[Dr Lancer-X]

Graham, on 07 October 2016 - 11:32 AM, said:

I could see either of the candidates having serious health problems during their presidency. Trump might be in good shape, but he is 70 and that could change quickly. And I really buy the conspiracy that Hillary has Parkinson's.

Parkinson's?! Actually I never thought of that, and it would explain a few things, like the 'non-contagious pneumonia'. If true that's an incredibly serious issue that really should be disclosed - there's no way you'd be able to keep that under wraps for 4-8 years. She looked a little too well during the debate for that, but I don't know, maybe there's some cocktail of drugs that can get you through a couple of hours without it being outwardly obvious.

[Graham]

Dr Lancer-X, on 06 October 2016 - 05:42 PM, said:

Parkinson's?! Actually I never thought of that, and it would explain a few things, like the 'non-contagious pneumonia'. If true that's an incredibly serious issue that really should be disclosed - there's no way you'd be able to keep that under wraps for 4-8 years. She looked a little too well during the debate for that, but I don't know, maybe there's some cocktail of drugs that can get you through a couple of hours without it being outwardly obvious.

This doctor makes a strong case for the argument.
https://youtu.be/Zr1IDQ2V1eM

[Exophase]

Graham, on 06 October 2016 - 09:32 PM, said:

I could see either of the candidates having serious health problems during their presidency. Trump might be in good shape, but he is 70 and that could change quickly. And I really buy the conspiracy that Hillary has Parkinson's.

Hillary definitely looks like she has some kind of chronic condition, but she's made it this far so another four years may not be a huge issue. Although I have a suspicion Kaine will fill in for her temporarily at some point.

Trump's actuarial odds are also pretty good for four years.

Whoever's up for reelection in 2020 will certainly have their health reassessed then.

If anything I think the odds would be much higher than usual that Trump would face impeachment and conviction. He seems drawn to constant legal problems and for once both parties would prefer that his VP take over.

[Graham]

Exophase, on 06 October 2016 - 07:30 PM, said:

If anything I think the odds would be much higher than usual that Trump would face impeachment and conviction. He seems drawn to constant legal problems and for once both parties would prefer that his VP take over.

I definitely concur with that sentiment. That scares me as much as Trump becoming president. I really don't agree with Pence's views.

[Exophase]

Graham, on 07 October 2016 - 01:28 AM, said:

I definitely concur with that sentiment. That scares me as much as Trump becoming president. I really don't agree with Pence's views.

I don't like Pence's fundamentalist anti-LGBT and anti-abortion views either, but at this point it's not certain they're even backed by a majority in his party. I suspect he'd actually have less chance passing anything at the federal level than as Indiana governor, although as VP he wouldn't be able to do either.

But I still see Trump as more threatening.

[Dr Lancer-X]

Well, I'll be - Donald Trump actually apologised for something.

Good move, since it shows Trump is obviously trying to address one of his worst flaws and simultaneously takes the energy out of the leaked remarks, preventing them from robbing focus from the leaked emails, speech transcripts and Clinton Foundation documents.

[Exophase]

Dr Lancer-X, on 08 October 2016 - 02:13 AM, said:

Well, I'll be - Donald Trump actually apologised for something.

Good move, since it shows Trump is obviously trying to address one of his worst flaws and simultaneously takes the energy out of the leaked remarks, preventing them from robbing focus from the leaked emails, speech transcripts and Clinton Foundation documents.

I guess it took having a bunch of people at the center of his own party denounce him. Pretty lame apology though. Starting it with "I've never said I'm a perfect person" was a terrible idea, and he spent very little time explaining why he was wrong or even what he did (I didn't know when I read it and was clueless). Too much weak defense and deflection, too little sincere reflection.

His reading is even worse, it comes off as very stiff and recited.

If he's lucky he'll only end up losing a minor portion of his established base over this, meaning he'll only be a little worse off than where he started which was pretty much hopeless.

[Dr Lancer-X]

Exophase, on 08 October 2016 - 08:13 PM, said:

I guess it took having a bunch of people at the center of his own party denounce him. Pretty lame apology though. Starting it with "I've never said I'm a perfect person" was a terrible idea, and he spent very little time explaining why he was wrong or even what he did (I didn't know when I read it and was clueless). Too much weak defense and deflection, too little sincere reflection.

His reading is even worse, it comes off as very stiff and recited.

