I am exhausted by all of the requests by Trump supporters to somehow magically read the tea leaves and interpret what Trump really means to do, while ignoring everything he consistently says he will do.
Like how Trump claimed he sexually assaulted women, then many women came forward and said, yes, he sexually assaulted them, and now we are expected to not believe Trump then, and not believe any of these dozen or so women, but instead only believe Trump today, who of course would never possibly be trying to deny something that's true but politically (and maybe criminally) damaging to himself.
How about we just go back to people running for office actually saying what they intend to do, and voters taking them at face value?
(Which, by the way, is surprisingly close to how most politicians actually behave. George W. promised to cut taxes, and cut taxes. Obama actually passed something embodying a lot of his health care ideas and negotiated with our enemies like Iran. There are many other examples of politicians actually trying to do what they promised, so I think it's a little dangerous to assume a politician won't actually try to do what he says he will do.)
Well get un-exhausted and stop pretending not to understand negotiation techniques (this community is primarily about start-ups, is it not?).
Trump is a negotiator. He has been a negotiator his whole life. An aggressive opening bid is openly part of his style.
Trump is also an entertainer, he knows how to push people's buttons and get people engaged using visual imagery and drama. He does this to combat the hostile and equally (usually more) dishonest mudslinging that all modern politicians engage in.
He also knows how to use his skill at PR as leverage. Someone negotiating with him knows that he can rally the public to push for, say, Term Limits or something. Or, if you're cooperative, maybe he'll use that same rhetorical entertainer skill to help you out. Have you noticed how often Trump, usually in a seeming offhand manner, praises the people and groups who do business with him?
It's really not that hard to understand. You should not be getting exhausted over this.
> How about we just go back to people running for office actually saying what they intend to do, and voters taking them at face value?
This is due to the methods that modern politicians use to win votes. Their published platforms are always vague and lack REAL details. And even if and when they have real details, any thinking person knows that there are two huge problems to implementing any proposed change: (1) opposition from system (eg congress) (2) circumstances change and the policy no longer makes sense. So instead of going into all the details about how they're going to implement their free ice cream policy, they spend massive amounts of money on PR (friendly press hits, TV ads, attack ads) to influence voters using rhetoric and exposure.
Of course Clinton's campaign has been legendarily dishonest and unethical [1]. But they all do it to some extent.
You cite Obama's campaign? Other than healthcare, what do you actually remember about his platform? What I remember is a lot of vague rhetoric about "Hope and Change." He was heavily critical of Bush's wars, and yet Obama's foreign policy has been full of violence and war.
> Which, by the way, is surprisingly close to how most politicians actually behave. George W. promised to cut taxes, and cut taxes.
GW Bush invaded Iraq. I don't remember that being on his platform, do you?
[1] http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/10/17/exclusive...
> Like how Trump claimed he sexually assaulted women,
Except he didn't. This is a blatantly ignorant interpretation of the conversation that ignores the implied levity and non-seriousness of the exchange and the explicit claim that consent is granted.
But of course, the bigger problem here is that I'm not here to convince you not to support Donald Trump. I hope you won't. But if you do: fine. Sam Altman does not agree with you. He likens Trump to a dictator. If you're a Trump supporter, you are not the audience to whom my argument is addressed.
Oh come now. The reason you shouldn't have to crawl inside his head is that you can engage in discussion to learn what he thinks.
If the issue is a dispute between what I believe Trump is saying and what you believe Trump is saying, we could have a discussion where we break it down and identify what parts we share and what parts we don't share, and why.
For example, we could start by agreeing that Trump is opposed to immigration. You could claim that this is racist. I would suspect this is a deeply held prejudice so I would just dispute it and move on. I would claim that "Building a Wall" is just a rhetorical device to focus people's attention on the more abstract and tedious problem of an insecure border. You could point out how Trump or his surrogates have used various examples of actual border walls in other parts of the world, which would lend credibility it being a real promise, not mere rhetoric. We'd both have learned something. And so on.
Alternately, you could just go opposite direction and just start throwing around vague, obsolete terms like Fascism and the discussion would go nowhere.
If your best chance is that the president has been lying and exaggerating things for the last year and a half, you're totally screwed.
I also don't believe his positions exaggerate his beliefs. He is a racist sexist xenophobic con man, and his policies reflect that.
"When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time", said Maya Angelou. Trump has been showing us who he is for decades, yet people like you still think maybe he's someone else. Fancy.
I always find it laughable (in a very sad way) when people forget that solving the problems of tomorrow with the solutions of today usually doesn't work very well.
This "he doesn't really mean what he says" defense is not only naive: even saying what he says with such blatant disregard for civil society invites violence against non-whites, against politicians, against voters!
