Trump wins the GOP

[Keiser]

And the county is more divided than ever before. Obama the great divider. He wasn't transparent, as he campaigned. He wasn't incredible, sorry to burst your bubble. I would still take 8 more years of Obsma over 2 minutes of Hilary. That lady is the devil.

So if I go back and read your posts from like 6-7 years ago about what Obama would do to the economy, what would I find?

Now he's the "great divider". What exactly did he do that caused the division? I think you are wrong here. The reason why it appears we are more divided now is because everyone has a cell phone in their pocket with a camera on it and now we see what cops are doing to blacks and it causes things to "seem" more divided. (I'm assuming that's what you're talking about. Blacks vs White). Obama didn't invent cell phones with Cameras. The last time something like this happened before cell phone cameras was the Rodney King incident (once again cops caught beating a man on camera). With the riots and everything, this sure seemed divided back then. What was that? Late 80's, Early 90's? Was Reagan the great divider too? Or Bill Clinton?

And what is it that you think Hillary will do to the country if she wins? What exactly makes her the devil? Once again it sounds like we are electing Hitler again, just like it sounded in 2008. This is simple fear-mongering because she's a "democrat". All democrats are the devil in your mind, right? That's how you were raised?

What has hillary done that makes her evil? By having her own private email server? By getting paid to give speeches? Is she an evil, wife, mother and grandmother? Do her children think she's evil? Please elaborate.

[Turbo3000]

Nope. I'm not a party follower. Bush wasn't a good president and Obama sure as hell isn't.

Good try though.

[Keiser]

Nope. I'm not a party follower. Bush wasn't a good president and Obama sure as hell isn't.

Good try though.

Why wasn't Obama a good president? Please elaborate.

[Keiser]

Why Obama Will Go Down as One of the Greatest Presidents of All Time | GQ

Already missing our soon-to-be-former POTUS.

Something is dawning on us—it’s almost too soon for us to admit, but it’s there, a half-considered thought only now blooming in our brains. Maybe we dismiss it with one of those quick cognitive fly swats. Nah, too early to say or I hate that guy. But the truth is coming, and it sounds like this: Barack Obama will be inducted into the league of Great Presidents.

Wait. One of the Greatest? you ask, your thumb emoticon poised to turn up or down on me. The guy haters love to hate with their very best hate game? Like 20-Dollar Bill great? Like Mount Rushmore great?

Yep. (We just won’t build Mount Rushmores anymore.) In so many ways, Obama was better than we imagined, better than the body politic deserved, and far, far better than his enemies will ever concede, but the great thing about being great is that the verdict of enemies doesn’t matter.

In fact, and I say this as a Bill Clinton fan, I now feel certain that, in the coming decades, Obama’s star will rise higher than Clinton’s, and he’ll replace Bill in the public mind as the Greatest Democrat since FDR.
This has to do with the nature of Obama’s leadership, which is to play to legacy (and Clinton’s impulse, which is to play to the room). Bill Clinton will long be revered because he’s charismatic, presided over an economic revival, and changed and elevated the view of the Democratic Party. Barack Obama will long be revered because he’s charismatic, presided over an economic revival, and changed and elevated the view of the presidency. He’s simply bigger than Bill.

More to the point, Obama’s legacy is the sort that gets canonized. Because the first rule of Hall of Fame-dom: The times have to suck for the president not to. Civil wars, World Wars, depressions and recessions. You got to have ’em if you wanna be great. That’s why we rate the Washingtons, Lincolns, and Roosevelts over That Fat Guy with the Walrus Mustache. Like Obama, these Great Men were dealt sucky hands, won big, and left the country better off than it was before.

But it’s also why we downgrade the Jimmy Carters and Herbert Hoovers. Were they as bad in real time as we remember them in history? Probably not. But they were dealt sucky hands, only played one round, and left the country feeling worse off. Legacy Game over. (Hoover reminds me more and more of Donald Trump! Elected with little political experience, Hoover was a rich bastard whose central theme was that government was wasteful. His answer to the Great Depression was to start a trade war and build a massive project called the Hoover Dam. The dam turned out to be a giant wall that did not stop or solve larger problems. Déjà vu, thy name is Trump Wall!)

Obama has a few other edges in the long haul of history, beyond specific hurrah moments like Obamacare, rescuing the economy, and making America way more bi-curious. Being the first black president of course secures a certain legacy. But what now feels distinctly possible is that, just as Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed, over time he may be judged less for the color of his skin than for the content of his character. That character came across every time haters or Trumpers or birthers tried to pull him down into the mud or question his American-ness. He just flew above it all. And, luckily, he took most of us with him. He was the Leader not only of our country but of our mood and disposition, which is harder to rule. At a time when we became more polarized, our discourse pettier and more poisoned, Obama always came across as the Adult in the Room, the one we wanted to be and follow.

