The median Donald Trump article is obviously off topic for this site, but arguably his rise is also "evidence of some interesting new phenomenon" [1]. So let's try turning flags off on this post as an experiment and see if everyone can keep the discussion thoughtful.

Edit: I read the article. Trump is a natural subject for Rich, a political journalist with a (much longer) background as an entertainment critic. What makes the article good is that he takes Trump seriously and uses him to make 'serious' politics look buffoonish, reversing the usual trope. If anyone knows a better analysis of Trump, please post the link in this thread—I'm sure many readers would like to see it.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://medium.com/conversations-with-tyler/watch-a-conversa...

The article makes a case for Trump as new: a pop culture character coming to life in real politics. The fictional antecedents he brings up are fascinating. It's a good article—so good it's too bad he didn't go the whole hog and resist any usual partisan swipes, but that's probably too much to ask of Frank Rich. I'd say it easily passes the HN bar for on-topicness in a political story, though we'll still penalize the thread if it goes flamewar.

> In the short time since Trump declared his candidacy, he has performed a public service by exposing, however crudely and at times inadvertently, the posturings of both the Republicans and the Democrats and the foolishness and obsolescence of much of the political culture they share. He is, as many say, making a mockery of the entire political process with his bull-in-a-china-shop antics. But the mockery in this case may be overdue, highly warranted, and ultimately a spur to reform rather than the crime against civic order that has scandalized those who see him, in the words of the former George W. Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, as “dangerous to democracy.”

It's no surprise that Michael Gerson labels Trump "dangerous to democracy." Trump is actually dangerous to the GOP establishment and Gerson stands for that establishment.

What does it say about American democracy that it takes a self-aggrandizimg billionaire to speak openly about buying politicians and offers to be bought in a presidential election debate? It's the job of the moderators to force such an issue into the open, but they don't dare anger the party for fear of never hosting again. If you watched the first debate, you can see that Fox News was tough on Trump (as they should be), but nowhere near as tough on the rest (as they should have been). Even CNN seemed to be a proxy for the Republican establishment in the second debate.

EDIT: Ross Perot was was the last candidate to truly upset the political establishment, and he also was a billionaire. Hmmmm....

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21665014-party-f...

I've said for some time that the world is drifting back towards a place of deep political instability, and this election has the unpleasant air of looming disaster about it. Whoever is elected president is almost certainly going to be regarded as illegitimate or intolerable by a large segment of the population, due to a mix of the internet and demographic sorting a la http://www.thebigsort.com/home.php

I feel we underestimate the influence of the internet on social dynamics. It's much easier to get near-immediate social validation for any given identity group, and something about the combination of anonymity and depersonalization in discussion forums provides psychosocial rewards for antagonistic/oppositional behavior when viewpoints collide.

However, I share your unease, your feeling that Something Is Amiss.

Because of the way the American political system works, this dissatisfaction seldom finds expression ("what, are you going to waste your vote?"), but when an outsider with deep pockets appears, suddenly it can coalesce around him.

Therefore, I suspect that the question of Trump's competence is moot for many voters. If you just want to break the way the system works, four years with an ineffective president may not seem like a high price to pay.

OTOH, I find it curious that the article found no room for a very obvious real-world parallel amidst all the fictional characters Trump was likened to. Twenty years ago, another first-world country saw a political void filled by a boisterous tycoon who paid for his own campaign. It didn't turn out well, nor was it over quickly.

Same with Sanders. Just on the opposite side. He found a niche where he can cater to extremely politically correct liberals and minorities, who also feel misrepresented and feel that america is actually not liberal enough. He has to actually make an impression that he is listening to the voters if he wants to get any attention at all, since he is not getting that much media attention.

Both cases I think shows people are tired of lack of options. Main party candidates seem to be utterly incompetent, like Hilary, others seem to just continue what has been done before, so there's dissatisfaction and search for something to shake up the system. Trump fits it well.

There is no real labour party or left leaning party.

America is a country of 320 million people with a median income of $51,939. A place where people are literally flooding to legally and illegally to get a piece of the prosperity. It a place that in the past 60 years invented the transistor, the personal computer, satellite communication, the internet, chemotherapy, lasers, fiber optics, countless pharmaceutical drugs, the iPhone and Android mobile devices, the list keeps going. Doesn't sound any dystopia I've ever heard of.

Not really. Obama's policies are a lot more like Clinton than either Bush (the closest thing to "right-wing presidents" on either side of 20 years ago) -- including doing some of the things the right-wing opposed Clinton's efforts to do or move toward (both domestically, like Health Care Reform, and in foreign policy, like normalizing relations with Cuba.)

> If Reagan or Eisenhower were running they today would be considered extremist left wing communists far too liberal to ever be elected.

Well, modern Republicans might see a candidate with their views that way, though Reagan was pretty significantly to the right of Obama, who manifestly is not "far too liberal to ever be elected".

If you are an average straight white man, yeah, it sure looks like things aren't getting better. Your wages haven't increased much at all (adjusted for inflation) since the '70s.

