A moment of reflection

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Let us pause for a moment to consider what has just happened and to reflect upon it. The Republican Party - one of the two dominant parties in the most powerful country on the planet - has just selected as its candidate for the Presidential Election a notorious celebrity playboy-cum-reality TV star with howlingly obvious issues upstairs. This man during a televised debate literally bragged about the size of his penis and promotes as his Key Policy (LETS BUILD A WALL) something that might as well be straight out of a satire on American political life. This man, for decades a national laughing stock, faced a field stacked with Senators and Governors and had to contend the overwhelming hostility of the party's elder statesmen, donors and functionaries. And he's just won the nomination by a landslide.

[Virginiá]

It saddens me that so many of my fellow Americans would vote to nominate someone as offensive, inexperienced and unfit for office as Trump.

I get that they are angry about the current state of the country, but this is not the answer. Or, you know, it is the answer, because now Democrats will control the White House for at least another 4 years

[SillyAmerican]

It saddens me that so many of my fellow Americans would vote to nominate someone as offensive, inexperienced and unfit for office as Trump.

I get that they are angry about the current state of the country, but this is not the answer. Or, you know, it is the answer, because now Democrats will control the White House for at least another 4 years

Trump may not be the answer, but neither is someone who shows a complete lack of judgement, as does Hillary Clinton. Yes, it's a shame that voters are going to be asked to choose between these two people.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Laughing stock? You mean wildly successful in all facets of life, more so than nearly anybody in this country?

[Virginiá]

It saddens me that so many of my fellow Americans would vote to nominate someone as offensive, inexperienced and unfit for office as Trump.

I get that they are angry about the current state of the country, but this is not the answer. Or, you know, it is the answer, because now Democrats will control the White House for at least another 4 years

Trump may not be the answer, but neither is someone who shows a complete lack of judgement, as does Hillary Clinton. Yes, it's a shame that voters are going to be asked to choose between these two people.

Well, I agree that the choices are not good and I would have much preferred someone other than Hillary as the first woman/next president... but I believe she will be a better president than some people think. Far, far better than Trump could ever hope to be, anyhow.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Laughing stock? You mean wildly successful in all facets of life, more so than nearly anybody in this country?

The way the goalposts have been moved to not only legitimize but embrace the outlandish and ridiculous candidacy of Donald Trump continues to astound me.

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

Laughing stock? You mean wildly successful in all facets of life, more so than nearly anybody in this country?

The way the goalposts have been moved to not only legitimize but embrace the outlandish and ridiculous candidacy of Donald Trump continues to astound me.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

He has made at least twenty statements on twenty separate occasions that would have derailed Presidential candidates in 2012 or earlier, Senate candidates in 2008 or earlier, and before 1994 or so, would have derailed anyone running for political office, at any level, anywhere but the very fringes of our great republic.

[ElectionsGuy]

Republican voters are really going to reap what they sow for the next 6 months for what they did.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Let's also not forget that the GOP's reality TV star nominee's last salvo before cruising to victory was to target his opponent's father with a conspiracy theory, from the National Enquirer, about JFK's assassination.

Anyone still calling themselves a Republican should cower in shame every time they look in the mirror, and anyone actually supporting Trump is a bad citizen and a terrible human being.

[Nym90]

Yes, indeed a sad day for America, and for the world given our position within it.

Keep in mind, though, before drawing any great conclusions about what this all "means", that he's only gotten a little over 10 million votes in a country of about 320 million.

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

Republican voters are really going to reap what they sow for the next 6 months years for what they did.

[Young Conservative]

Well, he definitely didn't win by a landslide but yes he won.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Laughing stock? You mean wildly successful in all facets of life, more so than nearly anybody in this country?

The way the goalposts have been moved to not only legitimize but embrace the outlandish and ridiculous candidacy of Donald Trump continues to astound me.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

He has made at least twenty statements on twenty separate occasions that would have derailed Presidential candidates in 2012 or earlier, Senate candidates in 2008 or earlier, and before 1994 or so, would have derailed anyone running for political office, at any level, anywhere but the very fringes of our great republic.

Well, exactly. Treating him "neutrally," which the press seems to be doing, is, in effect, treating him favourably, because by any objective standards he is an offensive joke of a candidate. The mainstream media has basically desensitized itself to him, which is quite dangerous.

[Chief Justice Keef]

Let us pause for a moment to consider what has just happened and to reflect upon it. The Republican Party - one of the two dominant parties in the most powerful country on the planet - has just selected as its candidate for the Presidential Election a notorious celebrity playboy-cum-reality TV star with howlingly obvious issues upstairs. This man during a televised debate literally bragged about the size of his penis and promotes as his Key Policy (LETS BUILD A WALL) something that might as well be straight out of a satire on American political life. This man, for decades a national laughing stock, faced a field stacked with Senators and Governors and had to contend the overwhelming hostility of the party's elder statesmen, donors and functionaries. And he's just won the nomination by a landslide.

