I'm a self-professed intelligent democrat, and I will vote for clinton ahead of any proto-fascist, especially one with such negatives internationally, name him Trump or anything else. I am intrigued by Ottomaton's proposition, but I would still, just barely, vote for Clinton over a giant meteor. I think the meteor would be slightly worse. The most interesting thing to me, honestly, about this political matchup is that the GOP has selected a candidate that completely neutralizes their best attack against HRC. Any talk about her being dishonest gets set on fire by Trump's non-stop lying, as catalogued in thousands of ways already. He fabricates, misstates, distorts, and contradicts himself on a per minute basis, as opposed even to a per day basis. It's incredible. The GOP literally seems to have looked at a dozen candidates and selected the one that is objectively the least honest and least trustworthy person available.
[Educational Post] Sizzle Chest, has not the DNC done the same thing? In fact, it's even worse on the DNC side of the fence because they limited participation for alternative candidates in the primary and rigged the system to box out Bernie.
Republicans(I didn't say conservatives) only care about honesty and morality when it has to do with other parties. Hastert, Gingrinch, Delay, and Kenneth Starr.
I'm not surprised there are people like that out there. If they do end up voting for Trump they shouldn't complain then when he does things like using appoint judges like Scalia to lifetime appointments, weakens protections on freedom of the press, removes environmental protections, and allows greater nuclear proliferation. Those are all stances he publicly has taken and will be things that will be very hard for another president to undue.
Major contradiction here. Having intelligence would mean you don't affiliate with any party because you decide your position on issues using your intelligence not party affiliation. Following a party ideology instead of creating your own is a display of lack of intelligence.
Aligning yourself with a party does not mean that you conform to that party's view on every issue. For most people it tends to mean that the ideology that they believe in is more closely aligned with one party than another. It's pretty simple stuff, you probably shouldn't be insulting others intelligence when talking about it.
These are the same type of people that voted for Nader in 2000. They can blame themselves for the trillion dollar war and Citizens United.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2095549/Right-wingers-intelligent-left-wingers-says-controversial-study--conservative-politics-lead-people-racist.html
The party leadership has been running an anti-science, anti-progress platform to attract voters to their real objectives of tax and regulation avoidance for their benefactors for 30 years. To think you could control a crowd of assembled contrarians over the long term was hubris. Contrarians are going to be contrary, even to logic, religion or self-interest. Our resident contrarians have never explained how they would be better off without the interstate system, the EPA, the CDC, the FDA, collective defense, medicare, Social Security, civil rights, the space program... all efforts of collective government.
The "major contradiction" here is you. Being intelligent would be to pick a major political party that has views closest to your own, and where those views don't align, work within the party to change those views to conform with your own. The reason to work within one of the major political parties, if you wish to influence policy, is that they are the ones who actually win, or lose, elections. They are, like it or not, the political entities that matter. Time and again I've watched attempts at making a significant impact "a third way," and every single time, those efforts have failed. Senator Sanders, an independent, something a lot of people are and something I once was, has had to work within the Democratic Party to promote his agenda because that party most closely conforms to his own beliefs, giving him the best chance to influence that party from within. He is doing exactly what I am talking about. You can't see that because you are too busy being pissed off.
Well it's not like there weren't other candidates for the GOP to "choose from" that fit that bill. However, their base, like democrats', have decided being anti-establishment is the "right choice". They could have gone to ole' crazy Ted, but they went with ole' crazy Trump, who I actually think is less dangerous than Cruz. So I stand by my statement, as I think the GOP underestimated the general population's stupidity. It's a classic example of why you can't keep baby tigers for pets.
There have been brilliant, productive or forward-thinking people in both parties: Eisenhower, Garfield, Dewey, Rockefeller, Warren and Dirksen, to name a few. If people like you viewed politics with an objective historical eye rather than a petty factional one, you would understand that.
