Republican Election 2016 - Donald Trump Megathread [OFFICIAL]

[Thepersona]

The biggest target will be gerrymandering since everything flows from that. You can bet cases will brought to challenge it and that a liberal court will rule it unconstitutional. Say goodbye to republican dominated legislatures.....

oh--- that would be glorious, but a democrat controlled legislature (all 3 branches) could be a bad thing on the long run

[Wulfey]

Look at that big old list of PC Libs! A regular cavalcade of SJW cavalry right there! Those R Senators must have been triggered by a real man like Trump. We all know women like a strong man who doesn't wait. /Cernovich

[Edge-]

HRC is going to go for a revenge pick. 30 years of horseshit conspiracy theories will be held to account when the new 43 year old female Justice is sworn in. This won't be like Obama's moderate appointment.

Honestly, hoping RBG steps down if Hillary wins (though it will make me sad, I love the shit outta that woman). That way Hillary can appoint Garland (who fucking deserves it, especially with the bullshit the GOP are pulling now) and the most liberal judge she can find just to stick it to them for playing politics with the SCOTUS.

You are incredibly naive. You probably think Trump is a real Republican.

Not at all, he's pretty antithetical to most of the GOP's core beliefs actually. But don't tell his supporters that, to them he's the only real Republican, and everyone else from Lindsey Graham to Paul Ryan to George Will are all RINO's.

[BrerBear]

Yeah, I can't tell if this is REALLY going to hurt Trump or if this is a lot of smoke for a relatively small fire. His base is pretty dedicated/stubborn.

The 30-35% of the electorate solidly behind Trump won't care.
It's the 20% or so who's been waffling back and forth between Trump and Clinton who are seeing this as the last straw.

[apeiron1234]

Funny, he has dropped like 40 Republican congressional and leadership supporters. You say its nothing, maybe you should ask them.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (Utah)

Rep. Martha Roby (Ala.)

Rep. Chris Stewart (Utah)

Rep. Bradley Byrne (Ala.)

Rep. Joe Heck (Nev.)

Rep. Cresent Hardy (Nev.)

Rep. Scott Garrett (N.J.)

Rep. Ann Wagner (Mo.)

Rep. Rodney Davis (Ill.)

Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (Neb.)

Rep. Tom Rooney (Fla.)

Sen. Kelly Ayotte (N.H.)

Sen. Mike Crapo (Idaho)

Sen. John Thune (S.D.)

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.)

Sen. Deb Fischer (Neb.)

Sen. Dan Sullivan (Alaska)

Sen. Cory Gardner (Colo.)

Sen. John McCain (Ariz.)

Sen. Rob Portman (Ohio)

Gov. Gary Herbert (Utah)

Gov. Dennis Dauggard (S.D.)

Gov. Robert Bentley (Ala.)
Are all asking him to step down.

These are all asking him to drop out entirely:
There’s also some GOP lawmakers who didn’t support Trump before but are now taking it a step further and saying he needs to drop out. They include Sens. Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Mark Kirk (Ill.), Mike Lee (Utah), Ben Sasse (Neb.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Reps. Mike Coffman (Colo.), Barbara Comstock (Va.), Fred Upton (Mich.), Charlie Dent (Pa.), Frank LoBiondo (N.J.), Will Hurd (Texas), John Katko (N.Y.), Erik Paulsen (Minn.) and Pat Tiberi (Ohio).

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...b0e655eab48044

Yeah it's pretty much nothing.

[Lenonis]

Yeah, I can't tell if this is REALLY going to hurt Trump or if this is a lot of smoke for a relatively small fire. His base is pretty dedicated/stubborn.

I don't want to sound like a broken record but this isn't just about who will vote for Trump vs Clinton. This is also about turnout. The more people who just can't see themselves voting for Trump will likely result in more people who won't bother to vote. This will not only damage Trump's chances but also hurt the GOP's down ballot races.

[Graeham]

It's a bit strange that a comment made 11 years ago has suddenly dominated the mainstream media when there's so much worse stuff going on in the world at the moment that is rarely getting any major coverage. A case of the mainstream media being the mainstream media though I guess.

[May90]

Any time the republicans have to deal with factual evidence of the kind of person they nominated for president, it's one more step to them actually becoming reasonable, moving more towards the center, and dealing with the radicals that put him there.

Here is hoping. I actually used to sympathize with Republican economic policies in the past (although I've never been able to stand their social views), before they took an extremist turn several years ago. Would be nice to see them back in action as a serious and mature political force!

[Lenonis]

oh--- that would be glorious, but a democrat controlled legislature (all 3 branches) could be a bad thing on the long run

The senate won't be filibuster proof so it's not really full control of all 3 branches.

[Skroe]

Pence has no political career after this. He's done.

He needs to decide whether to hang tight, in the miniscule hope that some improbable set of circumstances puts him in the White House (with the consequence that, when that chance doesn't materialize, he's going to (rightfully) be shat on as a waste of DNA for whatever lifespan remains to him) or to bail and escape while clutching some little befouled scraps of his (never abundant to begin with) dignity and decency.

I was talking to my brother when I picked him up today... he lives in New York right near Trump tower and was in town to visit.

