Why I am NOT Voting for Trump in 2020

[HeyYou]

However you want to rationalize it, casting a ballot for Trump is still voting for Trump. The "lesser of two evils" rhetoric you are employing is not unexpected either; there was little hope of being able to portray Trump as someone who could be competent as a president, so the best strategy would be to demonize Hillary.

 

I am not too aquainted with many of the presidential contenders. Out of the three contenders on the Republican side I have heard of, I have experienced Trump and read about Bill Weld. I view Trump very unfavorably for the reasons listed above and then some. Bill Weld looks like a strong candidate with a history of competent leadership.

 

On the Democratic side, I have some familiarity with Sanders, Beto O'Rourke, Biden, and Yang. I view Sanders unfavorably for a number of reasons, such as pseudoscientific views about nuclear energy. I view Yang as mixed because he wants to experiment with a universal basic income for the US [i view this unfavorably], but has expressed a desire to lead and alter his administrations policies based on expert opinion [something that is sorely lacking in the current administration]. I don't really known any of O'Rourke's policy desires. And Biden I view favorably due to political experience, and suspect his policy views are close to Obama's [which is favorable]. My line of thinking is to vote for the most favorable candidate, and given the antics displayed by Trump, I would risk voting for a candidate I knew nothing about on the assumption that it would be statistically difficult for someone worse to make it through the primaries.

 

Unfortunately, I doubt that Bill Weld has much more than a snowball's chance in hell at beating an incumbent in the primary. If you don't care that much for Trump, you might want to look into Bill Weld. Worst case scenario is you like him, vote for him in the primary, and Trump still wins the primary.

 

Fortunately, I doubt that Sanders is going to win the Democratic primary due to consistently polling lower than Biden. Also fortunately, I doubt that if Yang got elected, a universal basic income would be able to pass into law. But. Democratic primaries aren't until March and a lot could change by then.

 

edit: altered spacing for readability

Now that's funny. I flatly state that I don't agree with hilary's platform, so, I am 'demonizing' her?? Seriously? I don't agree with her politics. In fact, I VEHEMENTLY DISAGREE with her politics. I don't want the country going in the direction she would point it. So, I won't vote for her. My only other choice was Trump. I didn't really want to vote FOR him either, but, I REALLY didn't want Hilary in office. If that is 'demonizing' her, I guess I am guilty as charged.

 

I am going to take a wild stab in the dark here, and guess that you and I will agree on very few issues, and neither one of us has a snowballs chance in hades of changing the others mind, so, I am not even going to bother with it. Come 2020, vote your conscience, and I will do the same. That is what this country is about in any event.

[NeedSomeMCP]

I apologize. I did not mean to claim that you in particular demonized Hillary, I meant that statement as a reflection of GOP and partisan group strategy, not you. Unfortunately, I used ambiguous grammar and see how it could be read that way.

I don't know what platform objections you had against Hillary, nor your opinions on issues in general, or what objections you have against the current Democratic candidates that elicits a stomach turning reaction, other than that you have them.

[HeyYou]

I apologize. I did not mean to claim that you in particular demonized Hillary, I meant that statement as a reflection of GOP and partisan group strategy, not you. Unfortunately, I used ambiguous grammar and see how it could be read that way.

 

I don't know what platform objections you had against Hillary, nor your opinions on issues in general, or what objections you have against the current Democratic candidates that elicits a stomach turning reaction, other than that you have them.

:smile: OK. I can accept that.

 

Both parties seem to have taken the line that 'making the other guy look bad' seems to be the way to go. Or, maybe it's more like "make the other guy look worse than us"...... Or something similar.

 

From my perspective, what I see the dems wanting to do, in VERY simplified form.....

 

Basically stop enforcing our borders. They want to let everyone in. We can't take care of the folks that are already here, we really don't need a few million more illegals.....

"Green New Deal" or it's variants. They have all these 'wonderful' ideas on how they want to 'save the planet', but, so far, I haven't heard a single viable method of paying for it. At least, not without totally destroying our economy.

Getting completely off oil in ten years. Or even 20...... Simply not going to happen. We don't have the technology to switch to anything else yet. Maybe at some point, after a few major breakthroughs in power generation, (fusion power?) Then "maybe". But, consider, if we get off of oil, there are going to be a LOT of people looking for new jobs. What's gonna happen to them? Retraining? Really? To do what? Work at the new fusion plant????? That should be fun.

