Why the hell are you holding on to that hope? There is no ****ing way Cruz can stop Trump now. REPUBLICANS WANT TRUMP, THEY ARE ****ING DONE WITH ESTABLISHMENT CANDIDATES OR PRETEND ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT CANDIDATES (LIKE CRUZ).

As for a Trump vs Clinton showdown, my money is that Trump will eat her alive, simply because 33% of Sander supports will switch boats if Hillary becomes the democratic nominee. As someone who is a strong Sanders supporter, I can confirm indeed that I'll vote Trump if it comes down to that.

EDIT: CRUZ HIMSELF SAID THE OTHER DAY, THAT A CONTESTED CONVENTION WOULDN'T BE GOOD FOR THE GOP. DO YOU SERIOUSLY THINK THEY WILL RISK SPLITTING THE PARTY INTO OTHER PARTIES AND RISK LOOSING THE NEXT 3 OR 4 ELECTIONS?

Why are you yelling? The rules say that a candidate must win a majority of the delegates. I support the Republican nominee being the person that wins the most delegates. Trump may not win a majority of candidates in the primary process. In that case the nominee will be selected through the ballot process at the convention (actually, that's how it works anyway). All perfectly normal. So if I have to choose between the constitutionalist that happens to be anti-establishment or Trump. Trump will lose any day of the week. Trump might defeat Hillary but I think it's unlikely.

Oh, wait, are you a Trump supporter?

Yes. Cruz is finished. Trump only needs 49% of the remaining delegates and is polling majority victory in the rest of the states. The Republican and Democrat primaries are over.



Bookies for 6 months now have had Hillary winning the election by a large margin. If you're as confident as you say, throw down your life savings.
http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/us-politics/us-presidential-election-2016/winner

We have now a repeat of 2008, except that the right has moved even further right and are eating each other now to see who can get the largest slice of the neoliberal pie. Hillary has already won. The polls may show a large anti-establishment sentiment, but when it comes to it, most of the people polling for Sanders will switch to a "lesser of two evils" mentality.

The questions people should be asking themselves right now is, what sort of Middle Eastern Libya 2.0 is Hillary going to get us into.

Also Cruz is pretty much worse than Trump in every regard, except that he's more predictable.

I can't even believe there are Republicans hoping for a contested convention. By all means, nominate someone other than the carnival barker that the overwhelming majority of your most ardent supporters voted for. Enjoy alienating the people you've been pandering to for the last three decades, so we can end up with a conservative electorate split between the crazy racist *******s and the ones dumb enough to actually believe that conservative policy benefits the population at large.

Enjoy never winning another election.

Trump supporters are not a majority and I think it will take Trump winning the general to destroy the party. Surprise, we disagree again.

The party hasn't already been destroyed? Jesus.

Just a lil reminder, the "King Koopa" character in the Super Mario Bros Movie was directly inspired by Donald Trump and his early forays into politics, right down to being a fascist real estate developer from New York.

So what you're telling me here, right now, is that movie becoming reality doesn't fit your description of destruction. And I am terrified by what will.

i really don't understand the sanders supporters who say "i will vote trump if hillary gets the nomination"

that's like burning your house down because when the new paint dried it wasn't quite the color you wanted

Because Hillary Clinton is an unapologetic advocate of the financial industry. Both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have publicly excoriated bankers during their campaigns, and many of their supporters consider degenerate capitalism a greater threat than either of their respective down-sides.

I'm somewhat torn on which is worse between casting a vote for a charter member of the Wall Street Fan Club or rich Archie Bunker.

It's a tough decision because nobody really knows what the hell Trump is going to do if he gets in office. Some of what he says is reasonable, some of it is bonkers. There's no way to tell what he really plans to act on, but the overwhelming feeling I get is that it's not good.

Hillary is going to be more or less another four years of Obama.



Is there any form of capitalism that isn't degenerate?

If this were true, I'd totally be fine with her ending up being president. Hillary will end up using her executive powers to help out all the Clinton foundation friends, just like when she was secretary of state helped in some arm sales to Saudi Arabia after the manufacturers gave her foundation a lengthy donation. The fact that someone that is so obviously corrupt and sold out can go completely unpunished through life is scary as hell. I don't want to imagine what she would do as President with a Democratic congress. Plus, she's very hawkish, and will get us involved in some conflict somewhere. This is a woman who has something to prove to herself and everyone else, that she can be president and do everything a man can. She seems to be a victim of her own fabricated inferiority complex, the worst kind of person you can put in the executive chair.