Yeah, but the point is he said it, and that by itself can take a lot of the energy out of the allegations, even if the apology is totally crap. Remember how Clinton had that little mea culpa about the private email server during the first debate? That was a shitty apology too that didn't even come close to addressing the problems with her use of the server _and_ Trump correctly pointed that out... but as a debating tactic it was pure gold. Clearly that was a prepared statement she was already planning on delivering during that debate and she was just waiting for the right time to use it, and it totally blindsided Trump. Trump was clearly not expecting it and had difficulty rebalancing to respond to it.

The fact that Trump apologised is 99% enough - a better, more sincere apology would not have affected his chances of winning the election.

Exophase, on 08 October 2016 - 08:13 PM, said:

If he's lucky he'll only end up losing a minor portion of his established base over this, meaning he'll only be a little worse off than where he started which was pretty much hopeless.

I dunno, I think his chances aren't bad providing he manages to recapture the narrative between now and the election. Things are slipping away from him currently, but they would do that anyway even if nothing changed purely due to how he is positioned - as the anti-establishment candidate. If things were happy and stable he would never have a chance in the first place, but every time something unusual happens or things get shaken up it's usually Trump that benefits eventually. He's got two debates to set things right. I have a funny feeling Trump has learned his lesson from the first debate and might just manage to do a good job in the coming one, although that by itself won't be enough. Some more negative Clinton news will help and given the recent pace of leaks I think that's pretty much an inevitable; so it's about how skilfully her campaign manages to control the damage. They really screwed up with the September 11 collapse, purely due to being too slow to establish their own side of the story, which allowed everyone's worst fears to fill the void in the meantime. Again, I think they've learned their lesson and this won't happen again - they will respond to everything pretty much immediately, so unless something really really horrifying comes out (and no, the campaign coordinating with a PAC doesn't count. The general public doesn't care about that - sure it's a felony, but the FBI has shown it clearly has no intention of going after Clinton in any meaningful way on those) it won't matter.

There is no amount of money I'd be happy betting on either side of this election. I can honestly see either candidate winning and I believe it will come down to luck, with a very very very slight advantage on Hillary Clinton's side. If I had to name who I would suggest voting for, I'd probably err on the side of Hillary, and that's mostly because of the Supreme Court nominations - odds are good the next President will get to appoint a few justices and as corrupt as Hillary is I still think she'd pick better nominees. Also, even if you absolutely loathe Hillary and the Democratic party (and I wouldn't blame you if you did) Hillary's presidency would probably position the Republican party for a very strong win further down the track. Possibly with a 78 year old Donald Trump, still as healthy as ever. Conversely, a Trump win this election will force the Democrats to fix their processes and expel the human garbage that landed them in this position in the first place, and I think they'd be positioned for a strong win themselves down the track.

I had a quick scan of Hillary's speech transcripts and there wasn't anything that bad in there that I saw, so if there's anything truly devastating, it's yet to come. Honestly I think these leaks might have actually helped a little, since they show that the actual reality of the situation isn't as bad as people thought it would be. Honestly starting to think the paranoid obsession with secrecy and not acknowledging anything may in fact be own goals on Hillary's side. Let in the light and Trump's key advantage in this election is taken away.

[CJA]

oh boy he's going to pull a Sour Patch Kids commercial on us

first they're sour. then they're sweet.

[Verasev]

Hey lancer, whose economic plan do you favor? Lowering taxes for the wealthy or raising them?

[Dr Lancer-X]

Verasev, on 09 October 2016 - 02:37 AM, said:

Hey lancer, whose economic plan do you favor? Lowering taxes for the wealthy or raising them?

neither of those sounds like an economic plan

[Verasev]

Oh fine, be that way! Trump wants to lower taxes, Hillary wants to raise. Forget I used the words "economic plan." Which do like better, raising or lowering? You can tell us, bebe, no one gonna judge you, girl.

[Dr Lancer-X]

Verasev, on 09 October 2016 - 01:10 PM, said:

Oh fine, be that way! Trump wants to lower taxes, Hillary wants to raise. Forget I used the words "economic plan." Which do like better, raising or lowering? You can tell us, bebe, no one gonna judge you, girl.

how about leaving them as they are? i had a brief look at the us income tax code and it looks fine to me...

