Trump cheats at golf - the ONE and ONLY politics thread

If regular Republicans think he's one of them, they're just as stupid as the vocal majority. And they stand for nothing, least of all Republicanism or conservatism.

He has no discernible policy positions that he's held for long enough to be considered "positions." Therefore, he, and his supporters, will be judged on the bombast alone.

 

If J.T. played QB, DB and on the line that comparison would work.

 

Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others!

Here are all of Donald Trump's flip-flops on big issues

 

With all due respect to the gentleman from New Haven, if he honestly believes that his life expectancy is materially affected by the possibility that he might become a black man shot by the police, he needs to pull out his old stats notes.

I don't know how many black person-police interactions there were in 2014, but per the FBI there were 2.4 million arrests of black people. Even if you assume that every black person-police interaction resulted in an arrest (a ridiculously generous assumption), that means that the probability of a black person being shot by the police is very, very small (in the ballpark of 0.0001). To put that in more concrete terms, assume that every year you encounter a 0.0001 probability of being killed by the police. If you didn't face any other risks to your life, your life expectancy would be 10,000 years.

 

And stay out of the Woolworth's!

Civil Rights Museum Denies Request by Trump Campaign 'Special Request'

 

The comments section of The NYT is interesting for this column:

"I doubt America has a plan for anyone's life. Isn't that up to each individual to make his or her own way in life?
A government plan for life? Which department would that fall under?"

 

Trump's appeal is simple: A huge percentage of people (including some here!) think they are smart enough to be president, despite ample evidence available suggesting they are not.

This is snotty and elitist and I am perhaps part of the problem, but it is also correct. (I am under no delusion I could be president.)

People loathe the suggestion that studying and listening and reading gives you a better understanding of the world than "common sense." This how people who are lazy justify it to themselves. On the flip side, people who obsess about policy books and live on Twitter and devour every morsel of political news and mock those who don't have lost touch with real anxieties. The Acela Class of media are some of the most clueless, snotty people I've ever met. They should all be forced to attend an SEC football game once a year just to examine how most of the country spends its weekends.

If some of the policies demanded here, on SJ.com, were put into action, the world would be a fucking disaster. But it feels good to seem so certain of your "common sense." Every president walks into that office with a smug certainty of his belief, and that first real briefing represents quite a sobering wake up call.

"We will kick ass" is not an actual position on policy. It's a macho fantasy for people who think smart people overcomplicate things. Real life is complicated. Governing 340 million people of different races and religions and wealth is complicated. Do "certain people" overcomplicate it? Sure. That doesn't mean ignorance is the answer.

A Trump election is the ultimate revenge for all those kids who were dismissed by some smug liberal asshole for failing to grasp, say, the symbolism in Of Mice and Men in high school English. If I could go back to in time, I'd ask myself to be less of an ass and more compassionate. No matter how nasty those kids were.

It's possible liberals deserve this revenge. We have been condescending and smugly dismissive of people not like us for much of the last 20 years. This is what Douhat was getting at in his crap column last week. There is a certain satisfaction for liberals in the smarmy put down, the "look at these yokels" essay. But that's only a tiny piece of the equation here. That doesn't excuse bigotry or fear mongering. All this talk of "make America great again" is just a slight of hand for "make Trump money" but even if it were true, even if he did have the country's best instincts at heart, who are we trying to make America great for? There are a lot if people longing for a time when some people were protected and given access to the American Dream and some were not. And they're being told it's ok to blame all the "were nots" for wanting to be a part of the dream.

Finding ways to give everyone the same opportunities and same safety is complicated. It's not simple. It's not easy. It's not going to be fixed by any one person, but certainly not by someone who is such a monumental asshole.

 

This goes back to my point on rural vs. urban Virginia. Or any state for that matter. There is a massive disconnect between those who live in major cities and those who do not. Rural America feels abandoned.

 

"We're gonna kick ass" won't last long in the face of Syria.

 

I don't doubt this at all. What I don't understand is why they think a silver-spoon, erstwhile liberal, billionaire Manhattanite is going to save them.

 

Aren't they as entitled to their delusions as urban lefties?