Serious Why Trump will win 2020

CodeHelmet · May 2, 2019

Title will be surely off-putting and even generate angry responses but before writing said responses, take a deep breath and read what I have to say. I'm relatively Libertarian leaning but I have no Party Affiliation and hence are independent when it comes to making up my mind. I find Trump's personal qualities to be abhorrent but not disqualifying when it comes to holding Political Office. If they were, a lot of people in office would have to resign, including a lot of Democrats who never will(*cough* Virginia Lt. Governor for starters). I haven't made up my mind yet, largely because it's way too early. Yet there are two primary reasons as to why Trump will likely win:

1) His Policies are simply better than anything that the Democrats have on the table right now. If the Green New Deal, forgiving Student Loan Debt or "tearing down the Wall" are your best policy stances right now, you're going to get crushed in 18 months. Add on the fact that the Economy is running strong with data pointing on it to last and he's going to be incredibly tough to beat. As James Carville said, "The Economy, stupid", implying that when the Economy is good, incumbents rarely, if ever lose.

2) Russian Collusion exposed as a lie. For the better part of two years, we were told that Trump was "Evil" and that he was a "Russian Agent". Out comes the Mueller report and basically confirms the exact opposite that Democrats and the Media had been spewing since before Trump took office. That result should be a relief and celebrated by all. Yet Mueller pulled a Comey in basically laying the case to indict Trump on Obstruction but opted not to. Why write it in that manner and not indict? Democrats have been itching to impeach Trump since Day 1 so why didn't Mueller and his crew of Donkey cohorts give the angry mob what they wanted? Well that left things up to Barr. As the AG, he made the call to not indict after conferring with Rosenstein or the Deputy AG who's been there from wire to wire. Where's the outrage at Rosenstein? Why is Barr the only one getting crushed, unfairly may I add, over this? The truth is that Democrats and the mainstream Media didn't get the result they wanted. This meant they wasted two years of trying to undo 2016, misled their viewers(much of whom left the moment the report hit) and has led to them smearing the AG because he's now investigating how this crap all started. Their treatment and hostility to Barr is derived out of fear that a lot of bad actors, all of whom are from the Obama Administration, are going to be exposed, indicted and, if justice is served, thrown in prison.

Barr's investigations are going to be buoyed by the IG report due out in the coming weeks where it may have several criminal referrals. As I see it, following people will be going down:

Hillary Clinton: Espionage Act, Obstruction of Justice(irony), and Bribery(Uranium One)
Bill Clinton: Clinton Foundation <- May not happen but never know
Andrew McCabe: FISA warrants, Perjury*
James Comey: leaking classified material, Perjury* <- He or McCabe lied
Rod Rosenstein: FISA warrants <- surprised he hasn't been fired
Bruce Ohr: Fusion GPS
Nellie Ohr: Fusion GPS
Peter Strzok: FISA warrants, obstruction of justice
Lisa Page:
John Brennan: CIA illegally spied, perjury
James Clapper: DNI spying/unmasking, perjury
Glenn Simpson: Fusion GPS
Loretta Lynch: some explaining to do... obstruction?
and more...

Oh and if Joe Biden is your best bet at defeating Trump, might want to avert your eyes. We have Ukrainian lobbying where he used his post to get his son out of being indicted. If you wouldn't tolerate Trump doing this, how can you look the other way at Biden?! Source: NY Times, The Hill left and right sources

Lisa Page may join the list but I'm not sure what she's guilty of. The real question is whether the unfolding scandal, largest in USA history that's been inexplicably ignored, will ensnare Obama. He's implicated in the Biden Ukrainian debacle(by Biden himself) and Strzok-Page texts concerning Russia Collusion. Considering he was a Control freak, I would not be shocked if this whole Collusion thing(or Hillary's exoneration) came down from him. Anyways, Biden is probably going to be eliminated due to scandal, leaving Bernie Sanders or some radical upstart as the Democrats best bet. Now ask yourself, you think they, under the scandal that will be in the news for the next 18 months, are going to beat Trump? Yeah.. sorry to deliver some sobering news but perhaps it's time to get your Beer kegs now because you're going to need to get drunk as Trump cakewalks to 2020. Still waiting on those moving to Canada after 2016...

Oh and if anyone has any influence over at NBC, please tell them to fire Brian Williams already. He's a disgrace...

Nah · May 3, 2019

I too get the feeling (or wouldn't be surprised at least) if Trump wins the 2020 election (although I'd really rather he doesn't), but it's certainly not going to be because "Trump is secretly a good President and did nothing wrong", nor will it be a cakewalk.

I wanna touch on this part for a bit:

2) Russian Collusion exposed as a lie. For the better part of two years, we were told that Trump was "Evil" and that he was a "Russian Agent". Out comes the Mueller report and basically confirms the exact opposite that Democrats and the Media had been spewing since before Trump took office. That result should be a relief and celebrated by all. Yet Mueller pulled a Comey in basically laying the case to indict Trump on Obstruction but opted not to. Why write it in that manner and not indict? Democrats have been itching to impeach Trump since Day 1 so why didn't Mueller and his crew of Donkey cohorts give the angry mob what they wanted?

The reason as I understand it that Mueller didn't move to indict Trump had nothing to do with Trump's innocence/guilt, but other factors. The main one being that apparently Justice Department policy prohibits Justice Department personnel from indicting sitting Presidents--Mueller was simply not allowed to indict Trump because of his department's rules. The other is a technicality about obstruction of justice charges that shouldn't really matter.

I haven't read the actual report myself (and I doubt anyone here has bothered to read even a significant portion of a 400-something page report), but it seems that, contrary to Barr's letter, Trump did attempt to obstruct the investigation. If Trump really didn't attempt to obstruct justice, Mueller would have plainly written so in his report. But he didn't, and so with the above knowledge, it implies that Mueller believes that Trump did in fact commit the crime of obstruction of justice but had to pass on the burden of the indictment to someone else...which is Barr and Congress in this case.

EnglishALT · May 3, 2019

The obstruction part is something Congress can look at, although I think largely the public was waiting for some evidence of Russian collusion, as that is what had been talked up for the past two years. Lacking the evidence of that, obstruction of justice is something the public does not seem to really care about.

Predicting if Trump will or won't win however is so hard, Trump is unlike any other politician and his own unique style can help or hurt him. It's important not to forget that the last month leading up to the election, Trump was very disciplined on twitter and on the campaign trail, and that certainly helped him while the Clinton campaign struggled with the email investigation.

I think honestly its going to come down to the economy, a good majority of the country likes how Trump is handling the economy at this moment, and the economic news sure is good. If things take a turn for the worse and Biden is the nominee, then the public could turn to Biden. If things get really bad, like in 2008, the public could take a more radical economic change in Sanders.

If the economy goes as it is currently, a moderate like Biden would pose a challenge to Trump, while a radical like Sanders would be a much easier win.

Granted there are other wild cards as well, the Democrat nominee giving serious consideration to reparations to court the African American voting bloc would help Trump significantly.

CodeHelmet · May 4, 2019

It's DOJ Doctrine that a sitting President can not be indicted due to inhibiting his ability to exercise his Executive Branch powers. In a way they have a point but on the other hand, I find that to be complete hogwash. If you got evidence that you think is enough to convict on, no sitting officer of the United States Government is above reproach. Mueller had a team of Democrats with considerable Anti-Trump bias, one of whom in Andrew Weissmann, has a horrid legal record where the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 to overturn his convictions over the Enron scandal. Speculation is that it was he, not Mueller, who wrote the 2nd volume on Obstruction and if he didn't indict, the question is why? It may very well be that DOJ Doctrine but if Democrats feel its enough to impeach, do so already. Put up or shut up as someone would say. What I don't like is the complete hypocrisy on Nadler's part when it comes to the Mueller Report. Back during 98, he fought tooth and nail to prevent certain things from that report from coming out and established guidelines for future Special Counsels to follow. Now he wants those to essentially be ignored because its "politically" convenient? Not going to fly in my book.

Biden is unlikely to make it to be the nominee. He started too late, has one too many skeletons and he may be snagged in the Trump spying operation which even the NYT's admits happened. As for Bernie, we shall see if he's able to out-radical the other contenders for the nomination. Right now the platform for Democrats is not very promising but their tactics at rigging it have already begun by denying Trump appearing on State ballots unless he releases his Tax Returns. Unless they can point explicitly in the Constitution as to where he's required to do so, those laws/attempts at preventing him from appearing on the ballot should be struck down.

TailsMK4 · May 4, 2019

Honestly, stuff like this is why I've probably completely shut myself off of listening to Democrats. All the ones that did care about progress or at least following their own agendas instead of the soon-to-be-ruinous democratic socialist agenda are either being forced to follow the freshmen or have already turned independent (or started following the GOP instead). There are STILL many out there that are crying fowl despite there being overwhelming evidence to their contrary. Did Trump obstruct? That's still being debated, but if there was any, it was to obstruct the falsely-generated dossier as opposed to prohibiting government employees from doing their jobs. The new investigations should bring some more light to what REALLY happened, but I think people are going to be very oblivious to the facts since they were raised to follow an agenda that will spell doom to the US (to those that object, sorry, but there's overwhelming proof that socialism doesn't work, just read up on other countries, and to be fair, let's not discuss Venezuela in this context since there are all kinds of things going on with that country).

I think the country would be much better off if these people were impeached or resigned:

-Ilhan Omar
-Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez
-Rashida Tlaib
-Elizabeth Warren
-Jerry Nadler
-Adam Schiff

I'm willing to give Pelosi and Schumer the benefit of the doubt as they have to deal with new freshmen of the party that know absolutely nothing about how to manage a country. The Democrat party has recently become the party of impediment, and that's not even counting a handful of Republicans that also don't seem to have the country's interests at heart. We have a lot of issues plaguing our country and they want to play their own agenda instead of trying to fix problems. I am disgusted with this party.

As far as my voting, I'm again voting for whoever opposes the Democratic nominee. I would vote again for Ted Cruz if he were to go against Trump in 2020, but anything the Republican party offers is better than the alternative.

CodeHelmet · May 5, 2019

TailsMK4 said:
Honestly, stuff like this is why I've probably completely shut myself off of listening to Democrats. All the ones that did care about progress or at least following their own agendas instead of the soon-to-be-ruinous democratic socialist agenda are either being forced to follow the freshmen or have already turned independent (or started following the GOP instead). There are STILL many out there that are crying fowl despite there being overwhelming evidence to their contrary. Did Trump obstruct? That's still being debated, but if there was any, it was to obstruct the falsely-generated dossier as opposed to prohibiting government employees from doing their jobs. The new investigations should bring some more light to what REALLY happened, but I think people are going to be very oblivious to the facts since they were raised to follow an agenda that will spell doom to the US (to those that object, sorry, but there's overwhelming proof that socialism doesn't work, just read up on other countries, and to be fair, let's not discuss Venezuela in this context since there are all kinds of things going on with that country).

I think the country would be much better off if these people were impeached or resigned:

-Ilhan Omar
-Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez
-Rashida Tlaib
-Elizabeth Warren
-Jerry Nadler
-Adam Schiff

I'm willing to give Pelosi and Schumer the benefit of the doubt as they have to deal with new freshmen of the party that know absolutely nothing about how to manage a country. The Democrat party has recently become the party of impediment, and that's not even counting a handful of Republicans that also don't seem to have the country's interests at heart. We have a lot of issues plaguing our country and they want to play their own agenda instead of trying to fix problems. I am disgusted with this party.

As far as my voting, I'm again voting for whoever opposes the Democratic nominee. I would vote again for Ted Cruz if he were to go against Trump in 2020, but anything the Republican party offers is better than the alternative.

To be fair, GOP did the exact same thing during the Obama years with respect to impediment. It's always been that way that whenever one party is running things, the other party finds reason to not willingly participate. What I haven't brought up is that they want to expand the Courts(FDR tried doing that back in the 30's/40's and his own party was like... yeah that's over the line. Left's saving grace is the courts and when you can't win legislatively, pack the Courts with Activist Judges who legislate from the bench), eliminate the Electoral College(which would require Amending the Constitution. Was set-up to give small states at least a chance at giving a say in the Election like New Hampshire nearly did back in 2016. You do it based on Popular Vote, no one will give a damn about the smaller states). and rampant hypocrisy on a number of issues(I've only brought up Nadler's double standard regarding the Mueller report. #MeToo is the biggest glaring example of a double standard).

Her · May 5, 2019

I never felt like the Mueller report was going to be the smoking gun that liberals were relying on - both because you can't hope to trip up oligarchical admirers of fascism on legal technicalities, and because the Mueller report would have only emboldened the Trump fanbase into unifying around his replacement (assuming it felled his administration) with vengeance, as it would have (and has been seen by some... delightful people) as a witch hunt come to fruition. Besides, a cleaning of house would have had to happen for the report to have been treated as the exposure of corruption it was, instead of Barr's actions of diluting the report into a non-story in order to protect the GOP.

EnglishALT · May 5, 2019

Her said:
I never felt like the Mueller report was going to be the smoking gun that liberals were relying on - both because you can't hope to trip up oligarchical admirers of fascism on legal technicalities, and because the Mueller report would have only emboldened the Trump fanbase into unifying around his replacement (assuming it felled his administration) with vengeance, as it would have (and has been seen by some... delightful people) as a witch hunt come to fruition. Besides, a cleaning of house would have had to happen for the report to have been treated as the exposure of corruption it was, instead of Barr's actions of diluting the report into a non-story in order to protect the GOP.

Anything less than proof of collusion was going to be shown as a nothingburger which is what ultimately happened. You can blame Hillary and the DNC for pushing the Russia narrative so heavily after the loss in 2016, however that is the only thing the public really cared about from the report and could have destroyed Trump. Now as turn about is fair play, it may be time for investigations into the Democrats possibly attempting to collude with Ukraine to win the 2016 election, and possible CIA/FBI spying on Trump's campaign.

Ivysaur · May 5, 2019

Counterpoint.

Reasons why Trump can lose the 2020 election:

- Despite the economy being tremendously good, he's mind-blowingly unpopular. His approval rating has a reinforced-concrete ceiling at 43%, which suggests that there's something wrong about him that overrides concerns about the economy for most people. So far, Trump has the doubtful achievement of being the only president in modern history to never have been approved by a majority of the population. He's also not particularly popular in the states he won by a whisker in 2016 which he needs to hold the electoral college (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, all of them states the democrats swept in the midterms). The thing of winning an election by 70k votes is that you're constantly teetering on the edge of losing.

- Despite what Fox News keeps obsessing about, most people either don't give a shit about the Russian scandal or the deranged conspiracies peddled by Fox hosts. Actually, the top of voters' concerns in the last election were things like healthcare or gun safety, and the democrats won those categories by a landslide. The wall and keeping children in cages weren't a deciding factor for most voters, either. The result is that there are large swathes of the electorate claiming for a certain set of policies and all the Republicans seem able to do is talk immigration or "Obama conspiracies". Hell, even Trump's tax cut law failed miserably, which is quite an achievement. As long as the Republicans keep ignoring the policy demands of a potentially majoritarian share of the population, they're going to struggle to win undecideds.

- One of the reasons why Trump won 2016 was that he carried the group of voters who disliked both Trump and Clinton. And one of the reasons was that Fox News and the conservative echo chamber had spent decades throwing mud at Clinton, to turn her into some monster. That persecution went gloriously into Congress -Benghazi- and the FBI, and the sensation that there was something wrong about her made many people -coupled with the last-minute email investigation announcement- think that they'd rather try the evil they don't know than the one they've heard about for so long. This time, most democrats are untainted, and the mud that they've tried to pin on Biden is very obscure, to the point you've probably never heard about it and/or doesn't make any rational sense if you've never watched the many earlier seasons of Fox Conspiracies: Why Every Single Democrat Is Evil (and a large majority of the population never do).

- Trump's best age group is +65, and a bunch of them have died since the last election. The Democrats sweep the under-45, and a good number have become of age or got into the hang of voting ever since. That matters when you won the electoral college by a combined 70k votes.

This said, a couple of questions.

TailsMK4 said:
I think the country would be much better off if these people were impeached or resigned:

-Ilhan Omar
-Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez
-Rashida Tlaib
-Elizabeth Warren
-Jerry Nadler
-Adam Schiff

Can you elaborate on why, other than "they're democrats and Fox News told me they're evil"?

CodeHelmet said:
eliminate the Electoral College(which would require Amending the Constitution. Was set-up to give small states at least a chance at giving a say in the Election like New Hampshire nearly did back in 2016. You do it based on Popular Vote, no one will give a damn about the smaller states)

Uhh... New Hampshire did have a say in 2016: it voted straight-ticket Democrat. What do you mean with "almost"?

Also, being historically accurate, the electoral college was set up to allow for slave states to get extra voting power accounting for their slaves as "population" without having to give them the vote. In a national vote, slaves wouldn't have counted since they wouldn't have been able to vote. With the electoral college, the white slaveholders could get EC representation amounting to 3/5ths of their slaves without having to give them the vote! Sweet.

This said, when was the last time you saw a presidential candidate campaigning in Vermont or Wyoming or Montana or South Dakota? Never? Never sounds alright. What a weird system "so that small states matter" that causes politicians to spend months in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, tiny states nobody would otherwise care about, as we all know. At least under a popular vote system, republicans in California (there are more of them than in Ohio) would actually become relevant, as well as black democrats in Mississippi (no, seriously, when was the last time anyone cared about them? 1890?).

PD: There was no "collusion" because "collusion" is not a legal term, so the word is meaningless in an investigation and therefore Mueller didn't set out to investigate that, as he spells out in his report. He did find a ton of collaboration between Trump and the Russians though. You should look at the report instead of letting Tucker Carlson summarise it for you. This said, polls show that the report didn't change anybody's opinion of Trump either way, so it's not like it matters in the slightest. There are dozens of pages of mud and possible crimes committed by Trump so people who think he's a crook are reinforced in their beliefs and there's no "collusion" because that concept doesn't exist in a legal sense so Trump fans can point at the cleverly-moved goalposts and say the report is a nothingburger. Everybody wins! Except Barr, he looks in for a bad time.

PD2: https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1118228314257350657

EnglishALT · May 5, 2019

Ivysaur said:
Counterpoint.

Counter, Counter Point

"It's the economy stupid" as the old Clintonian saying goes ( note I am not calling you stupid, that is just a famous saying in American politics for those unfamiliar ), the public wanted a balance in 2018 and voted Democrats into Congress as tends to happen to the losing party of Presidential Elections. That being said, health care concerns do not beat an economy that is perceived as good or improving, if it did we would have had President Mitt Romney.

Ivysaur said:
PD: There was no "collusion" because "collusion" is not a legal term, so the word is meaningless in an investigation and therefore Mueller didn't set out to investigate that, as he spells out in his report. He did find a ton of collaboration between Trump and the Russians though. You should look at the report instead of letting Tucker Carlson summarise it for you. This said, polls show that the report didn't change anybody's opinion of Trump either way, so it's not like it matters in the slightest. There are dozens of pages of mud and possible crimes committed by Trump so people who think he's a crook are reinforced in their beliefs and there's no "collusion" because that concept doesn't exist in a legal sense so Trump fans can point at the cleverly-moved goalposts and say the report is a nothingburger. Everybody wins! Except Barr, he looks in for a bad time.

First: Don't watch Tucker Carlson, as it is kind of hard to get any American news stations when you are living overseas.

Second it was not Trump fans who were moving the goal posts on Russia and collusion, the entire narrative was started by Democrats, specifically Hillary's people the day after the election as shown in the book Shattered, in an attempt to deligitimize Trump's victory. However if you want to read the report, we can as always start with Page 2: The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.

Ivysaur · May 5, 2019

EnglishALT said:
Second it was not Trump fans who were moving the goal posts on Russia and collusion, the entire narrative was started by Democrats, specifically Hillary's people the day after the election as shown in the book Shattered, in an attempt to deligitimize Trump's victory. However if you want to read the report, we can as always start with Page 2: The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.

Before that, it says "First, a Russian entity carried out a social media campaign that favored presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Second, a Russian intelligence service conducted computer-intrusion operations against entities, employees, and volunteers working on the Clinton Campaign and then released stolen documents. The investigation also identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign. Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts".

This is effectively what the democrats argued. And now it's black on white: Trump was the official candidate of a foreign enemy that broke US law in order to favour his campaign. The fact that Trump did not set up a joint comittee with representatives of the Russian Government within the Trump Campaign to coordinate with them (and did not openly talk to him other than the time Trump asked Russia on public TV for more leaked emails) is a legal matter but won't make a single person who was predisposed to thinking of Trump as Putin's puppet and his victory as the result of a foreign attack on the US change their mind.

Also, bonus:

"In evaluating whether evidence about collective action of multiple individuals constituted a crime, we applied the framework of conspiracy law, not the concept of "collusion." [...] Collusion is not a specific offense or theory of liability found in the United States Code, nor is it a term of art in federal criminal law. For those reasons , the Office's focus in analyzing questions of joint criminal liability was on conspiracy as defined in federal law.".

"It's the economy stupid" as the old Clintonian saying goes ( note I am not calling you stupid, that is just a famous saying in American politics for those unfamiliar ), the public wanted a balance in 2018 and voted Democrats into Congress as tends to happen to the losing party of Presidential Elections. That being said, health care concerns do not beat an economy that is perceived as good or improving, if it did we would have had President Mitt Romney.

