Mugsy’s Pre-Debate Analysis: Four Candidates. Zero Winners.
September 26, 2016
Four candidates are left in the presidential race and all four have serious judgement issues that renders them ill-equipped to lead the most powerful nation on Earth. Most depressing of all is that one of them will win. At this point, all that is left is to hope the Congress elected along side them ensure
The names of four candidates left in this race are: “Not Trump”, “Not Clinton”, “Conservative Not Trump or Clinton” & “Liberal Not Trump or Clinton”.
That’s no joke. In this election, more people picked their candidate because of who they’re NOT than are actually enthusiastic about their choice. Are there people who genuinely LOVE their candidate this year? Of course! I’m not claiming “everybody hates their candidate”. But these people are NOT the majority.
So let’s examine those four choices and why none of them have any business serving as president…
Donald Trump.
I call him “Toddler Trump” because he exhibits all the maturity and critical thinking skills of a 14 year old boy entering puberty. Like most Teabagger Republicans, Trump believes there’s an easy answer to every problem without ever stopping to ponder the consequences. Like most Republicans, Trump is a racist that doesn’t think he’s a racist if he is friendly with a select few black people. I actually had to explain to a racist Trump supporter that there there are more races than just “black”. You can still be a racist if you are prejudiced against “Mexicans”, “Muslims”… even “blacks” despite being friends with “a few of them”. When Trump described life in the black community as “poor” with “high crime” and “rampant unemployment” and should therefore vote for him because “what have you got to lose?”, he was describing a stereotype of what he believes life is like for most black people. “Things have never been worse” for blacks he tells them. Seriously. Let’s not forget that Trump is pandering to a Party that believes “slavery” was actually a good thing for blacks because it brought them to this wonderful land. They should be thanking us for the free boat ride over.
His campaign was launched in a tirade labeling Mexicans immigrants as “rapists & drug dealers” (but “some” he diplomatically added might be “good people”.)
He called to “ban all Muslims from entering the United States”. Republicans are terrified reactionary children, so when they heard this, they swooned. Never mind the fact this is logistically impossible. I’ve joked that “lucky for Trump, ‘Muslims’ can be easily identified on sight by their purple
But long before he declared his candidacy, Trump first endeared himself to Republicans by questioning Barack Obama’s place of birth (and therefore, his eligibility to be president.) Let us not forget that at the time, Obama’s opponent… John McCain… was born on a military base in Panama (two years before a bill was passed confiring citizenship upon such births.) Arguably, McCain was the one whose eligibility was legitimately in question. But McCain had white skin.
A significant number of Trump supporters still believe President Obama is “a secret Muslim”… including Donald Trump… who has repeatedly suggested the reason he has yet to defeat ISIS is because he secretly sympathizes with them. If he didn’t secretly sympathize with
Let there be no doubt. That IS Donald Trump’s “secret foolproof plan to win the war”, which he said would be “100 percent” effective and defeat ISIS “quickly”. Trump is not nuanced. His plans are not complicated. Simply drop a nuclear bomb on them. Because in the tiny minds of simplistic terrified Republicans, all of ISIS lives in one place, attacks our troops and plots acts of terrorism from
Now, as I’ve pointed out several times before, ISIS is spread across several countries (mostly Syria, put partly in Northern Iraq… which is now
Okay, so Trump is a dangerous threat to global stability that heaps praise upon megalomaniacs like
First off, anyone who thinks our economy is worse today than it was eight years ago has no foothold in reality. No need to rundown the disaster that was
Remember eight years ago when Republicans complained that “the presidency isn’t an entry-level position” and Barack Obama’s lack of political experience was a handicap? Flash forward 8 years later and Trump’s total lack of political experience is exactly what they love about him and think is a huge asset.
