DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Presidential Campaign, Thread 8

Lester Holt, "NBC Nightly News" anchor and moderator of the first presidential debate scheduled for next Monday announced the topics that will serve as a jumping off point for his questions.
The topics include "America's Direction," "Achieving Prosperity" and "Securing America." The announcement came with a caveat that the topics could change due to news developments.
The debate, which will be held at Hofstra University on Long Island, New York, will feature six 15-minute segments over a 90 minute period with no commercial breaks. Two of the 15-minute segments will focus on each of the announced topics.

I feel like there will be an obvious winner. (I dont know who)

Mainly Trump needs to keep it civil.

As most of you know, I had been endorsing Hillary Clinton for president, for my personal safety, because I live in California. It isn’t safe to be a Trump supporter where I live. And it’s bad for business too. But recently I switched my endorsement to Trump, and I owe you an explanation. So here it goes.

1. Things I Don’t Know: There are many things I don’t know. For example, I don’t know the best way to defeat ISIS. Neither do you. I don’t know the best way to negotiate trade policies. Neither do you. I don’t know the best tax policy to lift all boats. Neither do you. My opinion on abortion is that men should follow the lead of women on that topic because doing so produces the most credible laws. So on most political topics, I don’t know enough to make a decision. Neither do you, but you probably think you do.

Given the uncertainty about each candidate – at least in my own mind – I have been saying I am not smart enough to know who would be the best president. That neutrality changed when Clinton proposed raising estate taxes. I understand that issue and I view it as robbery by government.

I’ll say more about that, plus some other issues I do understand, below.

2. Confiscation of Property: Clinton proposed a new top Estate Tax of 65% on people with net worth over $500 million. Her website goes to great length to obscure the actual policy details, including the fact that taxes would increase on lower value estates as well. See the total lack of transparency here, where the text simply refers to going back to 2009 rates. It is clear that the intent of the page is to mislead, not inform.

So don’t fall for the claim that Clinton has plenty of policy details on her website. She does, but it is organized to mislead, not to inform. That’s far worse than having no details.

The bottom line is that under Clinton’s plan, estate taxes would be higher for anyone with estates over $5 million(ish). I call this a confiscation tax because income taxes have already been paid on this money. In my case, a dollar I earn today will be taxed at about 50% by various government entities, collectively. With Clinton’s plan, my remaining 50 cents will be taxed again at 50% when I die. So the government would take 75% of my earnings from now on.

Yes, I can do clever things with trusts to avoid estate taxes. But that is just welfare for lawyers. If the impact of the estate tax is nothing but higher fees for my attorney, and hassle for me, that isn’t good news either.

You can argue whether an estate tax is fair or unfair, but fairness is an argument for idiots and children. Fairness isn’t an objective quality of the universe. I oppose the estate tax because I was born to modest means and worked 7-days a week for most of my life to be in my current position. (I’m working today, Sunday, as per usual.) And I don’t want to give 75% of my earnings to the government. (Would you?)

3. Party or Wake: It seems to me that Trump supporters are planning for the world’s biggest party on election night whereas Clinton supporters seem to be preparing for a funeral. I want to be invited to the event that doesn’t involve crying and moving to Canada. (This issue isn’t my biggest reason.)

4. Clinton’s Health: To my untrained eyes and ears, Hillary Clinton doesn’t look sufficiently healthy – mentally or otherwise – to be leading the country. If you disagree, take a look at the now-famous “Why aren’t I 50 points ahead” video clip. Likewise, Bill Clinton seems to be in bad shape too, and Hillary wouldn’t be much use to the country if she is taking care of a dying husband on the side.

5. Pacing and Leading: Trump always takes the extreme position on matters of safety and security for the country, even if those positions are unconstitutional, impractical, evil, or something that the military would refuse to do. Normal people see this as a dangerous situation. Trained persuaders like me see this as something called pacing and leading. Trump “paces” the public – meaning he matches them in their emotional state, and then some. He does that with his extreme responses on immigration, fighting ISIS, stop-and-frisk, etc. Once Trump has established himself as the biggest bad-ass on the topic, he is free to “lead,” which we see him do by softening his deportation stand, limiting his stop-and-frisk comment to Chicago, reversing his first answer on penalties for abortion, and so on. If you are not trained in persuasion, Trump look scary. If you understand pacing and leading, you might see him as the safest candidate who has ever gotten this close to the presidency. That’s how I see him.

So when Clinton supporters ask me how I could support a “fascist,” the answer is that he isn’t one. Clinton’s team, with the help of Godzilla, have effectively persuaded the public to see Trump as scary. The persuasion works because Trump’s “pacing” system is not obvious to the public. They see his “first offers” as evidence of evil. They are not. They are technique.

And being chummy with Putin is more likely to keep us safe, whether you find that distasteful or not. Clinton wants to insult Putin into doing what we want. That approach seems dangerous as hell to me.

6. Persuasion: Economies are driven by psychology. If you expect things to go well tomorrow, you invest today, which causes things to go well tomorrow, as long as others are doing the same. The best kind of president for managing the psychology of citizens – and therefore the economy – is a trained persuader. You can call that persuader a con man, a snake oil salesman, a carnival barker, or full of [censored]. It’s all persuasion. And Trump simply does it better than I have ever seen anyone do it.

The battle with ISIS is also a persuasion problem. The entire purpose of military action against ISIS is to persuade them to stop, not to kill every single one of them. We need military-grade persuasion to get at the root of the problem. Trump understands persuasion, so he is likely to put more emphasis in that area.