And yeah, women and the gays and men who aren't white (though, I think it's mostly women; there are just so many more of them) are making gains every day... if trends continue, it won't be much longer before those people make as much as we do! and now they want to be treated with respect, too? Christ, when will it end!

I mean, sure, I laugh at those who have this 'white rage' for complaining that we, as white men, are now expected to treat other people with a base level of respect (as that, at root, is the intent of political correctness.) - At least where I live, this expectation is phrased more like "Please consider that women are humans too, you know, if it's not too much trouble" than anything really threatening to the status quo.

But there are a lot of people who feel genuine rage. And I don't know... My own opinion is informed by the fact that I make really good money and work in an industry where I get a really obvious (and fairly large) bonus for being a white male. Would I feel that rage if I had to struggle to make ends meet? If I had to seriously compete with women in the workplace? I like to think I wouldn't, but who knows?

(interestingly, I see a bunch of references to the idea that a reasonably large percentage of women identify as democrats.)

One direction I could take my argument is to suggest that race politics goes deeper than economics, and that women can be racist, too.

Another direction, is this idea of "identity politics" - this idea that if I see myself as the sort of person who votes for Trump for social or self-image reasons, that overrides any self-interest I may personally have in the matter, and maybe even what I think is right and just.

but... talking about identity politics is hard, because it quickly becomes circular. If you believe it because your group believes it, why does your group believe it?

I'm particularly poorly placed to understand identity politics in a respectful way, because part of my self-image is that I am the sort of person who doesn't pretend to agree with my friends; the sort of person who has friends who are different, who have different opinions. I mean, I'm sure this self-image is as flawed as anyone else's self-image, and you could poke holes in it all day, but this is my self image, and so the very idea of liking something because the group I identify with likes it seems... negative, perhaps in the same way that immigration seems negative to the trump voter.

I personally think ridicule is the right response to that sort of complaint.

My intent was to ridicule the idea, though, not the previous poster. Especially considering how the previous poster framed it as "some people think..." which is a less personal, and I think better way of arguing. I think my personal anecdotes (for example, where I mentioned that I work in an industry where I get a large advantage for being white and male) are a weakness of my debate style; they tend to make debates more personal, more emotional and, in my opinion, less interesting.

I would argue that ridicule is different from bullying, especially when that ridicule is directed at an idea rather than at a person.

But... I could also see how you could make the argument that ridiculing an idea is ridiculing the people who hold that idea. And ridiculing a person is certainly a component of bullying. So maybe it was bullying? But I also think of Bullying as a pattern of abuse directed towards a particular person, and I'm certainly not doing that

I do have plenty of friends who are openly racist and/or sexist, and while I do ridicule their ideas (and yes, to their faces, I'm not afraid to call people out.) they're still friends, so make of that what you will.

You cant even have a hard discussion without gagging one side. Its wrong.

While republicans are pretty much cancer, the left seems growing incapable of dealing with reality,because it might offend someone

I'm the sort of person who thinks Nixon was a better president than JFK. The Republicans could field a decent president if they 1. recognized what a spectacular embarrassment and failure GWB was, and that we're not going to elect anyone who is remotely connected to him, and 2. quit letting the crazy wing of their party run things. I mean, there are crazies on both sides, but when it comes time to elect a president, you pick a centrist you think might be acceptable to the other side, too.

But that aside, yeah, I just don't see how asking you to use one word instead of another to describe a person or a group makes you gagged or incapable of dealing with reality.

Take PR 101. Never leave the other side in control of the narrative. If you play by left branding rules, you will lose.

You realize, of course, that this idea that the connotation matters more than denotation is a "science" that, historically speaking, has generally been associated with the left: a association which, if I considered myself a leftist, I would find quite insulting. Those sorts of attitudes are a big part of what drove me away from the left in my late teens, in fact. (the rest was, well, mostly that I was making a lot of money; it's hard not to be a libertarian at 19; way more so when you are making lots of money.)

Barthes was an interesting writer, sure, and he brought up some interesting points, but like most leftists of his era, (ok, to be fair, just about everyone of his era.) he vastly underestimated the complexity of the human brain.

The problem with relying too heavily on semiotics is that it's pretty obvious; and it's really easy to sound like you are trying too hard to manipulate your audience; something most of us find pretty offensive. The other problem is that the connotation of a particular word varies quite a lot on the cultural background of the speaker; so while semiotics can work to whip up people who are like you and agree with you, it's unlikely to work well when speaking to a group of people from diverse backgrounds.

That's a reasonable strategy if turnout is fixed and you have a unimodal distribution of political views.

With, e.g., a bimodal distribution and turnout affected by enthusiasm, you actually want to pick a candidate as close as possible to the peak on your side of the distribution rather than a centrist.

While either of those models is ridiculously simplified, there is lots of reason to believe that the real distribution of political views and real electoral behavior is more like the second than the first.

And if its like the second but those on the far extreme, even if smaller than those near the local peak, have more extreme enthusiasm swings based on candidate suitability -- then it may make sense actually chose candidates more extreme than the near peak.

