Hilary and Trump were two of the most disliked politicians in the country. Trump succeeded based on undecided saying 'f*ck it, lets gamble. We know what we are getting with Hilary, and that is not what we want so lets go for this ride with Trump and hope we at least get some pleasant surprises'.

The surprises they were hoping for was that he might take on breaking the Status Quo infrastructure, which he did. But in a way no one wanted or expected.


But imagine a system that runs the two most disliked politicians in the country as your choices? Should that not be a WTF moment? Neither party can actually find someone liked and positive?

Of course they could, but the donors did not want that. They wanted status quo and Hilary represented that so you got the lesser of two evils gambit.


And Biden, while not unliked like Hilary, is 78 years old. His age is a true risk should he not be able to make it to the finish line of the election cycle. Why take such a risk on factors outside your control?? But he is also the ultimate status quo politician so 'suck it voters... Trump is a real risk ... so choose between what we force upon you'.

That in two successive elections the Dem party faced with Trump twice, cannot come up with candidates who do not have such vulnerabilities should be shocking. But it is by design. Make no mistake about that.

Indeed. And almost always, if you actually vote for someone you think will be good, they eventually clearly become a bad choice.... so there are no good choices.

Is it news to you that socialists don't think "THE MARKET HAS SPOKEN!" is a fantastic argument ender?

Greenwald has made his position very clear: tech giants are the public square of the 21st century and should be regulated as public utilities. As such, any speech that would be legal to say in a literal public square should be allowed.

I use to think that liberals were being short-sighted when cheering on social media censorship. Now I don't. I think several (at least) of the liberals on this board (Jim Clyburn simp, trolly at the very least) would stand up and applaud if every left-wing critic of democrats were kicked off social media.

Yeah and I am not sure how the consensus is in other countries but Canada not doing that great. Plus the scandals pile up here as well

I think American's gave Trump a try as they thought of him as this successful business guy. Reality is he wasnt. The problem with the job is if all the dirt that comes out is irrelevant or past issues. Take Obama he was against gay marriage but his opinion changed . Trumps affairs are irrelevant, Justin Trudeaus blackface 20 years ago irrelevant

Id be interested to see a real successful person like Mike Cuban take the challenge. Reality is he could have ran as a democrat or Republican. Imagine the right if Trump had run as a Democrat?

Ultimately large scale elections are popularity contests, so the person running who has more name recognition is usually the favorite. Trump and HRC were two of the most disliked people running in 2016, for sure, but they were also the two most famous. Hence Trump commanding center stage at the early Republican debates despite the fact that he didn't even have serious policy positions at that point.

The fact that Trump will likely get waffle crushed this time around also isn't really a surprise. After all, Biden is probably the next most famous person in political circles after Hillary, Obama, and Trump himself, and after four years of chaos the voters will be happy to get some normalcy. Don't expect it to last though, I can easily see some equally famous people making runs at the White House next time. Mark Cuban is a possibility but I don't think he's all that keen on actually doing the job.

This guy though, I really think will consider launching a serious run in 2024, and he'll be a formidable candidate:

Jesus, I ****ing hope not. The last thing we need in the white house is another ******* who has made his fortune entirely off the grift.

Well that will be the job of the Dems between now and then, I guess. To expose the Trump and Co world as the con job that it was all along so that if another grifter comes out in 2024 there will still be enough residual disillusionment to keep him/her from gaining traction. That would be my advice to President Biden if he ever asked for it.

That would be the only option in my mind. The next conman Repubs send will not be as openly corrupt, incompetent, terrible liar as Trump. Somehow 40% or so of USA didn't see anything wrong with these four years, how would you throw out the next one, when he doesn't look, sound and behave like complete senile potato, and will actually be competent on smearing the opponent and rigging the election.

I'm not arguing in favor of bad candidates, but I would push back on the bolded a bit. I guess Trump got a last minute bump with undecideds, but he also was much more successful in getting his base to the polls than HRC was.

The idea that trump bucked the status quo in a way that "no one wanted" is hard to swallow. I think a lot of people wanted him to buck the status quo in exactly the way he did. (Admittedly, most of those people were hard-core Trump supporters, not undecideds who broke in Trump's direction at the eleventh hour.)