Enough of his supporters legitimately believe the election is rigged that we're looking at the delegitimization not only of our likely next president but the entire political system. "Burn it down" sounds fun until you realize Venezuela or Zimbabwe are potential outcomes.
You realize that any attempt to implement Hillary's proposed no-fly zone in Syria would require the US to shoot down Russian aircraft? You realize that is an act of war?
We are way closer to World War III than you realize, and it's most definitely not Trump's rhetoric that has brought us here.
> Enough of his supporters legitimately believe the election is rigged that we're looking at the delegitimization not only of our likely next president but the entire political system.
Hillary's team[1] is the one training protesters in methods of provocation and escalation to violence and then sending them to Trump rallies to cause chaos and anarchy. Hillary's team is the one celebrating that their covert operations succeeded in having a rally in Chicago shut down. Hillary's team is the one subverting democratic institutions and promoting escalations of violence and anarchy.
These shenanigans wouldn't even have been attempted if the Clinton Machine operatives thought that the press would cover the stories fairly and objectively. (Or, if they really buy into their own propaganda that bird-dogging provocation is somehow blameless, they would claim hostile press). Either way, it took an independent journalist (who is maligned and whose credibility is still attacked by corporate media) to expose the operation and offer the people the chance to really understand what happened in Chicago, San Jose, and elsewhere.
Without a functioning 4th estate, you cannot have real democracy.
[1] Yes, she had "plausible deniability" but that's irrelevant at this point. Whether Hillary is actually the calling shots makes very little difference. Her so-called "political machine" is all she has going for her.
He did it because Europa isn't spending the promised bnp on military spending and he is saying they need to step up their game and can't just expect for the US to come saving them every time.
Some of Trumps comments are obviously absurd, but many of them are taken out of context just like you did here.
Russia will reclaim the Baltic states if we give Putin reason to believe we won't honor our commitments. Hell, Trump's been so eager to embrace Russian propaganda he'll probably just gift them.
There is no point to wild speculation about Russia invading the Baltic states at some future date when the possibility of war with Russia exists RIGHT NOW over Syria and the allegations of cyberwarfare from Hillary Clinton and the current administration.
Trump's rhetoric is entirely focused on doing what's best for the American People, without regard to idealistic, imperialistic, abstract Neocon ideology of expanding US hegemony and influence.
The usual complaint about politicians is that they rarely make good on their pre-election promises. It is interesting that even Trump's supporters are fervently hoping that he won't be true to his campaign proposals.
[1] http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/donal...
Well I think he is less likely to start a war with Russia. I base that on the evidence I have observed about the behaviors of each candidate.
Which ones?
The only serious one I oppose is aggressive rounding up of illegals. Others I oppose are relatively minor, compared to my opposition to the massively corrupt and sick Hillary Clinton
They don't agree with you. Why should they take the time to internalize what you think a Trump presidency would mean, if you're wrong?
Have you followed all the problems related to people losing their jobs because of tweets, and Nobel laureates losing their jobs because of jokes that got blown out of proportion?
This is not quite the same as that; Trump's statements are not one-off tweets or jokes.
But you assume Trump's statements are literally what he wants to enact. Only #nevertrump actually believes that; everyone else thinks Trump is making statements that are just the right-wing version of Open Borders and Universal Income, and Trump and his supporters actually expect those radical right-wing positions (consider them an initial negotiation position) to be negotiated down to something centrist. They don't want all Muslims banned (well, some Trump supporters do, but not many), nor an economy-damaging trade war with China, nor a literal wall running the entire Mexican border, nor refusal to defend NATO allies. What they do want is some respect for enforcing existing immigration laws (congress made it illegal to immigrate by walking across the border, but the Democrat propaganda seeks to frame Trump as a bad person for suggesting enforcing the law Congress wrote). They want some attention paid to long-term economic consequences of outsourcing so much production, and restructuring the costs of the U.S. playing World Policeperson. They want some indication that the government is aware of the difficulty of "vetting" immigrants from a war-torn region without stable government, and that there are social and political externalities from accepting not-well-vettable immigrants when those war-torn regions are known for terrorism (that we may or may not be funding to try to topple Assad), and when even those who are not "terrorists" have what most Americans would consider an undesirable propensity for supporting things like Sharia law.
You and other Thiel-haters reject the principle of charity as it applies both to Trump and to Thiel; you paint a caricature of someone's positions, and go on a witch hunt against anyone who supports those people. When that isn't enough, you go on a witch-hunt against anyone who associates with those people. I consider that dangerous and politically damaging. Obviously everyone has a right to express their opinions, and to choose their associations, but that presumes some level of respect, caution and restraint that is not generally being shown by modern liberals.