[Old-Sckool]

i say lower the tax rate for the people who aren't paying taxes anyway

[Dr Lancer-X]

maybe if we lower it enough they'll start paying taxes out of the goodness of their hearts. also we should let them bring all the money they've stashed overseas back into the us at a low tax rate so they'll be kind enough to start spending it in america again

[Dr Lancer-X]

Second debate



This was a good debate for Donald Trump, I think. This was a particularly good jab.

[Verasev]

Yup. Someone clearly learned their lesson from the last debate. I wonder if he can really recover from the latest "grab them by their pussy" debacle, though. I sure hope not...

This post has been edited by Verasev: 10 October 2016 - 03:08 AM

[Dr Lancer-X]

Verasev, on 10 October 2016 - 01:06 PM, said:

I wonder if he can really recover from the latest "grab them by their pussy" debacle, though. I sure hope not...

If he does I think I can see someone who might be considering their own presidential prospects...

Seriously, though, focusing on Bill Clinton was an A+ level deflection on Donald Trump's part and I think he handled things as perfectly as possible given the circumstances. Hillary never addressed any of that apart from with the 'well, everything he just said is a lie but I'm going to move on' which I don't think anyone bought. If it is possible for Trump to recover from those remarks he's well on the way to doing so.

The genius thing here is that allegations against Bill really have nothing to do with Hillary (except in cases where Hillary is alleged to have silenced the victims) and certainly don't excuse Trump's comments, but Trump managed to stick them to her and she didn't really object to any of that, nor the nature of the comparison.

[Verasev]

"Because you'd be in jail," is a hell of a punch in the teeth but isn't that essentially threatening to jail a political opponent? It sounds a tad, well, fascist.

This post has been edited by Verasev: 10 October 2016 - 04:06 AM

[Dr Lancer-X]

Verasev, on 10 October 2016 - 02:00 PM, said:

"Because you'd be in jail," is a hell of a punch in the teeth but isn't that essentially threatening to jail a political opponent? It sounds a tad, well, fascist.

Depends on how you interpret what he was saying. I think Trump meant that he believed Clinton's misdeeds to be worthy of jail time and that under him the Justice Department and the FBI wouldn't employ such a light touch with Hillary (which may in part be due to them wanting to avoid an appearance of interfering with the electoral process - because convicting Hillary would mean that Trump wins at this point). On the other hand, it is very close to the thing you're describing, which is a scary place for the electoral process in any first world country to be heading in - you don't threaten to use the powers of your position against your opponent if you win. You just don't do it.

On the other hand I wouldn't mind if Obama directed the Justice Department to go after Cheney after he won in 2008...

[Exophase]

It's kind of sad, and I'm not sure I should even be admitting it, but the less I read from Hillary supporters online the better I feel about having to vote for her. In isolation she isn't really that bad and a lot of the charges against her are heavily exaggerated - of course there's no question Trump is the far worse candidate. But a lot of the people I read online are just utterly noxious. And I'm sure that applies to both sides, I just don't encounter nearly as many conservatives in the forums and comment sections I read so my exposure is skewed.

Recent depressing example: the fallout over those maps 538 released showing Trump would win big if only men voted, and Hillary would win big if only women voted. Some handful of idiots on Twitter, probably including some trolls, started a hashtag about repealing the 19th amendment. Then the hashtag started trending because of people using it to complain about it. And the more it trends the more people think it's an epidemic of people who actually want to take away women's right to vote, without realizing what's really going on. It's just like what happened with that hashtag to boycott Star Wars ep7 because of its diverse cast.

And because of this, I'm now reading a bunch of tweets and comments display blatant sexism towards men and of course no one really cares about this.

I can't wait for this to finally be over, but I'm worried that Hillary winning is just going to further embolden a lot of elitism and prejudicial attitudes. On the other hand, the bitterness and resentment (and claims of misogyny) would be as I said before pretty extreme. So I guess can't really win with this one.

[Dr Lancer-X]

Normally people erect a strawman and start campaigning against it when they feel they've lost the actual campaign. The polls haven't caught up yet but there's definitely a groundswell going on here. The fact that the anti-Trump people have managed to dig up a woman (tied to the Clinton campaign) with an implausible story about being groped by Trump on a plane (something involving raising the armrests in order to touch her, in a plane that doesn't have raisable armrests in first class) won't help.

And yeah, it doesn't really matter (apart from Supreme Court nominations) who wins the Presidency - so the stuff we're seeing now is only a precursor to what we'll see after the election.

