How much more of Trump can we take?

Comments (Archived):

1. bringing articles of impeachment guarantees Trump four more years.

   1. disagree.nothing is guaranteed on either side.no one knows anything about the outcome.

      1. Totally disagree. Do the right thing not some preconceived notion. Who would have thought he would have won?

         1. people criticize me as my strategy is belief in the common good.i can’t think any other way.

            1. 100% with you

         2. Who would have thought he would have won?I will quote 2 educated and upper class suburban women in Starbucks the day of the election who said they had voted for Trump. They said and I quote as directly as I can ‘it’s a big fuck you to liberals’. The point is that some of the liberal position is fine (even if it isn’t ideal) but some of it is simply to extreme, to in your face, and to much ‘we make sense, you don’t and by the way anyone who thinks like you is stupid and is not caring like I am and is an idiot’. So for that reason they voted for Trump. I suspect that many votes went to Trump for the same reason. Meaning they fully knew what they were doing and had a specific reason for doing it.

   2. Another thing that would bring four more years is the new voices of the democratic party which promise all sorts of handouts and entitlements in order to garner votes. At least some of them are doing it for that reason. Others really believe what they are trying to do is not only the right thing but fiscally possible. That type of extremism will drive many to actually think that a re-election is the lesser evil.I would vote democratic but there is ZERO chance I will vote for someone who is anywhere near socialism in any way. (Even if I know they are just doing it as a ploy to get stupid people to vote for them thinking they can deliver on those promises in some way).What is interesting is the difference between the bullshit promises that Trump made and makes (that he couldn’t keep and/or is trying to keep in some way) and the promises that the new democrats are making. The democrat promises are actually bribes for votes ‘pay off your college debt’ or ‘free community college’ and so on. Not many people who vote really gain directly in some way from a border wall or even abortion rights. (Note I say ‘not many’ and yes there are people who care about this deeply but it’s simply not the same as something which is money in your pocket be clear about that).It is well know that people vote with respect for how things impact them personally vs. the greater good for everyone. No surprise given the messaging that the candidates give.Anyone who is in sales has had an experience (and Joanne talks about this with investing) whereby quality goes out the window for some low price (or bullshit promises). It’s kind of like that at the core.

      1. Here’s a list of the 20 democratic candidates and their stance on issues.Which would you support?https://www.cnn.com/interac…

         1. 1) You know what is really strange. The two I would support are actually two that I would think I would never support until the ones that are totally out there voiced their platform. I’d have to study it more but I’d say Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden (and I can’t believe those are my choices in terms of lesser evils for a republican voter). Both choices because I think in the end they are more likely to be rational in terms of what they end up doing. Some of the others are just overly aggressive and totally out of control. [1] Joe is jaded but Elizabeth appears likely to in the end be rational in some way.The ones with no name recognition I can’t see supporting honestly until they are on the dartboard more.2) Will add that Michael Bennet for me is a non starter based on this alone which I just read from the link you gave me:Bennet has compared Trump’s separation of families at the border to his Jewish mother’s experience being separated from her own parents as a child in Poland during the Holocaust. “When I see these kids at the border, I see my mom,” Bennet said during the first Democratic debate.Why? Well my father (much older than Bennets mother) actually was in a concentration camp (Buchenwald and others) and lost his parents and 2 of his siblings (they were actually killed). Cousins, aunts uncles all gone. So to use for political advantage and compare what happened to his family to what is happening at the border is not only opportunistic but makes light of what actually happened. Nice attempt Michael to pull at the heartstrings of the voters but it’s simply not the same. It’s actually really absurd.3) And read this (I have clipped the relevant part) it directly contradicts what Michael is asserting in his ‘pitch’ for votes:https://collections.ushmm.o… https://uploads.disquscdn.c…[1] When that happens people tend to go with the devil they know.