A dangerous con-man who lies without shame (still says he opposed the invasion of Iraq despite being on tape supporting it), political novice with no core principles and an itchy trigger finger ready to blow up the Middle East. Oh, and did I mention
Which brings us to…
Hillary Clinton
According to a CNN poll last May, slightly more than half of Hillary Clinton’s support is simply
For someone as unpopular as Hillary Clinton, she is incredibly lucky… not just to be running against someone as wholly unfit to be president as Donald Trump… but for a Republican electorate that is SO removed from reality that saner candidates that actually stood a chance of defeating her were turfed out early (most never polling beyond single digits) in favor of the more irrational,
Hillary is not Trump. That’s her biggest selling point. Next is the novelty of becoming “the first woman president”. She’d be the least likeable presidential nominee in
I first critiqued Hillary back in February, so there is no need to rehash that again.
Clinton is a closet Conservative. As I’ve pointed out numerous times before, her first instinct on every issue is to take the Conservative side of an issue first, tacking Left only once that position proves unpopular and she is shamed into retracting it… kinda. It all depends (she eventually flip-flopped on her support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, only to say a month later that she only opposed it “in it’s present form”.) Like most Conservatives, she still supports the idea of “Free Trade” (update 10/09: Clinton dreams of
Here is a quick rundown of major policy positions Hillary took the Conservative position on first only to flip-flop on later:
We all know she authorized the use of force against Iraq (which she later had to apologize for), but Hillary is a hawk. She has always been quick to threaten the use of military force. She was on the “pro” side of aiding the ouster of Kadaffy (which left a giant
Hillary feigned an appeal to Sanders voters to close out the primary, but since then, she has reached out FAR more to Conservatives than Bernie supporters (and Clinton’s own supporters are STILL openly hostile to Sanders supporters.) And you will see in the next month as we near Election Day, Hillary will move
She says she believes in Climate Change, yet hemmed & hawed for months waffling on whether or not to support the Keystone XL pipeline (the greatest threat to the environment since the invention of the Atomic Bomb) because she believed the nonsense it would create “a lot” of jobs (damn the consequences.) Maybe we should bring back DDT while were at it? That would create “a lot” of jobs too! In the end, it wasn’t the warnings of environmental apocalypse that changed her mind, it were revelations that the claimed number of “jobs” it would produce were total nonsense, coupled with wild claims of “energy independence” that weren’t based in reality that finally convinced her it “wasn’t worth the risk”. But you know, if it has just meant a few more jobs, maybe approving “a carbon bomb” that would have spelled “game over for the environment” might have been worth considering?
She asks us, “What is he hiding?” when Trump refuses to release his tax returns, yet SHE has yet to release the transcripts of her Wall Street speeches (
Even if you believe there is nothing to the “controversy” surrounding Hillary’s emails, the secrecy regarding her email server is disturbing. One question I have repeatedly asked that I have yet to hear anyone ask her is: “Why? Why did you set up a private email server in your home at great personal expense when the State Department provided you with a secure email server (maintained by the State Department) for free?”
So why the secrecy? We may never know. My own suspicion is it has something to do with circumventing FOIA (the “Freedom of Information Act) that mandates that all
Having a private email server? Yeah, that’s “a mistake” she admits to now, just like her vote to entrust the invasion of Iraq to
Polling guru Nate Silver has predicted that no matter who wins the election, there is a 52% chance they will have a Republican Congress (both House and Senate). The idea of Trump with a Republican Congress is almost too abhorrent to bear, but
Besides both being Conservative, Clinton & Trump are two of the most secretive presidential nominees in history. They both lead to the same destination: a more Conservative America, still at war four years from now with Wall Street dictating the global economy. The only difference is whether you wish to get there by rocket sled or rowboat.
Jill Stein
I don’t have as much to say about Green Party candidate Jill Stein for several reasons, but primarily because much of her platform in the way of “actionable” policy simply doesn’t exist. And by that I mean, she has lots of aspirations, but few details on how to achieve those aspirations. And with the absolute certainty of being strapped with an uncooperative Congress, Stein has yet to put forth a case for HOW she achieves ANY of her goals.