Ironically, one of the lock-ins to his Hall of Fame Greatness was originally supposed to be his Achilles’ heel, the shallow thing critics loved to smear him with: his eloquence, his “reliance” on speeches and teleprompters (Sarah Palin once famously screeched, “Mr. President…step away from the teleprompter and do your job!” while herself reading from a teleprompter), as if addressing the country as a whole, trying to unify or inspire people, were a superficial thing. But pivotal words at pivotal moments are not only how we come to admire great leaders, it’s the primary way we remember them. The first thing most people can recall about Lincoln? The Gettysburg Address. FDR? Fireside chats. George Washington? His amazing Snapchats. (George was first with everything.)

With Obama, each thoughtful step of the way, from his soaring acceptance speech (“The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep…”) to his epic speeches on race and religion, his responses to the shootings in Tucson and Newtown, the killing of Osama bin Laden, the opening of Cuba (“Todos somos Americanos!”), and countless other momentous occasions, he knew how to speak to our better angels at a time when it was hard to locate any angels.

Lastly, there’s the arc of history, bound to bend downward. As our unity becomes more frayed, more tenuous, and the ability for any politician to get anything done more unlikely, the job of president will become less LBJ tactical and less FDR big-dealer. The job will largely be to preside. To unify where and however we can. In this way, too, Obama pointed the way forward.

It may be hard to imagine now, but in the face of rising chaos, we’ll crave unity all the more, and in future years whoever can speak most convincingly of unity will rise to the top. (It’s also hard to imagine many beating Obama at the game.) This year’s carnival election, with Trump as a kind of debauched circus barker, only makes the distinction clearer. The absurdity and car-crash spectacle of it all have already lent Obama an out-of-time quality, as if he were a creature from another, loftier century. Whatever happens next, I feel this in my bones: We’ll look back at history, hopefully when we’re zooming down the Barack Obama Hyperloop Transport System, and think: That man was rare. And we were damn lucky to have him.

[Scrumhalf]

Obama is the finest president in my lifetime and quite possibly the finest post war president. Quite an extraordinary man, really. His grace and eloquence is really without peer in my memory. Was he perfect, no. But mark my words - history will recognize him has one of our greatest Presidents. Top 10 without any question and I can make a pretty good case for top 5.

[Turbo3000]

Obama is the finest president in my lifetime and quite possibly the finest post war president. Quite an extraordinary man, really. His grace and eloquence is really without peer in my memory. Was he perfect, no. But mark my words - history will recognize him has one of our greatest Presidents. Top 10 without any question and I can make a pretty good case for top 5.

Because he was the first black (half) president.

Grace? Guy can't speak without saying ummm every 2 seconds. He ran in 2008 on a platform that many agreed with, putting an end to government waste, downsizing our enormous government, transparency within our government, he was elected and went the opposite direction on all of those ideals. Looks and acts more beta than any president I can recall. Couldn't lead a Girl Scout troop to the cookie factory. You guys are funny.

He couldn't get shit done with a democratic government. His healthcare plan was and will continue to be a disaster. He divided he country on race every time he jumped to conclusions and spoke out on national TV. He fumbled the ball countless times. I have yet to see anything that screams "leader". Spoiled while kid from Hawaii trying to appeal to the common black man, give me a fucking break.

Hey Mooch. Please dig up some posts from the past. Also be sure to let us know your "old" name on the forum so that we can do the same.

[jack tors]

Top 10 without any question and I can make a pretty good case for top 5.

:druggie:

[Bouncer]

I told Rado the other day he should talk less about things he doesn't know much about so I should take my own advice here I guess but I have to say I agree with scrum and moochie here.

I think Obama is a good guy, a smart guy, and a guy who did his best under a system that sets up road blocks at every turn. I'd rather see him continue on as president compared to Hillary or Donald Duck.

[Keiser]

This is the most well thought out article I've read on Trump yet. Sit back, grab a cup of coffee, open your mind, read it without bias, check the references, and enjoy:

https://markmanson.net/crazy-world?u...-Is-It-Just-Me

[Keiser]

“It seems like people don’t actually want democracy anymore, they want a dictator who agrees with them.”

[jack tors]

“It seems like people don’t actually want democracy anymore, they want a dictator who agrees with them.”

Strange article, nothing grabbed me except for the part about fear mongering of the RNC. The media is notorious for it too.

