ability? Will he be able to controll his temper, his ego afterwards? NO!!!
Bondjames, you ask, not for the first time, he should go more into detail. But how can he? He has no idea. He is a millionare, who won and lost equally over time, not a politician, who has insight in what is necessary to - at least - not totally sink the ship.
Its all words, no substance with him. Show, he is all show.
But its a very american trait, theat they love everything that's show. Here I really do point my finger. Its not Hollywood here, its our world, that's at stake. More then ever. Let this man not play with it. Pretty please.
You're right of course concerning the show act.
But I'd rather have this showman in the Oval Office than the only other alternative that is left, Ted Cruz.
Ted Cruz is dangerous. I mean Putin/Erdogan dangerous level.
Of course all discussions are actually redundant as Hillary Clinton will be the next President of the United States.
That's as certain as Merkel getting re-elected next year. Close to 100%.
In fact, Democrats and likewise thinking people all over the world should celebrate Donald Trump, as he is the man that guarantees that the Democrats will at least occupy the White House for another 8 to 12 years.
I'm not even sure the Republicans will still exist after this election. The shambles will probably get picked up by the Tea Party and they will take over completely.
I can already see the Republican ticket in 2020: Palin/Cruz
I admire the movement. It's a gift. He recognizes this and is as surprised by it as anyone, I can see. He has incredible ego. As I said before, ego can be a positive because it can make a man do great things. Of course it can be a huge negative as well. Don't tell me Cruz doesn't have ego. All of them do otherwise they won't be running. Trump just wears it on his sleeve.
Let's see if he can make the most of this moment and this gift he has fallen into accidentally.
He is not as bad as he sounds or his persona. That much I know. He is also not a conservative at heart. That I also know. That's why it's so interesting to see what he does next. The biggest risk with him is that he is a gambler.
If he can bring the congressional establishment onside, and if he wins, I think they can work together in an interesting way to actually do something, rather than having the logjam we have now. They craft the policy and he agrees or disagrees depending on the mood/pulse of the electorate. That is what I find interesting about his candidacy. The others on the republican side are all just lightweights.
His words speak to the opposite.
If he's not a racist, then the onus is on him to prove it at this point because he's been playing the part of one extremely well.
Some have been using it to create wedge politics which I don't agree with (I didn't buy Van Jones outburst on CNN two days ago. I did when I first saw it but when they kept going on about it yesterday I knew what was up. I could see it wasn't authentic - the outburst I meant). As I said earlier, African American voters will be critical for this election, and Jones knows that. So do all the other commentators from the left that come on CNN.
The fact that Trump used Duke and the KKK as reasons for not proceeding with the Reform bid some years ago shows me what's truly in his heart. As I said elsewhere, it appeared to me, on the CNN interview, that he thought Tapper was trying to play 'gotcha'. Tapper should have asked him point blank (not when he was speaking/responding) about the KKK, and not about Duke. Then he should have responded forcefully. No excuses.
Ultimately he will have to show voters (outside his base) that he is a more moderate person than his persona. If he can't, then he hasn't got a chance in November (assuming he is the nominee). Of course he will not ever be able to persuade some who have written him off.
Mitt Romney's comments all ring hollow except for his accusation that Trump is not a true conservative (that one is correct imho). All these candidates (including Mr. 1% behind closed doors speech Romney who himself employed undocumented workers) have skeletons in their closet.
Everyone has skeletons in their closets, so based on that theory there isn't anyone that can speak against Trump. Romney delivered a very coherent, policy-based rebuttal of Trump's campaign today. Rubio, Cruz, and Kasich need to pour over a transcript of that speech and use it as their talking points, because the whole pant wetting thing that Rubio has been going on about is as childish and stupid as the types of insults that Trump hurtles around the arena.
I'm not a huge Romney fan (didn't back him until forced to once he was the nominee), but his rebuttal of Trump today was the first time anyone has even bothered to attack Trump on policy and general unsuitability to hold the office rather than simply resorting to the usual name calling that Trump himself likes to go in for. And, in his always classy manner, Trump responds with a horribly vulgar line saying that Romney would have "dropped to his knees" if Trump had asked him to in 2012 in order to secure an endorsement.
I found the Romney attack terribly weak to be honest. Everyone knows, or at least should know, these issues about Trump. In fact, Rubio has mentioned some of this already, when he's not commenting on small hands and wet pants. I think Romney should have taken the high road and talked cleanly about conservative principles rather than talking about 'fraud' and 'phony'. That is just going to antagonize Trump voters. He could have 'done an Obama' and gone statesman-like. That's what I would have done.
His speech will be used against Trump tonight. Romney has given them their talking points. Let's see if they can derail the wagon.