Opinion of Donald Trump's convention speech?

[136or142]

Trump's speech got a 75% approval rating from a CNN poll, leading them to discredit their own poll right away.

I agree that folks are more pessimistic than the immediate circumstances may justify, but older folks have seen America go backward over a longer span of time than, say, millennials.  For those folks, even for some folks who aren't Trump partisans, Trump's view of the way things are in America are quite realistic, because while things may have gotten better on the margins over the last few years, things have gotten markedly worse over their adult lifetimes, all things considered.  They have seen their social contract discarded, as if it never existed.  Many of them have lost good jobs due to globalism, and they've lost them late in life.  It's one thing to tell a 25 year old to go out and get another job; they can start at the bottom and go somewhere.  But a 55 year old?  They face age discrimination at every turn.  Many of them are offered employment of a nature where there is no upward mobility, as if their life experiences matter not one whit.  Yes they can go back to school; if they don't deplete their retirement accounts to do so, they can enter their Golden Years with student debt and face age discrimination even in professions where there is a shortage of qualified applicants. 

What Hillary Clinton and Black Lives Matter have in common is disregard for law.  Hillary's disregard is well-documented.  BLM actually believes that folks have the legal right to resist a lawful arrest.  BLM actually believe that they have the right to use intimidation and coercion to interrupt folks at their own rallies and take over the podium, and they don't seem to understand why folks have a problem with Donald Trump assert that he's not going to be rolled at HIS podium.  They get it that black folks have, indeed, been mistreated by police, but they also get it that Michael Brown had committed a strong-arm robbery of a frail woman at a convenience store just prior to his being shot by an officer (for which the officer was not charged), and they get it that Eric Garner, a man with over 30 arrests, was actively resisting a lawful arrest by NYPD, albeit, for a misdemeanor.  They see the attacks on police and they remember 1968, and regardless of how crime rates have dropped over time, they realize that it's in no small measure BECAUSE of the so-called "militarization of police" and tougher sentencing laws that have taken habitual criminals off the streets, and they see "reform" proposals as things that undo what has helped make the public safer.

Older Americans lived through violent attacks and they lived through 9/11, but now they see deadly attacks becoming commonplace, and they don't understand why the enemy can't be named.  We named Communists as our enemy.  We named Nazis as our enemy.  But we can't say "Radical Islamic Jihadism" as our current enemy ideology?  What's the deal here? 

Why, then, would it surprise folks that Trump's negativity would play well?  They have a longer view of the world, and the long-term trends haven't bode well for them. 

Gibberish.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Trump's speech got a 75% approval rating from a CNN poll, leading them to discredit their own poll right away.

I agree that folks are more pessimistic than the immediate circumstances may justify, but older folks have seen America go backward over a longer span of time than, say, millennials.  For those folks, even for some folks who aren't Trump partisans, Trump's view of the way things are in America are quite realistic, because while things may have gotten better on the margins over the last few years, things have gotten markedly worse over their adult lifetimes, all things considered.  They have seen their social contract discarded, as if it never existed.  Many of them have lost good jobs due to globalism, and they've lost them late in life.  It's one thing to tell a 25 year old to go out and get another job; they can start at the bottom and go somewhere.  But a 55 year old?  They face age discrimination at every turn.  Many of them are offered employment of a nature where there is no upward mobility, as if their life experiences matter not one whit.  Yes they can go back to school; if they don't deplete their retirement accounts to do so, they can enter their Golden Years with student debt and face age discrimination even in professions where there is a shortage of qualified applicants. 

What Hillary Clinton and Black Lives Matter have in common is disregard for law.  Hillary's disregard is well-documented.  BLM actually believes that folks have the legal right to resist a lawful arrest.  BLM actually believe that they have the right to use intimidation and coercion to interrupt folks at their own rallies and take over the podium, and they don't seem to understand why folks have a problem with Donald Trump assert that he's not going to be rolled at HIS podium.  They get it that black folks have, indeed, been mistreated by police, but they also get it that Michael Brown had committed a strong-arm robbery of a frail woman at a convenience store just prior to his being shot by an officer (for which the officer was not charged), and they get it that Eric Garner, a man with over 30 arrests, was actively resisting a lawful arrest by NYPD, albeit, for a misdemeanor.  They see the attacks on police and they remember 1968, and regardless of how crime rates have dropped over time, they realize that it's in no small measure BECAUSE of the so-called "militarization of police" and tougher sentencing laws that have taken habitual criminals off the streets, and they see "reform" proposals as things that undo what has helped make the public safer.

Older Americans lived through violent attacks and they lived through 9/11, but now they see deadly attacks becoming commonplace, and they don't understand why the enemy can't be named.  We named Communists as our enemy.  We named Nazis as our enemy.  But we can't say "Radical Islamic Jihadism" as our current enemy ideology?  What's the deal here? 

Why, then, would it surprise folks that Trump's negativity would play well?  They have a longer view of the world, and the long-term trends haven't bode well for them. 