Whoever wins will no doubt end up disappointing their followers. Clinton won't do the things she promised to do, and neither will Trump. Although I do tend to believe Trump when he says he'll get a special prosecutor onto Clinton. I think there are only two potential destinations for Clinton in the future - the White House or prison, and I'm not sure which she's more qualified for.

[Verasev]

How was she tied to the Clinton campaign? I didn't catch that. You know, in my worst moments, I enjoy a good shit flinging contest but this election is just exhausting. I just want it to be over. As far as Hillary going to jail, there are wild and almost certainly untrue rumors in the Donald sphere on reddit and 4chan that something really damning is going to be released about Hillary pretty soon. Supposedly they're waiting so that no other candidate can be chosen in time. Likely it's just bull but oh well.

I just wanted someone besides Trump to win...

[Dr Lancer-X]

Verasev, on 14 October 2016 - 09:06 AM, said:

How was she tied to the Clinton campaign? I didn't catch that.

"Tied" might be a bit of a strong word. It's more that there's a 6-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon link between her and the Clinton campaign. Basically she's the secretary of the New York chapter of Altrusa International. One of the directors of that same chapter is a campaign volunteer and another works for a pro-Hillary Super PAC. So it's conspiracy theory level stuff, but nonetheless one that will leave people scratching their heads, especially when considered in conjunction with the dubious nature of her claims.

Verasev, on 14 October 2016 - 09:06 AM, said:

As far as Hillary going to jail, there are wild and almost certainly untrue rumors in the Donald sphere on reddit and 4chan that something really damning is going to be released about Hillary pretty soon. Supposedly they're waiting so that no other candidate can be chosen in time. Likely it's just bull but oh well.

I feel like I've been hearing about that since the start of the election. "The biggest leaks are coming out soon and they'll be so devastating Hillary will never be able to recover!" I'll believe it when I see it. I've also been hearing about how Bill Clinton is going to die and Hillary will ride the wave of sympathy to victory and other similar nonsense. I think some people make too much of the fact that because some of these 'predictions' have turned out true, that they're any better than wild delusional guesses. The fact is that there's been so many insane predictions, from the very beginning, that it makes sense one or two of them would come true purely as a result of random chance!

I expect more leaks, sure, but I don't think there will be anything that's an order of magnitude more severe than what's already out there. The only thing I can really imagine is if a leak reveals criminal wrongdoing so severe that the FBI has no choice but to act immediately - and I think they've already strongly signalled that they don't want to undermine the election. I also think that there's perhaps too many allegations about Hillary at this point that there's a risk of the electorate getting scandal fatigue and just treating is as 'oh, that's what they're saying Hillary did this time'. It's like how the Benghazi scandal lost practically all of its impact because Republicans went on too strong too soon with too little evidence, and when more damning evidence surfaced people were already tired of hearing about Benghazi. (There's also the fact that the allegations made were so ridiculous that even if Hillary was found to have been at fault it still wouldn't match what Republicans were saying she did.)

More damning leaks will certainly hurt Hillary, but I think we're talking a slow shift of a few percentage points. It's hard to imagine something coming out that would make her unelectable. Maybe something like "Turns out Hillary Clinton was responsible for all those mysterious Clinton-related deaths after all!", but anything less and it won't work.

On the other hand, I do think Trump has a lot to lose, and we'll see what happens with these other allegations of improper conduct around women. If any of them turn out to be credible he could well be toast. (Even if none are proven outright, sometimes quantity can be enough- Bill Cosby was history once the number of allegations reached the "they can't ALL be made up" critical mass. The same thing happened with Herman Cain.)

(As a side note, I had a glance at the pro-Donald Trump subreddit and they're saying she killed Scalia. Right....)

[Graham]

It's really hard to tell whether these new accusations will help him or hurt him.

[Exophase]

Graham, on 14 October 2016 - 06:22 PM, said:

It's really hard to tell whether these new accusations will help him or hurt him.

I don't see how they'd help him.

Let's say there's a significant contingent of people who actually respect and appreciate someone more for their sexual violations. I find this dubious but let's say it for the sake of argument. Where were they moving from?

[Dr Lancer-X]

Exophase, on 15 October 2016 - 09:22 AM, said:

I don't see how they'd help him.

Let's say there's a significant contingent of people who actually respect and appreciate someone more for their sexual violations. I find this dubious but let's say it for the sake of argument. Where were they moving from?