The counterexample here is Obama. Aside from his skin color, he's about as moderate and unexciting as you can get. My takeaway from the "change" bit was "Hey, I'm not associated in any way with GWB; hell, I don't look anything like him. and I sound reasonable and educated" Which, of course, after 8 years of GWB, sounded absolutely amazing. Nearly every vote for Obama in 2008 was actually a vote against GWB. My take is that the democrats could have run a literal empty suit and it would have won by a landslide.

You remember when they gave Obama the peace prize for not being GWB? The whole world was in love with him, not for what he was or what he did, but for who he wasn't.

Now, if I'm right, I think that if the republicans, say, ran Romney instead of McCain in 2008? they would have had a much better chance; not because McCain is fundamentally incompetent or unreasonable or anything like that, but because he smells a lot more like GWB than Romney does. I mean, from what I read, McCain is an actual war hero, and was heroic in ways that even a pacifist would admire, at great personal cost, and it's not right to compare him to a chicken hawk like GWB, but the truth of the matter is that, in the minds of most voters, the two are related.

Sure, I think Romney probably still would have lost, just because he was a republican and so was GWB, but he would have had a better shot at it than McCain did.

There was a lot of talk about disappointment with Obama, with big expectations that he never delivered on... but I think that was mostly made-up by his enemies. I mean, he wasn't amazing or anything, except compared to his predecessor, but he did a fine job of sounding reasonable and educated. He wasn't perfect, but he didn't massively screw anything up.

I think the fact that Obama won in 2012 supports my argument that most people see him as basically competent. Not bad. A reasonable moderate who did a moderately reasonable job.

Of course, you could also make a different argument about 2012 (and about the counterfactual run in 2008) Romney is not the sort that the republican base would get excited about. He's as centrist as Obama is. I can see myself voting for someone like Romney. (I'd take Obama over Romney, sure, but we could do worse than Romney as President. A lot worse.) And he's a Mormon... a religion that many Christians don't consider to be christian at all. You can make a very good argument, using your theory, that Romney lost because the GOP base wasn't excited and just stayed home.

My basic understanding of Obama's reelection in 2012 is that the liberal vote wasn't ready to admit how simply they had been conned by some clever marketing in 2008.

I think the set of people who voted for him that also later felt deceived by his policies is pretty small. I think that the talk of this feeling of betrayal and deception is largely manufactured by his political opponents; it's something I hear a lot from my friends on the right, and something I hear very little from my friends on the left.

The truth of the matter, as I see it, is that while he's not one of our best presidents, he's basically competent. He does his job, and after GWB, I think most people see a guy who can do the job with a basic degree of competence as pretty great.

What does this mean, is it irony?

UK person here, genuinely confused.

No one is arguing against this in particular. Conservatives believe women are human. They're also not all white males. I really hope I do not have to cite sources on this.

You just can't make such a sweeping claim without at least giving examples.

Asking for citations has, from what I've seen in the past, ended with people giving citations of what they think constitute a bias that the other side doesn't consider a bias.

>I mean, sure, I laugh at those who have this 'white rage' for complaining that we, as white men, are now expected to treat other people with a base level of respect (as that, at root, is the intent of political correctness.) At least where I live, this expectation is phrased more like "Please consider that women are humans too, you know, if it's not too much trouble"

In other words, my experience of 'political correctness' is being paid, every now and again, to watch amateurish videos that boil down to the message "Please consider that women are humans too, you know, if it's not too much trouble"

You can see how this would color my opinion of the people who complain that "political correctness has gone overboard"

It's possible that there are times and places where political correctness really is oppressive; Considering my life experience, though, I find that to be pretty unlikely, but who knows.

Brendan Eich knows.

I think the issue there is how the internet has taken mob justice to the next level, not political correctness; it's a phenomena of both sides of the political spectrum.

It's kind of a scary problem, because we've all done something that offends someone, and what makes the difference between something offensive you've done that nobody cares about and something offensive you've done that makes you the five-minute hate for half the world looks a lot like random chance to me. This sort of thing could happen, really, to any of us at any time.

Mostly, though, I think the idea that "we are sick and tired of political correctness" should be ridiculed in the same ways and for the same reasons that I'll make fun of co-workers who complain about a variance in the (usually excellent) free food and booze that we're given on an all but daily basis.

I don't think I've ever heard someone complain about political correctness run amok, and had it turn out that they weren't just complaining--in careful language, mind--about uppity black people or women trying to rise above their station (i.e. the kitchen).

You might not be referring to that, of course. What do you mean about "sick and tired of political correctness"? And what demands are being made that are so burdensome? Is it the stuff about not assuming muslims are terrorists, or not assuming brown people are illegals? Is it the bit about not tossing around phrases like "anchor babies," or the thing about putting a woman on a common denomination of currency?

But if you want to keep thinking it's about respect and not abused by people, sure, that's pretty noble.

As for being harassed or chased, again, it seems like, if there's any merit to that accusation of harassment or "chasing," the beleaguered not-politically-correct victims of that could, you know, call the cops or file a restraining order or whatever.

Those are actual real-world behaviors you're accusing the political correctness police of making, but I guess I just don't buy it. Well-meaning, respectful people are being "harassed" or "chased" by some foul political correctness police? Pull the other one, it's got bells on.

