What's your thoughts on Trump?

[Aroura]

Trump is what America needs. Hillary Clinton was a divider, everyone calls Trump this big racist when in reality he is not. He is against illegal immigration and all for legal immigration . He is against attacks on American or against American people not against Muslims.

I am an atheist and I support Trump!

Yes, Trump has really United the nation. No state governors have told him to shove his immigration policies, even if he pulls their federal funding. No city mayors either! No one is protesting in the streets. The hash tag #notmyPresident doesn't exist, and white nationalists are not throwing big parties right in Washington DC itself!
There has not been a huge upswing in hate crimes, which are terribly divisive. The largest petition in the history of online petitions isn't one begging the electoral college to, for the love of life and all things sacred, please don't put this lying madman into office. Nope. There aren't legitimate news organizations drawing parallels to Musselini, or the rise of nationalism pre both WW1 and WW2. Trump hasn't told the media to cover him more "fairly", or else.

We are all just one big happy fucking United States since November 8th. I'm sure you've noticed.

Listen up snowflake, I'm normally a nice lady but I've fucking had it with this alternate reality bullshit, so pull your head out of your ass and get a nice view of reality. Trump will destroy everything he touches, because that is what he does. He destroys marriages, companies, relationships, and the very notion of truth. He has no clue what he's doing, has no intention of getting a clue, and will destroy our relationship with our allies, our environment, our economy, and I am not using hyperbole when I say possibly our country at the rate he's already going and he isn't even in office yet. He does not even have a passing aquantance with truth or facts. All he cares about, literally ALL, is who can stroke his ego and how well they do it.

I wish I could reach some common ground with Trump voters, but so far every one of them I've met on this forum or in real life have been either raging assholes sore winners, or living in such a fantasy land that I doubt we could agree on the color of grass, because I'm sure Infowars or Breitbart told them it's actually red.

[maestroanth]

Maybe, but I 'm not alone surely. You can forgive the US much but not this, not this.
There was once a dream that was the US, you could only whisper it , but now that dream has been corrupted by greed ,racism and stupidity.

A Trump presidency isn't the apocalypse, you know.

Then how come I saw nothing but mushroom clouds from my window right when he got elected!? Just a mere correlation then?

[Aoi Magi]

A Trump presidency isn't the apocalypse, you know.

Then how come I saw nothing but mushroom clouds from my window right when he got elected!?  Just a mere correlation then?

Cause you were looking at your garden silly



But you still might get to see the real deal if he manages to piss China off... he just needs to call Taiwan a few more times for that.

[GUBU]

Trump is what America needs. Hillary Clinton was a divider, everyone calls Trump this big racist when in reality he is not. He is against illegal immigration and all for legal immigration . He is against attacks on American or against American people not against Muslims.

I am an atheist and I support Trump!

Trump is a cheat, a bankrupt, a bum, a misogynist, a racist, and most importantly for the US a traitor willing to debase the country for the merest hint of publicity.

He'll fuck you over in a heartbeat and you love him for it.

[dyresand]

well he did save ten thousand jobs said fuck the TPP even though Tazzycorn is right i am willing to give Trump a chance at least
because who knows he said he would with Russia instead of everyone on the left calling to punish Russia for reasons.

[Brian37]

My thoughts on Trump? How about I just take a picture of my toilet after I take a dump?

[GUBU]

well he did save ten thousand jobs said fuck the TPP even though Tazzycorn is right i am willing to give Trump a chance at least
because who knows he said he would with Russia instead of everyone on the left calling to punish Russia for reasons.

The reason Trump killed TPP is that the corporations and othe major Republican donors are of the opinion they can push through more unequal ones. Remember, what Trump is saying is not that he's going to scrap the iniquities and private law for companies but that he's going to enshrine them even harder in bilateral deals.

No jobs are coming back because of Trump's economic policies, in fact I can nearly guarantee you the jobs will drain faster because of him.

[Brian37]

well he did save ten thousand jobs said fuck the TPP even though Tazzycorn is right i am willing to give Trump a chance at least
because who knows he said he would with Russia instead of everyone on the left calling to punish Russia for reasons.

The reason Trump killed TPP is that the corporations and othe major Republican donors are of the opinion they can push through more unequal ones. Remember, what Trump is saying is not that he's going to scrap the iniquities and private law for companies but that he's going to enshrine them even harder in bilateral deals.

