Trump's nomination is the first time US politics has left me truly afraid

[HisGrace]

That's a legitimate concern. Calling Trump a fascist because you support the other candidate is not its just juvenile and distracting.

I guess he's technically not a fascist since he doesn't talk about their pseudo-nihilist philosophical dogma, but fascist is generally just shorthand for an extreme authoritarian these days, which he certainly is.

[HisGrace]

As opposed to what we've had for the last 20 years? Frankly, if the people with all the wonderful "qualifications" were doing a halfway decent job, maybe Trump wouldn't have been able to capture the nomination. If voters are ticked off enough to go with a non-politician, there's probably a reason, don't you think? If you need to be afraid of something, why not be afraid that we continue down the wrong path? That's the bigger concern, at least from my perspective...

^^^that's the crux of Trump's campaign and it's complete, unbridled emotionalism. I'm "ticked off" so lets elect an authoritarian reality show host president, because for some reason that would make me feel better.

Doing things for no other reason than to be "different" never ends well. Things can always get worse. Trump's new policy proposals being things like avoiding a default on the debt by "printing more money", wasting billions of dollars on a wall that won't even do what it's supposed to, driving people into poverty with his punitive tariffs, and having protesters "taken out on stretchers" make me think things will get worse in a big way should he be elected.

[HisGrace]

Things could be FAR worse than they are right now, and I strongly believe that electing someone who has no experience or qualifications is just the way to make things worse than they currently are. I would feel the same way even if I believed that America was in as horrible of a position as people at the RNC seem to think.

If a hospital had doctors that weren't doing as good a job as they could, would the solution be to start hiring people with no medical experience or training instead? (real outsiders)

^100% agree. I've made the doctor analogy myself. People only want "elitist" doctors, nobody wants an "anti-establishment" surgeon to cut them open. Politicians are in such a public role that them being overtly intellectual intimidates people sometimes (whereas it doesn't with doctors) and so they go for a candidate that spouts platitudes and doesn't appeal to the intellect at all because it makes them feel good about themselves.