Gibberish.

How so?

Oh, by the way:  How old are you, sonny?

[136or142]

I realize Trump has never been charged with any crime, yet alone convicted, but does anybody think, as I think is possible, that he may have committed murder some time in his life? 

Если бы,  да кабы, то во рту росли бобы.

Are you an FSB disinformation agent, or just an idiot Trump/Putin supporter?

[136or142]

Trump's speech got a 75% approval rating from a CNN poll, leading them to discredit their own poll right away.

I agree that folks are more pessimistic than the immediate circumstances may justify, but older folks have seen America go backward over a longer span of time than, say, millennials.  For those folks, even for some folks who aren't Trump partisans, Trump's view of the way things are in America are quite realistic, because while things may have gotten better on the margins over the last few years, things have gotten markedly worse over their adult lifetimes, all things considered.  They have seen their social contract discarded, as if it never existed.  Many of them have lost good jobs due to globalism, and they've lost them late in life.  It's one thing to tell a 25 year old to go out and get another job; they can start at the bottom and go somewhere.  But a 55 year old?  They face age discrimination at every turn.  Many of them are offered employment of a nature where there is no upward mobility, as if their life experiences matter not one whit.  Yes they can go back to school; if they don't deplete their retirement accounts to do so, they can enter their Golden Years with student debt and face age discrimination even in professions where there is a shortage of qualified applicants.  

What Hillary Clinton and Black Lives Matter have in common is disregard for law.  Hillary's disregard is well-documented.  BLM actually believes that folks have the legal right to resist a lawful arrest.  BLM actually believe that they have the right to use intimidation and coercion to interrupt folks at their own rallies and take over the podium, and they don't seem to understand why folks have a problem with Donald Trump assert that he's not going to be rolled at HIS podium.  They get it that black folks have, indeed, been mistreated by police, but they also get it that Michael Brown had committed a strong-arm robbery of a frail woman at a convenience store just prior to his being shot by an officer (for which the officer was not charged), and they get it that Eric Garner, a man with over 30 arrests, was actively resisting a lawful arrest by NYPD, albeit, for a misdemeanor.  They see the attacks on police and they remember 1968, and regardless of how crime rates have dropped over time, they realize that it's in no small measure BECAUSE of the so-called "militarization of police" and tougher sentencing laws that have taken habitual criminals off the streets, and they see "reform" proposals as things that undo what has helped make the public safer.

Older Americans lived through violent attacks and they lived through 9/11, but now they see deadly attacks becoming commonplace, and they don't understand why the enemy can't be named.  We named Communists as our enemy.  We named Nazis as our enemy.  But we can't say "Radical Islamic Jihadism" as our current enemy ideology?  What's the deal here?  

Why, then, would it surprise folks that Trump's negativity would play well?  They have a longer view of the world, and the long-term trends haven't bode well for them.  

Gibberish.

How so?

Oh, by the way:  How old are you, sonny?

Old enough to have a functioning brain, which you clearly don't have.

I've addressed comments like most of the ones you've made here previously, and if you want to see them you can search through my posts.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Trump's speech got a 75% approval rating from a CNN poll, leading them to discredit their own poll right away.

I agree that folks are more pessimistic than the immediate circumstances may justify, but older folks have seen America go backward over a longer span of time than, say, millennials.  For those folks, even for some folks who aren't Trump partisans, Trump's view of the way things are in America are quite realistic, because while things may have gotten better on the margins over the last few years, things have gotten markedly worse over their adult lifetimes, all things considered.  They have seen their social contract discarded, as if it never existed.  Many of them have lost good jobs due to globalism, and they've lost them late in life.  It's one thing to tell a 25 year old to go out and get another job; they can start at the bottom and go somewhere.  But a 55 year old?  They face age discrimination at every turn.  Many of them are offered employment of a nature where there is no upward mobility, as if their life experiences matter not one whit.  Yes they can go back to school; if they don't deplete their retirement accounts to do so, they can enter their Golden Years with student debt and face age discrimination even in professions where there is a shortage of qualified applicants. 

What Hillary Clinton and Black Lives Matter have in common is disregard for law.  Hillary's disregard is well-documented.  BLM actually believes that folks have the legal right to resist a lawful arrest.  BLM actually believe that they have the right to use intimidation and coercion to interrupt folks at their own rallies and take over the podium, and they don't seem to understand why folks have a problem with Donald Trump assert that he's not going to be rolled at HIS podium.  They get it that black folks have, indeed, been mistreated by police, but they also get it that Michael Brown had committed a strong-arm robbery of a frail woman at a convenience store just prior to his being shot by an officer (for which the officer was not charged), and they get it that Eric Garner, a man with over 30 arrests, was actively resisting a lawful arrest by NYPD, albeit, for a misdemeanor.  They see the attacks on police and they remember 1968, and regardless of how crime rates have dropped over time, they realize that it's in no small measure BECAUSE of the so-called "militarization of police" and tougher sentencing laws that have taken habitual criminals off the streets, and they see "reform" proposals as things that undo what has helped make the public safer.