And if a person wants to state something crude and obviously insensitive and get sent to a forced labour camp, it's their own God damn fault for being insensitive to the dear leader(s)

You don't get sent to a forced labour camp in civilised countries. You get ostracised, to be fair they probably deserved to be silenced because they are bigots.

It's actually kind of difficult to believe that you're really saying that--the PC police can't lock you up, can't send you to the gulag, but they can shame you on twitter!

That's no consequence. That's nothing.

As for Seinfeld not getting much of a laugh out of college kids anymore, I'd say he made the critical error of having dated, boring material. Humor's always changing, comics (unless they want to move into the corporate retreat humor circuit) got to keep up with the times.

Telling the audience they're in the wrong for not finding the old material funny? Now that's a good joke.

Which leads to job loss and career damage because you have a mob of 10,000 twats with nothing better to do than complain on Twitter to anyone who even so much as thinks of hiring your "racist ass" because you shared an article about the military armor having chinks in it [0]. Or do you think the Army was being racist? That's what people are terming as "PC" and "overly PC".

>Telling the audience they're in the wrong for not finding the old material funny? Now that's a good joke.

Comedy and tragedy go hand in hand. When someone is unable to make humor out of tragedy - you lose comedy. There is a reason that, outside of wordplay, most jokes play on disasters, stereotypes or outrageous scenarios. If you think you know a joke that isn't a play on words or isn't based on a stereotype, feel free to share it. I can't even think of one.

While I do have some respect for rakugo performances [1], it's not something a lot of people can get into. An entire comedy based on nothing but wordplay and puns only fits a niche audience. Maybe more people who do nothing but puns and dry humor should tell jokes at college campuses?

Joke: "I spilled some spot remover on my dog. Now he's gone."

Expected College Campus Reaction: "Animal abuse!!!"

Nevermind. Dry humor off limits too.

The college niche dislikes politically incorrect jokes. While colleges have always leaned pretty liberal, in recent years academia has gone absolutely crazy over gender/identity politics. Anyone who so much as laughs at a potentially-racist-joke gets shunned by their peers as a racist. So yes, it's fair to say "college kids are just too PC for the jokes" when they're still successful everywhere else and even among the same age range but with different, and less PC-extreme, political leanings.

[0] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-army-del...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakugo

There is a lot out there you could use to learn more about this. Some starting points:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid...

http://www.amazon.com/So-Youve-Been-Publicly-Shamed/dp/15944...

As for the euphemism treadmill, or the ridiculous proliferation of personal pronouns, hey, if you don't care about or respect the people who are asking you to use those labels, don't use them.

That's what it comes down to--respect. Do you want to show others the respect of using their preferred words? Fine, go for it. There really isn't any law you're breaking if you don't show them that respect. It just means you don't want to show them that respect, for whatever reason you choose.

What's so funny about the great PC-hate is that people sit there and complain that others are spending too much time being PC. Now just imagine those same fools complaining about others spending too much time on their personal hygiene, pretty ridiculous eh?

What's even more funny is that some people think that politicians could be non-PC and do just fine...do smelly kids get picked first or last?

If you think about it, PCness is such a non-issue that it really brings to light how completely botched the US political climate is. If you spend the time to post a diatribe on PCness, you are supporting non-thoughtful/non-constructive discourse on important issues. You probably think bathtime is stupid and you probably think careful, respectful communication is just too much effort. Well, sorry to burst your bubble: politics are EVERYWHERE. Everything we do is awash with political forces and the more effort/thoughtfulness/care you put in to dealing with them, the more you will gain (at least the respect of your peers). On the flipside, the more you choose to ignore PC, respect, etc., the more you will find yourself an outsider and a pariah.

So the next time you read/hear someone expressing the ills of PC or the joys of nonPC, just imagine they're school-age kids complaining of the degradation of bathtime or waxing poetic about the virtues of smelliness.

Political correctness has not gotten rid of bigotry or disrespect. It has merely been used as a silencing tool for opposing view points. This is why so many people (like me) are against it.

In the world that political correctness describes, the ex-Mozilla CEO wouldn't have been bullied, personally attacked, and disrespected until he was forced to resign from his position.

The guy that killed Cecil the Lion wouldn't have been bullied until he was forced to close his practice.

In many cases, people are destroyed before any of the evidence has been evaluated. Justice is now who has the loudest voice and how fast they can get a hashtag army against you. The truth doesn't matter any longer.

I thought we were supposed to be about more respect, less bulling, and actually creating a better world for all. Instead, it's a better world for only the people with a very specific narrow view of the world.

"And stop being so damned disrespectful."

The problem is that many people can't even respectfully disagree any longer. Even here on HN, I respectfully disagree constantly, give many good thoughts and ideas, but like many places, it's no longer acceptable to have an open and honest conversation.

The other problem is that somebody will almost always take any opinion as 'disrespectful' and you can't please everyone.

This entire thread has comments that are disrespectful toward Trump and anyone that supports him. You really need to ask yourself why this is allowed on a forum like HN, but if you said the same exact thing against Obama or anyone on the other side, you would be silenced.

You can't be against bigotry, bullying and disrespect and then go ahead and do the same thing to people you don't personally like. It invalidates your entire argument and makes you look like a fool.

Political correctness is rotting the country from the inside and will only be the downfall of our freedom.

Why is being anti-Trump considered pro-PC? What specific statements do you consider disrespectful? I'm sure there are equivalent criticisms of Obama on HN, at least in terms of civil liberties as it relates to hackers (anti-NSA surveillance, pro-Net Neutrality, anti-drone). They can be found.

How can something be even called "politically correct" when one lives in a society with multiple parties and political viewpoints?

Is online shame culture inherently PC? Why is Cecil the Lion considered PC, while the online (and other media) campaign against Planned Parenthood, or ACORN, not considered PC? All include using the internet to create viral outrage.

If you want to be against online shaming, sure be against it. If you're against excessive actions done in the name of leftist or liberal beliefs, then by all means be against them and be specific. I would be in favor of either of that. But don't try to call it under some nebulous bugaboo, a caricature.

What about getting fired over a private joke about forking a repository?

It's like the reactionary wing of an entire generation grew up getting their political education from watching South Park.

Both seem like valid points, which need to be understood by everyone who hates the idea of Trump as president and hopes to find a way to defeat him (myself included).

Other than that the president himself can be just a figurehead for entertainment.

Trump clearly knows how to hire good people, so while I would not vote for him, I'm also not really worried about what will happen if he does win.

If you think about it, the skillset needed to win an election, is not the same skillset you need for making good calculated decisions.

So IMO we really should not be evaluating candidates on their personal qualifications, but rather on how good they are at hiring good people to do the real work.

What gave you that impression?

You don't do things yourself at his scale.

No, that's not true.

A minimally competent president, at a bare minimum, needs to be able to hire good people -- who are experts in fields where he is not an expert, in many cases -- and to effectively manage those people, including resolving disputes between them (including in areas where he is less of a domain experts than they are.)

While some of this can be delegated (e.g., to the White House Chief of Staff), ultimately, anyone to whom this is delegated is going to still need to be managed and be involved in disagreements that need to be resolved.

Little evidence Trump is a war monger.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/21/iraq.hillary/

Biden was on a similar timeline (that was still faster than Trump) from May of 2004;

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/4992558/ns/meet_the_press/t/transc...

> It took a village of birthers to get Republicans to the point where only 29 percent of them now believe that Obama was born in America (and 54 percent identify him as a Muslim), according to an August survey by Public Policy Polling. Far from being a fake Republican, Trump speaks for the party’s overwhelming majority.

Edit: http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2015/08/trump-suppor...

someone please tell me that is a joke.

  58% believe in The Devil (26% don't)
  47% believe in evolution (29% don't)
  42% believe in ghosts    (37% don't)
  36% believe in UFOs      (35% don't)
  26% believe in witches   (54% don't)

@18:39 "With all due respect sir, are you running for president just to meet women?"

I was going to provide a youtube link, but this isn't the place for piracy. Feel free to find it yourself.

I do believe there's something fundamentally wrong with politics as it exists today. This is heresy in some systems but I am someone who believes texts written hundreds of years ago cannot possibly remain viable, current and applicable. Certainly not in their entirety.

Yes, I am daring to suggest that the US Constitution might need some tweaks here and there. And, of course, the problem is this is just about as impossible as me flying using two feathers.

You have people in Congress who simply will not go away. If we gave them one or two terms and somehow encouraged young/er people to come to the forefront things could look very different.

Then there's the question of how our form of government might very well have devolved into something that conspires against the very progress we need to make. The last few decades have been characterized by not being able to do much of significance other than wage war. We do that very well. And it is sick. Yes, yes, I get it. But, fuck me, when is the world going to figure out how to coexist?

Yes, part of the problem is we still have whole regions operating from the mentality of pre-medieval humans. That's a huge problem. I am not smart enough to know what the solution might be. It could be somewhere between total isolation and total intervention. Don't know. These things ultimately lead to wars. I wish someone would come forward with the one genius idea to bring some stability to this planet. As intelligent as we are we seem want to prove we are a species that is content allowing a very small percentage of our people to just fuck things up beyond recognition. Most people are good. Yet, most people do nothing when the assholes piss all over what's been built for centuries.

Back to Trump. I have long contended that we, the US, need professional accomplished business people running the show. Contrary to what some might want to believe, business people, even those running large corporations, are not evil. Yeah, some are. The vast majority, by far, are not.

What Trump is putting on the table in no uncertain terms is the difference between "normal" people and politicians. And, to go farther, entrepreneurs or business people in general and politicians. When you listen to the two dozen professional politicians in the presidential race it isn't hard to see everyone is playing back the same old recordings. Sometimes I wonder if they have a pull-cord on their back like Woody that plays back the same old shit over and over. They say the same things, with the same neutered-human tone they've been saying for the last 50 years or more.

Trump comes along and their brains short-circuit. They have no clue. There's a general approach to business and entrepreneurship that does not jive with the way politicians work. The idea of attacking problems head on, proposing and testing solutions, quickly discarding what doesn't work, throwing fuel at things that do, being fiscally conservative yet not being shy about making large investments that will pay off with time and, in general, operating from the idea that we don't have to know everything before we get going.

How many of you started your businesses knowing absolutely everything there was to know about that business and having it all planned out before you even launched? Right. The more likely scenario is that you launched without fear, wearing your ignorance as a badge, and figured it out as you went along. Some things you just can't know or plan.

I am not proposing Trump is the solution. For me he still sits somewhere between a clown and a genius. I have no clue where this is going. Right now, it's interesting. I wish he'd spend more time showing the world how things are done outside of politics rather than lobbing insults at people. I sometimes secretly hope this is part of his media plan. One where, once half the herd has been killed off will have him get in front of the camera to spend a solid hour or two explaining his plans and theories as one might expect from someone who came out of Wharton and has as much real-world experience as he does.

Yes, I am disgusted with politics in the US. We are going nowhere. We are certainly not moving forward. With every passing year we fail to change our ways it will become exponentially more difficult for anything to have an effect. One has to be in awe of what a country like China has accomplished during the last, say, 25 years. Without really bold action we are all living through an era that is producing a massive industrial, financial and intellectual shift in the world.

I am convinced that not one of the professional politicians running today, regardless of party, has the ability to do a darn thing about anything. They are in it to win for their own sake. Once in, they'll be gutless and powerless. Not saying Trump is the solution. Yet, "they" are not the solution either.

If anyone has a chance at derailing my beliefs so far, it's been Scott Adams (of Dilbert) and his ongoing series of blogs posts about the 'Master Wizard Hypothesis' [2]. He's essentially arguing that linguistic wizardry can trump (sorry) policy and credibility, and that the Donald is a master. Likely for entertainment purposes only, but he's been right on this matter more than Nate Silver so far! Every time you see 'low energy' Bush, 'nice guy' Carson, or 'that face' Fiorina in the press, Adams makes more sense.

[1] https://twitter.com/jacobaldridge/status/632163459388432384 [2] http://blog.dilbert.com/

What if he parlays this into a VP position? Every other candidate would fall over themselves to grab his market share.

I suspect Trump would view it the same way. Whereas Rubio is well-placed to parlay a VP run in 2016 into a title fight in 2024, I can't see Trump wanting to be someone's second in command.

It's part of why I think he'll drop out - when the poll numbers crater, he's got nothing to fight for, and for his brand he's better off throwing some mud (whatever Master Wizard is for "the Establishment is working behind the scenes to ensure I'll never get the nomination") and walking away than he is waiting to record 2% of the votes in Iowa.

You're pretty much Washington royalty without having to do very much (except run the Senate, which he'd get a blast out of).

This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here... like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public Sucks. F#ck Hope.”

-- George Carlin

But you really need someone who's supposedly in it for real for things to look really, really weird. A case of the Uncanny Valley effect?

Trump will definitely make a full run at the Presidency if he believes he has a chance - and it appears he does. This guy wants to be the President. This is not a publicity stunt, if it ever was.

Continuing to pretend he's a cartoon character will just make the hangover worse.

Disclaimer: I am not a Trump supporter.

He was playing quite a "role" when he was the first president to try to end, rather than contain, the Soviet Union, and then achieved that.

There is no concrete way in which his policies were more substantially more aimed at ending the USSR than containing it compared to prior administrations (in many ways, it was perfectly within the range of approaches taken by prior regimes; the most substantial differentiating element that people tend to point to was the big ramp up in defense spending -- which was a policy initiated by Carter at the end of his term.)

And his administration did not achieve ending the USSR, either.

    The best news about Trump is that he is wreaking 
    this havoc on the status quo while having no chance 
    of ascending to the presidency. 
    You can’t win the Electoral College in 2016 by driving away women, 
    Hispanics, blacks, and Asian-Americans, no matter how 
    large the margins you pile up in deep-red states.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/21/donald-trum...

The idea that all minorities hate him probably sits well with your wishes and that of the author of the article but it's not necessarily true.

"This idea may seem jarring, given that Mitt Romney took just 27 percent of the Hispanic vote in his 2012 loss to Mr. Obama, according to the exit polls, while George W. Bush won about 40 percent in his 2004 victory. But in 2016 Hispanics will represent just 12 percent of eligible voters, and between 9 and 10 percent of actual voters. That’s a lot, but it’s not large enough to grant or deny Republicans the presidency.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/21/upshot/hispanic-voters-are...

Not an an endorsement of candidate or party but simply pointing out mis-information by special interest groups.

As an outside observer ( I am German), I think that the theory sounds interesting. However, it is possible that he tries a different maneuver to win the general election. His refusal to found a PAC may mean, that he plans to run on an anti-corruption, Washington outsider platform and basically form a analogous coalition as Syriza did in Greece. Syriza's coalition partner is a right wing populist party, they basically formed a anybody but the old boys club coalition. And my guess is, that assuming Hillary wins the Democratic nomination, there are quite a few moderates who find such a candidate attractive, even if he is a reality TV star.

[0] http://www.dancarlin.com/product/common-sense-295-trumping-t...

Jeb definitely looks "pro-Hispanic" compared with Trump. He even learned Spanish!

I, for one, have given up on hoping the government will enact forward thinking policies.

"But the party’s real stand on the sanctity of female biology had been encapsulated in the debate by Walker’s and Marco Rubio’s endorsement of a ban on abortions for women who have been raped or risk dying in childbirth."

Real? That's about where I want to stop reading the OP.

Why? I know that for me eighth grade civics was a long time ago, but as I recall (1) the SCOTUS case of Roe v Wade that made abortion legal is now 40+ years old; (2) to change that decision need (A) a lot of what would be, say, unlikely new SCOTUS nominations or (B) a Constitutional amendment that would take 2/3rds of the House, 2/3rds of the Senate, and 3/4ths of the states. So, first-cut, intuitively, IMHO, for either (A) or (B), any way to have "a ban on abortions" is decades away. Considering how often we have Constitutional amendments, maybe centuries.

Real? Talking about "a ban on abortions" is real? I don't think so.

Presumably, then, you'd expect any serious competent candidate to know this and not make statements suggesting that such a thing could happen?

(I'm in the UK, we have our own flavour of crazy.)

Then, one level deeper, the reason a politician suspects that talking about making abortion illegal would lead to votes is (A) many voters regard abortion as murder of a human life, (B) an appeal to the strong moral objections to murder, (C) an appeal to the desire for traditional family values that cherishes children and, thus, finds abortion repugnant murder, (D) etc.

So, with (A)-(D), can hope to get some voters up on their hind legs, get votes, win, take office, have power.

IMHO, that's the usual explanation.

Again, my point here is not about pro/con on abortion but just on the process and politics: In particular, with my understanding of the US legal system, talking about making abortion illegal is talking about something that has slim to no chance of happening, divisive, a distraction from issues where something might be done, a spit to windward, etc.

A conspiracy explanation would be that the US Republicans have a list of favorite issues, heavily to make the rich richer, don't want to talk about those issues in public in political campaigns, so come up with issues, e.g., abortion, that will serve as misdirections to permit winning elections without talking about or addressing in public in campaigns the real issues they have in mind. For more, the explanation goes that wealthy backers of the Republicans, e.g., the Koch brothers, with their money for political campaign contributions, are setting the real agenda of the Republican party and pulling strings of the candidates as if they were all puppets.

For me, I don't know how real that explanation is: E.g., I know next to nothing about the Koch brothers or other candidate string pullers. And I don't know the extent to which politicians have strings to be pulled.

Money, Koch brothers, strings, puppets, all aside, again, just from the process, I see slim to no chances of making abortion illegal within 100 years so am irritated that our political process and the OP are still talking about abortion as if there might be some change in the law. So, I find the OP not very real and, thus, find some irony in the OP talking about Trump as not very real.

Then, is Trump real? Tough for me to know: His poll numbers are, for whatever they say that is real, look real. His main slogan about "great again" is not very, say, solid as in, say, a legal document, a research paper in physical science or mathematics, an engineering document for, say, a long bridge, a detailed business plan, etc., but, then, for whatever reasons, US politics doesn't have a lot of documents nearly that solid.

So, if must evaluate a politician, and if vote then do have to do that, then have to go on evidence less solid than would want. Or, maybe pay attention to the least un-solid evidence can get.

It looks like politics is not very competitive, that is, doesn't offer very solid products, so that in comparison, if the auto industry were that uncompetitive, then the average distance a new car could travel without falling apart would be about 10 miles -- on a good day!

I don't want to evaluate Trump or any particular politician here. Instead, again, my point was to question how real the OP was; at the place I indicated, I found the OP to be not real enough and soon quit reading. So, I was shooting at the OP. So, I'm not really discussing politics or even abortion but just editorial writing.

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

ADDED: See this for extensive discussion of the practice of "jurisdiction_stripping": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisdiction_stripping

That national level Republicans have never tried in the abortion domain suggests to me how much they really care about the issue.

I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that, really, there is nothing Congress can do about a SCOTUS decision such as Roe v Wade just by passing a law and getting the POTUS to sign it. And should a US state pass a law against abortion, the legal system would instantly use Roe v Wade to strike down that state law.

If all that is so, then the only way to make abortion illegal is to reverse Roe v Wade, and there are only two ways to do that, (A) have another case brought to the SCOTUS and accepted for review by the SCOTUS and with enough new justices to reverse Roe v Wade and (B) have a Constitutional amendment with, as I mentioned, 2/3rds of the House, .... IMHO, the chances of either (A) or (B) within 100 years look slim to none.

If all that is correct, then talking about laws against abortion is some form of self-abuse or manipulation of others and less useful than a spit to windward.

Again, I'm just talking about process, not the pros/cons of abortion.

So, maybe with some interpretations of jurisdiction stripping, Congress and the POTUS might pass a law saying that the SCOTUS has no jurisdiction over cases involving abortion and then pass a law making abortion illegal. Maybe. I am getting a suspicion that maybe jurisdiction stripping could not be used for that little two step dance.

