2016 USA Presidential election thread II: And. Here. We. Go!

[Zealot]

I'm not going to present myself as a foreign policy expert, but if you just want my opinion on the Russian reset, I can be brief (I don't want to put up two walls of text in a row).

There was never any chance for long-term success of the Russian reset under the Obama administration. Vladimir Putin is, for all intents and purposes, the Russian nation, and he is very enamored of the idea of returning to Cold War days where the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. were all that mattered on the world stage. Russia's subsequent annexation of Crimea was almost inevitable. I don't know if there was anything anyone could have done - remember, after the Georgian invasion, Bush immediately took action and put up a show of force in Georgia, and Russia responded by just doing its own troop exercises. Putin wants people to fear Russia.

I guess I'll say that it did accomplish putting some multilateral sanctions on Iran at a critical time (which probably led directly to them being open to nuclear negotiations later on under Kerry) and that Clinton reportedly warned Obama from the start that it was naive - or at least optimistic - to think the reset would work, but she did what she could when the President directed her to. Plus, once the Syrian civil war erupted, there was just no way we were going to see eye-to-eye with Russia. The reset was never going to work, but I don't think Clinton is to blame for that, I think President Obama just didn't perceive what kind of a person Putin is, and Putin is the bottom line.

As for intervention in Libya, hoo boy. First, there was enormous international pressure to do something, so I can't fault us getting involved in the first place. However, we definitely, without a doubt, should have done more once we decided we were going to be there. Getting involved in Libya without a plan for what to do after Qaddafi was gone was a huge blunder. Maybe that wasn't our decision to make, but preventing the country from falling into chaos when it's only leader for 40 years is gone is one of those things you have to think about before involving yourself in the first place. I can kind of see Obama's situation here - the last thing he would want to do is commit ground forces or occupying forces (which was also against some other resolution, I believe, in addition to being an unpopular political move) so it was a rock and a hard place scenario. I do think Hillary wanted to push for more, but Qaddafi was also a truly wretched individual and I have trouble faulting her for wanting to seize an opportunity to get rid of him. If the lack of proper follow-up and commitment to the region was her doing, I'll fault her for that, but it seems like it was the President who was too hesitant to do more.

[Quicklet]

Those are pretty fair assessments. Given what we know now, it's hard to argue that "Don't Do Stupid Stuff" is a bad baseline policy when it comes to committing troops and military resources to conflict areas. That said, and while I have no idea if the conditions would be similar enough to allow for this, I think it's plausible that a Libyan Civil War with Qaddafi still alive could have ended up being an even worse situation that what we have there now. Counterfactuals are always hard to suss out.

As a historical matter, I think we're going to end up looking back on the Syrian Civil War as a huge moral failing of the international community to get involved, but I think Obama has done the right thing from the US perspective in minimizing getting entangled over there.

[Fiye]

http://americannewsx.com/politics/ge...mp-jim-wright/

[Xantavia]

Trump may not have any experience in politics like hillary does, but he has plenty of experience running businesses and dealing with people.

My answer to this is look at Illinois and see how well having an experienced businessman as a governor has turned out. Took around a year to pass a budget because his biggest issue was trying to bust unions. Tons of small, stopgap bills passed to get funding to state agencies. DMV's were closing because rent wasn't getting paid. License renewal forms not going out to people. They tried the same with emission notifications until the EPA stepped in. I know some people who are having to pay out of pocket for school now since there is no guarantee that certain scholarships or financial aid will be available. (School will reimburse when they are available).

I just love how there is no recognition about how horrible it is to run a government like a business. If that was true, all the state politicians would have been fired a year ago for not doing their job.

[Gredival]

The government ISN'T a business, and governance is not the same as running a business.

People make the mistake of thinking success in one venture means qualifications for another. It's like people are discovering that world class surgeons aren't guaranteed to be good NASCAR drivers.

[Thunder]

The government ISN'T a business, and governance is not the same as running a business.

People make the mistake of thinking success in one venture means qualifications for another. It's like people are discovering that world class surgeons aren't guaranteed to be good NASCAR drivers.

lots of the things that make a surgeon good aren't the same things that make a NASCAR driver good

..while, a lot of things that make a good businessman also make a good politician - especially relative to surgeon -> NASCAR driver


but that's ignoring the fact that he's a shit businessman. A year ago I was in one of these threads (don't think this one) defending how good he is, basically using figures I got from his book. Which now we know is bullshit since his ghostwriter came out and told his side of it. We know he cheated small business owners out of money all the time, we know his 4 bankruptcies aren't the worse of his business ventures, we know he's the laughing stock of all "good" businessmen (cuban, buffett, munger, afaik), we know he's lied about giving to charity, etc etc

and uh, yeah, he sucks. If someone was a great businessman, philanthropist (because really, a good businessman is ALWAYS a good philanthropist), etc then absolutely people should use that information to inform them of how well they'd do in public office. Right?

[Gredival]

lots of the things that make a surgeon good aren't the same things that make a NASCAR driver good

..while, a lot of things that make a good businessman also make a good politician - especially relative to surgeon -> NASCAR driver

Maybe if negotiating with the other side of the aisle was still vital. Polarization is at a point where the optics of compromise are so bad that I don't think it matters.

Other than that, I see no major overlap between the two skillsets. A good businessman is defined primarily as a successful capitalist. But government officials don't run the country based on bottom lines, they run it based on the lives of the citizenry. Regulation is bad for business but is at the heart of government for this reason.