The idea that Trump bucked the status quo in a way that "no one . . . expected" is either wrong or a horrible indictment of undecided voters who broke to Trump. I find it inconceivable that anyone who watched Trump closely, or even casually, during his campaign could have expected him to make some some sort of face turn after he was elected. The person in the Oval Office is exactly the person who ran for president in 2016. And the person who ran for president in 2016 is exactly the same person who plastered his image and name on on everything from hotels to steaks over the last thirty years. That candidate was exactly the same person who leered enthusiastically at teen pageant contestants. That candidate was exactly the same person who called into radio programs in New York City pretending to be his own publicist. That candidate was exactly the same person who made a business out of stiffing vendors for trivial reasons, or no reason at all. That candidate was exactly the same person who ****ed a porn star in 2006, one year after he married Melania, just because he could and then made that porn star watch Shark Week with him.

In short, Trump's jackassery on the campaign trail was not an act. It was entirely consistent with this entire life. And anyone who thought Trump could strange his stripes, or had any interest in changing his stripes, was either delusional or not paying attention at all. This was no gamble. The outcome of this presidency was a sure thing. In 2016, I would have bet almost any amount of money that Trump eventually would be regarded by historians as one of the very worst presidents in U.S. history.

He could run on either ticket. Id love to see it and never considered it. Always been a fan and his Sylvester Stallone story is worth watching/listening on you tube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywuse55qU2A

That wisp of a goatee is the worst thing in the world.

Yeah, lmao at Robbins being president.

It's an absurd idea. In addition to having no relevant experience, I suspect that guy has more skeletons in his closet than we could possibly imagine.

Name recognition >>>>>>>>>> experience.

See Trump, Donald John

Sure, but we are not talking about someone with the name recognition of Donald Trump.

that has not been the trend as much as of late.

Outsiders and newbies are knocking off seasoned vets with name recognition consistently in campaigns and in primaries. And it is because they are lesser known, or new.

CHANGE is the key voters are looking for more than anything else. Those that promise change and are believed on either the far right or the far left draw the biggest and most inspired audiences.

Voters know the status quo politicians in both parties are flip sides of the same coin with very little day light between them and that they generally do not represent the voters interests when it conflicts with the donors interests and they are tired of it. So they either give up (stay home and don't vote) or they vote for a change agent, regardless of lack of experience, regardless of danger posed. They simply want something other than lesser of two evils.

This reflects such a fundamental misunderstanding of politics that it is hard to give credit to the remainder of your posts. A lot of voters believe there are no material differences between the parties, but they are wrong and so are you.

This is true even accounting for the influence of special interests.

Of course you do.
It's really touching how NA people love success stories, it's really the 15min of fame.

It’s funny imo that Americans ask them self’s how politics became so bad .
I mean giving voting voice as powerful as a citizen has , like freedom of speech to corporations , being able to literally buy out elections ....

Was any other outcome possible ?
Corporations are the epitome of self interests which is in total conflict with social cohesion in a democracy ....
But than corporations have more influence than any citizen in US democracy ....

Did the wealth gap that favors only a fraction of the country for example , responsible for a major role in social tension , be only a coincide from bad politicians ?
Really ?

Doesn't matter what they want. They'll get whoever spends most. And they'll get that because of Citizens United v FEC. Same reason they have to put up with unlimited gun violence and a murder rate off the bloody scale, because the Supreme Court said so in Heller. Same reason they have to put with inflammatory and even neo-Nazi racist actions and parades, because the Supreme Court said so in Brandenburg v Ohio. And, because of Heller, the Nazis can be armed. And the Supreme Court is appointed by the President's party in the Senate, and the Senate, like the 'electoral college', is deliberately constructed and weighted to disenfranchise most Americans and is more anti-democratic than the British House of Lords pre-1911 (when it was all-hereditary and held a veto over the House of Commons -- the US Senate is literally worse than that).

The problem is the Constitution. And you can't fix the Constitution, because of the Constitution. (And the fact that Americans won't even name the problem.)

BUNDYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

lol "I'll figure it out, now I figured it out already"


Yeah definitely not responsible for the high death count

"Trump supports masks and listens to his advisors" loooooool RIP joe6pack

Trump is like a 4th grader who didn't read the book but now has to do a book report in front of the class.

"It was the greatest book, so interesting. It had a lot of stuff in it. Stuff that was unbelievable. It was amazing!"

BUNDYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY