I am an American swing voter

[Lyin' Steve]

This election makes me so sick.  I never hear the candidates talk about the issues.  All they do is attack each other.  I have so many issues I'm interested in, what are they going to do to create jobs?  What are they going to do to protect our country?  I'm so sick of the attacks.  They're not going to change my mind or affect my opinion.  I don't like Trump, he's so unhinged, utterly clueless and uninformed, offensive, disgraceful, a liar, and completely unprepared to be president... but also I don't trust Hillary.  She's a liar and corrupt.  And her foreign policy is just, bomb bomb bomb, murder people.  If I had to say something nice about her I guess she's a policy wonk and really knows her policy.  I don't really want to hear from her though because I already know everything about her.  I want to hear from Trump.  He talks like one of us, he expresses how I feel.  Every time I try to listen to Hillary talk it's just so boring.  Also what's all this stuff about her e-mails?  It really just proves that you can't trust her.  And Benghazi, she just let all those Americans get murdered, she didn't even care, I heard on TV that she didn't think it made any difference.  Plus, it's like Trump says, she's all talk, no action, hasn't done anything in all the years she's been in power.  I can't name a single policy achievement of hers. I didn't watch the debate, I already know what they're going to say anyway, they're just going to attack each other and neither candidate will say anything about what they actually want to do with this country.  It's just a big waste of time.  I'm so tired of choosing the lesser of two evils.  That's why I'm voting for Gary Johnson.  I don't necessarily agree with all of his policies but it's time to send a message that we're disgusted with this election and with both candidates.

[Ebsy]

who care

[Lyin' Steve]

What really bothers me about Clinton is how fake she is.  Everything she says she reads off a teleprompter, it's stuff that someone else gave her to say, I don't think she even believes any of it.  Yes, she's very knowledgable and well-informed, but I just don't feel like I can trust her.  And she's always attacking Trump, I'm just so tired of it, why can't she ever talk about what she wants to do for the country?  Why doesn't she ever go into any detail on her policies?  That's why I'm voting for Trump.  Yeah, he used to be kind of unhinged, but his team has been working really hard to try to help him calm down, they've got him reading these speeches now and he sounds much more composed and presidential.  It doesn't really bother me that he changes his positions on the issues because hey, we all do that, right?  It's good to be able to learn and change over time.  And yeah he doesn't really have much detail but he seems like a smart guy, and besides you don't want to put all your plans out there anyway, right?  What good does that do?  Plus, I just really think some of his the things he says about Clinton hit home, because, you know, she is a career politician, and that's just not what this country needs right now.

[Southern Delegate matthew27]

You're insane

Clinton supports our food safety standards that makes sure you don't get sick as you would in mexico.
Clinton supports clean air and water. Trump wants to do away with our epa!
Clinton supports more people going to college to become skilled enough to compete in the world.
Clinton supports infrastructure funding for our highways(federal government makes up 50%).
Clinton supports leadership in science and tech
Clinton understands economics and the fed. Trump believes in some 17th century bullcrap from the austrian school.

What does Trump support? Oh'yess, cutting the sh**t out of all this and letting the very people that he says has screwed us(over sea's corporations) to form massive polluting monoplies in our own country and pay us little pons pennies on the dollar.

Yep, they're so much alike. Wake up!

[DoctorWinstonOBoogie]

What the hell is this?

You need help.

[Southern Delegate matthew27]

The op needs to realize if he votes Trump...Well, house republicans are going to be running our country like they're doing in Kansas.
-No safetynet...So all those stories of hardship people had during the great depression before fdr's new deal came into law will be so again!
-No funding for our public schools and believe me the federal government makes up a sh**t ton of this funding.
-No federal funding for science...Good bye national science foundation.

Yep, go ahead vote for the racist dumbass!!!

[Southern Delegate matthew27]

And you believe trump isn't fake and a con artist? Give me the current set up anyday of the week over what Trump would do to this country.

As corrupt as it is it works.

[Lyin' Steve]

matthew27 thinks I actually switched from Clinton to Johnson to Trump in the course of three Atlas posts.
The colors are there for a reason.

[ProgressiveCanadian]

Thanks for confirming your stupidity.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Well, I thought it was clever.

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

I assume this is a collage of all the idiotic s**t swing voters say.

[This account no longer in use.]

You tried your hardest, Steve.

[Lyin' Steve]

I assume this is a collage of all the idiotic s**t swing voters say.

It's literally just a collage of stuff I heard swing voters say in one ten-minute focus group.

The colors were intended to highlight the inherent contradictions... e.g. "I really want to hear the candidates say what they're going to do with the country, they never talk about that" and then later "I don't want to listen to Hillary, she's so boring and I already know everything about her anyway" when if you just f**king listened to her she spends half her speeches talking about her plans in great detail.  Or "I'm too smart for the attacks to work on me" and then listing off all of Trump's attacks on Hillary as reasons you're concerned about her.

Unfortunately it looks like Atlas was too stupid to pick up on that and y'all think I just wrote my personal confessional as a swing voter (voting for both Johnson and Trump) and then randomly colored in sections for fun.  What a waste.

[sentinel]

O_O THE COLORS, THE MADNESS

SOMEONE STOP IT

[Joe Republic]

Lyin' Steve is one of the most under appreciated posters on the forum. 

Also relevant here: http://youtu.be/KAG37Kw1-aw

[angus]

This election makes me so sick. 

Of course it does. 