Older Americans lived through violent attacks and they lived through 9/11, but now they see deadly attacks becoming commonplace, and they don't understand why the enemy can't be named.  We named Communists as our enemy.  We named Nazis as our enemy.  But we can't say "Radical Islamic Jihadism" as our current enemy ideology?  What's the deal here? 

Why, then, would it surprise folks that Trump's negativity would play well?  They have a longer view of the world, and the long-term trends haven't bode well for them. 

Gibberish.

How so?

Oh, by the way:  How old are you, sonny?

Old enough to have a functioning brain, which you clearly don't have.

I heard that loud and clear. 

When I was your age, I would have reacted the same way to me.

[136or142]

Trump's speech got a 75% approval rating from a CNN poll, leading them to discredit their own poll right away.

I agree that folks are more pessimistic than the immediate circumstances may justify, but older folks have seen America go backward over a longer span of time than, say, millennials.  For those folks, even for some folks who aren't Trump partisans, Trump's view of the way things are in America are quite realistic, because while things may have gotten better on the margins over the last few years, things have gotten markedly worse over their adult lifetimes, all things considered.  They have seen their social contract discarded, as if it never existed.  Many of them have lost good jobs due to globalism, and they've lost them late in life.  It's one thing to tell a 25 year old to go out and get another job; they can start at the bottom and go somewhere.  But a 55 year old?  They face age discrimination at every turn.  Many of them are offered employment of a nature where there is no upward mobility, as if their life experiences matter not one whit.  Yes they can go back to school; if they don't deplete their retirement accounts to do so, they can enter their Golden Years with student debt and face age discrimination even in professions where there is a shortage of qualified applicants.  

What Hillary Clinton and Black Lives Matter have in common is disregard for law.  Hillary's disregard is well-documented.  BLM actually believes that folks have the legal right to resist a lawful arrest.  BLM actually believe that they have the right to use intimidation and coercion to interrupt folks at their own rallies and take over the podium, and they don't seem to understand why folks have a problem with Donald Trump assert that he's not going to be rolled at HIS podium.  They get it that black folks have, indeed, been mistreated by police, but they also get it that Michael Brown had committed a strong-arm robbery of a frail woman at a convenience store just prior to his being shot by an officer (for which the officer was not charged), and they get it that Eric Garner, a man with over 30 arrests, was actively resisting a lawful arrest by NYPD, albeit, for a misdemeanor.  They see the attacks on police and they remember 1968, and regardless of how crime rates have dropped over time, they realize that it's in no small measure BECAUSE of the so-called "militarization of police" and tougher sentencing laws that have taken habitual criminals off the streets, and they see "reform" proposals as things that undo what has helped make the public safer.

Older Americans lived through violent attacks and they lived through 9/11, but now they see deadly attacks becoming commonplace, and they don't understand why the enemy can't be named.  We named Communists as our enemy.  We named Nazis as our enemy.  But we can't say "Radical Islamic Jihadism" as our current enemy ideology?  What's the deal here?  

Why, then, would it surprise folks that Trump's negativity would play well?  They have a longer view of the world, and the long-term trends haven't bode well for them.  

Gibberish.

How so?

Oh, by the way:  How old are you, sonny?

Old enough to have a functioning brain, which you clearly don't have.

I heard that loud and clear.  

When I was your age, I would have reacted the same way to me.

Now you'd just say "get off my lawn, sonny."

I feel a great deal of sympathy for those who have lost due to globalization, but when they look to a strongman with no plan to be their savior, I have nothing but contempt for them.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Trump's speech got a 75% approval rating from a CNN poll, leading them to discredit their own poll right away.

I agree that folks are more pessimistic than the immediate circumstances may justify, but older folks have seen America go backward over a longer span of time than, say, millennials.  For those folks, even for some folks who aren't Trump partisans, Trump's view of the way things are in America are quite realistic, because while things may have gotten better on the margins over the last few years, things have gotten markedly worse over their adult lifetimes, all things considered.  They have seen their social contract discarded, as if it never existed.  Many of them have lost good jobs due to globalism, and they've lost them late in life.  It's one thing to tell a 25 year old to go out and get another job; they can start at the bottom and go somewhere.  But a 55 year old?  They face age discrimination at every turn.  Many of them are offered employment of a nature where there is no upward mobility, as if their life experiences matter not one whit.  Yes they can go back to school; if they don't deplete their retirement accounts to do so, they can enter their Golden Years with student debt and face age discrimination even in professions where there is a shortage of qualified applicants.  