First of all, it's a madhouse there right now. Second of all, neither of us understood why Pence didn't immedietly demand Trump step aside. He will have no better opportunity in the future.

Aligning with Donald Trump severely damaged his career. But actually forgoing the most obvious "savior" moment, so to speak (not that I like Pence either) that was served up to him on a silver platter, just took it out back and shot in in the face.

[Orbitus]

Yeah it's pretty much nothing.

Yeah, NOTHING is wrong with being asked to step down or leave the race entirely.

[Sargerasraider]

The biggest target will be gerrymandering since everything flows from that. You can bet cases will brought to challenge it and that a liberal court will rule it unconstitutional. Say goodbye to republican dominated legislatures.....

You realize that gerrymandering (1) only affects House elections and (2) the winner of the national popular vote has won the House in all but two elections in recent memory, right? It's not as big an influence as many say it is.

When Hillary wins this election, she will not come into power with much of a mandate as huge swaths of people will just be voting against Trump, not for her or her policies to any degree. I don't think that I'm going out on much of a limb to predict that the Democrats will be crushed in the 2018 off year election.

[May90]

I was talking to my brother when I picked him up today... he lives in New York right near Trump tower and was in town to visit.

First of all, it's a madhouse there right now. Second of all, neither of us understood why Pence didn't immedietly demand Trump step aside. He will have no better opportunity in the future.

Aligning with Donald Trump severely damaged his career. But actually forgoing the most obvious "savior" moment, so to speak (not that I like Pence either) that was served up to him on a silver platter, just took it out back and shot in in the face.

It would be interesting if the tape had been released a few days before the VP debate. I assume Pence would have ended up bailing out: as much as I dislike him, he does seem to have some dignity, as well as ambitions, and aligning with someone who just got his political career destroyed with one clean sweep isn't something he would want to keep doing.

[Celista]

I don't want to sound like a broken record but this isn't just about who will vote for Trump vs Clinton. This is also about turnout. The more people who just can't see themselves voting for Trump will likely result in more people who won't bother to vote. This will not only damage Trump's chances but also hurt the GOP's down ballot races.

I guess we'll see on election day. There is a lot of vitriol for both candidates on either side of the aisle..."anyone but [insert candidate here]", conservatives really seem to hate Clinton.

[alexw]

oh--- that would be glorious, but a democrat controlled legislature (all 3 branches) could be a bad thing on the long run

It would be a good thing. Republicans would no longer be able to cheat their way to victory (a liberal scotus would shut down voter disenfranchisement laws too), meaning they'd be left no choice but to reform or see themselves replaced by another political party. So no more climate change denial, no more racial resentment and demagogy, no more LGBT hate, no more extremist positions on guns, no more catering exclusively to the economic interests of the rich, no more.... etc.... etc....

Everything bad they are right now they would no longer be.

[Wyrt]

Look at that big old list of PC Libs! A regular cavalcade of SJW cavalry right there! Those R Senators must have been triggered by a real man like Trump. We all know women like a strong man who doesn't wait. /Cernovich

When will you stop being triggered by PC stuff?

[mvaliz]

It makes me wonder...

Is "You supported Donald Dump in 2016" going to replace the "you voted for the invasion of Iraq" as the go-to de-facto political disqualifyer?

[apeiron1234]

Yeah, NOTHING is wrong with being asked to step down or leave the race entirely.

God if I had a dollar for every time some decrepit old politician called for Trump to drop out.

[LilSaihah]

It would be interesting if the tape had been released a few days before the VP debate. I assume Pence would have ended up bailing out: as much as I dislike him, he does seem to have some dignity, as well as ambitions, and aligning with someone who just got his political career destroyed with one clean sweep isn't something he would want to keep doing.

This isn't the end of the shitstorm. They'll be releasing more.

[Breccia]

First of all, this attack on Trump because of what he said 11 years ago is really petty. It is one more case of attacking candidates for their personal lives, that are irrelevant to their policies and the elections.

Trump has no political history, and almost any examination of his policies (his tax plan that costs $5 trillion, his contradictory plans on China and Mexico, stop and frisk, his desire to use nukes, the stupid fucking wall) shows them wanting. During the election, he showed the opposite of diplomacy by alienating large chunks of the Republican party, as well as visiting another country and lying to it. He's a failure as a businessman on a variety of levels so large he's due in court for one of them just after the election and lost nearly a billion dollars multiple times -- and he very likely owes hundreds of millions to Russia and has been advocating some exceptionally Russia-friendly rest of world-hostile policies. And he lies about a large bredth of topics, including what he just said an hour ago in front of 100 million people.

All he had to run on was his character. So it's 100% relevant. And he just showed that was as rotting and falling apart as Atlantic City.

Plus you, like many other people and a ton of Trump supporters, are saying "he said some bad things". One of the bad things he said was "I tried to bribe a journalist under my employ into having adulterous sex, while my wife was pregnant". This isn't about his words, it's about his deeds.

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I'm tired of Clinton's lies. She must really think that we are stupid this time. As of today, at 75% of whats left of the Trump voter base are in the basket of deplorables, not 50%

It was true at the time. She's probably forgotten which of her two Blackberries updates her FB status.