"Safe from what? Too much college education? From less teenage pregnancy? Seriously, I was dumbfounded — safe from what? What the hell do we need to be made safe from?"

I would think global terrorism which is on the rise?

[Keiser]

Strange article, nothing grabbed me except for the part about fear mongering of the RNC. The media is notorious for it too.

"Safe from what? Too much college education? From less teenage pregnancy? Seriously, I was dumbfounded — safe from what? What the hell do we need to be made safe from?"

I would think global terrorism which is on the rise?

[Premium Post]

The point of the article is that if you compare to the entire known history of human civilization, we are safer now than we have ever been.

Could you imagine if people had camera phones back before and during WWII and every single horrific thing was either on the news, twitter, instagram, or youtube? If every jew killed was on film and available for viewing instantly? Could you imagine if during the cold war everyone had a camera phone and multiply by 1000x if we had the internet back then how many Russian hacking stories there would be? Russian spy stories caught on camera? Does your house have a bomb shelter by the way (many did in the 60s-80s). Suicide bombings aren't new. Cops roughing up and killing people isn't new. We just have it on camera now & therefore we "feel" less safe.

Global terrorism is what scares you? OK fine, but I don't think Trump is going to fix that any more so than a Dem president would fix it. The entire world is trying to fix it, not just the USA. Trump is simply using the fear of Global Terrorism to try and win the election. Don't play into it. Trump doesn't even know much about what's going on in the world evidently. He just said this weekend on record that Putin wasn't in Ukraine and wouldn't go into Ukraine and then the reporter corrected him & informed him that Putin annexed part of Ukraine (Crimea). Trump is a surface level guy. He knows bits and pieces about things going on but how could he know that much? He has businesses to run. You can't possibly know what's going on in the world when you have dozens of businesses and hundreds of millions of dollars tied up in them and in real estate. Clinton however has been secretary of state, she's been in the war rooms, she has to know what's going on in the world. It's her job to know.

If you are conservative and have conservative values on the economy, healthcare, abortion, taxes etc then vote for Trump, but please don't vote for him if you think he's going to fix the global terrorism problem or that his wall on the Mexican border is somehow going to make you and your family safer. Please don't fall for that. You're more intelligent than that.

[rado]

I told Rado the other day he should talk less about things he doesn't know much about

Yea because not once did I give advice on GH..I simply said it's reckless behavior



But who cares, let the bodies hit the floor:thumb:

[Scrumhalf]

The tragedy is that the demographic that Trump is drawing support from (middle aged non-college educated whites who are struggling in a knowledge based economy) is precisely the demographic that is going to least benefit from his policies. His tax cuts are to the 1%. The guys who are supporting him are going to see nothing.

[chuckz28]

The tragedy is that the demographic that Trump is drawing support from (middle aged non-college educated whites who are struggling in a knowledge based economy) is precisely the demographic that is going to least benefit from his policies. His tax cuts are to the 1%. The guys who are supporting him are going to see nothing.

Curious where you got that from cause his site says different. Even the CBO said his tax plan would save a family of 4 making 80k a year around 219$ a month. But here is from his site:

If you are single and earn less than $25,000, or married and jointly earn less than $50,000, you will not owe any income tax. That removes nearly 75 million households – over 50% – from the income tax rolls. They get a new one page form to send the IRS saying, “I win,” those who would otherwise owe income taxes will save an average of nearly $1,000 each.
All other Americans will get a simpler tax code with four brackets – 0%, 10%, 20% and 25% – instead of the current seven. This new tax code eliminates the marriage penalty and the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) while providing the lowest tax rate since before World War II.
No business of any size, from a Fortune 500 to a mom and pop shop to a freelancer living job to job, will pay more than 15% of their business income in taxes. This lower rate makes corporate inversions unnecessary by making America’s tax rate one of the best in the world.
No family will have to pay the death tax. You earned and saved that money for your family, not the government. You paid taxes on it when you earned it.
The Trump Tax Plan Is Revenue Neutral

The Trump tax cuts are fully paid for by:

Reducing or eliminating most deductions and loopholes available to the very rich.
A one-time deemed repatriation of corporate cash held overseas at a significantly discounted 10% tax rate, followed by an end to the deferral of taxes on corporate income earned abroad.
Reducing or eliminating corporate loopholes that cater to special interests, as well as deductions made unnecessary or redundant by the new lower tax rate on corporations and business income. We will also phase in a reasonable cap on the deductibility of business interest expenses.

Sounds like the opposite of where you got your information. Btw I'm not a trump supporter, just pointing out what I perceived as an innacuraccy.