Trumpled (Alternative Leading)

[Lods]

Once he (Trump)bows out of the Republican race no doubt some 'deals' will  be done.

The eventual Republican Presidential candidate may even use one of his current opponents as a running mate to try to repair some of the damage Trump has done to certain sections of society.

There's hardly another nation in the world that would take Trump seriously, what does that say about our conservative Yank friends?

We had "Joh (Bjelke-Petersen) for PM" going just as strong at one stage....till common sense took over. ;D

[madbluboy]

There's hardly another nation in the world that would take Trump seriously, what does that say about our conservative Yank friends?

We elected Tony Abbott.

[PaulP]

Wow, you're so right wing! 

Any small-L liberal would vomit if forced to watch those wankers.

They are all scumbags who are happy to dance to the Koch brothers' tune.  Perhaps Trump might be an exception but he has shown himself to be the biggest scumbag of all. 

The GOP is the old white man's party of choice and is destined to continue its slide into irrelevance.

Imagine a debate involving clones of Corey Bernardi, all trumpeting a slavish commitment to creationism and strict biblical readings.  This is the party dominated by evangelical Christians and Tea-Party fundamentalists.  This is the party which is committed to tax-breaks for the top 1% and which can't wait to dismantle Obama's tame version of Medicare.  And of great concern to us is the ideological drive to find a new war, preferably one in a Muslim country.

The US and the world generally needs this Presidential election to be an unmistakeable repudiation of Republican extremism.

I can only hope that the successful Democratic candidate will then be able to reshape the Supreme Court so that the scandalous Citizen's United decision can be reversed.  Imagine a court deciding that the ability of the rich to use their money to influence elections and to exact favours from politicians is constitutionally-protected free speech ...

Maybe going a bit hard there, but certainly agree with the sentiment 100%.

If you want terrific analysis of US politics over the last 30 or 40 years, you can't beat Chomsky.

[Baggers]

We elected Tony Abbott.

Mm, fair point. Seems the far right is saturated with d1ckheads... ;D

[DJC]

We elected Tony Abbott.

Can't argue with that! 

[cookie2]

We elected Tony Abbott.

Touche! People in glass houses and all that.. )

[thrunthrublu]

countries and its people yearn for need .  Its hard to isolate left and right at a point in time overlayed against another point in time.
You take circa 1933 Germany, its high unemployment, inflation, occupation of productive regions by allies, ridiculous restitution..all gives rise to an alternative which was NSDAP. 4 years later, all of this was reversed to the amazement of the western world . Fast forward ....USA was tired of bush, but felt he was the best equipped to defend "threats" In hind sight, Gore was better? Rudd over howard...change for the sake of change?, all the economic factors were sound. USA today, the public fear special interest groups have too much power? perhaps this gives rise to the popularity of trump who clearly postures his wealth to make him appear impervious to subservience by these powerful outsiders?

[mateinone]

Whilst Trump is only third in the betting odds, I think it will be Donald Trump or Jeb Bush that will almost certainly win the Republican vote and I think that Trump's policies (which almost every other Republican is blasting) are the exact reason why. He says things that hit a home run with a lot of American's, especially a lot of Republicans and they like that he doesn't care.

For a lot of American's they have a strong leaning towards a party and they see parties as simply being along the lines of the following

Republican -
Taxes..
[table]
[tr][td]Issue[/td][td]Republican[/td][td]Democrat[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Government Regulations[/td][td]Governments should interfere as little as possible and a free market place is required for growth.[/td][td]Government regulation is necessary to prevent exploitation and ensure companies don't ride over worker and consumers through monopolization for example.[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Taxes[/td][td]Should never be raised, flat rates[/td][td]Tax share should be progressive and based on earning[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Military[/td][td]Buy another a bomb!!![/td][td]Cut spending or keep status [/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Gun Control[/td][td]This country was formed on the back of the right to bear arms[/td][td]More open to gun control [/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Abortion[/td][td]More likely to be strongly against[/td][td]More likely to see it as a person's individual choise [/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Health Care[/td][td]Strongly (very strongly) against spending taxes on providing health care for all[/td][td] Support for government funded health care [/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Immigation[/td][td]As above, this is a massive issue for Republicans and generally they would want all undocumented worker deported.[/td][td] More open to a policy that says if they have been here a while, been good citizens etc etc then they should have an option to apply for citizenship[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Death Penalty[/td][td]Majority approve, few don't[/td][td]Majority approve, some NE states don't[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Minimum Wage[/td][td]No minimum wage, if a person will work for $1 an hour a company should be able to pay them that.[/td][td]Minimum wage prevents exploitation of workers*[/td][/tr]
[/table]

* It doesn't really, it only shields them a touch, the US minimum wage is an absolute joke.

