[oneloop]

> Check out Trump's rhetoric: he admires Putin, he clearly doesn't want war. Check out Clinton's rhetoric: conflict.

I am embarrassed to say, but you've just changed my mind to vote for Trump.

I'm fundamentally a single issue voter. I think the most important problem is one that no one in the world is talking about right now: escalation with Russia. The situation has slowly been getting worse since 2002 when the US withdrew from the anti-ballistic missile treaty [1] and is getting worse faster.

I also think there's a massive misinformation from the US government about its interactions with the Russian government. What I mean is that the narrative that the US government tells its citizens is that anything that the former does is very well justified (eg bombing Syria) whereas anything that the later does is just because Russians are evil (eg invading Ukraine). Yes, obviously the Russian government uses the same misinformation on their citizens, the difference is that the US is much more successful at this game at the international level. The problem with the citizens specifically is that if two governments are enemies and they have the support of their respective populations... you can imagine what a small leap it is to start war.

Yes, Trump is a racist dimwit, but I think that is secondary compared to the consequences of more war.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Ballistic_Missile_Treaty

[Freestyler_3]

As far as I know from the debate, Trump does not adore Russia. ( I guess he does not want to blame and name and shame. ) Trump wants to stay ahead of Russia in nuclear capability. He does not want to strike first.

When I heard in the debate what Clinton wants; She wants to let Russia improve their nukes but not the USA's. Clinton Likes to call out Russia in public and calls for responses in public. ( I think calling this out in public isn't the most tactical thing to do, its not called poking the bear for nothing )

But, I am aware of Trump saying contradicting things. So its going to be a surprise.

[oneloop]

> As far as I know from the debate, Trump does not adore Russia.

Yeah, who knows, the guy is a moron, I'm not sure he himself knows what his position on the subject is.

> When I heard in the debate what Clinton wants; She wants to let Russia improve their nukes but not the USA's.

That definitely does not sound like Clinton. Reference?

> Clinton Likes to call out Russia in public and calls for responses in public.

Putin does that all the time too. I think they're both posturing for their domestic audiences, who want them to be strong against the "enemy".

[Freestyler_3]

I am very sorry, You are right to correct me Clinton did not say that. (however I did not really get a clear answer on how she feels, but that might be my lack of understanding her)

Trump might be a moron in your eyes, I think he is very untalented in the political way of talking.

I don't think being comparable to Putin is good or smart.

[oneloop]

> I don't think being comparable to Putin is good or smart.

I get what you're saying, but this has been textbook politics since forever. The most reliable way to rally people around you is convince them there is a great danger in X, and only you can save them from X. Every single politician does it. And it's easier if X is external. Clinton does it with "the Russians", Putin does it with "the Americans", Trump does it with "the Muslims and the Mexicans". In the UK Nigel Farage does with Europe/the immigrants.

I'm not saying that aren't some times external dangers. But these four characters I mentioned use this just as a political tool.

And this is was brought me to what I wrote at the top of this thread. This is very concerning especially in the case of Clinton/Putin, because when they've been using each other as a political tool eventually your population have been fed so much shit for so long, they actually hate the enemy country. And when that happens it gets even easier to start war. And that is really concerning :-/

[HelloMcFly]

What an incredibly myopic view. Trump plays conflict every bit, if not more, than Clinton; the one area Trump is less conflict-focused is Russia, whose semi-totalitarian leader Trump admires and would like to emulate.

[1][2] Trump is the only candidate who has openly floated the idea of using nuclear weapons. [3] Trump is ready to start a political pissing war with Mexico over a wall. [4][5] Trump wants to ban all Muslim travel to the US, and profile all US Muslims. [6] Trump, the "Law and Order" candidate, would prefer to convict minority men based on police testimony alone, never mind the courts [7] Trump is more militaristic, by his own admission, then George W. Bush [8] Trump called for direct intervention in Libya just like other leaders [9] Trump basically wants to steal oil from Iraq using our troops as the muscle [10] Trump is doing more sabre-rattling with China than Clinton, by a mile [11] Trump wants China to invade North Korea, or just have its leader assassinated

Trump, the anti-conflict vote? He makes everyone an enemy, including and especially our own citizens. His followers like him because he's a strongman, a bully. But sure, he's the anti-conflict vote because he admires Putin. Never mind the fallout for everyone else, especially poor, non-white citizens.

