I DON'T KNOW WHERE THE BOTTOM IS • US presidential elections part VIII

re: Common Core - - - he would survive this interview question the same way he survives everything else, in that his supporters aren't looking for or interested in a detailed understanding of how something works, they're looking for identification with someone who is against the same things they are. It could basically be just a random string of words related to things that Republicans dislike about education, like idk:

INTERVIEWER: You've said some strong things about Common Core in education. Can you let our viewers know, what are your objections to Common Core and how would you address them as president?

TRUMP: Common Core, that's a great question. Well on Common Core, nobody has been more I've been saying it all along. First of all, you've got government - this is control, they're controlling our kids and all the tests. Believe me. That's outta there. You have to have standards. Obviously. Obviously. But we've got government agents. Federal agents in school, with the common core. That's gotta stop. You've got kids, they've got no jobs and it's art class, they're finger-painting in there, and our running tracks are crumbling. They're crumbling under Obama and it's a disaster and Hillary has been doing this too, all the time. A lot. And all these permission slips you have to sign, so much paperwork, all this bureaucracy so they can go on a field trip or you're getting a phone call while you're at work, little Johnny hasn't signed his permission slip and now some kids are trying to get his lunch money - and these are not your kids, these are kids, they are putting them in buses, there are all kinds of studies showing this now, kids from bad neighborhoods are taking over their own buses and nobody can stop them. It's a no-go area over there, and this is for a field trip! They're not signing permission slips in China, believe me, and they're not having to pay for Michelle's lunches - I call her "Meddling Michelle" by the way and many people have told me that's true - so all the lunch money is going to these meals, and the kids are telling me they're really yucky, all this green stuff, supposedly it's vitamins but - all this stuff. It's horrible, just horrible. And with the common core, they spend weeks in school on this, with where the earth's core is and how hot it gets, and evolution - I believe in choice, I believe parents have to decide that.

INTERVIEWER: On evolution?

TRUMP: On whether they're evolving, but I personally believe that we did not come from the earth's core but there is a lot of debate with the scientists. I think we can't really know, but people do think that if we dug all the way through the core, and as president I would support this - a Republican president put a man on the moon and a lot of people don't know that, and so I believe we can reach China. And they do not have this terrible common core and it's not fair and it's costing us our jobs. And as President I'm going to stop that and we're going to make America great again.

OTM

nice work

yr a little too good at that doctor

there's gotta be a Clue-like formula for every party and generation with that Hill tweet. I mean "Hills with Macca to CiB/Buffett at the pool" is great. if the candidate was like, the worst millennial pol, you'd get the same line with different players and site.

Good article on Hillary's low favorable ratings :

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/08/31/why-clinton-will-always-have-low-favorable-ratings-no-matter-what-she-does

Dr. C, you definitely have the Trump cadence down but your impression falls a little flat inasmuch as you're still making logical rhetorical connections (however tenuous) that are within the grasp of your average four-year-old (e.g. mentioning actual school-related issues in a common core response instead of blaming the problem on immigrants or suggesting that you might actually think apples are somehow involved).

Actually, your second hypothetical response would work well as an answer to your first hypothetical question inasmuch as it's a discussion of cores.

I also realized he probably would have also tossed in, or opened with, some reference to how good he's doing in the polls, the size of his rallies, or how confident he is about the upcoming debates. Maybe also throw in a "Justice Scalia... this wasn't supposed to happen, folks," in the middle.

you should take screenshots of these in a word document and tweet them

We would be no better than them, etc. But it is tempting. If I used Twitter I might have drunkenly done so already.

yr a little too good at that doctor

uhh, yeah. I think it hits something a lot of impersonations miss, where most of his rants sound like someone trying to figure something out for the first time in their life

Yeah, all politicians avoid answering direct questions in varying ways, but "that's a great question. Well on Common Core, nobody has been more I've been saying it all along. First of all..." and launching into a stream of consciousness word salad while thinking "what the hell do do I know about common core" is a unique Trumpism. Almost Palinesque, but with its own set of verbal tics.

