Would we really be better off under President Clinton?

[Danny Bateman]

Another way in which Trump is good is that he awakened something that was long dormant in America. I think he's made a ton of people realize, particularly young people, that we cannot simply sit on our hands and expect a good government to fall into place. When you get apathetic, you disengage, you just assume things will be fine... you get the government you deserve. It's on us to re-engage, work to toss the bums out and reform what we expect from our elected officials.

 

I find the back and forth here pretty interesting. Different opinions and good points all around. Ultimately in 2016 I fell along the lines of Knapp's argument; at a certain point, other candidates were eliminated from contention & Trump/Clinton were all that was left to choose from. Others may have felt better about voting third party; to me they were wasted votes because those folks can't realistically win in this electoral system. So I put what I didn't like about Clinton aside and voted for her because Trump was such an atrocious choice. I didn't lose an ounce of sleep about it and I too would do it again without question. 

So all of this begs the question: Is our system so antiquated and flawed that it led to these choices, or was it a one-off fluke? How deeply do we need to reform how we choose our leaders?

[NUance]

24 minutes ago, Guy Chamberlin said:

 

Well people who were paying attention tried to point out that Trump wasn't a good entrepreneur at all, and was more blatantly corrupt than Hillary. 

 

Trump made some savvy and fairly high risk real estate investments in the 1980s, leveraging his father's existing business. That's about it. He would later go on to screw that up on the way to multiple  bankruptcies, and then lose money in the casino business, which is hard for a good entrepreneur to do.

 

Trump the celebrity pursued (iirc) 20+ different business ventures that traded on his name, from Trump Airlines to Trump Steaks to Trump University. 100% of these ventures failed miserably, most of them in a cloud of lawsuits. The mainstay of his empire, Trump Hotels & Resorts, still maintains more than 500 lawsuits on the books for non-payment, a ploy that uses a wall of lawyers to screw hard-working contractors out of the money owed them, and was SOP for the Trump organization. In normal times, that alone would brand you an insufferable prick among red state blue-collar voters. That same reputation followed Donald Trump into the world of international finance, where respectable banks finally refused to loan him money for anything, and the only people willing to work with Trump Enterprises were Russians of questionable character and agenda. Some day his tax returns will reveal exactly why he didn't want them made public. 

 

Trump was a blowhard who could easily be played. All this was well-documented prior to election day.

 

Also, his signature campaign issue was building a 2,000 mile wall on the Mexican border. A smart businessman could have explained why that made sense. He's not and it doesn't. 

 

But I do believe he played a wealthy entrepreneur on TV, where he mistook the formula provided him by Mark Burnett for his own business savvy.

 

There is nothing in Hillary Clinton's dossier of standard issue pay-to-play influence peddling to generate the same level of concern, or definition of evil. 

 

 

But I guess we're in a culture war, and you line up where you're told. 

 

So many of Hillary's votes were anti-Trump votes. So many of Trump's votes were anti-Hillary votes.

 

Sad.

 

I don't disagree that Trump might be corrupt.  Although I can't really point to anything to support this. 

 

But not a good entrepreneur?  I can point to this:  Donald Trump net worth:  $3 billion. 

 

 

Quote

 

But I guess we're in a culture war, and you line up where you're told.

 

 

I didn't vote for Donald Trump.  I didn't vote for Hillary Clinton either.  And I don't think my vote was wasted.  It would have been wasted if I had cast my vote for either of those two bozos.  

 

 

[teachercd]

10 minutes ago, NUance said:

 

I don't disagree that Trump might be corrupt.  Although I can't really point to anything to support this. 

 

But not a good entrepreneur?  I can point to this:  Donald Trump net worth:  $3 billion. 

 

 

 

I didn't vote for Donald Trump.  I didn't vote for Hillary Clinton either.  And I don't think my vote was wasted.  It would have been wasted if I had cast my vote for either of those two bozos.  

 

 

I wish I was half as bad as he was in business...

[Danny Bateman]

38 minutes ago, NUance said:

 

I don't disagree that Trump might be corrupt.  Although I can't really point to anything to support this. 

 

But not a good entrepreneur?  I can point to this:  Donald Trump net worth:  $3 billion.

 

 

The fact that he makes the vast majority of his money via royalties from a cheesy reality TV show & licensing his name out to other companies to use is very instructive. The latter is one of the laziest ways to make money imaginable.

 

Not that I blame him. If I could just license out Clifford Franklin Co to other companies and have them pay me to use it, I definitely would. It just doesn't take any particular amount of skill.

 

Then there's the whole "scammed rubes out of their retirement savings, credit card balances, etc. for phony real estate advice" thing.

 

He IS corrupt. I can dig up specifics if you want. He's profiting handsomely from being president & abusing his power to do so. 

 

In the end, yeah, he's rich. But Trump is the type of person born on third base who nonetheless tries to convince you what a miracle it is that he made his fortune from scratch.

[RedDenver]

25 minutes ago, teachercd said:

I wish I was half as bad as he was in business...

No, you just wish you could have inherited hundreds of millions from your father like he did. And given that head start he didn't actually do all that well:

Donald Trump Would Be Richer If He'd Have Invested in Index Funds

[Guy Chamberlin]

2 minutes ago, RedDenver said:

No, you just wish you could have inherited hundreds of millions from your father like he did. And given that head start he didn't actually do all that well:

Donald Trump Would Be Richer If He'd Have Invested in Index Funds

 

Exactly.

 

Being an entrepreneur means starting a business. Donald Trump inherited one business, and started several others. Everything he started turned to s#!t, and he has grossly mis-managed the hand he was given.