"Gun Control". So far, the lefts answer to 'gun violence' has been "ban something". That isn't a solution. That is a step in the direction of total disarmament. (which is what many folks think the end goal is in any event. Some dems have flatly stated that it IS the end goal.) Beto has gone so far as to say he would use an executive order to institute a 'buyback' of AR-15, and AK-47 rifles. That's laughable. He makes the assumption that all the folks that currently have them, will abide by that. Again, not bloody likely. I would be surprised if 20% of owners turned them in. The rest would have to be taken by force. Is the left ready for Civil War 2.0?? That's what they would be starting.

Universal basic income. Again, where does the money come from? So far, every time that question gets asked, all you hear is crickets. They simply don't have an answer.

And then we have the lefts propensity to promote the rights of a tiny minority, over the rights of the vast majority. Terribly sorry, so far as I am concerned, that will NEVER be acceptable.

Climate change. The left seems to think we can *stop* it. They obviously didn't pay attention in history class. The climate changes. Doesn't matter if industrialized man is around or not. The climate IS going to change. That is a fact. I am not here to argue on if man is affecting it or not. (we likely are, but, only the RATE of change, not the change itself) We get two choices, we can adapt, and survive, or, we can die off. Just like millions of other species before us.

 

Anyway. I am of the firm belief that our government isn't in the business of solving problems anyway. If they actually solved the problem, (whatever it happened to be.) then they wouldn't have anything to point at and say "You need to re-elect me, so I can continue my campaign to address [some nebulous problem]....... "

 

Do I agree with everything the right is doing? Nope. I just find their positions more palatable than the left. (I voted for Obama. Twice. I REALLY didn't want Romney to be pres either. We would have had yet another war in the middle east to fight, that we started......)

 

Quite honestly, I am firmly convinced that our government is broken. The division between the two sides has become too great to be bridged. Now, politics is more about making sure the other guys don't do anything that might win them points in the next election, rather than doing what is best for the country. The country, and the american people as a whole, haven't been their major concern for decades. The 1% are doing rather well, the rest of us? Not so much......

Edited September 7, 2019 by HeyYou

[NeedSomeMCP]

In general, I think you have posted more of a caricature of a Democrat rather than a reflection of the party as a whole. I could be wrong. I was going to post a fairly long tirade, but I want to see if I can dig up some numbers to support or refute my hypothesis, should be interesting.

I agree that politics have grown more divisive and that denigrating attacks have become more common in general.

 

My personal beliefs are that whichever policies can be empirically determined to be objectively better should be the ones that we pursue as a nation.

 

edit:

 

Thinking about partisan divides, I remember arguing with someone on Facebook because I had posted a politifact article about one of Trump's state of the union addresses where he got the number of people on welfare wrong. I don't remember the number, but for sake of argument, like 4,000,000 when it was 5,000,000. Now, I get it, people gaff and numbers are hard to remember, but this person wanted to argue that there was some measure of deceit to the politifact post because they are close. However, those numbers are off by a good amount. Next, he tried to argue that the number could be 4,000,000 now and attempting to prove it by drawing a line on some data and calling it statistics; his model was fundamentally flawed. The best possible point he could have made would to have been "Yeah, Trump got the number wrong. Probably a gaff, no biggie" and there would have been no reasonable counter point. However, the hyper partisanship kept fueling him into digging deeper and deeper into odd arguments and crap reasoning,, and, frankly, it was insulting on an intellectual level. The lesson I took out of all of that was that I do not want to see myself become subjected to partisanship to the extent that my reasoning as a whole suffers.

[kvnchrist]

Why is it that people look at government when we should be looking at ourselves. The greatest human flaw is our ability to delude ourselves into believing in the benevolence of our own ideals over the malevolence of our opponents in such a degree that most are unwilling to see those on the other side as anything other than evil. Trump was a protest vote, as much against the standard republicans as it was against the changes President Obama brought into the country.

 

I don't think either party will exist as it has in the past post Trump, but it is the left that has shown the face of hate, far more than it has ever been able to convince anyone other than, maybe themselves of the hatred in the Trump administration.

 

I would never vote for President Trump, but I would not vote for any one of those who stand on the left because they are more about getting rid of President Trump than they are of fixing the country, I'm not looking for a savior to free myself from Donald Trump. I'm looking for someone to fix our country and I think the only person that will be able to do that is the person who would have the courage to tell those who voted for him to sit the flip down and shut the flip up, because they aren't as sacrosanct as they think they are and they darn sure aren't as wise as their pundits say they are for believing a certain way.