What Hillary Clinton and Black Lives Matter have in common is disregard for law.  Hillary's disregard is well-documented.  BLM actually believes that folks have the legal right to resist a lawful arrest.  BLM actually believe that they have the right to use intimidation and coercion to interrupt folks at their own rallies and take over the podium, and they don't seem to understand why folks have a problem with Donald Trump assert that he's not going to be rolled at HIS podium.  They get it that black folks have, indeed, been mistreated by police, but they also get it that Michael Brown had committed a strong-arm robbery of a frail woman at a convenience store just prior to his being shot by an officer (for which the officer was not charged), and they get it that Eric Garner, a man with over 30 arrests, was actively resisting a lawful arrest by NYPD, albeit, for a misdemeanor.  They see the attacks on police and they remember 1968, and regardless of how crime rates have dropped over time, they realize that it's in no small measure BECAUSE of the so-called "militarization of police" and tougher sentencing laws that have taken habitual criminals off the streets, and they see "reform" proposals as things that undo what has helped make the public safer.

Older Americans lived through violent attacks and they lived through 9/11, but now they see deadly attacks becoming commonplace, and they don't understand why the enemy can't be named.  We named Communists as our enemy.  We named Nazis as our enemy.  But we can't say "Radical Islamic Jihadism" as our current enemy ideology?  What's the deal here?  

Why, then, would it surprise folks that Trump's negativity would play well?  They have a longer view of the world, and the long-term trends haven't bode well for them.  

Gibberish.

How so?

Oh, by the way:  How old are you, sonny?

Old enough to have a functioning brain, which you clearly don't have.

I heard that loud and clear.  

When I was your age, I would have reacted the same way to me.

Now you'd just say "get off my lawn, sonny."

I feel a great deal of sympathy for those who have lost due to globalization, but when they look to a strongman with no plan to be their savior, I have nothing but contempt for them.

Sympathy doesn't lead to solutions.  Bill Clinton and Barack Obama (and, of course, both Bushes) did nothing to reverse Globalism.  They are more concerned with discrimination against foreigners wanting to enter the US than against loyal, taxpaying Americans who have been screwed and tattooed by Globalism. 

"America First" gets a bad rap, but why shouldn't Americans come first in their own country?  Why should immigration policies increase the competition for jobs for them?  Why should trade agreements make it profitable for companies to relocate to Mexico or China?  Why should taxpaying Americans have to accept poorly vetted Syrian refugees in their country if THEY don't want to?

Globalism has brought about a more Cosmopolitan America, but it has come at a cost of working class jobs, lessened opportunity for American citizens, and the labeling of American citizens as bigots and Xenophobes because they are not happy about THEIR lives being diminished and THEIR futures trashed.  Whether Trump has solutions to this remains to be seen, but Trump, and Trump alone, has EFFECTIVELY changed the conversation.  Indeed, Trump has been more effective in this than Bernie Sanders; the Democrats are nominating the FLOG (First Lady of Globalism) who's position on NAFTA is "My bad!  Let's move on!".

Trump's changed the trajectory of the conversation.  That's a key first step.  If you have sympathy for folks impacted by Globalism, what do you offer besides sympathy?  I'm challenging you to give some evidence that you give a crap, because I'm not convinced yet that you really do.

[136or142]

Trump's speech got a 75% approval rating from a CNN poll, leading them to discredit their own poll right away.

I agree that folks are more pessimistic than the immediate circumstances may justify, but older folks have seen America go backward over a longer span of time than, say, millennials.  For those folks, even for some folks who aren't Trump partisans, Trump's view of the way things are in America are quite realistic, because while things may have gotten better on the margins over the last few years, things have gotten markedly worse over their adult lifetimes, all things considered.  They have seen their social contract discarded, as if it never existed.  Many of them have lost good jobs due to globalism, and they've lost them late in life.  It's one thing to tell a 25 year old to go out and get another job; they can start at the bottom and go somewhere.  But a 55 year old?  They face age discrimination at every turn.  Many of them are offered employment of a nature where there is no upward mobility, as if their life experiences matter not one whit.  Yes they can go back to school; if they don't deplete their retirement accounts to do so, they can enter their Golden Years with student debt and face age discrimination even in professions where there is a shortage of qualified applicants.  

What Hillary Clinton and Black Lives Matter have in common is disregard for law.  Hillary's disregard is well-documented.  BLM actually believes that folks have the legal right to resist a lawful arrest.  BLM actually believe that they have the right to use intimidation and coercion to interrupt folks at their own rallies and take over the podium, and they don't seem to understand why folks have a problem with Donald Trump assert that he's not going to be rolled at HIS podium.  They get it that black folks have, indeed, been mistreated by police, but they also get it that Michael Brown had committed a strong-arm robbery of a frail woman at a convenience store just prior to his being shot by an officer (for which the officer was not charged), and they get it that Eric Garner, a man with over 30 arrests, was actively resisting a lawful arrest by NYPD, albeit, for a misdemeanor.  They see the attacks on police and they remember 1968, and regardless of how crime rates have dropped over time, they realize that it's in no small measure BECAUSE of the so-called "militarization of police" and tougher sentencing laws that have taken habitual criminals off the streets, and they see "reform" proposals as things that undo what has helped make the public safer.