@CNN
Hillary Clinton to veterans in Ohio: "We are still Reagan's shining city on a hill."

The thought process may just be "who do my supporters want me to blame for this?"

Which is why he's more assured at a rally (where he gets the instant gratification of crowd response) than an interview (where he is face only with the bewildered silence of somebody like Anderson Cooper).

xp

have a feeling that Hillary's prepping for that in the debates, if he can get him to reveal he knows absolutely nothing on a particular topic it'll be a huge win for her.

he reveals that on a daily basis

soo this Nieto meeting - what are the odds Nieto agreed to this so that he could say FUCK YOU to Trump and boost his own domestic poll numbers?

xxxpost I don't even think it's that nuanced usually. I think it's more that he gauges how much approval he's getting from his current audience and either forges ahead or pulls back accordingly. That, combined with the thing that's been reported several times where he seems most influenced by the opinion of whoever last spoke to him, accounts for a lot of his incoherence and flip-floppery. Rather than utilizing conscious thought, he's like a compass needle that's wildly spinning in whichever direction is most favorable to his ego.

xp since it's hard to really understand what he has to gain by attempting to engage trump in a meaningful way this wouldn't be too surprising.

soo this Nieto meeting - what are the odds Nieto agreed to this so that he could say FUCK YOU to Trump and boost his own domestic poll numbers?

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, August 31, 2016 2:56 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i posited this theory earlier i think that's exactly what he's doing

don't have solid details but i keep seeing that (US?) press is going to be excluded from this meeting. it will be a private affair between Trump, Nieto and their staffs, i guess? no press conference or anything like that.

so look for an immense amount of posturing and contradictory lying from both camps subsequently

haha yes there will def be dueling accounts of this meeting

trump will supposedly make remarks but not take questions.

i saw speculation that nieto made the invite to the candidates with hillary in mind, never crossed his mind that trump would accept.

classic episode

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CrHiZJbUIAENHbO.jpg:large

you know what i thought the 'binders full of women' thing four years ago was pretty stupid and this 'vagenda' meme is just as unfunny

i saw speculation that nieto made the invite to the candidates with hillary in mind, never crossed his mind that trump would accept.

yeah I heard the same...it was a formality, he wasn't actually supposed to accept

Binders full of Vagendas

please tell me there's already a vagenda of manocide tumblr out there

i know ilx is craving some posters w/ unconventional political views. i'm sure as a bright guy you can defend your preference sufficiently!

― Mordy, Wednesday, August 31, 2016 9:31 AM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

because in the end, political differences are ideological differences with little rhyme or reason. it's also about where your priorities are and deeply personal.

if an artist decides to make a living out of her art, and struggles because of it, she will not vote for lowering taxes, she will vote for something that is closer to a welfare state. she is in her right. the value of her as a person becomes central though, when choosing what political spectrum she leans on. why can't she just make a living doing something that pays more and become less reliant on the gov't? there are many reasons, often personal ones that she can have. it gets sticky. some people feel it calls into question their intelligence when conservatives say they dislike a bunch of artists leeching off the gov't.

people may fall into a particular political spectrum because of their abilities and limitations in their role in society. very few people making $75k to ~$90k (not household) say they want to give 50% of their earnings to those on welfare, so there needs to be some push-pull or demand from gov't to force them to help those struggling for a myriad of reasons -- one being that we have a mostly broken system. there is a huge gray area though, and this is where discussions get heated. talking about extreme examples is easy

but you can't blame someone who makes an honest living and has worked her way up making a 6-figure salary for wanting to be taxed less -- she can theoretically work haaard for her moneeeey, so why doesn't she deserve the money she works hard for? she has made the right choices in society to earn it. but she would be accused of being a classist and selfish by the left, which is made up of union workers and those who hold 'jobs' that are not paid much (i won't say 'valued'), but want a 'decent living'. so the conversation turns to what we as a society value and how we offer compensation to them. yes, it is unequally distributed, but this again becomes ideological. should artists or janitors get paid $55,000 a year? where does this money come from? etc.