Again, it's not only the economy. There's a fantastic economy right now and yet Trump's approval is awful, and has never, not for a single day, got close to being 50%, the first time it has ever happened. Why? Read this article, for instance: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/03/politics/trump-economy-approval-rating-2020/index.html

But some key paragraphs:

"The funny thing is the same thing [approval ratings being completely disconnected from economic sentiment] happened under President Barack Obama. According to political scientists John Sides, Michael Tesler and Lynn Vavreck, changes in consumer sentiment also failed to predict changes in Obama's approval rating. In fact, if anything, Obama's approval rating was lower when consumer sentiment was higher. This is a complete reversal of the trend dating back to the John Kennedy administration. From Kennedy to George W. Bush, you could count on consumer sentiment changes to drive changes in overall approval ratings. Not surprisingly, therefore, the perceptions of a good economy lifted Ronald Reagan to re-election in 1984 and sunk George H.W. Bush in 1992. "

"It's one thing to think the economy is working. It's another thing to believe the economy and the head of the government is working on behalf of you. Americans don't believe that Trump cares about the average American. The percentage who do has hovered around 40%, which is right around where Trump's approval rating has been. That's about the same percentage of voters who believe the administration has done enough to help the middle class.
Indeed, changes in the percentage of Americans who think Trump cares about the average American have been correlated with changes in the his overall approval rating.
Instead, a majority of Americans think that the Trump administration has focused its efforts on helping wealthy Americans. "

"Voters think the economy is good and have thought that for a while. Trump is still struggling, even though we're well into year three of his presidency. If the economy hasn't already translated for Trump, when will it?
Overall approval ratings probably matter a lot more than economic approval ratings when it comes to a president's re-election hopes. Remember, voters disapproved of Obama on the economy and thought Republican Mitt Romney would be better on it. It didn't matter. Obama won. "

EnglishALT said:
Health care concerns do not beat an economy that is perceived as good or improving, if it did we would have had President Mitt Romney.

"In the new poll, 43% of likely voters surveyed said that the nation's economy would only get better if Romney was elected. Only 34% said the same would happen if Obama is re-elected, a significant change from August, when the president had a slim lead on the issue."

Business Insider, just a couple of days before the 2012 election.

https://www.businessinsider.com/cnn-poll-romney-obama-economy-question-2012-11?IR=T

EnglishALT · May 5, 2019

Ivysaur said:
Before that, it says "First, a Russian entity carried out a social media campaign that favored presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Second, a Russian intelligence service conducted computer-intrusion operations against entities, employees, and volunteers working on the Clinton Campaign and then released stolen documents. The investigation also identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign. Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts".

This is effectively what the democrats argued. And now it's black on white: Trump was the official candidate of a foreign enemy that broke US law in order to favour his campaign. The fact that Trump did not set up a joint comittee with representatives of the Russian Government within the Trump Campaign to coordinate with them (and did not openly talk to him other than the time Trump asked Russia on public TV for more leaked emails) is a legal matter but won't make a single person who was predisposed to thinking of Trump as Putin's puppet and his victory as the result of a foreign attack on the US change their mind.

Also, bonus:

"In evaluating whether evidence about collective action of multiple individuals constituted a crime, we applied the framework of conspiracy law, not the concept of "collusion." [...] Collusion is not a specific offense or theory of liability found in the United States Code, nor is it a term of art in federal criminal law. For those reasons , the Office's focus in analyzing questions of joint criminal liability was on conspiracy as defined in federal law.".

In no way was that the Democratic argument, the Democratic argument was that Trump engaged in a criminal conspiracy of collusion to win the Presidential election. This is parroted by Representative Schiff who is one of the most public figures of the Democratic Party when it comes to this whole mess.

"REP. ADAM SCHIFF: Look, you can see evidence in plain sight on the issue of collusion, pretty compelling evidence. Now, there's a difference between seeing evidence of collusion and being able to prove a criminal conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt."

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/v...in_plain_sight_of_trump-russia_collusion.html

Also

Richard Blumenthal

"The evidence is pretty clear that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians," Sen. Richard Blumenthal told MSNBC host Chris Hayes Nov. 17, 2018.

Jerry Nadler

CNN interviewed Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., House Judiciary Committee chairman, on Nov. 30, 2018. Nadler said he definitely saw collusion.

"The fact that Manafort and Trump Jr. met with Russian agents who told them they wanted to give them dirt on Hillary as part of the Russian government's attempt to help them, and that they said fine," Nadler said. "I mean, it's clear that the campaign colluded, and there's a lot of evidence of that. The question is, was the president involved?"

Ron Wyden

"When you look at Donald Trump Jr., and what is on the record, there was clearly an intent to collude," Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said Dec. 14, 2017.

Tom Perez

"Over the course of the last year we have seen, I think, a mountain of evidence of collusion between the campaign and the Russians to basically affect our democracy," Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez said after the DNC filed a civil suit against the Trump campaign, the Russian government and Wikileaks in April 2018.

Maxine Waters

One of the strongest voices for impeachment has been that of Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif.

At a town hall meeting of the Black Congressional Caucus Foundation in Washington, Waters urged activists to press for impeachment.

"Here you have a president who I can tell you, I guarantee you, is in collusion with the Russians to undermine our democracy," Waters said Sept. 21, 2017. "Here you have a president who has obstructed justice and here you have a president that lies every day."

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-...emocrats-said-about-trump-collusion-mueller-/

Remember what the definition of collusion is: secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy, especially in order to cheat or deceive others.

The Democrats have been very clear in their message that they believe that Trump was engaging in a secret conspiracy with Russia to win the election.