Older Americans lived through violent attacks and they lived through 9/11, but now they see deadly attacks becoming commonplace, and they don't understand why the enemy can't be named.  We named Communists as our enemy.  We named Nazis as our enemy.  But we can't say "Radical Islamic Jihadism" as our current enemy ideology?  What's the deal here?  

Why, then, would it surprise folks that Trump's negativity would play well?  They have a longer view of the world, and the long-term trends haven't bode well for them.  

Gibberish.

How so?

Oh, by the way:  How old are you, sonny?

Old enough to have a functioning brain, which you clearly don't have.

I heard that loud and clear.  

When I was your age, I would have reacted the same way to me.

Now you'd just say "get off my lawn, sonny."

I feel a great deal of sympathy for those who have lost due to globalization, but when they look to a strongman with no plan to be their savior, I have nothing but contempt for them.

Sympathy doesn't lead to solutions.  Bill Clinton and Barack Obama (and, of course, both Bushes) did nothing to reverse Globalism.  They are more concerned with discrimination against foreigners wanting to enter the US than against loyal, taxpaying Americans who have been screwed and tattooed by Globalism.  

"America First" gets a bad rap, but why shouldn't Americans come first in their own country?  Why should immigration policies increase the competition for jobs for them?  Why should trade agreements make it profitable for companies to relocate to Mexico or China?  Why should taxpaying Americans have to accept poorly vetted Syrian refugees in their country if THEY don't want to?

Globalism has brought about a more Cosmopolitan America, but it has come at a cost of working class jobs, lessened opportunity for American citizens, and the labeling of American citizens as bigots and Xenophobes because they are not happy about THEIR lives being diminished and THEIR futures trashed.  Whether Trump has solutions to this remains to be seen, but Trump, and Trump alone, has EFFECTIVELY changed the conversation.  Indeed, Trump has been more effective in this than Bernie Sanders; the Democrats are nominating the FLOG (First Lady of Globalism) who's position on NAFTA is "My bad!  Let's move on!".

Trump's changed the trajectory of the conversation.  That's a key first step.  If you have sympathy for folks impacted by Globalism, what do you offer besides sympathy?  I'm challenging you to give some evidence that you give a crap, because I'm not convinced yet that you really do.

1.There are no obvious solutions.  There are things the government has tried that hasn't had much success like re-training and there are things people have to try and do for themselves if they can like re-locating, if necessary.  

This is exacerbated in manufacturing by technological change, which the latest research shows that for every one job in the United States lost to a foreign competitor, two jobs are lost to automation or  to other technological improvement.

Personally I'd rather support somebody like Hillary Clinton and the Democrats many of whom have clearly made a choice to go after the winners of globalism but still tries things like re-training than an obvious fraud like Rapist Trump who is clearly just mouthing support for people he clearly cares nothing about.

2."Why shouldn't Americans come first in their own country?"  American employees don't won't foreign competition, but American consumers (the same people, btw) do.

So which of those two categories of the same person should come first?

3.For what it's worth, globalism far predated 'free trade' agreements.  It goes back since World War II (the world was also pretty globalized before the outbreak of World War I)  when Japan around 1960 decided to become the low cost, low quality manufacturer to the world, much as China has been for the last 20 years or so.

The U.S lost jobs to Japan starting in the 1960s even though the U.S did not have any free trade agreement with Japan at the time. After Japan started producing higher quality goods starting in the early 1970s, South Korea then pretty much replaced Japan as the low cost, low quality manufacturer to the world.

Of course, after Japan starting making higher quality products, their automobiles for the mass market devastated the U.S auto manufacturers, which by the late 1970s produced mass market 'rust buckets.'  

Again, Japan still did not have any free trade agreement with the United States at that point.

4.The negative effects of globalization were being discussed long before Rapist Trump came along.  Among others, John Edwards ran his 2004 and 2008 primary campaigns on the 'Two Americas' concept.  It appears though that he was just as cynical and just as much mouthing platitudes as Rapist Trump is.

On another matter, it's time for a change for me.  I think I've used the term 'Rapist Trump' enough and after hearing him at his convention speech and seeing some of his latest presser, I no longer need the irony of referring to him with an unproven charge just as he states unproven accusations as facts all the time.

I can now accurately refer to him as Deranged Donald as that is clearly what he is.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Trump's speech got a 75% approval rating from a CNN poll, leading them to discredit their own poll right away.

I agree that folks are more pessimistic than the immediate circumstances may justify, but older folks have seen America go backward over a longer span of time than, say, millennials.  For those folks, even for some folks who aren't Trump partisans, Trump's view of the way things are in America are quite realistic, because while things may have gotten better on the margins over the last few years, things have gotten markedly worse over their adult lifetimes, all things considered.  They have seen their social contract discarded, as if it never existed.  Many of them have lost good jobs due to globalism, and they've lost them late in life.  It's one thing to tell a 25 year old to go out and get another job; they can start at the bottom and go somewhere.  But a 55 year old?  They face age discrimination at every turn.  Many of them are offered employment of a nature where there is no upward mobility, as if their life experiences matter not one whit.  Yes they can go back to school; if they don't deplete their retirement accounts to do so, they can enter their Golden Years with student debt and face age discrimination even in professions where there is a shortage of qualified applicants.  