Basically, the sexual abuser demographic supports Hillary for her role in covering up her husband's sex crimes, but after realising that Trump might be even worse of a sex offender they switch to him.

idk if this sudden switch to pandering to the sexual abuser demographic will be enough to turn this race around for trump but it might be worth a shot!

[Graham]

In all seriousness, his supporters won't believe the women, or they'll discredit their accusations because they waited until now, on the eve of the election, to come out. And then there is the anti-PC crowd that appreciates that he's a crude, crass guy like them, rather then an uptight political asshole (the words they might use, not my views) like the ones they are using Trump to go against.

They will feel he hasn't done anything wrong, they'll say he was just coming onto these women and there isn't anything wrong with it. Or they'll forgive his indiscretions because it was so long ago. I dunno, but seriously, every time some one tries to throw something on the dumpster fire that is Donald Trump it just winds up being fuel that makes him bigger. Look at how many times we've all guessed wrong now about him. It was so unlikely that he would be where he is now and yet here he is. I guess I'm not willing to count him out because every time he seems to come back stronger. This country has some seriously fucked up backwards assholes that just seem to want to see it all go up in flames right now and they are betting Trump is the guy who can make it happen. They think that with Hillary its business as usual and there isn't anything they want less than that. Trump still looks better than that to a lot of people.

This post has been edited by Graham: 15 October 2016 - 12:11 AM

[Dr Lancer-X]

Oh, I definitely don't think Trump is out, just that if anything can sink him this is it. I wouldn't be surprised if Trump manages to navigate past this scandal like all the others - in fact, at this point I basically expect it. Trump will manage to do something and all of a sudden the allegations will loose all their force. I don't know what that is yet, but I didn't think Trump would be able to shrug off his Central Park 5 advertising, or Trump University, or in general being unable to take any slight without retaliating - but none of those issues are even coming up any more. So I don't know how he'll do it but I think there's a good chance he'll just shrug all this off with some very clever media manipulation.

Now, in practice scandals tend to be played off against each other until one comes off that can't be countered, and the person with that one loses. At the last debate Trump very cleverly played off the tape of his crude comments about women against the accusations made against Bill Clinton by bringing those women with him to the debate (as well as the rape victim whose attacker Hillary defended in court) - it was a very good move, but that's now been burned and can't be used against these new allegations. Trump needs something else and it needs to hit very hard. It might surface soon thanks to Wikileaks, or there might just be something else that's already known but isn't currently at the forefront of the conversation.

It's funny because Hillary isn't really an ally of the Social Justice people (I mean, besides occasionally taking advantage of them) but they're so scared of Trump they've no choice but to back Hillary. It's pretty hilarious. They'll get what they deserve with either president. (EDIT: Clarifying what I mean here: if you go all-in backing a bad President you're responsible for what they do when they win. If you wash your hands of it you can at least claim some deniability. SocJus-ers that back Hillary Clinton are compromising their principles for a short term political win and I will not feel sorry for them when it inevitably backfires on them)

[Exophase]

Graham, on 14 October 2016 - 08:09 PM, said:

In all seriousness, his supporters won't believe the women, or they'll discredit their accusations because they waited until now, on the eve of the election, to come out. And then there is the anti-PC crowd that appreciates that he's a crude, crass guy like them, rather then an uptight political asshole (the words they might use, not my views) like the ones they are using Trump to go against.

They will feel he hasn't done anything wrong, they'll say he was just coming onto these women and there isn't anything wrong with it. Or they'll forgive his indiscretions because it was so long ago. I dunno, but seriously, every time some one tries to throw something on the dumpster fire that is Donald Trump it just winds up being fuel that makes him bigger. Look at how many times we've all guessed wrong now about him. It was so unlikely that he would be where he is now and yet here he is. I guess I'm not willing to count him out because every time he seems to come back stronger. This country has some seriously fucked up backwards assholes that just seem to want to see it all go up in flames right now and they are betting Trump is the guy who can make it happen. They think that with Hillary its business as usual and there isn't anything they want less than that. Trump still looks better than that to a lot of people.

Okay, but.. were these people really not already voting for him?

He has taken some pretty real damage in the polls this last month, finally breaking down the appearance that he's invulnerable. And at this stage in the game it's really hard to recover as much as he would need to. His previous rebounds were not that statistically unlikely but a rebound now would be, at least based on historical campaign data.