Trump on the other hand, is simply a vain ego maniac. It is very unlikely that he could get any of his proposals (the wall with mexico) passed, let alone actually working. I would rather have 4 years of Trump media circus verus 8 years of a female dictator suffering from severe inferiority complex .

Also, I'm sick as **** and on a lot of meds at the moment, so everything I said could be completely off.

He would probably be a lot like Reagan.

That's a safe bet.

Capitalism is in a constant state of collapse. But usually it almost works.

So a right-wing totalitarian whose primary domestic policy is suppressing labor and primary foreign policy is brutality towards "terrorists"? All while surfing on a cult of personality and moneyed propaganda?

Sounds about right, actually.


So you take a slightly Marxist view then, that capitalism is in a constant state of crisis?


I don't know about how corrupt Hillary is. I think the people who have anti-establishment views are generally overstating it. Hillary is par, maybe ahead of the curve in American politics when it comes to serving private interests. Her donations are coming from many of the same places Obama's did, so she will pretty much be a continuation of him. A continuation of this, as Jon put it, degenerate form of capitalism, which is about maximizing profit through arbitrage and complicated legal apparatuses to return a few percent more than investing in actual growth, which will return less because the capital will actually enter a market. Sanders was the most likely candidate to actually affect a positive change. I have no clue what Trump plans to do. But I have a feeling his notion of "helping American labor" is dismantling labor protection laws to make American labor more competitive with third world labor.


America is a country with a ton of power. Small difference in our leadership can affect the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Trump could potentially do much, much worse. He's not just a "vain egomaniac". He's one of the vainest, and has a pretty grim-looking track record. But, he doesn't have as big a political history as Hillary, so we don't really know exactly what he means. He flips opinions often and has no voting record to look at.

Hillary is very hawkish but not nearly as hawkish as basically everyone in the Republican party is. Hillary actually does have some progressive views. It's not much but it's not insignificant.

Ted Cruz basically wants to carpet bomb his enemies in the Middle East, a tactic with a proven track record of working against productive strategy. That is, if strategy means to bring peace and development to Middle East countries, and not to create Unaoil.

I can't stand that nut job. You're right of course, Trump in the white house could do damage that Clinton would never do, but at the same time, it could all just be rhetoric to united a severely divided party. Once in office, I expect him to do very little other than issue rhetoric, veto a bill here and there, maybe try to get some taxes lifted or others put in place.

Anyhow, he's poised to taking California.

Nothing like parody created by a man who doesn't understand the thing he's sending up.

For what it's worth, though, it's a really great way to make Trump seem not-too-bad, because he's really pretty far behind Steven Crowder in terms of being a loud mouthed bigoted douchebag that the world could do without.

At least he's only got a mere quarter of a million followers who like to see him do nothing but ***** about liberals, homosexuals, trans people, immigrants, gun control, feminists, blacks, Muslims, poor people, fat people, planned parenthood, rape victims, the media, green energy, climate change, wedding cakes, legal marijuana, vegans, unions, actors, musicians, Benghazi, stem cells, the ACLU, Canada, teenagers, and social justice warriors.

That dude has an abhorrent opinion on pretty much everything in the world.

I think it's likely that those folks are largely Independents & not Democrats & that many of them aren't even on the left. I'd find it surprising if these numbers are significant. I think that some number of Democrats & Independents that would've voted for Sanders will end up voting for Stein, like they did for Nader. (...or they'll just stay home, especially when voting is such a ****ing hassle, instead of voting for someone they dislike.) I think that many on the left are sick & tired of voting for the lesser of two evils & they've become desperate enough after things like Citizens United, the Great Recession, & war in the Middle East, that they might just be willing to let it all burn by letting the Republicans win, in the hopes that a bit more hardship will light enough fire under the complacent & ill-informed asses of Americans to rebuild something better from the ashes. Or not. Personally, I think the traditional hostage tactic of "better vote for Satan X because Satan Y is more Satany" is likely to continue being successful for the foreseeable future.