What Hillary Clinton and Black Lives Matter have in common is disregard for law.  Hillary's disregard is well-documented.  BLM actually believes that folks have the legal right to resist a lawful arrest.  BLM actually believe that they have the right to use intimidation and coercion to interrupt folks at their own rallies and take over the podium, and they don't seem to understand why folks have a problem with Donald Trump assert that he's not going to be rolled at HIS podium.  They get it that black folks have, indeed, been mistreated by police, but they also get it that Michael Brown had committed a strong-arm robbery of a frail woman at a convenience store just prior to his being shot by an officer (for which the officer was not charged), and they get it that Eric Garner, a man with over 30 arrests, was actively resisting a lawful arrest by NYPD, albeit, for a misdemeanor.  They see the attacks on police and they remember 1968, and regardless of how crime rates have dropped over time, they realize that it's in no small measure BECAUSE of the so-called "militarization of police" and tougher sentencing laws that have taken habitual criminals off the streets, and they see "reform" proposals as things that undo what has helped make the public safer.

Older Americans lived through violent attacks and they lived through 9/11, but now they see deadly attacks becoming commonplace, and they don't understand why the enemy can't be named.  We named Communists as our enemy.  We named Nazis as our enemy.  But we can't say "Radical Islamic Jihadism" as our current enemy ideology?  What's the deal here?  

Why, then, would it surprise folks that Trump's negativity would play well?  They have a longer view of the world, and the long-term trends haven't bode well for them.  

Gibberish.

How so?

Oh, by the way:  How old are you, sonny?

Old enough to have a functioning brain, which you clearly don't have.

I heard that loud and clear.  

When I was your age, I would have reacted the same way to me.

Now you'd just say "get off my lawn, sonny."

I feel a great deal of sympathy for those who have lost due to globalization, but when they look to a strongman with no plan to be their savior, I have nothing but contempt for them.

Sympathy doesn't lead to solutions.  Bill Clinton and Barack Obama (and, of course, both Bushes) did nothing to reverse Globalism.  They are more concerned with discrimination against foreigners wanting to enter the US than against loyal, taxpaying Americans who have been screwed and tattooed by Globalism.  

"America First" gets a bad rap, but why shouldn't Americans come first in their own country?  Why should immigration policies increase the competition for jobs for them?  Why should trade agreements make it profitable for companies to relocate to Mexico or China?  Why should taxpaying Americans have to accept poorly vetted Syrian refugees in their country if THEY don't want to?

Globalism has brought about a more Cosmopolitan America, but it has come at a cost of working class jobs, lessened opportunity for American citizens, and the labeling of American citizens as bigots and Xenophobes because they are not happy about THEIR lives being diminished and THEIR futures trashed.  Whether Trump has solutions to this remains to be seen, but Trump, and Trump alone, has EFFECTIVELY changed the conversation.  Indeed, Trump has been more effective in this than Bernie Sanders; the Democrats are nominating the FLOG (First Lady of Globalism) who's position on NAFTA is "My bad!  Let's move on!".

Trump's changed the trajectory of the conversation.  That's a key first step.  If you have sympathy for folks impacted by Globalism, what do you offer besides sympathy?  I'm challenging you to give some evidence that you give a crap, because I'm not convinced yet that you really do.

2."Why shouldn't Americans come first in their own country?"  American employees don't won't foreign competition, but American consumers (the same people, btw) do.

So which of those two categories of the same person should come first?

American workers.  Without hesitation.

[SillyAmerican]

Trump's speech got a 75% approval rating from a CNN poll, leading them to discredit their own poll right away.

I agree that folks are more pessimistic than the immediate circumstances may justify, but older folks have seen America go backward over a longer span of time than, say, millennials.  For those folks, even for some folks who aren't Trump partisans, Trump's view of the way things are in America are quite realistic, because while things may have gotten better on the margins over the last few years, things have gotten markedly worse over their adult lifetimes, all things considered.  They have seen their social contract discarded, as if it never existed.  Many of them have lost good jobs due to globalism, and they've lost them late in life.  It's one thing to tell a 25 year old to go out and get another job; they can start at the bottom and go somewhere.  But a 55 year old?  They face age discrimination at every turn.  Many of them are offered employment of a nature where there is no upward mobility, as if their life experiences matter not one whit.  Yes they can go back to school; if they don't deplete their retirement accounts to do so, they can enter their Golden Years with student debt and face age discrimination even in professions where there is a shortage of qualified applicants.

