When you need to rant...

[Drtooth]

I can get on a whole rant about Republicans here. Frankly I don't like anything they stand for. There's things I can listen to and respect, but nothing that doesn't sound on some level selfish if not outright spiteful. I totally get the reasonable conservative notion that the government wastes money. Heck, that should tick off everyone, since there is corruption and cronyism that leads to waste. But you can't herald the cry for fiscal responsibility if you're going to turn around and waste taxpayer money on trying to make a country that doesn't like us like us by giving them more reason to hate us. You can't say the welfare system is broken and poor families are sponging off it while touting the nonexistent benefits of corporate tax cuts, and worse, corporate welfare. I still fail to see why poorer people paying higher tax levels than corporations (who find ways to even screw the government out of that little an amount, mind you) is truly conservative.

And frankly, on that level, it doesn't matter what tax you're paying, the government gets theirs anyway. The less income and property taxes local governments get, the more sales tax, garbage tax, and parking/speeding ticket quotas go up. Not to mention if lower taxes during times where we need the money to fight wars we shouldn't have leads to a hurting economy, you lose money you thought you wouldn't have to pay in taxes, so instead of money working somewhere else, it's just lost. And the corporations are the ones who stand to lose the most when no one can afford to buy their products and services. Trickle Down Reagan economics has been proven to be bunk, and at best short term "gains" that lead to big time, long term losses. If anything, the consumers should get tax breaks so they can afford more goods and services, but instead the tax credits companies get pad their profits. And of course, that leads to their stock sinking when word is out no one's buying anything.

That said, reasonable conservatives weren't voting for Trump. They were voting for anyone who isn't liberal, sure, but had things gone the way they would have, it would be a very uninteresting Clinton VS Bush race with everyone staying home and Bush winning by a low margin. Certainly the Republican machine was counting on that, spending years making Benghazi a witchhunt, leading to the e-mail crap, and bringing back voter suppression laws that even they couldn't hide the fact was race baiting cheating. But the thing is, the crazy tin foil hats who usually write in some crazy, inexperienced moron in crayon scribbles are now controlling the party, and made darn well sure the worst of the already crap bunch of Republican candidates was elected because they crawled out of their hiding holes during the primaries. So now we got 2 kinds of Republicans voting for Trump. The overly loyal types that would vote a rancid half eaten burger if it was running on their ticket not matter how much they dislike it, and thousands of racist, xenophobic, crazies who believe every conspiracy theory ever, no matter how disgusting and hateful, and no matter how free from facts and evidence they are.

Here's where the two party system is ideally supposed to work. Let's say the race was Bush Clinton, and the third parties were Stein and Trump, who was wisely cast aside from the GOP, but acted like such an egotistical baby he went against his signed pledge and ran against them instead (as was supposed to happen). Now Dems and Reps would have gotten the moderate votes on both sides with undecideds going either way, but the far left and far right votes are weeded out by Stein and Trump. As in, the Two party system is supposed to make voters compromise some of their less mainstream beliefs. Liberals feel Dems are lefty enough without being too lefty, and (again, ideally) Conservatives with moderate views go for a moderate Republican candidate. Now, here's where it gets very unidealistic and all too real. While I have been saying for years the right always panders to its fringe and the Dems ignore theirs for getting the moderate and populous vote. I'm going to skip the lecture on "Proud Nader voters," since that's obvious. The right, bitter from rightfully losing to not-Bush in 2008 embraced the Tea Party and the "we have to make this president fail" movement. Mainly because they were fearful if the craziest, least informed voters got their way they'd either split the vote leading the lefties in or push out the sane Republicans in the primaries. Indeed, the latter happened, and we were stuck with a bunch of inexperienced jerks with their faux-cowboy "won't back down" obstinate behavior that lead to Congress getting nothing done, shuttering the government (which those that lead the charge and said how great Government Shutdowns were all the sudden flipped the blame on Obama), and a historically low approval rating. The big scary monster that the moderate rights created to save their skins turned on them. And that's where the place for Trump was created.

Those on the furthest of the far right fell for the Birther crap, Drumph did his best "every minute another sucker gets born" and slowly planted the seeds of his egotistical run. And the freaking Republicans supported it because they wanted the support of horrible people, and the loyal voters voted for them because they're those kind of fan boys that buy all the merchandise of a franchise just to say they have it, even if it's something awful they wouldn't want.

That said, a LOT of this stuff is through self-victimization, something perpetrated by Roger Ailes's masterstroke, Fox News. They wanted to make people actually think they were being persecuted when they've done a good job persecuting others. There was never a War on Christmas, just accidentally caving into their fear mongering with "Happy Holidays" that no one liked. Then those "I refuse to bake cakes for gay weddings because Old Testament" grown adult male bakery proprietors that say that with a straight as crap face while making a pink frilly princess teddy bear cake for a girl's birthday party. Because that's a FREAKING thing that happened. Maybe if we just let these d*** grown a&& adult babies whine and cry and tire themselves out instead of giving them any soap box about how terrible it is other's disagree with them and how they refuse to get rich off of gay people because of their shaky principles, maybe they'd stay home voting day. Ah, Fox News. A 20+ year Machiavellian, Orwellian scam.

 

[D'Snowth]

I'm being forced against my will to vote in this election, and on the exact grounds that we've discussed in this thread before: the lesser of two evils.