This thread does not deliver.

Ron Paul supporters.

So much irony here.

You have no idea

I have debilitating mental illness.

What's your excuse?

Well, I do have sympathy for you and I don't believe in excuses but if that's yours and you argue the opposite to virtually anything I say I guess my excuse must be not having debilitating mental illness.

You're a pompous ****.

I argue the opposite of what you say because while I might be a little bit broken, you're a fundamentally nasty person.

I like people who think that Hillary winning isn't a foregone conclusion. It's so adorable.

Jon'C has opined that there is energy and excitement behind Trump and little to none behind Clinton.

Trump and Clinton have been polling the same recently. General election polls don't have a lot of predictive power this far out, but it isn't a good sign.

Trump is essentially in a position where his public perception can only improve. You can expect him to spend the rest of the campaign convincing the remaining Republicans that he isn't totally unhinged, which will work because voter memory only goes back two weeks. That is a very strong position to be in, considering he is opposite a candidate whose public opinion has been in a long decline, who everybody nobody expects to win whether they vote or not, who historically and consistently fails to inspire any kind of passion in the public.

Great points. There is also the issue that Hillary might get indicted, either for her email scandal or her foundation scandal, or perhaps the party money laundering thing that is going on in the DNC.

When I look at Trump, I see a buffoon who hasn't the slightest clue what he would do, or how he would do it, when in office. He'll be the Republican Jimmy Carter, if he's lucky.

OTOH, when I look at Clinton... I see a complete sell-out. This person does not have any intention to do anything that will benefit the nation. She intends to use that position to keep doing favors for her corporate buddies.

I'll go with the buffoon any day.

I am having a hard time seeing the similarities. The best comparison so far in my mind is the one to Reagan.

Yeah, I am also really struggling to see the basis for that comparison.

Hillary is sitting on her war chest right now. She doesn't want to attack Trump yet, because he's the easiest opponent to beat, and she wants him to get the nomination. As soon as he locks the nomination, she can start replaying all the things he's said to get here in attack ads. She can use Trump's own energy against him. She'll have a much easier time getting people to show to the polls against Trump than she will for her.

White, middle class Conservative males simply can't single-handedly decide an election anymore. They just aren't large enough. Hillary will have an easy time convincing everyone else that Trump is scary enough that they need to show up and vote. The Democrats have also really refined their ground game strategy for encouraging voter turnout among favorable demographic groups.

Hillary can basically be bush 2004 this election. She isn't well liked, but she can look a lot better because she's being compared to someone worse. She'll be an unpopular one term president if the GOP can get itself at all together, but she's a lock.

Jerry Falwell told his dad to hate Jimmy Carter for no reason, so any bad politician must be the Jimmy Carter of [x].

Trump actually does better under withering criticism.

I'm not saying he's going to win, but I think it's going to be much more difficult for Clinton than anybody on the left seems to acknowledge.

White, middle class Conservative males will almost certainly single handedly decide this election if Trump is the nominee by their absence.

No, that's the whole point. He does better under criticism because the people who like him see at is a positive thing that he pisses everyone else off. It's not even about what he thinks, it's about how much the people they don't like hate him. His "energy" is literally a function of how much he can get everyone but his constituents to dislike him. He has no coherent message of his own.

All of which assumes Trump will be the same candidate in a general election he was during the primary, which he won't.

Trump's whole career has circled around careful management of his public image. Today he is managing that image to win the Republican nomination. That means he is acting insane, because that's how you need to act to win a conservative leadership. The other candidates are acting equally insane, but in a more sober and frankly scary way.

Like, you have Cruz essentially advocating Arab genocide, but people don't talk about it as much because he probably means it.

On the other hand, literally everything Trump has said and done so far can be easily played off as grandstanding for a stupid conservative base that demands their leaders act like incestuous racists.

As soon as Trump wins the nomination he'll be the experienced businessman candidate who built himself through luck and grit, opposite a professional politician with questionable ties to foreigners. There is no reason to think it'll work any differently this time, it's exactly how GOP candidates have transitioned into general campaigns for the past 40 years or so.

And then Clinton wins anyway.