What Hillary Clinton and Black Lives Matter have in common is disregard for law.  Hillary's disregard is well-documented.  BLM actually believes that folks have the legal right to resist a lawful arrest.  BLM actually believe that they have the right to use intimidation and coercion to interrupt folks at their own rallies and take over the podium, and they don't seem to understand why folks have a problem with Donald Trump assert that he's not going to be rolled at HIS podium.  They get it that black folks have, indeed, been mistreated by police, but they also get it that Michael Brown had committed a strong-arm robbery of a frail woman at a convenience store just prior to his being shot by an officer (for which the officer was not charged), and they get it that Eric Garner, a man with over 30 arrests, was actively resisting a lawful arrest by NYPD, albeit, for a misdemeanor.  They see the attacks on police and they remember 1968, and regardless of how crime rates have dropped over time, they realize that it's in no small measure BECAUSE of the so-called "militarization of police" and tougher sentencing laws that have taken habitual criminals off the streets, and they see "reform" proposals as things that undo what has helped make the public safer.

Older Americans lived through violent attacks and they lived through 9/11, but now they see deadly attacks becoming commonplace, and they don't understand why the enemy can't be named.  We named Communists as our enemy.  We named Nazis as our enemy.  But we can't say "Radical Islamic Jihadism" as our current enemy ideology?  What's the deal here?  

Why, then, would it surprise folks that Trump's negativity would play well?  They have a longer view of the world, and the long-term trends haven't bode well for them.  

Excellent insights from Fuzzy, as usual. (And very little in the way of useful followup comments from Adam T, as usual).

[136or142]

Trump's speech got a 75% approval rating from a CNN poll, leading them to discredit their own poll right away.

I agree that folks are more pessimistic than the immediate circumstances may justify, but older folks have seen America go backward over a longer span of time than, say, millennials.  For those folks, even for some folks who aren't Trump partisans, Trump's view of the way things are in America are quite realistic, because while things may have gotten better on the margins over the last few years, things have gotten markedly worse over their adult lifetimes, all things considered.  They have seen their social contract discarded, as if it never existed.  Many of them have lost good jobs due to globalism, and they've lost them late in life.  It's one thing to tell a 25 year old to go out and get another job; they can start at the bottom and go somewhere.  But a 55 year old?  They face age discrimination at every turn.  Many of them are offered employment of a nature where there is no upward mobility, as if their life experiences matter not one whit.  Yes they can go back to school; if they don't deplete their retirement accounts to do so, they can enter their Golden Years with student debt and face age discrimination even in professions where there is a shortage of qualified applicants.

What Hillary Clinton and Black Lives Matter have in common is disregard for law.  Hillary's disregard is well-documented.  BLM actually believes that folks have the legal right to resist a lawful arrest.  BLM actually believe that they have the right to use intimidation and coercion to interrupt folks at their own rallies and take over the podium, and they don't seem to understand why folks have a problem with Donald Trump assert that he's not going to be rolled at HIS podium.  They get it that black folks have, indeed, been mistreated by police, but they also get it that Michael Brown had committed a strong-arm robbery of a frail woman at a convenience store just prior to his being shot by an officer (for which the officer was not charged), and they get it that Eric Garner, a man with over 30 arrests, was actively resisting a lawful arrest by NYPD, albeit, for a misdemeanor.  They see the attacks on police and they remember 1968, and regardless of how crime rates have dropped over time, they realize that it's in no small measure BECAUSE of the so-called "militarization of police" and tougher sentencing laws that have taken habitual criminals off the streets, and they see "reform" proposals as things that undo what has helped make the public safer.

Older Americans lived through violent attacks and they lived through 9/11, but now they see deadly attacks becoming commonplace, and they don't understand why the enemy can't be named.  We named Communists as our enemy.  We named Nazis as our enemy.  But we can't say "Radical Islamic Jihadism" as our current enemy ideology?  What's the deal here?  

Why, then, would it surprise folks that Trump's negativity would play well?  They have a longer view of the world, and the long-term trends haven't bode well for them.  

Excellent insights from Fuzzy, as usual. (And very little in the way of useful followup comments from Adam T, as usual).

Coming from you, I'll take that as a compliment.

[Beet]

The law applies equally to everyone. That's why Hillary was even investigated in the first place. The law, however, doesn't declare people innocent. I haven't been declared innocent of smoking marijuana. You haven't been declared innocent of speeding. Because we have a concept of innocent until proven guilty. That is an integral part of our legal system.

There are different levels of legal jeopardy. You can be convicted of a crime. You can be charged, but acquitted. You can be neither convicted nor charged, but maybe the investigating body recommended you were charged, and prosecutors disagreed. You can be neither convicted, charged, nor did an investigating body ever recommend you were charged, but the investigating body could declare it a close decision. Or, you could be neither convicted, charged, the investigators did not think you should be charged, and the investigators said no reasonable prosecutor would charge you. Clinton fell into the very last category there. Legally, there is no way for her to be declared exonerated; as far as possible outcomes, she came as close to legal exoneration as physically possible.