[HeyYou]

Caricature? Not really. My opinions are based on what I read in the news. (and no, not fox news.) Just today, we had yet another dem candidate declare support for a forced gun buyback. That's getting pretty popular with the left.

 

@kvnchrist: Yep. Pretty much spot on. My only pick would be, we don't have much of a choice but look to the government to fix things, as generally, they are the ones that screwed it up in the first place. :D

[NeedSomeMCP]

To explain what I mean by caricature, let me take a hypothetical view of a Republican:

-Against Homosexuals

-Supports white nationalism

-Believes a border wall will stop immigration

-Endorses Nuclear power

 

Now, I could find Republicans that match some of these beliefs, and some that match all of them, but it would not be accurate to represent the Republican electorate or platform with these things. This would be a caricatured version of a Republican, or in the lexicon of logic, a strawman. There is some truth (from very little to moderate) to each of those statements, but that image as a whole or as a socially accurate representation of a typical member of the Republican politicians or the typical Republican voter is clearly wrong.

For instance, the Universal Basic Income idea. I have only found evidence that 2 of the Democratic candidates support the idea as policy, and their combined poll total is less than 5%, so far [it merits further That would be an example of how your view is caricatured. That's not to say everything you posted is inaccurate or misleading, or that it is deliberately so. I am a wannabe stats nerd and the idea of looking at these points objectively intrigues me/ Last polls I have read demonstrate that most Democrats and Democratic officials strongly believe in anthropogenic climate change and that something needs to be done, thereby it would be accurate to claim that is representative of the Democratic platform.

 

On the mandatory gun buyback proposal, it does not seem to be supported, While it is true that it is proposed by 5 democratic potentials (2 of which have since dropped out), their % of poll share is roughly around 5%.

https://www.politico.com/2020-election/candidates-views-on-the-issues/gun-control/assault-weapons/

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html

The column that supports voluntary gun buyback represents about 55% of the polling share currently. Granted, poll numbers are subject to change as time goes on.

 

I have not examined too much further into your claims at this point, I try to be diligent and open minded about pursuing truth.

[MrJoseCuervo]

To explain what I mean by caricature, let me take a hypothetical view of a Republican:

-Against Homosexuals

-Supports white nationalism

-Believes a border wall will stop immigration

-Endorses Nuclear power

 

Now, I could find Republicans that match some of these beliefs, and some that match all of them, but it would not be accurate to represent the Republican electorate or platform with these things. This would be a caricatured version of a Republican, or in the lexicon of logic, a strawman. There is some truth (from very little to moderate) to each of those statements, but that image as a whole or as a socially accurate representation of a typical member of the Republican politicians or the typical Republican voter is clearly wrong.

 

For instance, the Universal Basic Income idea. I have only found evidence that 2 of the Democratic candidates support the idea as policy, and their combined poll total is less than 5%, so far [it merits further That would be an example of how your view is caricatured. That's not to say everything you posted is inaccurate or misleading, or that it is deliberately so. I am a wannabe stats nerd and the idea of looking at these points objectively intrigues me/ Last polls I have read demonstrate that most Democrats and Democratic officials strongly believe in anthropogenic climate change and that something needs to be done, thereby it would be accurate to claim that is representative of the Democratic platform.

 

On the mandatory gun buyback proposal, it does not seem to be supported, While it is true that it is proposed by 5 democratic potentials (2 of which have since dropped out), their % of poll share is roughly around 5%.

https://www.politico.com/2020-election/candidates-views-on-the-issues/gun-control/assault-weapons/

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html

The column that supports voluntary gun buyback represents about 55% of the polling share currently. Granted, poll numbers are subject to change as time goes on.

 

I have not examined too much further into your claims at this point, I try to be diligent and open minded about pursuing truth.

 

Wow talk about a caricature. That definition of a Republican is straight from MSNBC. LOL Quite hilarious!!

 

Are there Republicans who hold those beliefs? Absolutely! But I hate to inform you there are many democrats that do as well. For example:

 

-Against Homosexuals This is very common among Latinos and Blacks. Being Latino myself I will say that this prejudice runs very deep in our culture.

-Supports white nationalism Some of the most racist people I have ever met were democrats in New Jersey and Massachusetts

-Believes a border wall will stop immigration No one wants to stop immigration. They want to stop illegal immigration. There is a difference. This issue is probably one of the leading ones that caused many Democrats to vote for Trump.