         2. I like the system of being able to see how these candidates rise or fall over the pre-election period. Many of their views overlap but leadership is also essential

2. enough already…

3. his guideline is what he said early on – I could shoot someone on streets of NYC and … Not for one moment has Trump stopped shooting people

   1. Absolutely

   2. Was scanning the web on the latest dealings at the NRA. I’m really PO’d about the recent firings. Not sure why this site popped up in my search since I don’t see anything about the NRA. But since I’m here I put in my two cents worth.I’m a Republican, but used to be a Democrat many years ago. I’m an old retired geezer in Texas. My opinion is Trump won’t be impeached. The votes to do it just won’t be there even if it comes to a vote. The whole impeachment thing is just another way to keep hammering on Trump. Even with Washington’s never ending dirty politics I’ve never seen the level of hate that is thrown at Trump. Trump derangement syndrome seems to be a real thing. It seems to overwhelm and consume a lot a liberals to the point of physically attacking people wearing MAGA caps, assaulting people in restaurants and yelling at anyone who they think is a Trump supporter. At this point it seems liberals have lost any rational thought. If you think for one minute that impeaching Trump with help heal the nations divide you aren’t looking at the real world.I’ve never had problems with liberals before. Had many friends with different political and social ideas. We just agreed to disagree and everything was fine. But now I’m afraid of being attacked if I express a conservative idea. I avoid liberals these days. But fortunately where I live there aren’t many liberals.I’m a Trump fan because I want illegal immigration fixed, I want to keep my guns, I don’t want a socialist government, I don’t want to pay more taxes and I think the police are still the good guys. If a liberal president is elected all those things will crumble before our eyes. Just my two cents.

4. Attached photos I shot [1] from my balcony over the weekend. Pilot in a banner towing plane at the shore – note the sticker in his window. The state is fully democratic.[1] 3000mm lens (at roughly 1600mm) https://uploads.disquscdn.c… https://uploads.disquscdn.c…

5. Respectfully, unless success is almost certain, I think impeachment should be put aside. Failed proceedings would enrage and embolden his base, making it even more difficult to remove him in the 2020 election.

   1. Nothing is ever certain

6. There’s literally nothing we can do to embolden Trump’s base more because they’re already 150% emboldened.The only thing playing this game of cat and mouse around impeachment will do is suppress the youth vote. It will cause people who see all politicians as only serving their self-interests to stay home. (You know, like the disinformation campaign in 2016 did.)Impeachment is the right thing to do and the smart thing to do. Dems won’t lose over impeachment, no matter how the Senate votes (which is NOT a guaranteed outcome either way, once the public has heard and seen impeachment hearings). If they file articles of impeachment in the next couple of months, it’ll be a distant memory for those who don’t like it by the time November 2020 rolls around, AND it’ll be enough to get a significant number of disaffected voters on our side back to the the voting booth.Friday’s events have me feeling hopeful at the moment. It feels like the folks who want to impeach have found their big wave and are in the tube.

   1. I’m with you Kirsten!

   2. Agree the Senate is not a forgone conclusion. However the election is not 100% determined by the base. There are plenty of people who are not the base whose vote could be swayed by impeachment and ‘us against them’ mentality that prevents someone from being entirely rational. You can look at this simply as what happens often to children when their parents tell them not to do something that is more of a reason to do it.Here is the way it looks:1) Impeachment works – Game over2) Impeachment doesn’t work (Senate vote) which means: a) Vindication results in extra votes by people who don’t follow politics and don’t know even the Senate bias. This could be a simple as the media featuring Republicans who are in favor of impeachment talking about how they will vote. In a way similar to what happened with Mueller report. (He gains votes) b) Vindication still leaves the tarnish of impeachment. (He loses votes) c) People remember that Clinton was impeached but that in the end nothing happened. (Neutral result) d) People don’t remember that Clinton was impeached or think about it (to young) but then see that someone who appears to be loved today also was accused of a crime. (Neutral result)

      1. I remember that Clinton was impeached and his ruined reputation at the moment went a long way towards wrecking Al Gore’s chances. Gore wouldn’t even let him campaign with him.The events of the Bush II administration are what revived an affection for Bill Clinton.

         1. You are right. But don’t forget that Trump got elected even after saying arguably dozens of things that would have resulted in a tarnish that could not be recovered from and would have not only resulted in a big loss but also having to drop out of the race. Any of those things that have come out of his mouth were unprecedented.You remember with Clinton (I am sure you do) “I did not inhale”. Doesn’t that seem kind of funny in this day and age? I mean that he not only said that but that having smoke pot was like some kind of clear ‘not electable’ mark?

