Moderator hat on. I'm removing a few posts with personal attacks, or attacking the news media, and some conspiracy theories that all have nothing to do with presidential discussion or debate or policy. If there are replies on those we'll need to lock the thread and end the discussion.

Discussion and speculation about politics and policies is fine and encouraged. Insults, personal attacks, conspiracy theories, and similar are not.

Let's return to the topic of presidential candidates, please.

This discussion so far has been fairly good about sticking to politics even though we've had several reports asking to close it.

We can have political discussions without it devolving to personal insults and conspiracy theories, and ultimately agree to disagree if ideas don't align.

Showing that both of those are false, why does Hillary get a pass when she was good friends with someone who founded a KKK chapter and made a video publically saying how great of a man he was?

What has Trump done that's worse than that?

This is why I always bring up how horrible our media is/how it always tries to spin stories. But it's also the reason why Trump surged after that David Duke incident. The general public was able to see through the bullshit and it worked out great for him. At the rate he's going, he'll probably have a pretty large lead as we get closer to November.

I thought about this when I first saw your post, but I wanted to wait a day or two after DNC

There is so much desperation to defend/find_excuses/support Trump that even very smart people momentarily become subjective (and illogical) .

I mean how come you use a poll just after the RNC week, when all focus was on Trump only and before DNC week and make conclusions that support is now shifting towards Trump? Why not wait till the dust settles after both RNC and DNC? Its barely 2 days after DNC, now how about this polls nose dive for Trump just after 2 days-

[attachment=32758:election polls.jpg]

And about giving Robert Byrd a life sentence over an action he regretted over 50 years ago ? Lets not even go there....

Edit: Thinking about the polls again, this may not be as wrong as I thought originally (though still not completely right either) ... it seems you are using a more long term trends than I initially thought, the David Duke incident is the marker (i don't know what date that is) and in any case the trend might be shifting but not conclusively massively, thus.. still not completely right. I mean polls will always shift up and down due to - swing voters, email scandals and other short term events will always affect polls. But come November I doubt Trump will have a lead at all, talk-less of a massive lead. Though the unknown outcome of the debates haven't been factored in yet , and that would have a major impact!

in the west / developed nations, the concept of a dictator motivating his/her people to invade / suppress a nation / demographic is long gone and unacheivable. People people are just concerned about paying their phone bill and playing pokemon go. Rather than taking responsibility for one's own crappy life people blame whatever external factor they can cling to which is currently immigration.

When Trump fails to deliver the votes will be just as unsatisfied with him as any president before him.

Americans are more likely to overthrow their own government than have any kind of WW2 style war hysteria.

Trump started a feud with the Koch Brothers

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/759479059046883328

They're refusing to air anti-Clinton adds

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/30/politics/koch-retreat-paul-ryan/#

Trump has raised $19,000~ in donations from hedge fund managers, Hillary has raked in $48,500,000~ from hedge fund managers not including money donated to the Clinton Foundation.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/hedge-fund-money-48-5-million-for-hillary-clinton-19-000-for-donald-trump-1469784601

There's obviously only 1 candidate big business thinks is good for them.

Let's not forget the breaking news of Trump commenting on Captain Humayun Khan's mother.

in the west / developed nations, the concept of a dictator motivating his/her people to invade / suppress a nation / demographic is long gone and unacheivable. People people are just concerned about paying their phone bill and playing pokemon go. Rather than taking responsibility for one's own crappy life people blame whatever external factor they can cling to which is currently immigration.

When Trump fails to deliver the votes will be just as unsatisfied with him as any president before him.

Americans are more likely to overthrow their own government than have any kind of WW2 style war hysteria.

Citation Needed.

Seriously, the US had a rather vocal section of their population not that long ago who were urging the use of nuclear arms against the middle east over the death of around three thousand people.

The First World War was started over far less drastic actions than the Iraq Invasion.

And while a large majority of people are more worried about playing Pokemon Go than international politics... Those same people are also more worried about playing Pokemon Go than international politics... As long as their game keeps going then why exactly are they going to care if Brownshirt style leaders take control and go mucking about with things that don't impact their lives? The atrocities of the Second World War didn't happen because any given nation elected a government on the promise that they would commit atrocities. They were elected on the promise of making things better for the majority.

in the west / developed nations, the concept of a dictator motivating his/her people to invade / suppress a nation / demographic is long gone and unacheivable.
[...]
Americans are more likely to overthrow their own government than have any kind of WW2 style war hysteria.

WW2 was less than 75 years ago.
China still claims Taiwan as their land, despite the Communist party having never controlled it.
Russian's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine was practically yesterday.

People people are just concerned about paying their phone bill and playing pokemon go.

Right, and the Chinese have never figured out how to manipulate social media.
And the US Army has never made propaganda videogames.

Rather than taking responsibility for one's own crappy life people blame whatever external factor they can cling to which is currently immigration.

While I'm semi-pro-Immigration, and anti-Trump, I think broad-sweeping all pro-Trump supporters into "Oh, they just don't like immigration" is like looking at a 2D projection of what is really a 3D object.

If you are going to broad-brush them into categories, I think better categories would be, Trump gathered all the supporters who are sick of the status-quo and willing to back someone who's (ostensibly) pro-american-working-class (among other things) but also pro-american-business, and Sanders gathered all the supporters who are sick of the status quo and willing to back someone being pro-lower-lower-class and pro-working class (among other things) and speaking more harshly anti-big-business.

And now we have Hillary, a super-elite who basically represents the status quo of the status quo of the status quo.

Bernie was legit, even though I was still hung up on some of his views.

Trump is semi-legit - as in, he is rather WYSIWYG, and his lies are fairly obvious and honestly rather tame - lying to protect his reputation or slander others'. It smears his reputation to me, certainly, and I'm sure in office he'd lie as much as Hillary, but in terms of lying, Hillary has actually been caught lying about serious issues of national significance, rather than mere political lies (which she has also done).

Hillary is fake as plastic, and lies a mile a minute. Nothing about her seems remotely trustworthy or dependable. In her favor, she really knows how to get things done and has buttloads of experience.

Bernie seems like he's genuinely doing it to serve his country. Trump and Hillary both seem like they are in it to benefit themselves.

Trump seems incredibly easy for nations like Russia and China to manipulate, Bernie seems fairly manipulable as well - rather like Obama (who Putin seemingly ran laps around). Hillary on the other hand seems like she'd manipulate Putin better than Putin can manipulate her.

When Trump fails to deliver the votes will be just as unsatisfied with him as any president before him.

It doesn't matter; they'll stay with him now that terrorists in Albania have managed to get a hold of a nuclear suitcase-bomb that they are trying to smuggle across the American-Canada border. Hillary doesn't shout loud enough to deal with that kind of situation. [Edit: pop-culture reference just incase people thought I was serious]