 

Hard to say what Donald Trump would be worth if he liquidated his assets and paid off his creditors and lawsuits. Not sure where the 3 billion figure comes from, but it's not from his taxes, and about as credible as the physical from his personal physician. 

 

More to the point, if you look to his business empire for the kind of skillset that our government could use, it's just not there. 

 

 

[TheSker]

2 hours ago, NM11046 said:

A corrupt outsider.

Voters knew of Trump's blowhard personality regarding the business world.  His reality TV show magnified that.  It was marketing 101.

 

His blowhard personality as a Washington DC outsider is what got him elected.

 

Many who voted for him couldn't wait for him to get to Washington DC and start yelling "you're fired!".  Which he did.

 

He is causing chaos for Washington insiders and political machines......and it's why he was elected.

[Waldo]

4 hours ago, knapplc said:

Trump is in the White House.  Tell me again how you're making good decisions on votes.

This is a new level of ignorant 

[teachercd]

35 minutes ago, RedDenver said:

No, you just wish you could have inherited hundreds of millions from your father like he did. And given that head start he didn't actually do all that well:

Donald Trump Would Be Richer If He'd Have Invested in Index Funds

Of course I do...we all wish we could inherit money like that.  

[Big Red 40]

47 minutes ago, TheSker said:

Voters knew of Trump's blowhard personality regarding the business world.  His reality TV show magnified that.  It was marketing 101.

 

His blowhard personality as a Washington DC outsider is what got him elected.

 

Many who voted for him couldn't wait for him to get to Washington DC and start yelling "you're fired!".  Which he did.

 

He is causing chaos for Washington insiders and political machines......and it's why he was elected.

That’s the sad state of affairs this country is in yep . Getting fired really messes up people’s lives, and I never got the entertainment value of watching Trump do it for fun . 

When many people in this country wanted to turn the highest office in the world into an idiotic “reality” show that really mad me sad . 

The problem is it’s not a damn reality show and we certainly didn’t need any more chaos in this country or the world .

 Real people die when the President Sends the military  . Real people get sick,  and die from lack of affordable healthcare. Real people are discriminated against and abused because of skin color, religion, sexual orientation etc. Real people go to work every day and still need food stamps , and government assistance to survive. The list goes on and on . 

These are serious issues that require careful consideration and thought to help remedy . That is the President/governments job . Not to cause chaos , stroke their own egos , or line their own,  or their rich buddies,  pockets . 

Still baffles me that so many of my fellow countrymen can’t see that . 

 

[TheSker]

21 minutes ago, Big Red 40 said:

That’s the sad state of affairs this country is in yep . Getting fired really messes up people’s lives, and I never got the entertainment value of watching Trump do it for fun . 

When many people in this country wanted to turn the highest office in the world into an idiotic “reality” show that really mad me sad . 

The problem is it’s not a damn reality show and we certainly didn’t need any more chaos in this country or the world .

 Real people die when the President Sends the military  . Real people get sick,  and die from lack of affordable healthcare. Real people are discriminated against and abused because of skin color, religion, sexual orientation etc. Real people go to work every day and still need food stamps , and government assistance to survive. The list goes on and on . 

These are serious issues that require careful consideration and thought to help remedy . That is the President/governments job . Not to cause chaos , stroke their own egos , or line their own,  or their rich buddies,  pockets . 

Still baffles me that so many of my fellow countrymen can’t see that . 

 

The issues you bring up are not new, and I think the Trump campaign did a good job of convincing voters that politics as usual was not getting it done.

 

I also think there's more than a few voters who wanted to see welfare reform and better vetting.

 

It doesn't mean voters didn't recognize these problems exist.....it means voters were concerned about system abuse and that some welfare issues seem to be growing despite throwing money at them.

[Big Red 40]

I think many were conned  into thinking that lots of guns , the stupid border wall, tax cuts and deregulation for the rich , more bombs and more war. , being anti abortion , and being Christian, etc were somehow the way to make America great . They also had a misguided idea that trump was going to take over the government and do things “ his” way . That’s not how it works either nor should it . 

[TheSker]

19 minutes ago, Big Red 40 said:

I think many were conned  into thinking that lots of guns , the stupid border wall, tax cuts and deregulation for the rich , more bombs and more war. , being anti abortion , and being Christian, etc were somehow the way to make America great . They also had a misguided idea that trump was going to take over the government and do things “ his” way . That’s not how it works either nor should it . 

So apparently there are enough war loving rich Christians to elect a president.......?

[Big Red 40]

Nope he also conned many working class/poor people that he was going to help them too. He was gonna get all the jobs back that went overseas (he didn't and won't) "Good" coal mining black lung death for everyone. Steel mill jobs for half of what they used to pay (when they were Union), with no benefits. And most of all keep the illegal Mexicans from taking all those "good" jobs.

He sold magic beans to the masses about what he was going to do, but he had no intention or ability to do what he said. He also greatly exaggerated the importance of many of the things i listed, when in reality, they have little or no effect on the average persons life. 

He sold a lie about draining the swamp too, and getting money out of politics. He did the exact opposite when he took office.

 

[Making Chimichangas]

7 hours ago, knapplc said:

Trump is in the White House.  Tell me again how you're making good decisions on votes.

 

It's all relative.  I live in Idaho, Trump carried this state, and it wasn't even close.  Practically everyone I know voted for Trump, and they think things are the best they have ever been.  They think all the leaders, of all the other countries, all over the world, love Trump.  They think Trump is doing all the right things.  They believe Trump is the greatest person to ever be elected.  They honestly believe all that sh**.  And nothing, no amount of contradictory facts, evidence, or logic will convince them otherwise.

 

And here is the sad reality: Trump will win re-election.  So hang on because we've got another 6 years of this pooh show.