Overall for a number of people in America it doesn't matter if it is Donald Duck vs Mickey Mouse.
A republican wants their gun, they do NOT want THEIR wages TAXED for other benefit.
My ex-wife was married to a guy in the military for me and she worked on an Army base so a lot of her friends were military and I can say that an extremely large portion of them are hard core republicans and if it was Donald Trump or Donald Duck up against Hilary, they would be voting hard for either Donald.

In saying that..

The republicans could be described as..
God fearing people who believe the founding fathers and god determined how this country should be run and by god and the founding fathers all decisions should be made.

This makes them very pro gun, anti-abortion, anti-gay etc etc ...

But this is becoming out-dated and Mav touched on a reason with the sheer numbers of the population changing, but even more than that, everyone on social media is developing a conscience. More and more if you were to post anti-abortion or anti-gay slogans, you would be shot down.
If you ran a business and were openly promoting these standards, it would be the end of you unless it was a local shop in the heart of Texas.
The "America" that the Republican party hold is disappearing, but they still have at least a few elections left in them and it would not completely surprise to see Trump as the next president. In essence in the future being called a republican will the same as being called a bigot or backwards or anything of the like, being called liberal is usually considered more in trend.

If I had stayed on and gone from resident to citizen, I would have actually joined the democrat party as I think I am against basically every Republican policy, I think most Australian's who like the Australian way of life would be democrats (though not all).

All of the above goes out the window if there was a war.
If there was a war tomorrow, a White American Republican Male would be the president (Bush or Trump, doesn't really matter).

[Lods]

I suspect the next President of the United States hasn’t entered the race yet.
If they have ……get ready for President Trump. :

On the Republican side of things the ''Mad Hairdo’’ is wiping the floor with his opponents

Jeb Bush seems to be the least intelligent and effective of all the Bushes
Ted Kruz is a Canadian that nobody likes.
Rubio looks the part and speaks well but is only a baby and never goes to work.

On the Democratic side…..
Hilary could possibly end up in gaol and Bernie Sanders is a “Commie”  (neither claim is actually true…but Fox news thinks it is)

Funny times ;D

[Mav]

Ironically, Ted Cruz might be ineligible.  The "birthers" have spent the last 8 years disputing that Obama is a "natural born American".  In his case, they alleged that he wasn't born in Hawaii but in Kenya.  Trump was a prominent birther, demanding that Obama release his full birth certificate and when Obama did so he alleged it was a forgery.

It now looks as though the right wing loonies may finally have found someone who wasn't born in America but he's one of the favourites of right wing loons.

Cruz was born in Canada.  His mother was a US citizen at the time but his father was a Canadian citizen after arriving in the US as a refugee without taking US citizenship.  Cruz remained a Canadian citizen until about 8 years ago when he renounced it.  He had always been a US citizen because of his mother's citizenship.

Most had assumed that his US citizenship was enough to make him eligible.  There's a strong argument, however, that it isn't.  John. McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone, then a US territory, where both his parents were serving in the US military.  Constitutional scholars believe McCain was eligible because his parents were serving the US Government at the time and it didn't hurt that it was technically US territory.  In Cruz's case, his mother wasn't serving the US in any capacity. 

Some legal scholars also believe that the citizenship of the mother is irrelevant - only that of the father counts. Again, it's ironic that the right wing obsession that the Constitution should be interpreted only as the founding fathers intended and all social advancements since then should be ignored.  For Cruz, the fact that women have obtained full rights might not matter as they were effectively property back then.

The legal scholars believe that "natural born citizen" doesn't mean simply a US citizen - it means that he was born there.

Cruz and Trump are both darlings of the far right wing Republican base.  And Trump is already telling everyone that Cruz may be ineligible.