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

[Olo401]

Well, the new people are sure keeping pace with T's endless hate & fear parade.

[archibaldcrane]

Really curious how "new Trump" manifests itself. Manafort-era Trump didn't stop him from claiming Obama founded ISIS or that if he loses it will be because of fraud.

[Sho]

Same ol BS Trump regardless of the "new" moniker.

It's all just a showpiece -- Manafort will still be his go-to, and Lewandowski is lapdog for the liberal (CNN) media. It was a good move by Trump to "shake up his staff" when the reality is that he wants the perception of his relationship with Manafort to the people to be different -- can't be seen as an overly overt Russian/Ukrainian sympathizer after all.

[zoobernut]

I think if Trump really wants to take this thing to the end and win he should add Dennis Rodman to his team that way he has a North Korea sympathizer in addition to the Russian ties.

[archibaldcrane]

Same ol BS Trump regardless of the "new" moniker.

It's all just a showpiece -- Manafort will still be his go-to, and Lewandowski is lapdog for the liberal (CNN) media. It was a good move by Trump to "shake up his staff" when the reality is that he wants the perception of his relationship with Manafort to the people to be different -- can't be seen as an overly overt Russian/Ukrainian sympathizer after all.

I doubt that the content of the Manafort mini scandal mattered as much as the fact that it drew attention towards someone other than Trump.

[Quicklet]

Same ol BS Trump regardless of the "new" moniker.

It's all just a showpiece -- Manafort will still be his go-to, and Lewandowski is lapdog for the liberal (CNN) media. It was a good move by Trump to "shake up his staff" when the reality is that he wants the perception of his relationship with Manafort to the people to be different -- can't be seen as an overly overt Russian/Ukrainian sympathizer after all.

Nah. Manafort's job was to ensure that Trump got the nomination without a delegate revolt. He fulfilled his purpose. You could tell that Trump never fully embraced the Manafort approach to be more disciplined and scripted, and now he's casting off those shackles.

Trump is much more comfortable taking advice from Ailes and from his media mouthpiece Breitbart. This is Trump signaling that he knows he's unlikely to win and he's laying the groundwork for some new media project with Ailes/Bannon after he loses in November.

I fully expect that at some point Manafort will either completely disappear or will be "released" by the campaign (before he's promptly hired by CNN for analysis) now that he's no longer useful to Trump.

[Quicklet]

The guy who wrote the Benghazi mom speech at the GOP convention says he might be voting for Hillary now.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opi...817-story.html

[Mertron]

we had hitler youth, and now we officially have trump youth

https://www.rawstory.com/2016/08/tru...out-parasites/

Trumpjugend

[Quicklet]

Is it too early to say Trump's campaign has entered the Baghdad Bob phase of denial?

https://twitter.com/ChadMosher/statu...20239293292547

[Minions]

Is Trump really as healthy as his "physician" says he is?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennif..._11565838.html

TLDR: The letter from the Physician is probably not accurate...

[kisada]

alt right jerking themselves off and each other over the bannon appointment

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...nnon-hire.html

these guys are fucking insane. i imagine everything from here on out is going to go full blast

[archibaldcrane]

Is it too early to say Trump's campaign has entered the Baghdad Bob phase of denial?

https://twitter.com/ChadMosher/statu...20239293292547

He's so confident in his "Says who?" I thought he was prepared with a devastating followup, but when he asks "which polls" and the reporter says "uh, all of them?" he just says ok.

It's a really weird challenge.

[tyven]

He's so confident in his "Says who?" I thought he was prepared with a devastating followup, but when he asks "which polls" and the reporter says "uh, all of them?" he just says ok.

It's a really weird challenge.

Haha so good. I can only imagine what he is like when practicing law

[archibaldcrane]

alt right jerking themselves off and each other over the bannon appointment

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...nnon-hire.html

these guys are fucking insane. i imagine everything from here on out is going to go full blast

The great thing about this hire is that there can be no alt-right whining when Trump gets schlonged by Hillary - no "if they had just let him do what he does best he would've won!" nonsense. They got their dream candidate being managed by their dream manager, and he's going to get dicked down by Hillary Rodham Clinton.

[Mertron]

Haha so good. I can only imagine what he is like when practicing law

"I OBJECT"

on what grounds

"idk lol"

[Quicklet]

You can be sure they will find a way to blame a loss on Paul Ryan and Reince Priebus and the NeverTrumpers for not supporting them. Or on election rigging. Take your pick.

[Mertron]

trumps concession speech (if he bothers to give one) is just going to be him saying "told you it was rigged" and then probably telling people to riot

and then telling people "I never told people to riot, it was a joke"

[Sho]

I doubt that the content of the Manafort mini scandal mattered as much as the fact that it drew attention towards someone other than Trump.

It likely didn't, but that doesn't mean Trump wouldn't want to "cut ties" preemptively if this scandal blows up into something deeper. Only he and Manafort know the true details of what's going on beyond what we know -- And what we do know so far is that Manafort was into Undisclosed Covert Ukrainian Lobbying with Rick Gates in 2012 (who is also a strategist for the Trump campaign). The level of scandal at this point really depends on how far the DOJ and/or the media will want to look into it, so I'm sure the team is better off just formally setting Manafort off to the side. Regardless of this, the media will also play this up as another "power struggle" and another "fall from grace" with Manafort.

Nah. Manafort's job was to ensure that Trump got the nomination without a delegate revolt. He fulfilled his purpose. You could tell that Trump never fully embraced the Manafort approach to be more disciplined and scripted, and now he's casting off those shackles.

Trump is much more comfortable taking advice from Ailes and from his media mouthpiece Breitbart. This is Trump signaling that he knows he's unlikely to win and he's laying the groundwork for some new media project with Ailes/Bannon after he loses in November.

I fully expect that at some point Manafort will either completely disappear or will be "released" by the campaign (before he's promptly hired by CNN for analysis) now that he's no longer useful to Trump.

Manafort's role changed from a delegate cockblocker to top adviser immediately after Trump won Indiana and avoided the VERY possible contested GOP convention at the time. All the while, Manafort is literally his biggest GOP insider on the team currently. You best believe Manafort will have a role in the Trump campaign as long as the scandal doesn't become something larger. If it does, I fully expect Trump to throw him under the bus as another GOP insider who he's fighting his holy war against.

Advice from Ailes I can believe, especially as the supposed debates vs Clinton is starting to near. However, I cannot deign to believe that Bannon will have anything else to add to the campaign team other than letting Trump return to Lewandowski's mantra of "Let Trump Be Trump," something Trump was doing at will regardless of who was campaign manager. Incidentally and ironically, there were never any shackles to cast off in the first place. Trump has always been Trump since day one. He just happened to have Manafort come in from time to time to have him "stay on message" when it was something important.

[archibaldcrane]

Really interesting profile on Bannon from late last year (it's long) https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/g...-steve-bannon/

[kisada]

that's an unfortunate leading photo