Ivysaur said:
Again, it's not only the economy. There's a fantastic economy right now and yet Trump's approval is awful, and has never, not for a single day, got close to being 50%, the first time it has ever happened. Why? Read this article https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/03/politics/trump-economy-approval-rating-2020/index.html

But some key paragraphs:

"The funny thing is the same thing [approval ratings being completely disconnected from economic sentiment] happened under President Barack Obama. According to political scientists John Sides, Michael Tesler and Lynn Vavreck, changes in consumer sentiment also failed to predict changes in Obama's approval rating. In fact, if anything, Obama's approval rating was lower when consumer sentiment was higher. This is a complete reversal of the trend dating back to the John Kennedy administration. From Kennedy to George W. Bush, you could count on consumer sentiment changes to drive changes in overall approval ratings. Not surprisingly, therefore, the perceptions of a good economy lifted Ronald Reagan to re-election in 1984 and sunk George H.W. Bush in 1992. "

"It's one thing to think the economy is working. It's another thing to believe the economy and the head of the government is working on behalf of you. Americans don't believe that Trump cares about the average American. The percentage who do has hovered around 40%, which is right around where Trump's approval rating has been. That's about the same percentage of voters who believe the administration has done enough to help the middle class.
Indeed, changes in the percentage of Americans who think Trump cares about the average American have been correlated with changes in the his overall approval rating.
Instead, a majority of Americans think that the Trump administration has focused its efforts on helping wealthy Americans. "

"Voters think the economy is good and have thought that for a while. Trump is still struggling, even though we're well into year three of his presidency. If the economy hasn't already translated for Trump, when will it?

Overall approval ratings probably matter a lot more than economic approval ratings when it comes to a president's re-election hopes. Remember, voters disapproved of Obama on the economy and thought Republican Mitt Romney would be better on it. It didn't matter. Obama won. "

Trump has always struggled due to the toxicity of his name, which is why the hidden Trump voter was such a mystery in 2016 and what ultimately helped him win. The thing is that the public does approve of Trump's handling of the economy, as per the latest poll and when it comes to voting next year the question will arise, do you want to continue with a President that you may not like personally, but has economically benefited you, or change and risk a President that may not economically benefit you. Even more so if a more socialist candidate like Bernie Sanders wins the nomination.

"President Donald Trump hits a new high on his economic approval ratings in a new CNN Poll conducted by SSRS, reaching 56% of Americans saying he's doing a good job on the economy."

https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/05/02/po...tml?r=https://amp-cnn-com.cdn.ampproject.org/

Also, being historically accurate, the electoral college was set up to allow for slave states to get extra voting power accounting for their slaves as "population" without having to give them the vote. In a national vote, slaves wouldn't have counted since they wouldn't have been able to vote. With the electoral college, the white slaveholders could get EC representation amounting to 3/5ths of their slaves without having to give them the vote! Sweet.

To be historically accurate that is incorrect. The framers worried about corruption of the electors, and did not want to engage in direct democracy, so they found a compromise. The electoral college in it's creation would not have given slave states more voting power, in fact in 1791 it was only a minuscule difference.

"When it first took shape at the convention, the Electoral College would not have significantly helped the slaveowning states. Under the initial apportionment of the House approved by the framers, the slaveholding states would have held 39 out of 92 electoral votes, or about 42 percent. Based on the 1790 census, about 41 percent of the nation's total white population lived in those same states, a minuscule difference. Moreover, the convention did not arrive at the formula of combining each state's House and Senate numbers until very late in its proceedings, and there is no evidence to suggest that slavery had anything to do with it."

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/04/opinion/the-electoral-college-slavery-myth.html

CodeHelmet · May 5, 2019

Ivysaur said:
Uhh... New Hampshire did have a say in 2016: it voted straight-ticket Democrat. What do you mean with "almost"?

In 2016, in one particular scenario the outcome of the election would have come down to whomever won New Hampshire. It was that razor thin margin that a small state could have had an impact in determining who won. Also for the record, New Hampshire was won by Clinton by .4%. I hardly call that a straight up win by Democrats in that state unless you're implying they won every contest there.

The rhetoric by the left on CNN and MSNBC is what I mean by calling Trump evil(which they've called him every "evil" adjective in the book you can think of).

EnglishALT · May 6, 2019

XIII said:
The amount of lalalala I can't hear you in this thread is astounding. I'm just going to throw this out: The *majority* of the voting class are now millennials. Assuming people actually get out and vote, which I'm assuming they will, since younger folks really do want to see change, there's a VERY good chance he won't win. The older folks are, to put it simply, dying off, and they make (made?) up a large section of the republican-favoring population.

Reasons Trump will win:

Money, corruption, whatever.

Reasons Dems will win:

Money, corruption, whatever.

To hell with it all, I think

Alot of people say "Well the older population is dying off, Republicans are doomed" pretty much every election cycle, similar to the argument of "Demographics are changing, Republicans are never going to win" that we hear every election cycle. Well lets look at past elections.

2016:
45 - 64: Trump wins by 8 percent
65+: Trump wins by 7 percent

https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/how-groups-voted-2016

2012
45 - 64: Romney wins by 4 percent
65+: Romney wins by 12 percent

https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/how-groups-voted-2012

2008
45 - 64: Obama wins by 1 percent
65+: McCain wins by 8 percent

https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/how-groups-voted-2008

2004
50 - 64: Bush wins by 5 percent
65+: Bush wins by 5 percent

https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/how-groups-voted-2004

2000 ( This election heavily focused on the future of Social Security )
50 - 64: Gore wins by 2 percent
65+: Gore wins by 4 percent

https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/how-groups-voted-2000

In other words, outside of the outlier of 2000, and one time in 2008, the 45/50+ group uniformly votes Republican, maybe it has something to do with age, changing political preferences, etc, but I don't think it's going to go away any time soon.

Maedar · May 6, 2019

Trump is a failure.

Now, before you call me out for such a bold term, let me tell you I have quite a few reasons for this statement, and they all can be traced to the fact that he is not the genius deal-maker he claims to be.

