The Next President of the United States

[The Camel]

Richard Dawkins Verified account
‏@RichardDawkins

This is your captain. I’ve no flying experience or qualifications but boundless confidence in my ability. No need to fasten your seat belts.

[The Camel]

Has a sitting President ever volutarily not run for a second term?

Does the sitting Prez ever face a challenge to be his party's candidate?

[Redsgirl]

Ooh,  it's all going on here.
People are out in force protesting, there are more police than you could ever imagine one city could have, helicopters circling,  sirens galore and they just rolled out a water cannon! 

Do be careful.

Make sure you are back in the hotel before it gets dark, wear a vest, & have a spoonful of cod liver oil & malt before you go to bed.

x

Thank you for your concern uncle Tony, I have indeed worn a vest every day, although the weather is good,  I can't say we have been back back before dark and I may have substituted the cod liver oil for a goldfish bowl full of strawberry daiquiri but we are always sensible ;-)
The initial shock seems to have worn off here now and the streets are full of people going about their normal routine and generally the mood is a lot brighter.
I don't think this is a city that pauses for long for any reason,  places to go people to see and all that.
xxx

[PokerBroker]

Two facebooks meme's that pretty much sum everything up for me. 

[TightEnd]

Cheery stuff

Click to see full-size image.

[TightEnd]

Very interesting quote from Gingrich today on the border wall. Throughout campaign Trump repeatedly insisted Mexico would pay.

£350m p/w for the NHS on the side of a bus anyone?

Click to see full-size image.

[TightEnd]

The Economist

A Trump presidency will have profound implications for the world economy

http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21709980-trump-presidency-will-be-bad-world-economy-and-worse-places-outside?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/theworldeconomyourelectionyourproblem

[Graham C]

This could be interesting

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uselection/donald-trump-could-still-not-become-president-because-of-%E2%80%98faithless-electors%E2%80%99-and-the-electoral-college/ar-AAk9Lcn?li=BBoPWjQ&ocid=mailsignout

[Graham C]

Some great photos of Obama here http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3926100/Eyewitness-history-55-Obama-photographer-Pete-Souza-s-favorite-images-s-taken-2million-president.html

[rfgqqabc]

Trump did kind of outline a plan to make "mexico" pay for the wall. I think it involved some sort of tax on money being sent from America back to Mexico via places like Western Union. Not sure it would work really, could be amazing for bit coin investors though

[Woodsey]

Trump did kind of outline a plan to make "mexico" pay for the wall. I think it involved some sort of tax on money being sent from America back to Mexico via places like Western Union. Not sure it would work really, could be amazing for bit coin investors though

No idea if the numbers tally but something like using seized drug money to pay for the wall/some of the wall would be positive PR. A lot of it obviously comes from or through Mexico.

[MANTIS01]

Politics is very much fun at the moment and I find myself agog on a daily basis. Trump, Brexit, Labour, Corbyn, Boris in the cabinet, even that UKIP fella getting chinned, it's just brilliant, the only disappointment is there's no Spitting Image on the telly.

For all Trump's nonsense he is deffo a vehicle for change and the people indicated they want change above anything else. 

Change. Yeah, easy to say, especially if you don't specify what it is. Everyone interprets 'change' as meaning the thing they want, even though their wishes may be contradictory, so they all vote for 'change'. As soon as you specify what you will do, you rule out some possibilities and disappoint some people.

Politicians used to be grilled on the details of their proposals (and how they would be paid for). Now they seem to get away with soundbites and chants about unspecified 'change'. So we got no detail on Brexit, and everyone took it to be what they had in their head, and Trump has given some details, but has mainly just given vague concepts, saying we will find out the plans later.

I don't think it is 'fun' or 'brilliant' at all. People voting for superficial reasons and massive changes occurring without the details and impacts being thought through isn't fun. It's pretty stupid, in fact - heading off blindly in unknown directions with no idea of where we will end up.

I think the point is people are so disenchanted with politics they're now voting for change, unspecified change, blind unknown change as a preference to the current situation. There's no need to have detail when, as you say, detail is no longer required. Trump has simply exploited an opportunity just like any good businessman should. I would prefer the landscape to be different where detail is required but that's not where we are. People are so sick of being lied to, false promises, no action, they want anything rather than that. So Trump winning is brilliant because it's like a forest fire, perhaps the catalyst to meaningful change in politics as a whole. 

[MintTrav]

Has a sitting President ever volutarily not run for a second term?

Does the sitting Prez ever face a challenge to be his party's candidate?

Several in the past haven't gone for a second term. In recent times, Truman and LBJ did one and a bit shifts, both finishing their predecessor's term and then having one of their one own, but didn't try for the third (second elected) term they could have attempted.

In the nineteenth century, several unpopular Presidents were rejected by their party at the next nomination round, but all except one were VPs who had moved up when the boss died. Presidents regularly died in office back then, though it has gone out of fashion now. They had all been put on their tickets to add support of particular regions or party factions, but didn't have sufficient support to win an election in their own right.

Challenges to incumbents happened regularly not very long ago, but they are something else that seems to have gone out of fashion, with none for the last twenty-four years, there having been four in the previous twenty-four year period. On the Dem side, Eugene McCarthy challenged Johnson and Ted Kennedy challenged Carter, both on the basis that they were too conservative. On the other team, Ronald Reagan challenged Ford and Pat Buchanan tried it on against Bush Snr, both because they were too liberal.

They all failed, but Reagan came very close, getting to the Convention and only losing by a few votes. He then gave an off-the-cuff speech that had many of the delegates wondering if they had picked the wrong candidate, and the media calculated that he would have won a rerun.




This is the full speech, if you want it. The rapt faces of the audience five minutes in tell a story. http://youtube.com/watch?v=zbvIo9Lebrc

[MintTrav]

How long will it take til the backlash?

It is impossible for Trump to fulfill all of the campaign promises. Some of them are contradictory, such as carrying out a vast infrastructure building programme and strenghening the military, while cutting individual and corporate taxes, and reducing the deficit. Obviously there is more to it but, when you're already starting with a deficit, you gotta balance it out somehow.

Apart from that, there is the political difficulty of getting his policies through Congress, even a Republican Congress. As noted before, getting anything done requires compromises, and it is inevitable that he will have to give up some things to get others through. Some pledges may be completely frustrated. When things don't happen, supporters may give him credit for trying or for partial success, or they may conclude that he is not that different to the rest after all.

How long til Alex Jones lets him have it? Less than two years? Obama has recovered now but, by half-way through his first term, disillusion was so rife that Democratic candidates didn't want him accompanying them in the mid-term campaign. How unpopular could Trump be with his own supporters in two or four years?

[doubleup]

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/41/politics/big-swastika-painted-outside-my-door-1638654/