No jobs are coming back because of Trump's economic policies, in fact I can nearly guarantee you the jobs will drain faster because of him.

The sheeple that put that idiot in don't seem to understand how it works. They will get thrown marginal crumbs, the top will rob every budget, outside say maybe the military weapons and oil industries, use their tax money to gamble, create another bubble. 

Obama didn't get what we need unfortunately. But it is unbelievable after 8 years of what he did improve, that GOP once again successfully sold improvement as a decline. 

I can only hope that this asshole demagogue limits it to a recession. But with his mouth, not so sure.

[Tonus]

Elected exclusively by American standards. I would be hard pressed to name another country where the losing candidate actually leads by 2.5 million votes according to latest counts.

I think that the founding fathers of the US understood that the electoral college could lead to that result. While they would not have wanted it to happen, they felt it important enough to give low-population states a say to take the risk. There are at least a few things about our government that are based on how things were done more than 100 or 200 years ago, but changing them can be difficult. Getting rid of the electoral college will be near impossible because it would require the ratification of a new amendment by 3/4 of the states, and I think that there are too many states who would fear being disenfranchised under a popular vote system.

As someone who didn't vote for most of his life because of his stupid religion, I am keenly aware of how valuable that opportunity is. But fewer than half of eligible Americans do so in presidential years, and far fewer still in between. Those percentages are much worse as the demographics get younger. And those younger voters skew liberal. If we were somehow able to ditch the electoral college for a popular vote, those non-voters might be even less incentivized to get to the polls. Republicans didn't just take the White House, they still have majorities in congress and have solid footholds in many local government positions throughout the country. Instead of focusing on the electoral college, Democrats must figure out how to get more people to the polls.

As for the question in the OP: My thoughts on Trump are that he was more interested in running for President than in being President, and if the next four years turn out to be forgettable we'll have dodged a bullet. But he already stumbled by publicizing a phone call with the President of Taiwan which could have long-lasting repercussions on our relations with China. It's a bad way to start a presidency that hasn't even started yet.

[Brian37]

Elected exclusively by American standards. I would be hard pressed to name another country where the losing candidate actually leads by 2.5 million votes according to latest counts.

I think that the founding fathers of the US understood that the electoral college could lead to that result.  While they would not have wanted it to happen, they felt it important enough to give low-population states a say to take the risk.  There are at least a few things about our government that are based on how things were done more than 100 or 200 years ago, but changing them can be difficult.  Getting rid of the electoral college will be near impossible because it would require the ratification of a new amendment by 3/4 of the states, and I think that there are too many states who would fear being disenfranchised under a popular vote system.

As someone who didn't vote for most of his life because of his stupid religion, I am keenly aware of how valuable that opportunity is.  But fewer than half of eligible Americans do so in presidential years, and far fewer still in between.  Those percentages are much worse as the demographics get younger.  And those younger voters skew liberal.  If we were somehow able to ditch the electoral college for a popular vote, those non-voters might be even less incentivized to get to the polls.  Republicans didn't just take the White House, they still have majorities in congress and have solid footholds in many local government positions throughout the country.  Instead of focusing on the electoral college, Democrats must figure out how to get more people to the polls.

As for the question in the OP: My thoughts on Trump are that he was more interested in running for President than in being President, and if the next four years turn out to be forgettable we'll have dodged a bullet.  But he already stumbled by publicizing a phone call with the President of Taiwan which could have long-lasting repercussions on our relations with China.  It's a bad way to start a presidency that hasn't even started yet.

I think both left and right DO hate the electoral college for the most part. But I really would warn the left not to value scrapping it. Demagogues like Trump are what they had in mind. I hate that twice in 16 years the GOP benefited from it. But i'd warn against removing it considering our sudden swing to the religious and bigoted right. 

You said it, Democrats need to figure out how to get people to the polls, but not just the polls, but how to expand the map. We cant simply rely on big cities and suburbs or swing states. GA and Texas are, for example, not as red as they used to be. NC has flipped over the past 8 years too. The red and blue we see on electoral maps is deceptive. It does not reflect our real direction. It only reflects the ability of the GOP to gerrymander.

GOP and Trump are hypocritically silent since they won with it. But not much press coverage of Trump bitching about the EC in 2012 when Obama clobbered Romney.