voting for whatever candidate is never about fully agreeing with them. i know a few people who will vote trump because it's a symbolic act meaning they want congress to pass more conservative or right-leaning laws. i don't know if they're racist. but they have a family to feed and feel they have been fairly compensated given how hard they've worked. their priorities are in raising their kids and saving up for university. of course there are also blatant racists who support trump. putting them in the same bag as other trump voters is as bad as republicans saying all democrats want to turn the us into a communist country

loool https://twitter.com/PhilipRucker/status/771078880392310784

Supporting racist candidates is racist fyi

Xp

i agree that in this case, it would benefit everyone to vote for hillary clinton, and wait it out 4 years while the republicans get a better candidate. but talking to these people, they are generally frightened that they will lose so much money and will throw their lives, built on a wealth of money, sure, in disarray

was there not a thing last cycle or two about presidential candidates meeting with foreign leaders

Peña Nieto began his remarks in Mexico City alongside Trump by saying the two held a constructive exchange of views even though "we might not agree on everything." He then launched into a detailed explication of US-Mexican trade and the benefit to both countries delivered by the North American Free Trade Agreement -- a common punching bag for Trump on the campaign trail.

Donald Trump: We didn't discuss who pays for the wall

@HillaryClinton
“No matter how great the challenge, America must lead.” —Hillary to the @AmericanLegion

@DougHenwood
Bold, stirring!

Weird. It's almost like Hillary is trying to get elected President.

people don't like hillary clinton so she has to be Boring Democrat for another two months

and then for the rest of her life

Doug Henwood being an idiot is both a local and trivial phenomenon.

no, the American Legion izz eejits, howya like dem apples?

http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-cuban-donald-trump-tax-returns-2016-8

There is something reliably machine like about Henwood. I saw the other day that he tweeted something about how Chelsea's friend was taking over her position at the foundation and I guess we were supposed to be bowled over with outrage idk. It's like Doug you can take a day off from Clinton beat.

It really struck me how weird these campaigns are in the (late) digital age. Just earlier I was complaining we hadn't gotten our Hillary sign - it arrived today - but then later I started thinking, huh, I see so few signs here, so few signs of ...anything related to any election. It's like there's no election. I was just in Alaska for a couple of weeks, and saw nothing there either; once, on a small boat, the captain said there were only two ways to end up in the water, to stand around the stern when he goes over a bump or around a tight curve, or to mention either Clinton or Trump. And yet, day after day, there's all these Trump and Clinton headlines and news, like reading about some other country. Every last word, fart, miscue or burp. All taking place in some fictional Electionland.

it's a niche event, like ComicCon for faux-democracy nerds

i agree that in this case, it would benefit everyone to vote for hillary clinton, and wait it out 4 years while the republicans get a better candidate. but talking to these people, they are generally frightened that they will lose so much money and will throw their lives, built on a wealth of money, sure, in disarray

America no longer has things like community, society, a public life, acceptance for things like families and personal lives (unless you're lucky to get good amounts of vacation and family leave or have people you can mooch off of). Not only that but we've been convinced that the meaning in life is to work, spend, and die. So attacking people's money is like ego death.

Not only that, but under this "mine mine mine" mentality of extreme selfishness and individualism, life has become very precarious. No safety net, no community, and a mindset that encourages people to kick others into the abyss when they're struggling. So I can see it being threatening in this way, too.

I'm surprised we aren't having more social unrest than we are now, because the beliefs America runs under currently is directly counter to the human race's inborn social inclinations, and the reality of how society actually works. It's no wonder the US is experiencing an unprecedented rise in suicides, record low birth rates, the worst quality of mental health in the developed world, second highest rate of child poverty and infant death, and so much more, unfortunately.

once the climate change fallout gets bad, you'll see an unsettling degree of social unrest. Perhaps like Weimar Germany with flooding and refugees, at first.

If imagining posthumous apocalypse makes it easier to accept death it's not a terrible coping mechanism.