What really is extralegal and disregards the law are people thinking the law should be disregarded and that people who have not been convicted of any crime should be locked up. What people at your party's convention were chanting. Or saying that people who have not been convicted should be publicly hung. What Trump's surrogate was calling for. That's extralegal and more akin to what we'd see in a dictatorship.

As for BLM, I've never heard they claim you have a right to resist arrest.

[Fargobison]

Least positive reviews of any speech Gallup has tested...



https://twitter.com/Taniel/status/758347454228070400

[Hermit For Peace]

Trump was convincing, enthusiastic, passionate.  The speech was well prepared; it is sure to produce a positive impact on voters.

Gotta ask you, does CONTENT mean anything to you?

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

It is sad that Adam T has ventured into this discussion and keeps getting in the way. He was a lot more tolerable when he just made random lists of NDP parliamentary candidates with one line bio sentences in butchered grammatical form.

As to FuzzyBears post:

This is exactly correct. Every year, people are fed up. People are always pissed. When doesn't Congress have a low approval rating? Every election is "the most important of our lifetime." I heard it in 2008 and shrugged. I heard it in 2012 and I laughed out loud.

This election, to many Americans, and not just Trump supporters, is indeed the most important election. It is their America's last stand.

BRTD and company will of course celebrate this, as most millennials who are overly aware/absorbed with their mere existence as millennials welcome this incoming cultural slaughter. But those people in their fifties or sixties who lost it all in the bust and can't start over again-they fear it. And they are turning to people who they never, ever, ever expected to vote for.

Do you guys think they seriously want to vote for Trump? Do you think they want this orange skinned, loudmouthed, celebrity/publicity obsessed jackass from NBC whose only real experience is serving as the public face and the iron hand of a shadowy real estate conglomerate-do they really want him to be President? Of course not!

But they don't care. It's their last stand. Bush I betrayed them, and they fought back with the Buchanan brigades (the Trump supporters who have always been Republican and always followed politics to some degree or another at least). Dole didn't put up a fight, and neither did the party in 1996. The fix was in. Both parties knew who was going to be the president in January, 1997. In 2000, an election fought tooth and nail (but at least fought!) that literally divided the nation down to the decimal, resulted in the worst American presidency of the last fifty years. Bush II took the folksy rhetoric of compassionate conservatism and gave the people, inside of the Republican Party and out of it, a big cold platter of economic nihilism and international recklessness.

They have nothing left to lose, right? Or do they. I don't know. You don't know. They don't know.

Fourteen years ago, they feared terrorism in the country, and for good reason considering 9/11 had just occurred. Yet fourteen years went by under Bush and later Obama, where terrorism wasn't really a problem. Sure, some punk ass kids pretending to be Muslims blew up the Boston marathon and sure, Fort Hood was attacked. And yes, Americans were somewhat annoyed that these acts of terrorism were not condemned as what they were-acts of Islamic terrorism. But names are just symbols, and symbols, as George Carlin once said, are for the symbol minded. Up until this year, no one outside of the Fox News base really cared. Until now.

When have terrorist attacks increased so rapidly before? When have major cities been plagued by such unrest before? This unrest is something that many of the "silent majority" overall understand as FuzzyBear noted. Many are sympathetic, and many in fact know the grievances to be true. But then they see the rioting, the fire hoses being cut, the snipers shooting cops, the cities being burned down, the CVS being looted, and they lose that sympathy. And that has only furthered this "us verse them" mentality that permeates every aspect of our society. To these people, if things don't change, this will become the new normal. 

The highlight of this election is a real, genuine, and universal feeling of fear.

I don't think the Silent Majority is totally behind Trump. They may, might, and most likely will reject him in the end. But that is not a rejection of Trumpism, merely Trump. It is also a rejection of any sense of optimism. I often hear "we're doomed." I heard it when Obama won. I heard it when Bush won a second term. This time, people, at least those over 45 years old, utter those words with a sense of dejection and mournful acceptance. It is not the sarcastic, sneering political platitude of years past (and I'm sure again in years future) has been when side A loses to side B. They mean it, because the America that they once believed still worked for them no longer does. The American Dream is dying in front of their eyes.

But they also, and this is the most critical part of this post, realize that Hillary offers more of the same. The decision is, do these people want the same old same that has led to the industrial holocaust of America, the slow stagnation of the middle class, the unraveling of the Middle East, the increasing unrest at home, and growing racial, generational, class gaps that are causing this chasm in America?

Or do they say "fINKs it, lets burn this place to the ground!" That is the most interesting aspect of this election.

This is all anecdotal of course on the surface, but any number of polls can narrow down each separate paragraph. This is the grim reality that I'm hearing from Hillary supporters, Trump supporters, and in rare cases (I really only know a few Johnson supporters over 30) Johnson supporters. This election matters, and the question isn't Trump or Hillary as much as it is "are we ready to take a chance or can it really get any worse?"