That's the Murican Dream for ya.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Let us pause for a moment to consider what Trump will say in his Presidential inauguration speech in January.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Anyone actually supporting Trump is a bad citizen and a terrible human being.

Now that borders on a fascist ideal.

Are you going to get all Trump supporters and bus and train them to the gas chambers?

Why wont fervent Hillary lovers sit back and relax and be one with the world? Why do they hate people who dont share their political enlightenment?

I am neither blue or red, but i notice that Republican supporters rarely attack the individual person who wants to vote Democrat.

Yet Democrats have a minor meltdown at the thought of someone voting Republican.

You need to find some inner comfort and not be so "unstable" and "off-balance".

[RosettaStoned]

  Democracy is an interracial porno. 

[Fuzzy Bear]

Laughing stock? You mean wildly successful in all facets of life, more so than nearly anybody in this country?

It's all true about Trump.  He IS the most successful candidate in all facets of life, but he HAS behaved in a manner that defies logic during this campaign.  It's a contradiction that is not easily explained away.

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

I never thought in a million years I'd ever be supportive of HILLARY CLINTON, but if it means knocking TRUMP out I'm fine by that.

[ag]

Anyone actually supporting Trump is a bad citizen and a terrible human being.

Now that borders on a fascist ideal.

Are you going to get all Trump supporters and bus and train them to the gas chambers?

No, of course not: that is your dream: not mine. You are the only one here who gets an orgasm fantasising about gas chambers.

When people tell you that you are a son of a bitch, they do not necessarily mean that they think you should be punished for that by some nasty and brutish force. Bad people, such as you, have as much right as myself or anyone else to lead lives unmolested by any government (or by private goons). I do firmly believe that, as long as you stay away from me and any other decent people, none of us should so much as touch you with a long pole. But if you insist on conducting a conversation in public, you should be aware that you are considered a dishonourable and miserable parody of a human being, a product of an illegitimate intercourse of some mammalian female and a hermaphrodite frog. And now that political correctness has been abolished, I really do not see the point of concealing this opinion when I see something like you.

I do not despise Donald Trump: he is a great salesman who's got a great sales pitch. I mean, he would, probably, be able to sell holy water to the devil, add a few warm blankets and have Satan himself boast in hell about the purchase: that is an art that should not be disparaged. I do, however, despise those who buy from him.  

BTW, I have no doubt honourable people could have voted for any other Republican candidate this year: Cruz or Rubio, Bush or Carson, Kasich or Walker, Fiorina or Paul, or anybody else. It is only voting for Trump that reveals one as being a basest sort of a scoundrel.

[Nym90]

Also, Al, winning with 40 percent of the vote is not a landslide by any reasonable definition. Even if you go by margin of victory (13 percent over his nearest competitor), he is winning by a narrower margin than Clinton is on the Democratic side, and narrower than the vast majority of nominees have won their primaries by. Obviously that will widen some, but I highly doubt he can catch McCain's 47 percent nationally in 2008 and thus will have the lowest percentage of the primary popular vote for any GOP nominee in the modern era (since 1972, when primaries became the, ahem, primary determinant of the nominee).

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Politically, I really don't think Trump is that worse than Cruz or Rubio. However, it is still a giant WTF a real-life troll became a major party presumptive presidential nominee.

[ag]

Politically, I really don't think Trump is that worse than Cruz or Rubio. However, it is still a giant WTF a real-life troll became a major party presumptive presidential nominee.

He is. There is a very serious difference between being a religious conservative and deliberately and extensively using racism and xenophobia for political means. Cruz, were he to win, would present a temporary, but short-lived, set-back to progress. Trump, if he wins, would through the world back for decades, if not centuries.

[Rules for me, but not for thee]

[Nym90]

Politically, I really don't think Trump is that worse than Cruz or Rubio. However, it is still a giant WTF a real-life troll became a major party presumptive presidential nominee.

He is. There is a very serious difference between being a religious conservative and deliberately and extensively using racism and xenophobia for political means. Cruz, were he to win, would present a temporary, but short-lived, set-back to progress. Trump, if he wins, would through the world back for decades, if not centuries.

Agreed. This is as bad as if Pat Buchanan in 1996 or George Wallace in 1972 had succeeded in winning their party's nominations. On the left, the nearest equivalent would be Jesse Jackson in 1988 or Al Sharpton in 2004.