I suppose if you think an actual war is likely or possible with Russia then your fears are founded. That seems more than outlandish to me, and far from justification for putting a racist, misogynist bully in charge or the country and nominating Supreme Court justices.

--- 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCHQPCXbt1w 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVTAaJ1fzfc 3. Do you need a citation for this? 4. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/07... 5. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/06... 6. http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/donald-trump-s... 7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PakHtuTrvV8&feature=youtu.be... 8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnZFQiDR4hQ 9. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZxD_RFvXpA&feature=youtu.be... 10. Watch the debates 11. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/09/27...

[jack9]

> I am very keenly aware of every stupid thing Trump has ever said,

(Cited from another reply.) This misses the point. Most importantly, like Clinton (but really far MORE than Clinton), nothing he says has any particular aim other than objective emotion of the moment (except in the rare case there is another equally vacuous cause). Nor can you reliably predict behavior based on past statements by presidential candidates. It's a joke that people citing these clowns have clearly not understood. That being said, Trump likes economic and populist conflict, not actual war. He defers to experts for physical conflict and has no incentive to initiate as he is fundamentally an egoist. Would he rather spend 100 million on moving some ships around, or put his face on Rushmore. It's that simple.

[oneloop]

So you're kind of agreeing with me...?

[oneloop]

Dude, you didn't need all the citations. I am very keenly aware of every stupid thing Trump has ever said, probably. And I repeat that all of those things are secondary compared to this.

Unfortunately, I don't think war with Russia is outlandish at all. Like I said, for the past 10 years Russia has been repeatedly saying that the US's missile "shield" is threatening their nuclear capabilities (please please see [1], or you won't understand where I'm coming from). Obviously, there is the question of: do they really believe their nuclear capabilities are threatened, or are they just using that as a talking point? If they actually do, that's by far more dangerous than anything Trump can do. You know what happens if you corner a rat, right?

All I said is that the above is more important than Trump's idiocy. I'm not sure why you think this is a myopic view. It's not like I don't know about the things you mentioned. I know about them and took them into account. In fact, I've always said I'd vote Clinton because Trump is too much of a wild card. But actually... as things are, I'd rather take the wild card.

[1] If you're actually interested in informing yourself about this, start with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqD8lIdIMRo The bit I'm talking about starts at 4:00 to roughly 9:00.

[HelloMcFly]

I honestly cannot agree with your reasoning or conclusions at all. You'd choose to vote for the unpredictable bully that isn't totally against using nukes because he admires Putin; nevermind his aggressive rhetoric in literally every other sense (rivals, allies, and our own citizens alike). That's the anti-war vote? It's obviously your vote, but good grief, I can't believe you'd find that more comforting. So yes, I find your position very, very, very myopic.

And just to get ahead of it: I've seen that video. I'm familiar with the topic. I think the idea of an actual war with Russia is very outlandish.

[oneloop]

Well, I hope you're right.

I think that we humans find it hard to conceive such humongous changes in the world around us. We're used to a certain background in our lives and under-estimate the likelihood of any scenario that changes that a lot. Evolutionarily this makes sense: if you always think that the things you've never seen changing will never change, you will be right almost all of the time (and I could just as well call you myopic for not believing _my_ scenario).

But at the same time if instead of going with your instinct of how likely it is that such an outrageous scenario would occur, you instead follow simple game theory, there is only a few ways out of this situation, at least that I can think of:

A) The USA says We acknowledge your concerns and and actually, we're not gonna build that shield after all (or some variation of this)

B) Russia says Actually, I'm just gonna lay down and be bullied into irrelevance

Do you see either of these happening? Things will have to get much worse before either of these happens. Do you see other alternatives?