Without question her goals are noble, but a goal of moving America to “100% renewable energy by 2030″… a mere 13 years upon taking office, just isn’t going to happen. Such an extreme position likely isn’t even necessary. If we simply cut global carbon emissions in half, we can arrest Global Warming and even start to see a decline in rising temperatures. Such childlike naivete is no less silly than Donald Trump thinking we can “ban all Muslims” or “nuke our way to peace” in the Middle East.
Two other positions that drive me crazy about Stein: Her support for “Reparations” and basically calling Edward Snowden a hero.
First, “Reparations”… the call to financially compensate black people for the scourge of slavery and civil rights violations inflicted upon them.
Once again, Stein finds herself every bit as disconnected from reality as Donald Trump. Every bit as unworkable as Trump thinking he can spot a “Muslim” on sight, how does Stein intend to determine whether someone is the descendant of a slave? Many Northern states NEVER permitted slavery, so just having an American lineage going
“Reparations” are also hugely insulting, thinking someone can be “bought off” to compensate for what was done to their ancestors (not they themselves). Believing most blacks are eager for
They’re also dangerous. Much the same way racists argued that the election of the first black president proved “racism is over” and therefore programs like “affirmative action” and the
Stein’s admiration for Edward Snowden irks me to no end as well. Over two years ago, I wrote “A Liberal look: Snowden no hero” pointing out that he wasn’t “a whistleblower”, he took a job that gave him access to NSA computers with the deliberate intention of stealing information because he wanted to be a hero. He didn’t “stumble” across information he believed the public had a right to know. He stole the information first… not knowing what he would find… leafed through that information, then decided for himself what he believed we had a right to know. He’s a Glory Hound.
And Stein wants to pardon him and appoint him to her Cabinet. That’s just stupid beyond words. Yes, by all means lets put a man who can’t be trusted with Top Secret information in charge of Top Secret information and give him the highest security clearance. It’s not like he might jeopardize national security because he wants to be a hero or anything, right?
Gary Johnson
Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities” begins: “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” That’s Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson. Something for everyone to love. Something for everyone to hate. Progressives like Johnson’s
Like Trump & Stein, Johnson has his own naive beliefs. One is the idea that if we cut the Minimum Wage in half ELIMINATE the Minimum Wage, we would create “millions of new jobs.” No. Employers don’t… out of the goodness of their heart… suddenly double their workforce (and liabilities) just because you suddenly cut their payroll in half. No, they hire based on NEED, and if their current workforce is big enough to meet their needs, they will just keep the number of employees where it is and pocket the savings.
So now you’ve cut people’s wages in half, but the price of things like oil/gasoline are set on the world market and don’t get cheaper just because tens of millions of people are being paid less. So now they must work twice as long to afford they things they used to (barely) afford.
And even if you don’t make Minimum Wage, don’t think YOUR wages won’t be affected too. Your own wages are based on the Minimum Wage. If what you earn is not cut in half, you can forget about a raise for the next few years. Don’t like it? There will be a long line of people waiting to do your job for less money.
Eventually, you dramatically gut the money supply. The amount of money flowing in the economy is severely cut. As people buy less, the demand for employees plunges. This is what happened when the price of gasoline broke $4.00/gallon in July of 2008. Everyone was spending so much more of their income on gas they has less to put into the economy. Eventually, the demand for
This is Johnson’s plan to revive our economy.
Johnson is a supporter of the “Fair Tax”… a national sales tax in place of our dysfunctional Income tax. This would be something I could get behind if it were done properly… and by “properly”, I mean exempting staples like unprocessed
In any case, some may spend more on staples than others. We would of course have to give families with more children a larger prebate (cue the cries of “Welfare!” and accusing some racial groups of having more children just for the larger prebate checks.)
Johnson is also a Climate Change denier that doesn’t believe the government should be spending one thin dime to prevent it. In Johnson’s world, if Climate Change turns out to be real and we start having problems, that’s just a business opportunity for dealing with what was once a preventable problem now at 10x the cost.
No matter who wins this election, Americans are screwed. There is little enthusiasm for ANY of these candidates because voters know:
Enjoy the debate Monday night.
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September 26, 2016
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Posted in: Election, Politics, Rants
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