 

This is why Democrats are destined to lose. They attack the pools of voters whose heart and minds they need to win. Good luck with that strategy!

 

Demonizing, ridiculing and guilt are not tools to expand your voter base. but please Keep on truckin'!

[HeyYou]

To explain what I mean by caricature, let me take a hypothetical view of a Republican:

-Against Homosexuals

-Supports white nationalism

-Believes a border wall will stop immigration

-Endorses Nuclear power

 

Now, I could find Republicans that match some of these beliefs, and some that match all of them, but it would not be accurate to represent the Republican electorate or platform with these things. This would be a caricatured version of a Republican, or in the lexicon of logic, a strawman. There is some truth (from very little to moderate) to each of those statements, but that image as a whole or as a socially accurate representation of a typical member of the Republican politicians or the typical Republican voter is clearly wrong.

 

For instance, the Universal Basic Income idea. I have only found evidence that 2 of the Democratic candidates support the idea as policy, and their combined poll total is less than 5%, so far [it merits further That would be an example of how your view is caricatured. That's not to say everything you posted is inaccurate or misleading, or that it is deliberately so. I am a wannabe stats nerd and the idea of looking at these points objectively intrigues me/ Last polls I have read demonstrate that most Democrats and Democratic officials strongly believe in anthropogenic climate change and that something needs to be done, thereby it would be accurate to claim that is representative of the Democratic platform.

 

On the mandatory gun buyback proposal, it does not seem to be supported, While it is true that it is proposed by 5 democratic potentials (2 of which have since dropped out), their % of poll share is roughly around 5%.

https://www.politico.com/2020-election/candidates-views-on-the-issues/gun-control/assault-weapons/

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html

The column that supports voluntary gun buyback represents about 55% of the polling share currently. Granted, poll numbers are subject to change as time goes on.

 

I have not examined too much further into your claims at this point, I try to be diligent and open minded about pursuing truth.

So, if not the issues they regularly talk about in the news, which is where my list came from...... What platform do you think the dems are running on? I am not describing dems as a whole, just the ones that are currently in the public eye, running for president. When I hear them speak, I am dumbfounded at some of the lunacy they come up with.

 

Its a rare occasion that I find myself in agreement with Mr Cuervo, but, this is one of them....... If the dems keep running headlong down this path they seem to have chosen, the repubbies will retake the house, pick up some seats in the senate, and Trump will get another term....

[NeedSomeMCP]

I caricatured a Republican like that with no intent of portraying the whole base like that, but rather to highlight the ridiculousness of caricatures themselves. Sometimes a fallacy can't be observed properly without seeing how it denigrates one's own viewpoints; For example, your second point there about racist Democrats. Sure there are racist Democrats, but because you've met a few (assuming that you are being truthful and know that), does not mean the Democratic platform is racist. That is exactly a caricature and the type of behavior I was highlighting.

 

Democrats are destined to lose? Currently, general election polls show quite favorably for the Democrats: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/general_election/

Its going to change between now and general election, but declaring a loser is quite premature at this point.

 

Sure some Democratic candidates alienate certain segments of the electorate, but that is a small part of the overall picture. Republicans alienate their base as well. Democrats win some Republicans and moderates over from time to time, and some Republicans win Democrats and moderates over to their side. That's a lot going on. Using current polls as a proxy, it looks like the sum total of all those effects is that the Democratic candidates hold favor over Trump, particularly Joe Biden. But, its still a long way to go before the general election and even the primaries. It is way to early to attempt to forecast with any confidence. Many things could happen. Hell, maybe Trump will suddenly become a president that I like [doubtful, but not impossible], but I can't predict the future and can only go off of what I know now.

HeyYou,

 

I agree that I hear plenty of things from many candidates that I blatantly disagree with, like Mr. Sanders describing nuclear power as dirty and toxic, just as an example.

 

If I were to characterize the Democratic platform, I don't think I could break it down into specific policies but rather general goals of gun safety/gun control [not abolition], environmentalism, and health care, with each candidate varying on how they would intend to carry those goals and the extent that they will go to carry out their goals.

 

Another way to look at it would be to characterize Mr. Biden's positions as the Democratic platform since he is currently and has been in the lead of the Democratic primaries so far, and seems most likely at this point to make it to the general election, which would yield this:

https://www.politico.com/2020-election/candidates-views-on-the-issues/joe-biden/

 

I don't agree with everything on his issue stances, but I don't hold any expectation of perfection in candidates (no such thing as a perfect candidate).