(I'll try here to leave my personal opinion to a minimum.)

1. His Wall: Let's address the Elephant in the Room first. His biggest campaign promise in 2016 was that he would build a border wall and that Mexico would pay for it. Not only has Mexico consistently refused to pay for it, but Congress also has as well.

Trump has tried to use the power of his office to take the money from the military by declaring a national emergency. Lawsuits have put everything on pause. Still, Trump tells his supporters it's already being built, while in truth, he hasn't even started to dig the foundation. He's also attempted to take credit for the fence repairs that were funded more than 10 years ago.

2. North Korea: One of the biggest promises Trump has failed at is getting a denuclearization deal with North Korea. Not only has he failed to get an agreement, North Korea shot off another short-range missile just last weekend. To make matters worse, it wasn't a military test outside of Kim Jong Un's purview. He was actually present and gave the order.

So far, Trump has met with Kim twice and has had two embarrassing failures. In the second meeting, Trump staff was forced to cancel a huge ceremony that was to take place when Kim signed the deal.

3. Obamacare: After spending nearly a decade complaining about the Affordable Care Act and doing everything they could to undermine, defund, gut, and/or repeal the landmark law, Republicans failed so many times it was almost comical.

Trump was elected with a Republican House and Senate and the majority of those members campaigned on the "repeal and replace" rhetoric. Despite complaining about the law for 10 years, Republicans never thought it was important to craft their own alternative. When Trump tried to pass a slap-dash repeal with no replacement, he couldn't get his own party to agree.

Senate Leader Mitch McConnell (possibly Trump's biggest ally in Congress) ultimately told Trump that he should give up on the Obamacare repeal because it will never happen.

4. Infrastructure: The White House has struggled to have an "infrastructure week" over the past two years, but no law has ever been crafted with legislators. One Trump official did create the administration's version of the bill, but the president hated it because it involves a public-private partnership and he wants a larger plan akin to The New Deal.

Trump might have a deal that will pass Congress and get Democratic votes in the Senate. However, McConnell and the GOP are putting the hammer down on the $2 trillion price-tag. So again, Trump is being faced with a big showdown with his own party. Either he must convince his own party into supporting the bill or convince McConnell to bring it to the floor regardless of the votes.

So far they haven't been able to come to a deal, but there will likely be a conflict over whether Trump or McConnell is truly the one in charge. (Fun fact: In the Senate, it's McConnell.)

5. Trade war deals: Trump promised to have a grand deal with North American countries and with China, but the reality has been a joke. The "new" NAFTA is basically the same as the old NAFTA, Trump simply changed the name of it.

China has already decided everything Trump is threatening is a bluff, giving him zero leverage over the manufacturing giant. The best thing that could happen to Trump at this point is he walks away slowly and hopes no one brings it up ever again. I personally doubt he has the willpower to do so.

6. Jobs: Trump proclaimed he would personally be involved in negotiating deals with corporations who would ensure jobs stayed in the United States. He promised supporters in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania he would bring back manufacturing jobs that have been lost over the decades.

The reality is another matter. After holding huge press events with Carrier and FoxConn, both of those companies have pulled out of the so-called "deal" they made with Trump.

The same can be said for Trump's promise to revive the entire coal industry. The problem Trump never understood is that even if he was able to give tax cuts to coal companies and remove regulations, it's still cheaper to use other forms of energy. Coal is never coming back and Trump's lies to his supporters have left them with nothing but false hopes as unemployment runs out.

7. Shutdown flop: Perhaps the best example of Trump's bad deal-making skills is the huge flop over the funding of his wall that shutdown the federal government.

His first mistake was claiming, on live television , that he would take full responsibility. I remember many news outlets saying, that very day, that it was the worst mistake any politician could have made.

"We have reached a deal to end the shutdown and reopen the federal government," Trump said Jan. 2019. "After 36 days of spirited debate and dialogue, I have seen and heard from enough Democrats and Republicans that they are willing to put partisanship aside — I think — and put the security of the American people first."

The so-called "deal," was really Trump caving on his demands and trying to find other ways to get what he wanted. It was a costly miscalculation, both politically for Trump and financially for the government.

I'll make a small opinion here: When Bush Sr. said, "read my lips, no new taxes", the big problem for him wasn't that he broke the promise later, but that he made it in the first place without doing the research. If he had, he'd have known it was a promise that was impossible to keep. Trump has, in effect, made this same mistake multiple times.

In the end, Trump's deal-making skills certainly lack what was promised. Perhaps if he had actually read The Art of the Deal he could figure out how to perfect his proficiency.

gimmepie · May 6, 2019

Maedar said:
Trump is a failure.

Now, before you call me out for such a bold term, let me tell you I have quite a few reasons for this statement, and they all can be traced to the fact that he is not the genius deal-maker he claims to be.

(I'll try here to leave my personal opinion to a minimum.)

1. His Wall: Let's address the Elephant in the Room first. His biggest campaign promise in 2016 was that he would build a border wall and that Mexico would pay for it. Not only has Mexico consistently refused to pay for it, but Congress also has as well.

Trump has tried to use the power of his office to take the money from the military by declaring a national emergency. Lawsuits have put everything on pause. Still, Trump tells his supporters it's already being built, while in truth, he hasn't even started to dig the foundation. He's also attempted to take credit for the fence repairs that were funded more than 10 years ago.

2. North Korea: One of the biggest promises Trump has failed at is getting a denuclearization deal with North Korea. Not only has he failed to get an agreement, North Korea shot off another short-range missile just last weekend. To make matters worse, it wasn't a military test outside of Kim Jong Un's purview. He was actually present and gave the order.