[thetruepandagod]

Maybe if negotiating with the other side of the aisle was still vital. Polarization is at a point where the optics of compromise are so bad that I don't think it matters.

Cmon gred, you know better than this fatalistic shallow outlook. This is something i'd expect me to write.

[Infini]

You guys

Hillary is crazy or a full blown psychopath

And if you don't think so ur dumb

Im not from america but trump is the biggest gobshite to ever come out of the GoP camp in years. I hardly hear anything bout hillary but she strikes me as far more competent than Donald Dump. Hell he runs around making obvious blunders and mistakes or says utterly ridiculous stuff with no common sense whatsoever and lacks a coherent argument beyond rabble rabble rabble.

While its easy to say shes a liar etc when you stop and think about it politics over there seems to have reached a whole other level of saltiness that even small mistakes are potentially fatal so the less said the better. Republicans only have themselved to blame for all this they ran any important debate into the ground through stonewalling or attack everything for the sake of it. Even the whole gunsijssue is a joke as despite the fact theyre causing a massive rate of fatalities compared to other 1st world countries they refuse to tackle the issues because they dont want to admit theyre in the wrong. Even simple things like keeping assault rifles out civilian use which should be a nobrainer arent done.

American politics are the problem ultimately theyve become too bogged down with ideology rather than some common sense.

[Guyverarmor]

That sauna and gym trip must be taking reeealllly long.

And also Zealot, that was a beautiful post. Please come and run for office here in TX

[Niiro]

I agree that we should run the country like a business, and immediately cut all under-performing states from the union entirely as they are patently bad investments.

Sell them off to Canada and Mexico at a flat rate based on square mileage, would make a killing.

[Thunder]

Maybe if negotiating with the other side of the aisle was still vital. Polarization is at a point where the optics of compromise are so bad that I don't think it matters.

Other than that, I see no major overlap between the two skillsets. A good businessman is defined primarily as a successful capitalist. But government officials don't run the country based on bottom lines, they run it based on the lives of the citizenry. Regulation is bad for business but is at the heart of government for this reason.

Negotiating isn't, afaik, the biggest skill the top business guys have

Management/System-creating? Making sure incentives for your workers line up with what you want to be happening? That's like the most important part of law-making and regulation setting (afaik) and likewise, the most important part of being any sort of manager. Like (for example) making sure pay structure incentivizes what you want your workers to be doing, ex of buffett's geico bonus structure: growing business + growing profitable business are two variables for determining bonus compensation VS just compensating for increasing profit because at any time an employee would have the opportunity to grow the business he would be worried about profits being affected the first year. Which would be pretty directly related to creating laws/regulations that incentivize the behavior you want/don't want in specific ways

Long-term planning...

And if it's a guy who has a track record of sensible philanthropy and general give-backness in terms of free-education (college speeches, youtube stuff, livestream of conferences, etc etc). Buffett/Munger are people whose history would influence the hell out of me if they were to run - and I don't think I'd be wrong for doing so. Trump hasn't given back much - and the only business advice I've ever gotten from him is from some book about ABC - always be closing... which is a pretty unrespected way of negotiating by at least two big metrics (science/neurology and experience)

In fact, I think it's pretty dumb to divorce trump's business history from your thoughts on how good of a president he'd be. His business history is littered with dis-respectfulness, lies, cheating, strong-arming, thin-skinnedness, blah blah blah. I see how you could divorce how bad someone was at driving NASCAR from whether or not they'd be a good surgeon... but a top tier business history is so much more because it includes so many opportunities to glean what kind of person you're dealing with and the kind of person you're dealing with matters a lot in the role of president, imo

I could probably come up with more but is that enough to agree?

[Rooney]

Zealot would be laughed out of the state down here unfortunately.

As for why someone would vote for Hillary w/o mentioning Trump:

She has the experience, contacts, and relationships to do the job extremely well. She knows how to make progress w/o overreaching. On top of that, there's the issue of someone having to win the election. This means 50%+1. As things currently stand, dems and reps each get ~40% of the vote, with independents making up the last 20%. Even if you assume that 10% each of dems and reps would vote for third parties if they thought it viable, that still leaves us with 30% dem, 30% rep, and 40% other (which would be split between the various other parties). That leaves us with no one over 50%. In which case the house chooses the president, and the senate chooses the VP. That is not a risk I'm willing to take with the current people in Congress.

[Gryffes]

Electing trump would be a lot funnier though.
4 years of dank memes.

[Qalbert]

Electing trump would be a lot funnier though.
4 years of dank memes.

[mallister]

Zealot knocking it out of the park.

[Salodin]

I didn't know you were supposed to work out for hours at a time. I'm doing it wrong.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk

[Day]

I'll forever hate trump for the usfl

[Gredival]

“Just to be clear, I’m not saying that top Republicans were or are personally bigoted — but that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that they were willing to curry favor with bigots in the service of tax cuts for the rich and financial deregulation. Remember, Mitt Romney eagerly accepted a Trump endorsement in 2012, knowing full well that he was welcoming a racist conspiracy theorist into his camp.”

“All that has happened this year is a move of those white nationalists from part of the supporting cast to a starring role. So when Republicans who went along with the earlier strategy draw the line at Mr. Trump, they’re not really taking a stand on principle; they’re just complaining about the price. And the party’s top leadership isn’t even willing to do that.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/12/op...f=opinion&_r=0

[Mertron]

You guys

Hillary is crazy or a full blown psychopath

And if you don't think so ur dumb

and she has parkinsons and alzheimers and all the other diseases