So what do you Brits make of Trump ?

[trish]

On the Democratic side we're very close to getting a tweet on Tim Kaine being officially chosen as veep.
As politicians go, he's spectacularly ordinary. The exact opposite of an Elizabeth Warren or Cory Booker. But Hillary craves boring right about now. Why fuck things up when oddsmakers say you'll win?
And most importantly, Kaine was said to be Bill's choice

At least Gov. McAuliffe will likely appoint a Democrat to take Kaine's place on the Senate. Warren would certainly add spice to the ticket and perhaps would bring in more of the disaffected Bernie people. The drawback is she's doing a great job in the Senate, and were she to leave Baker would replace her with a Republican. Same with Booker. I don't know much at all about Tim Kaine. How would he do against Pence in a debate - anyone?

[sukumvit boy]

It just occurred to me what Trump's hair is all about !

[Stavros]

A few points in the aftermath of Cleveland-

1) Trump suggested Bernie Sanders' supporters would be voting for him, but if it so it would not be out of loathing for Mrs Clinton, but because Trump is the anti-globalisation candidate who, like Sanders thinks that Americans have got a bad deal out of globalisation and all it is claimed to represent.

2) What happens to the Republican party now? Is this the 'Party of Lincoln' or the 'Party of Trump'? Indeed, has it always been 'the Party of Lincoln' and if not when did it stop becoming that party -under Nixon? Reagan?

3) Emboldened by Trump's campaign, David Duke has announced his entry as a Republican candidate for the Senate contest in Louisiana in November. There is a belief now that the impossible is no longer that -Leicester City wining the Premier League in the 2015-2016 season, the UK voting to leave the EU, Trump becoming Presidential candidate -presumably it is now only a matter of time before one of those awful Kardashian or Jenner people run for whichever political post they think merits their fame, choosing Taylor Swift as their 'running mate'...(I admit I have never googled these people so don't really know who they are, I just look at the pictures)...

[trish]

On (2): I think the Republican Party stopped being the party of Lincoln ironically through a kind of sudden migration across the party borders. It happened when all the southern Democrats who opposed the civil rights legislation (that Johnson signed into law) flooded into the Republican Party, changing the profiles and goals of both parties ever after.

[Stavros]

On (2): I think the Republican Party stopped being the party of Lincoln ironically through a kind of sudden migration across the party borders. It happened when all the southern Democrats who opposed the civil rights legislation (that Johnson signed into law) flooded into the Republican Party, changing the profiles and goals of both parties ever after.

Thanks Trish, and I agree with most of what you say on civil rights. However, I think that the issue that has separated the two main parties and ended the degree of bi-partisan agreement that used to be common in Congress, is the issue of 'Big Government' which has is roots in the critique of Lincoln as the first 'Imperial President' who established as a norm that the Federal Govt could and indeed should intervene in the economy and 'guide' the US in terms of social policy. If the New Deal paradigm was replaced with a neo-liberal one in the Reagan era and an agenda the Democrats under Clinton adapted as their own, it seems to me that civil rights aside, the confusion in the Republican Party lies in the inability of the party to reconcile economic and social policy with an electorate that is more diverse in its origins than that which elected either Nixon or Reagan. The argument that government should not be making decisions people can make for themselves is at the heart of free market economics, yet the TEA Party radicals and the Evangelical, Moral Majority Christians seem to want that economic freedom, but to define social policy on their own narrow and mostly religious terms.

Trump, in this instance, is the champion of free market radicals because he wants lower taxes, he wants the Federal government to withdraw from health care and industrial policy, and he wants to break that aspect of globalisation which has seen inter-state trade deals ring-fence the signatories with privileges outsiders do not have, and replace it with a truly free global market place where competition between companies determines contracts, not agreements between states. Indeed, on this basis, as I said before, the logical candidate for anti-globalisation voters to turn to after Bernie Sanders is Donald Trump.

But, because Trump (set aside the empty rhetoric on 'law and order') does not really have any real interest in civil rights or social issues like abortion, same-sex relations, divorce, and education, the question would also be does this mean he can take the Republican Party into a new direction?

Or, as seems to me most likely, Republicans (re-)elected to Congress will continue to promote their 'God and Family' agenda, regardless of who is in the White House, and anyway Trump will lose, and the GOP will revert to what was before, until someone can step forward to take the GOP in a new direction.

[Stavros]

Does anyone know if this is legal or illegal?
Trump...speaking at a press conference in Florida, raised the stakes again, as he urged Russia to hack into and release Clinton’s emails from the personal server she used while she was secretary of state.

“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” he said.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...mails-dnc-hack

-As usual Trump having said one thing only to follow it up either with a denial, in this case claims he said it as a joke, though I don't suppose he would think it funny if someone entering Trump Tower with a briefcase when asked its contents replied -as a joke- 'a bomb'. Or maybe he just doesn't take this campaign seriously?

[blackchubby38]

Does anyone know if this is legal or illegal?
Trump...speaking at a press conference in Florida, raised the stakes again, as he urged Russia to hack into and release Clinton’s emails from the personal server she used while she was secretary of state.

“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” he said.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...mails-dnc-hack

-As usual Trump having said one thing only to follow it up either with a denial, in this case claims he said it as a joke, though I don't suppose he would think it funny if someone entering Trump Tower with a briefcase when asked its contents replied -as a joke- 'a bomb'. Or maybe he just doesn't take this campaign seriously?

I don't know if its legal or not. But it is kind of shady and while I'm never someone who throws this label around much, it comes off as being "un-American". He is basically asking a country who at the moment the United States has a strained relationship with to indirectly poke its nose in its Presidential election. Even if there is something of merit in those 30,000 emails, those emails should be discovered in way that doesn't pose a threat to national security. You know the same thing that Hillary Clinton is being accused of.

[buttslinger]

....maybe he just doesn't take this campaign seriously?

Melania doesn't understand Trump, his own kids don't understand him.
He is where he is now for just one reason- because he swooped in and hi-jacked all the Fox News Watching Jellyheads who have been brainwashed for years to ignore all the facts and trust their Racist Daddy. No matter what Daddy tells "THEM"
But, seriously, this is way beyond an unbelievable joke, man.

[trish]

Does anyone know if this is legal or illegal?
Trump...speaking at a press conference in Florida, raised the stakes again, as he urged Russia to hack into and release Clinton’s emails from the personal server she used while she was secretary of state.

“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” he said.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...mails-dnc-hack

-As usual Trump having said one thing only to follow it up either with a denial, in this case claims he said it as a joke, though I don't suppose he would think it funny if someone entering Trump Tower with a briefcase when asked its contents replied -as a joke- 'a bomb'. Or maybe he just doesn't take this campaign seriously?

Legal? Don't know, but it's worth four or five Congressional investigations. Come on Ryan - form an investigatory subcommittee - whaddya waitin' for?

[buttslinger]