Most of the job of president is persuasion. Presidents don’t need to understand policy minutia. They need to listen to experts and then help sell the best expert solutions to the public. Trump sells better than anyone you have ever seen, even if you haven’t personally bought into him yet. You can’t deny his persuasion talents that have gotten him this far.

In summary, I don’t understand the policy details and implications of most of either Trump’s or Clinton’s proposed ideas. Neither do you. But I do understand persuasion. I also understand when the government is planning to confiscate the majority of my assets. And I can also distinguish between a deeply unhealthy person and a healthy person, even though I have no medical training. (So can you.)

If I'm Hillary, I bring up the topic of nukes. If you want to terrify the general public, make Trump look completely unstable and put an image in people's heads. Hillary needs to make Trump look like a mad man who is trigger happy with nukes. That would be the knockout blow equivalent to Romneys 47% comment. Maybe some are okay with that image on here, but your average soccer mom in the suburbs will freak out. Hillary needs to stick to her strength. If she's going to be criticized for being an insider, show the advantage of it and demonstrate the knowledge you possess on issues.


If I am trump, keep a cool head. For the love of God, DO NOT RANT ON TWITTER AFTER THE DEBATES. It will completely erase all the hard work you did at the debates. Kelly Anne needs to take his phone away when the debates are over for at least 24 hours. Do not look like a loose cannon. That works in the primaries, but that will horrify the undecided. He needs to hammer Hillary for being in bed with Wall Street. Hammer Hillary for her war policies.

And being chummy with Putin is more likely to keep us safe, whether you find that distasteful or not. Clinton wants to insult Putin into doing what we want. That approach seems dangerous as hell to me.

Hillary will indeed try to make him look dangerous, racist, crazy, etc. Painting him in that light as probably the most successful thing the Clinton camp has done in this election season. Will Trump be able to show enough people that is nonsense? We'll see.

And yeah, I completely agree about avoiding any rants, whether it be on the debate stage, twitter, or whatever. He has to realize that Hillary and probably Lester Holt are going to poke and prod at him and he has to keep his cool. This would be a bad time to revert back to 2015 Republican Primary form.

And getting into a trade war with China isn't scary?

I'll be interested to see who's true personality accidently pokes its head.

Will the true ruthless bitch side of Hillary unveil itself from underneath the fake Grandma display? Will the fake con artist persona of Trump come out?

If I'm Hillary, I bring up the topic of nukes.

China has far more to lose in that situation than we do. So people here can't buy "products" cheap? Cheaply made products?

Oh, we suffer because "I can't get my cheap stuff cheap enough."

China suffers in a different way. "Wait, there's no demand for the products we produce? We have to shut industries down? 1 million, 6 million people will be out of work?



China needs the u.s. as much as any country around.

So the debate is tomorrow. What is your prediction?

Will Trump act with dignity and class or will he resort to school yard tactics?
Will Hillary be presidential or will she cough and hack as she makes witch like snarks?

What do you think will happen? Have they released the debate topics yet?

Have you seen the recent beef between him and Mark Cuban?

It would be hilarious if it wasn't for the fact that our potential president reacts to everything like a pissed off teenager.

But I do understand why VR devs would not want Trump as President. Life would be like a really bad VR game then.

He can't make personal insults, period. That's a one way ticket to getting massacred in the general election.

Actually I would. But good try though assuming you know what I think.

The debate stage is where both candidates have to look presidential.

All the name calling and insults have to stop come tonight. Contrary to your obviously wrong belief, I don't want trump looking like dog crap up there. America isn't the only one watching. The world is. And I'd be damned if I vote for either candidate who gets on stage arguing like a bunch of drunks at a bar.

Yes.

Instead of mud slinging, explain elegantly why his ideas on the nation is wrong. How and why.

Trump has to do the same thing vise versa.

There's nothing wrong with saying Trumps ideas are rooted in xenophobia.

Just like there's nothing wrong with Trump saying Hillary's trust worthiness should be in question.

But she can't call him a racist. And he can't call her a liar.

This ain't a twitter war.

There are 42 days until the US decides the next president. But if a snap election were held today, Donald Trump would win. That’s according to FiveThirtyEight now-cast, a model that aggregates polling data to tell you “who would win the election if it were held today.” Trump would have a 54.3% chance of winning if the US went to the polls today, at time of publishing.

Oddly enough, the now-cast—which was built by stats oracle Nate Silver—has Hillary Clinton ahead of Trump in the popular vote—45.5% to 45.1%. However, Trump would still win the White House with his 276.2 electoral votes, compared to Clinton’s 261.6.

Of course, things can still change with more than a month left in the race. The thing is, though, Clinton’s prospects aren’t looking much better in FiveThirtyEight’s polls-plus forecast, which predicts the Nov. 8 outcome based on current polls and other factors. That model has the race narrowed to almost a toss-up.

It’s worth noting that FiveThirtyEight’s polls-plus model is a bit of an outlier here. Other models have been much more sanguine for Clinton’s chances. The New York Times model projects a 69% chance that Clinton will win in November, while Princeton Election Consortium puts those odds between 69% and 79%.

One other interesting note about an election held today: Gary Johnson, who is running as Libertarian Party candidate, would claim 8.1% of the popular vote, according to FiveThirtyEight. Sucking up some of Johnson’s vote is crucial for Clinton; in the poll-plus forecast, her win in the popular vote comes almost entirely from drawing away a bigger share of would-be Johnson supporters than Trump. Of course, we don’t need model-divining to tell us what will happen if those voters stick with Johnson. In 2000, Al Gore lost the election because tens of thousands of would-be Gore supporters voted for Ralph Nader instead.