            1. Yep, true. I contend that while Trump got some people to the polls who’ve traditionally stayed home, it’s more important that the campaign to paint HRC as “just as bad” suppressed votes. The disinformation campaign orchestrated by Putin was targeted at key states and it was engineered to suppress moderate but uninformed Democratic voters.The Dem candidate will not convert Trump voters (even those magical Obama/Trump voters). The only thing the Dem can do is turn out more potential Dem voters, and that means those who fell for the disinformation that there was no difference between the two candidates and stayed home in 2016 (mostly young people).

            2. .I don’t know where you are getting your info as it relates to Putin’s campaign. The actual indictments filed by the Mueller team proved up less than $90,000 in Facebook ads with half in Russian. Why would anybody put any ads in Russian?The half of the $90K that were in English were almost evenly split between pro-Trump and pro-Hillary with a third of them being for organizations, rallies, meetings rather than candidates or candidate specific issues.This was $90K/$45K in a couple of campaigns that spent $2B and with PACs that spent $3B in issues ads.The most identifiable thing that the Russians might have done was to disseminate HRC’s, the DNC’s, and Podesta’s emails through Wikileaks. The Mueller investigation was never able to make this connection — Russia and Wikileaks. This is looking more and more like an inside deal. Honestly, the emails were sort of a zany and not read by the average guy on the street.The bigger and more logical culprit was James Comey and his on again-off again investigation/campaign. His reportage of HRC’s wrong doing was totally unauthorized under DOJ guidelines — worth pointing out that the DOJ was under Loretta Lynch’s control as diminished by her having been neutered by her Clinton tarmac meeting.No prosecutor upon the completion of an investigation is allowed to talk crap about a target they failed to indict. If you investigate somebody and then decide not to indict them, the target is wrapped in the cloak of “innocent until PROVEN guilty.”I think Comey may literally be nuts. What he did on the emails was simply inconsistent with DOJ policy that any prosecutor in the world would respect. Let me paint it this way — “Uhh, we investigated HRC, decided not to indict her, but let me tell you all the stuff I, as the Cardinal of the FBI, don’t like about how she conducted herself.”If you don’t indict someone, you don’t get to beat them up in public.His conduct was outrageous and the fact that Loretta Lynch allowed it is equally outrageous.If you want a place to explain away HRC’s loss, look no further than James Comey. Far more likely than anything that Putin, et al, did.To believe that Putin had a hand in the election, one has to place an incredible force on what the Russians actually got indicted on.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

            3. .People use terms like “moderate but uninformed Democratic voters” as if that is actually a demographic slice that can be searched and targeted.The only identifier for all voters is the primary in which they vote, if they vote.Young voters are not able to be identified unless and until they register to vote. Voter registration amongst the voting age new voter is incredibly low. Actual voting amongst that slice is even lower.It is easy to identify the total number of eligible voters, the number of registered voters, and the difference between those two numbers. Targeting is a pipe dream unless you have something along the lines of the Parscale data engijne (Trump’s guy).The designation as liberal, moderate, conservative is issue driven, not candidate driven. The candidate is supposed to make it easy by espousing or adopting issues that will then identify the candidate in some form.Many issues cut across the electorate with no political party grounding. This is often not only not true, it is completely wrong.Take as an example the issues of illegal immigration/border, and reparations.Border state folk, obviously, embrace different views than northern folk. It all depends upon whose ox is being gored.Reparations — a blatant attempt to purchase black votes — is quite regional. White Southerners (traditionally Dem) are generally opposed regardless of whether they are Dem or Rep. It is regional.Governments change on the economy and war. They do not change on social issues.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