And, if that two step dance could be used, then, sure, it's curious why a Republican Congress would not start to take those two steps. For me, I don't know. And the OP didn't talk about such a dance step either! Mike Huckabee seems highly interested in making abortion illegal, and the OP mentioned two more candidates trying to outlaw abortion even in cases of rape and danger to the mother, but, still, I've heard them say nothing about jurisdiction stripping.

Out'a my depth!

It can; as noted in the article, it's been used in the '90s and '00s, as well as long ago, and for things much more fundamental than a right conjured by the Supremes from the "penumbras" and "emanations" ofother parts of the Constitution (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut).

Note that ultimately the Supremes are just a group of 9 men and women (who e.g. all went to the Harvard or Yale Law Schools...). The President, Executive and the Congress can simply ignore them, impeach them, etc., they just can't cut their salaries ("The Judges ... shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.").

then, sure, it's curious why a Republican Congress would not start to take those two steps. For me, I don't know.

Curious indeed; I assume at 0th approximation that the majority of them, if not the vast majority, don't give a damn about what they were ostensibly elected to do.

Or perhaps prefer not being called bad names by the rest of the establishment for doing that, in which case we're a lot closer to understanding Trump's appeal.

In other words, the Supremes and lower Federal courts provide an important political function by allowing politicians in the other two branches of government to claim their hands are tied on a whole bunch of issues where they'd otherwise have to take a real stand and maybe afterwards have to spend more time with their families.

Typo correction: my 9th grade civics class was in 1975, not a few years before the death of William the Conqueror ^_^.

Outlawing it would be horrible for them because it would not only make them lose a major issue (to the voters) to run on, it would also galvanize the opposition. The baby steps met by the courts slapping their hands is the best option for showing the voters 'see, I tried, but the nasty mean courts said no, but if you vote for me again I'll give it another try'.

Of course with so many voters who honestly believe in outlawing it, you will end up with some politicians who honestly want to outlaw it and not just use it to gain votes. But this group never gets large enough to change things in any significant ways.

The only use listed in the '00s in the linked article was an attempted use which was (as identified in the article) unsuccessful, as it was itself struck down as a violation of habeas corpus.

I mean, if the Supreme Court ruled tomorrow that the person behind the Hacker News login name "dragonwriter" could be killed without legal consequence by anyone, would it be constitutional?

Are you absolutely, positively, 100% sure you want no checks on the Federal courts besides impeachment? Perhaps read Livy's history on the period of the Decemvir's tyranny if you still say no.

Sure, any decision can be ignored. But then why even bother with jurisdiction stripping at all?

> I mean, if the Supreme Court ruled tomorrow that the person behind the Hacker News login name "dragonwriter" could be killed without legal consequence by anyone, would it be constitutional?

How is that relevant?

> Are you absolutely, positively, 100% sure you want no checks on the Federal courts besides impeachment?

How is that relevant? Specifically, where have I argued in support of such a proposition? Its like you have a canned rant that you are posting without any relation to the post it is in response to.

Because it's an explicitly enumerated provision in the Constitution?

How is [a Supreme Court decision proscribing me] relevant?

To try to make the stakes clear if your end all and be all of constitutionality is what the current set of Supremes decide?

Its like you have a canned rant that you are posting without any relation to the post it is in response to.

We're obviously talking past each other, so I'll stop.

And thanks to another unintended consequence of the GOP 's Citizens United victory, the PACs it enables will keep hopeless presidential candidates financially afloat no matter how poorly they are faring in polls and primaries, thereby crippling the party 's ability to unite early behind a single anti-Trump alternative...When Trump 's presidential rivals attended a David and Charles Koch retreat, he tweeted: I wish good luck to all of the Republican candidates that traveled to California to beg for money etc...

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Until a valid birth certificate is submitted, along with all the other bare minimum variables/requirements validated, is there a valid president, or has this role been null and void the entire time? I wonder.

https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/is-your-child-a-us-citize...

"As with other areas of immigration and naturalization in this post-9/11 world, the guidelines change often. As such, these rules only apply to those children born on or after the effective date of the CCA."

I'm not even sure this applies to Obama, so again, the validity is questionable.

So anyways, we would just need to validate the rules with all presidents. Where can we currently view that these rulesets have been validated and view their corresponding documents? Does anyone know? This seems like a somewhat important question if someone wants to be called president.

Also, why did you bring up race? This validation process should be applied to every potential president regardless of race. Politely, get off your politically correct high horse.

Comments like this break the HN guidelines about civility. Obama's birth certificate surely also qualifies as a "classic flamewar topic", so you've broken the guidelines there too. We ban accounts that do that repeatedly, so please read and follow them when posting on this site.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

Understandable. I take that comment back, I respect the opinions of people here on hn more than that of other forums.

> Obama's birth certificate surely also qualifies as a "classic flamewar topic", so you've broken the guidelines there too.

Not trying to start any flame war, just wanted to know if anyone validated these variables, just as you would ensure a class was properly initialized before calling its getters. Purely after the data.

> We ban accounts that do that repeatedly, so please read and follow them when posting on this site.

Very well. Thank you for the subsequent information.