 

[CensoredAlso]

I'm being forced against my will to vote in this election, and on the exact grounds that we've discussed in this thread before: the lesser of two evils.

Forced? As in, someone will be watching to make sure you step up to the booth?

 

[D'Snowth]

No, forced as in I'm pretty much being wrangled and dragged to the booth.

 

[CensoredAlso]

That's annoying. And unless something mind blowingly unexpected happens, the election's most likely already decided anyway.

 

[Drtooth]

I'm not taking anything as a given here. The Republican nominee certainly didn't become the nominee because people with dangerous world views stayed at home during the GOP primaries. This was to have been a Bush vs Clinton election that disenfranchised and/or failed to get the interest of voters, leaving only the right in large numbers to essentially crown Bush the Third for two terms. And Bushes being Bushes, we'd have Operation Iraqi Freedom 3: This will TOTALLY Work This Time.

Instead, the GOP's Wild Card caught traction by the same old scare tactics, but with the racist undertones as overtones. I love how he introduced his campaign on "Mexicans are Rapists" and turned out to be pretty much rapey himself. I mean, yes, I never liked the Republicans and every 4 years they seem to become worse. On the one hand, they pretty much manufactured the same paranoid, delusional distraction techniques back in the 70's. The kind what gave us the kind of tin foil hat wearing, AM radio listening, Youtube commenting, conspiracy theory making, that the party has always kind of pandered to. But on the other hand, their refusal to move back to the center after McCain lost for being a Bushy yes-man and lumping themselves in with the Tea Party, ignoring that group's dangerous fringe kinda pushed the party over the edge. Seriously. Donald isn't an anomaly. Look at the kook who's the governor of Maine. The one that says that the opioid crisis is because black and Mexican types flood Maine with their product (they aren't, and opioid pain killers is kinda a middle class white guy drug that starts with prescriptions) and just before they leave, they screw all their white women.

That guy won 2 terms! And both times because his Democrat challengers were weak choices and the Independent choices split the vote. So, yeah. We have these dire warnings that an everything-a-phobic, fake billionaire African Dictator wanna be can win an election. Whatever you can say about Hillary, and there's plenty, it's nothing more than the problem with the Democratic Party. It's not really liberal, but it's as liberal as the country wants to get. But whatever you can say, she's competent and inoffensive. The younger voters can't get behind her because their Wild Card was kinda screwed. Not so much by the DNC, though they clearly wanted to make Hillary a thing because (and I use this comparison quite a bit) they think she's Susan Lucci because it's unfair she didn't get the nominee for years. Mostly the older Democrat voters and older feminists who really thought "Hey! We like Hillary! There's no way she can lose no matter who the opponent is!" Conveniently ignoring the fact that the Republicans have a crapload of ammo against her. DERP! Uh... for two years they hypocritically tried to make Benghazi a major scandal. Brilliant move in doing exactly what the Republicans wanted. Bernie's too socialist? Yeah, Bernie also beat Donald Grope by higher margins in national polls, where as Hillary was barely getting a lead if any.

Basically this is what we have here. Not a Donald Grump vs. Hillary Clinton election. An election between a slight step up from mediocre candidate who at worst would be a mediocre president vs a talentless clod who could only come so far in politics by very disturbingly Germany 1939 (he owns a copy of the follow up to Mein Kamph! No one said a word because the small hands jokes were hilarious), backed by dangerous people with way more power than they should have. If you're politician's back by a certain radio talk show host who literally rips off his clothes and barks insanity into a microphone about biblical aliens and demonic possession, you kinda have a despot on your hands. A vote for Hillary doesn't have to be a vote for Hillary. It can be a spite vote against Daddy's Boy Mussolini. Don't you want to see him whine and cry and throw a temper tantrum when he loses? That's going to be epic. Why would you deny the world that satisfying payoff?

And for the record, we don't have just two "unappealing" choices. Gary Johnson is a pot smoking idiot who couldn't locate Canada on a map of Canada with giant red letters saying "CANADA!!!!" and Jill Stein is an anti-vaxxing idiot. So yeah, don't make this out to be a 2 way race of "terrible" people. It's a 4 way race.

 

[CensoredAlso]

I don't live in a swing state, my vote for President won't matter much (plus there's the electoral college which already decided for me months ago). At this point, I'm more concerned with the other positions to vote for on the ticket. I don't think it's wise for one party or the other to dominate Congress. We need balance.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

don't think it's wise for one party or the other to dominate Congress. We need balance.

I completely agree, but for the time being it doesn't look like we can have it that way because most of the major republicans are selfish jerks.

 

[D'Snowth]

Tell me about it. They're trying to repeal the 19th Ammendment right now so that way Trump can go ahead and be declared winner, since current poll results are showing that most men in America are voting for him, whereas most women are voting for Clinton, so repealing that Ammendment would forfeit women's right to vote.

But get this: Michelle Bachmann is like the biggest idiot on the face of the planet . . . as if her comments about kids shouldn't watch THE LION KING, "because the music was done by a gay man," weren't stupid enough, now she's urging all American Christians to not vote for Clinton, because otherwise, that will lead women of America being sexually assaulted.

 

[CensoredAlso]

I completely agree, but for the time being it doesn't look like we can have it that way because most of the major republicans are selfish jerks.

Well I'm Independent. Both parties have their share of selfish jerks, lol. Either way this election turns out, I have no intention of celebrating.