So far, Trump has met with Kim twice and has had two embarrassing failures. In the second meeting, Trump staff was forced to cancel a huge ceremony that was to take place when Kim signed the deal.

3. Obamacare: After spending nearly a decade complaining about the Affordable Care Act and doing everything they could to undermine, defund, gut, and/or repeal the landmark law, Republicans failed so many times it was almost comical.

Trump was elected with a Republican House and Senate and the majority of those members campaigned on the "repeal and replace" rhetoric. Despite complaining about the law for 10 years, Republicans never thought it was important to craft their own alternative. When Trump tried to pass a slap-dash repeal with no replacement, he couldn't get his own party to agree.

Senate Leader Mitch McConnell (possibly Trump's biggest ally in Congress) ultimately told Trump that he should give up on the Obamacare repeal because it will never happen.

4. Infrastructure: The White House has struggled to have an "infrastructure week" over the past two years, but no law has ever been crafted with legislators. One Trump official did create the administration's version of the bill, but the president hated it because it involves a public-private partnership and he wants a larger plan akin to The New Deal.

Trump might have a deal that will pass Congress and get Democratic votes in the Senate. However, McConnell and the GOP are putting the hammer down on the $2 trillion price-tag. So again, Trump is being faced with a big showdown with his own party. Either he must convince his own party into supporting the bill or convince McConnell to bring it to the floor regardless of the votes.

So far they haven't been able to come to a deal, but there will likely be a conflict over whether Trump or McConnell is truly the one in charge. (Fun fact: In the Senate, it's McConnell.)

5. Trade war deals: Trump promised to have a grand deal with North American countries and with China, but the reality has been a joke. The "new" NAFTA is basically the same as the old NAFTA, Trump simply changed the name of it.

China has already decided everything Trump is threatening is a bluff, giving him zero leverage over the manufacturing giant. The best thing that could happen to Trump at this point is he walks away slowly and hopes no one brings it up ever again. I personally doubt he has the willpower to do so.

6. Jobs Trump proclaimed he would personally be involved in negotiating deals with corporations who would ensure jobs stayed in the United States. He promised supporters in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania he would bring back manufacturing jobs that have been lost over the decades.

The reality is another matter. After holding huge press events with Carrier and FoxConn, both of those companies have pulled out of the so-called "deal" they made with Trump.

The same can be said for Trump's promise to revive the entire coal industry. The problem Trump never understood is that even if he was able to give tax cuts to coal companies and remove regulations, it's still cheaper to use other forms of energy. Coal is never coming back and Trump's lies to his supporters have left them with nothing but false hopes as unemployment runs out.

7. Shutdown flop: Perhaps the best example of Trump's bad deal-making skills is the huge flop over the funding of his wall that shutdown the federal government.

His first mistake was claiming, on live television , that he would take full responsibility. I remember many news outlets saying, that very day, that it was the worst mistake any politician could have made.

"We have reached a deal to end the shutdown and reopen the federal government," Trump said Jan. 2019. "After 36 days of spirited debate and dialogue, I have seen and heard from enough Democrats and Republicans that they are willing to put partisanship aside — I think — and put the security of the American people first."

The so-called "deal," was really Trump caving on his demands and trying to find other ways to get what he wanted. It was a costly miscalculation, both politically for Trump and financially for the government.

I'll make a small opinion here: When Bush Sr. said, "read my lips, no new taxes", the big problem for him wasn't that he broke the promise later, but that he made it in the first place without doing the research. If he had, he'd have known it was a promise that was impossible to keep. Trump has, in effect, made this same mistake multiple times.

In the end, Trump's deal-making skills certainly lack what was promised. Perhaps if he had actually read The Art of the Deal he could figure out how to perfect his proficiency.

I agree with everything you have said here, but the question really is, do American voters care? Trumps base of support has long been willing to look over not only his ineptitude and lies, but admissions of literal crimes and evidence of more.

Whether we like it or not, I think we have to acknowledge that, at this point, Trump has such a dedicated fanbase that he could reduce the population of the US by half Thanos-style and still get all their votes. He's a terrible president and a worse person, but the potential for him to come out on top is still there.

EnglishALT · May 7, 2019

gimmepie said:
I agree with everything you have said here, but the question really is, do American voters care? Trumps base of support has long been willing to look over not only his ineptitude and lies, but admissions of literal crimes and evidence of more.

Whether we like it or not, I think we have to acknowledge that, at this point, Trump has such a dedicated fanbase that he could reduce the population of the US by half Thanos-style and still get all their votes. He's a terrible president and a worse person, but the potential for him to come out on top is still there.

That's pretty much how Republicans felt around the cult of personality that was Obama ( One that still exists in many ways with Democrats insisting on saying the administration was scandal free ). I honestly think George W Bush will be the last President that did not have a rabid fan base willing to overlook everything based on hero worship.

gimmepie · May 7, 2019

EnglishALT said:
That's pretty much how Republicans felt around the cult of personality that was Obama ( One that still exists in many ways with Democrats insisting on saying the administration was scandal free ). I honestly think George W Bush will be the last President that did not have a rabid fan base willing to overlook everything based on hero worship.

It's probably a symptom of the ever widening divide between the major parties and the consistent rise of populism.

Maedar · May 7, 2019

I'm an American voter.

I care.

gimmepie · May 7, 2019

Maedar said:
I'm an American voter.

I care.

That's great, but you're one of many.
I don't think 2020 is looking great for Trump, but people shouldn't write him off again because that helped him win last time. You can't blame it all on Russian interference.

Serious Why Trump will win 2020

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