[HelloMcFly]

Yes, of course there are other alternatives. This isn't "simple game theory", this is the real world. Economies are not independent; a declaration of war against a major trade partner is effectively a declaration of war against yourself. There are thousands of unknowns.

The most obvious potential solution is some sort of tit-for-tat diplomatic agreement where both sides appear to win while both lose something. If your requirement to believe that is likely is for me to draft the proposal then your fears will be validated because I'm not qualified to do so.

To me it is more than far-fatched to believe 1) that the end-game of a highly multi-faceted socio-political issue has only a dichotomous outcome with no middle-ground, 2) that the "Law & Order" bully candidate would abandon the missile shield even though he admires Putin, or 3) even if the worst comes to pass that Russia would put itself into a position to fight the world's strongest military + an entire continent it neighbors, all with a questionable economy.

Of course you could call me myopic for not believing your scenario. 9/11 Truthers could say the same. But I'm not the one betting on a super long-shot hypothetical while ignoring the near-certain other negative outcomes that a Trump presidency brings. To ignore those factors can only be done from a place of privilege where his white male supremecist rhetoric isn't interpreted as a personal threat to your own well-being.

[oneloop]

> Of course you could call me myopic for not believing your scenario. 9/11 Truthers could say the same.

Dude, no need for this style of conversation.

[ting_bu_dung]

1.) you're assuming voting for hillary is automatic war with Russia. and would vote based on that single fallacy. (very doubtful you're american anyways)

2.) You, being "single issue" voter, ignore that trump is a psychopathic, women-hating, racist, tax-dodging, russia-affiliated antichrist who will bring shame and destruction to America.

3.) You are so afraid of Russia (they're failing economically, politically, and technically) that you would vote a madman into the US office. You are the type of people that would vote in Hitler.

[oneloop]

> 1.) you're assuming voting for hillary is automatic war with Russia. and would vote based on that single fallacy.

No, I'm assuming that hillary would be very similar to obama and bush. You're the one making the wrong assumption.

> 2.) You, being "single issue" voter, ignore that trump is a psychopathic, women-hating, racist, tax-dodging, russia-affiliated antichrist who will bring shame and destruction to America.

Like I said above, I don't ignore any of the things you mentioned, as I've been following the subject extremely closely. In all likelihood I'm better informed about how flawed Trump is than you are.

> 3.) You are so afraid of Russia (they're failing economically, politically, and technically) that you would vote a madman into the US office (doubtful you're american anyways)

I'm not afraid of Russia, I'm afraid of war. War isn't "we win they lose". More likely, we both lose. In any case, you're mistaken in saying that they're failing in any of the categories you mentioned. Russia was failing in the 90s. I guess you haven't been keeping with the world outside of your bubble since then.

> You are the type of people that would vote in Hitler.

Aright buddy, just lost interest :D

[koverstreet]

> No, I'm assuming that hillary would be very similar to obama and bush.

It's worse than that. If Hillary was going to be similar to Obama, I'd be ok (not happy, but ok) with electing her.

Based on the available evidence though, Hillary is actually far more hawkish than Obama. She was the one pushing for intervention in Libya, Biden was entirely against it - and IIRC Obama has mentioned that as possibly the biggest mistake of his administration. She's also been repeatedly posturing for more intervention in Syria, as if that place isn't enough of a clusterfuck already.

She appears to lack any kind of introspection whatsoever about use of force (look up her comments on the aftermath of Libya...), and worse, appears to view it as some kind of a dick measuring contest (remember the whole "under sniper fire" thing? She clearly has a need to be seen as appearing tough...).

Frankly, I don't know which of Hillary or Trump is more scary. As flawed as Obama has been, I would vote for him in a heartbeat over either of them. Or Romney, for that matter (and I was a Bernie supporter, so that should tell you something).

[ting_bu_dung]

>hillary would be very similar to obama and bush

lol you lost my interest here too. anyone who thinks obama and bush are the same has no clear grasp of reality

[oneloop]

Well, they're very different in terms of domestic policy, but not in terms of foreign policy.