         2. .Bill Clinton won in 1992 because H Ross Perot jumped in and took 19% of the vote.Bill Clinton won in 1996 because the same H Ross Perot jumped in and took 8% of the vote.As such he is Perot’s illegitimate child, not a popularly elected President. These are just dry irrefutable numbers.Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich, Republican Speaker of the House, worked well together and balanced the internal budget of the US, the operating budget. This was done by Gingrich legislating a fairly low annual increase in gov’t expenditures at a time of relatively robust growth.Clinton was smart enough to go along and announced, “The era of big government is over.” For a couple of years, it was.When Hillary showed up with HillaryCare, Bill was smart enough to recognize its impracticality and pitchfork it.WJC was a smart guy who caught a bunch of breaks.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

            1. I think the only pure people in life that did not catch a bunch of breaks to get to where they are are athletes. And I don’t mean team athletes either. I mean individual athletes. But even then where would Tiger Woods be without the dedication and help of his father? But my point is how many success and wins are pure? Only the degree of luck varies, right?You can take Bill Gates and remove his mother’s connection to IBM (by way of the Red Cross) and/or the timing of his birth and what do you end up with? A guy who maybe would be running a $50 to $100m company. Nice of course but nobody would know that he existed. Nice of course but nobody would know he existed. Ditto for Zuckerberg. Ray Kroc? What if he wasn’t selling multi mixers? (And yes he was in his 50’s at the time). With Trump of course things came together and one of those things was Hillary Clinton being the anointed person by the Democrats. And in order for that to happen Bill Clinton had to have his lucky breaks (including meeting Hillary Clinton and Hillary allowing him to have his dalliances).

            2. .Trump was total serendipity. The thing he gets huge credit for is his personal perception that the 2014 election anger was real.After the first wave of the #NeverTrumpers jumped ship and started throwing sand in his gears, nobody would work for him in the campaign biz, the foreign affairs biz, and in the diplomacy biz.So, what does the guy do? He goes non-traditional and follows his gut. Appointing Mattis was a brilliant stroke whether he was for the short term or the long term. It got him out of the gate.All of these guys who Trump appointed have been spring boards to find better folks to support him. Sessions v Barr?Sessions — 1st Senator to come on board — terrible AG, Barr former AG, tough as a boot, knows all the Deep Staters and is unafraid of anybody. This guy is going to gouge a crack in the Deep State that will reveal bone, guts, and brains. He will tear it apart.It took Trump a long time to find his groove.Can you imagine how reckless he’ll be when he is re-elected? It will be a once in a century performance.Luck drives everything. The earlier one comes to work, the later one stays, the luckier they get.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

7. “There will be a comeuppance to Trump’s behavior.”That comeuppance is likely to be 4 more years.When DJT was elected in 2016, he was staring down the barrel of 30% popularity polling dropping fast. Today, he is at 44-52%. A good frame of reference is the Rasmussen Presidential Daily Poll that can be tracked back to Trump’s candidacy.In the guts of those polls is a wave — small wave, but a wave nevertheless — of Hispanic and Black support. The levels of support were so low that they can double and triple and still be small. Worse, these are both core constituencies for the Dems. Each of those defections counts as 2X.Trump never polled well.What Trump did was campaign well and in the right places.Today, he has much higher numbers, more money — tons of money, like as much as $2B, has become comfortable in his own skin on the campaign trail, a head start, a campaign organization with a foot hold in every state, a seasoned campaign team, the best data operation in the history of American electoral politics, and a track record.He continues to drive his message via social media, not just because of those who follow him, but by the incessant repeating by those who oppose him. If the message keeps being repeated, it drives penetration.What is also happening is the country is angry — the exact same thing that happened in the 2014 elections when the Republicans snatched the House and Senate. Contrary to what one might think as it relates to TheSquad and ultra-left wing “give me free stuff” politics, the Dems who won in 2018 were primarily moderates. TheSquad is making war on moderates at the primary level.Anger redounds to Trump’s benefit. His power is drawn from anger.I want the Dems to impeach Trump — for the sheer entertainment value, but also because it will anoint him as The VICTIM. America has fallen in love with its victims. On the other side, the Dems in the House have accomplished …………………… nothing other than to investigate Trump.The buying of votes — free stuff, free healthcare, free college, reparations, open borders, unlimited immigration — will further subdivide Americans.It is hard to find the message amongst the Dem candidates that will trump Trump’s appeal.Right now, he wins in a landslide.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…