a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by thenewgreen
thenewgreen  ·  3023 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: So apparently Hillary Clinton fainted today and r/politics is on fire about it.

    I don't know how big of a deal it is.
it's a big deal. Why? Optics. Trump will hammer on this over and over. He is already creating doubt around her health and vitality. This looks bad and feeds perfectly in to the narrative he is creating. Is it likely that she's absolutely fine and just wasn't feeling well? Yes. But optics matter. Trump is no fool, especially when it comes to marketing.

I'm telling you people, he's gonna win. I really, really hope I'm wrong. I know the electoral math says otherwise but all it will take is one HC fainting, one HC mistake during a debate.

Be scared, be very scared.

Edit: it's pneumonia. That's no joke:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2006/12/pneumonia_vs_the_elderly.html





user-inactivated  ·  3023 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I mean, she's near 70, but if she's The President then she'll literally have the best doctors available. Everyone was worried about McCain in 2008 and he's still doing alright for the most part. To add, Trump is pretty much the same age, so he's just as big of a risk, even if I think it is overblown.

As for him winning the presidency, I think it's slim. I think there are more than enough good hearted Americans to keep that from happening. That said, if he does win, I think it's important we all start trying to be neighborly as fuxk towards each other, cause it's going to be a long four years.

thenewgreen  ·  3023 days ago  ·  link  ·  

To be clear, I'm not worried (given the info we have) about her health or ability to carry out her job. It's the optics of it all. It's pretty much Christmas morning for Trump right now. As soon as he saw her fall like that he got the biggest boner ever. Trust me.

He will make hay.

user-inactivated  ·  3023 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I think you're overestimating the number of people who would ever, under any circumstance up to and including the alternative being a kitten in a tiny power suit, vote for Donald Trump. The only way he wins is if everyone else is so demoralized they don't bother showing up at the polls, and this doesn't accomplish that because "interchangeable disappointing President dies to be replaced by interchangeable disappointing Vice President" is still the expected "more of the same", which is a much better scenario than "President Fascist Cheeto."

OftenBen  ·  3023 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Kitten-Meteor 2016

user-inactivated  ·  3023 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Walk softly and carry a big rock?

OftenBen  ·  3023 days ago  ·  link  ·  

That's one interpretation.

I was just calling back to the popularity of the Giant Meteor 2016 meme after it became obvious that the final battle was Clinton v. Trump.

I'd rather vote for the kitten in a power suit than the meteor, but I think they make a powerful ticket when you combine them. The softness of the kitten is a powerful moderating force on the directness and destructive potential of the meteor.

user-inactivated  ·  3023 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I think the news for the next week is gonna get interesting, from every angle.

kleinbl00  ·  3023 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I suspect it will be the opposite.

"Is news about pneumonia news? Or news?"

user-inactivated  ·  3023 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Well, I predict Trump will say something dumb and or cruel, which is business as usual. Or he might be super respectful, which would be a big surprise and would be news for that. I can see people speculating on Hillary and her condition which might be business as usual, or calls saying she should step down and is physically unfit for the job of being America's President, which would also be business as usual. Or maybe she'll decide to throw in the towel, which would be super crazy and who knows what road that would take us down?

kleinbl00  ·  3023 days ago  ·  link  ·  

If we're lucky, the news will acknowledge that skipping out on the 9/11 ceremony with anything short of projectile leprosy would be seen as an affront to the assorted people dragged out whenever you wish to assert an affront and that once she was there, leaving early would be an even greater affront etc. until you have a politician feeling so shitty that she's gotta bolt and lo and behold there she is, Weekend at Bernie's on cell footage.

If we're unlucky, the news will question whether or not Hilary Clinton has projectile leprosy.

ButterflyEffect  ·  3023 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Why do you think Trump will win? Were you thinking that prior to today?

thenewgreen  ·  3023 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'm seeing more and more evidence of people that are seemingly rationale conservatives and independents saying they're going to vote for him. These are people in my family and former colleagues at work, so it's anectdotal. But I made this prediction prior to any GOP debates. He's such a good marketer. He understands the mob. We are living in idiocracy. The d-u-m-b people outnumber the rest. Getting them to the polls is the trick. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if he offered to pick people up in limos that are pledged to vote for him....

user-inactivated  ·  3023 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I want to start this by saying that I am to the slight left of Sanders, and saw him and the conversation he started as a jumping off point for something more like the Social Democrats in Germany.

You want to know why people are going to vote Trump? They are angry, they are scared, and they have been ignored for a generation. The Democrats abandoned the middle of the nation in their minds and left them to the Republicans. They watch Fox News because crime is out of control (even if it is still the lowest its been in decades), the economy is shit, their jobs are being off-shored, and they are fed this constant stream of media shit. But the stream of media shit is like religion in that it tells them they suffer now for a good life down the line when they are all rich and healthy and life is sunshine and rainbows if only we had a true conservative prophet to lead us. but instead they saw Trump as someone the establishment hated and got him the nomination.

    He's such a good marketer. He understands the mob.

And the thing about mobs is that individuals turn off the logic part of their brains and go with the flow of the mayhem. I work with people who, although they don't quite use these words, want the whole thing to burn down so it can be rebuilt by the 'True Believers" and it just so happens they are the ones who can elect the right people.

    I'm seeing more and more evidence of people that are seemingly rationale conservatives and independents saying they're going to vote for him. These are people in my family and former colleagues at work, so it's anectdotal.

I'm starting to get scared that Hillary is going to lose. I'm having the same anecdotes. And the Hillary campaign is not doing anything that I can see that is reaching out to the people in the middle and telling them "We are a great country, we don't need to be made great again, we need to fix our shit and move forward." I think that this comes from having, for lack of a better way of saying it, "grandma and grandpa" running for President. Older people back, and we need people who can move us forward.