A good, old-fashioned, Joycean rant can be cathartic.  Also, while I think you probably spent too much time formatting it, the color-coding does make for easy future referencing of your emotional ambiguities. 

At this point, you should probably not spend any more time thinking about the upcoming election. 
Take a walk.  Give your significant other the high, hard one.  Play with your children.  Play with their children.  Walk the dog.  Watch a movie.  Masturbate furiously.  Write a novel.  Try meditating on one of the prayers of Saint Francis, or on one of the many mantras of The Buddha, or on one of the songs of the Bhagavad Gita, or even on one of the many mottoes of Alcoholics Anonymous.  Perhaps you should get laid, or take up knitting.  In any case, you need to regain your sense of humor.  Accept that it is very likely that either Clinton or Trump will be your next president.  No matter whether Clinton or Trump wins, your next president will be a narcissistic, self-serving individual who puts his or her interests above those of all humanity.  Vote for one or the other of them, or someone else if you prefer, but accept the probability of one of them winning.  Once you do that you can, if you're interested, work for change.  Join the winning team:  As soon as a victor is announced, quit your job and apply for a lowly position in the new administration.  Sabotage from within.  Let not your emotional turmoil provide only an outlet of comic vanity.  Use it for the benefit of mankind, and of yourself.

[Devout Centrist]

Honestly, I hate this false equivalency nonsense. I don't agree with Clinton on about a fifth of the issues, but I admire her leadership and determination. No way I'd reconsider my vote for her especially against the Orange Blossom.

Then again, the average swing voter ain't exactly smart. A lot of people took the bait.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Honestly, I hate this false equivalency nonsense. I don't agree with Clinton on about a fifth of the issues, but I admire her leadership and determination. No way I'd reconsider my vote for her especially against the Orange Blossom.

Then again, the average swing voter ain't exactly smart. A lot of people took the bait.

That's an insult to swing voters.  They honestly don't know what to think.  There are folks who don't hold doctrinaire liberal or conservative positions, or are liberal on some things and conservative on others; they have to do the best they can when they vote because they will be less enamored with their choice than an ideological partisan.

[Badger]

Well, I thought it was clever.

[Devout Centrist]

Honestly, I hate this false equivalency nonsense. I don't agree with Clinton on about a fifth of the issues, but I admire her leadership and determination. No way I'd reconsider my vote for her especially against the Orange Blossom.

Then again, the average swing voter ain't exactly smart. A lot of people took the bait.

That's an insult to swing voters.  They honestly don't know what to think.  There are folks who don't hold doctrinaire liberal or conservative positions, or are liberal on some things and conservative on others; they have to do the best they can when they vote because they will be less enamored with their choice than an ideological partisan.

Most "swing" voters aren't swing and/or could fix the issue through some research. There are very few voters out there who truly can't decide after getting educated.

[Fuzzy Bear]

This election makes me so sick. 

Of course it does. 

A good, old-fashioned, Joycean rant can be cathartic.  Also, while I think you probably spent too much time formatting it, the color-coding does make for easy future referencing of your emotional ambiguities. 

At this point, you should probably not spend any more time thinking about the upcoming election. 
Take a walk.  Give your significant other the high, hard one.  Play with your children.  Play with their children.  Walk the dog.  Watch a movie.  Masturbate furiously.  Write a novel.  Try meditating on one of the prayers of Saint Francis, or on one of the many mantras of The Buddha, or on one of the songs of the Bhagavad Gita, or even on one of the many mottoes of Alcoholics Anonymous.  Perhaps you should get laid, or take up knitting.  In any case, you need to regain your sense of humor.  Accept that it is very likely that either Clinton or Trump will be your next president.  No matter whether Clinton or Trump wins, your next president will be a narcissistic, self-serving individual who puts his or her interests above those of all humanity.  Vote for one or the other of them, or someone else if you prefer, but accept the probability of one of them winning.  Once you do that you can, if you're interested, work for change.  Join the winning team:  As soon as a victor is announced, quit your job and apply for a lowly position in the new administration.  Sabotage from within.  Let not your emotional turmoil provide only an outlet of comic vanity.  Use it for the benefit of mankind, and of yourself.

I certainly agree with the highlighted part.  This is more true this year than, perhaps, at any time in my life, and I'm almost 60.

[Lyin' Steve]

The truth is that these people want to take their chance to vote for someone who's not a politician, because it feels special, and because they've been admiring the magnificent Trump all their lives and been told to hate the shrill, wooden Clinton.  But they also know deep down that there are solemn consequences to electing Trump, so they try to convince themselves that the consequences won't be that severe, at least relative to electing Clinton.  Most of the people in that position have succeeded in convincing themselves by this point, the rest of the would-be Trump voters are just holding back because they still haven't gagged their conscience yet.  And there you have your "swing voters."

That seems to be the consistent pattern from what I've seen of this group.  They'll acknowledge that Clinton is very experienced and qualified and intelligent, but they'll say they don't know her plans or if they do that she's lying and they don't trust her.  Then they'll rattle off all the standard right-wing (Benghazi, e-mails, Bill's sexual affairs, typical politician, Clinton foundation) and left-wing (warmonger, corrupt, corporate, controlled by lobbyists, TPP will destroy the world) attacks as "concerns" they have about her, as though their mind isn't made up already, and then they'll start making excuse after excuse after excuse, some total reaches, for Trump when they refuse to make any for Clinton.

[ursulahx]

I think this must be one of the most perceptive threads on Atlas.

[Antonio the Sixth]

what is this

[Kleine Scheiße]

what did he mean by this