@Mister Poof: If you held American citizenship in November 2016 and were eligible to vote, would you have voted for Donald Trump?

Trump didn't campaign as a conservative but has governed like one. Any real conservative wouldn't have voted for Trump in 2016.

Well, someone seems salty.
(By Norwegian standards,) I'm pretty much a conservative. Ask me anything. :)

Therefore you count as a communist in America xD

Keep on going. Your support of Trump's governance + identification as a conservative while being a grade-A douchenozzle pretty much makes my case for me.

@Knyte -No I would not.

Trump and Hillary are horrible candidates for many reasons. I would likely have voted for Stein or Johnson. Had I been eligible to vote there, I would have researched them more than I already have, and picked a candidate based on it. The main problem in the United states is that there are only two large parties. Thus, either one of them can shove whatever policy they want through as long as they convince people that they are even marginally better than the other party. The more people believe in the "wasted-vote" idea, the more true the idea becomes.

However, it is my opinion that most Americans overestimate the importance of the president. Congress and the senate are still the final deciders. The president cannot make laws. He can only block those that have between 50% and 67% support. He can also be impeached and put on trial, or removed by means of the 25th amendment. There is no equivalent for senators or congresspeople (At least that I know of). Part of the reason the mainstream media focuses so much on the presidential campaign is for people to forget their regional and local representatives, even though they are more important. They can take every mandate they so wish to from the president. The most important thing I would have done, was I to vote in the united states, would have been to vote down ballot for politicians for congress and the senate sharing my principles and interests.

Keep on going. Your support of Trump's governance + identification as a conservative while being a grade-A douchenozzle pretty much makes my case for me.

Who are you talking to? Me, TeamGuns or Strategery?

If you think Trump is horrible and would back a free-market, low-taxes, small-government candidate like Johnson, or consider backing Jill Stein of all people, you're not a modern conservative in my book. Or at least not a modern Republican.

I'm talking to Rogue Nikolai Krogius/Strategery. I think he's a damn good example of the kind of character that modern American conservatives represent.

Edited 1/6/2018 01:34:08

The main problem in the United states is that there are only two large parties.

It's rather a consequence of the terrible first past the post voting system that makes tactical voting on the least of two evils the most rational thing to do (from an individual's perspective).

I'd highly recommend wathing this video, it's fairly informative on the FPTP problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo&

@Knyte If I can only get you to agree with

1. The economy has done great under Trump.

then the argument is over. I win. Here is why.

American citizens will not tolerate politicians or corporate media telling them what is and is not morally objectionable. Its the economy stupid. You may find Trump morally objectionable as do I but GDP growth is at 4% per quarter.

The moralizing of the left is not helping your image. It didn't work for the social conservatives in the past and it won't work for the Democrats in the present so long as unemployment stays below 5%.

Edited 1/6/2018 03:06:03

Lmao I'm not here to debate.

I'm just here to get you to cite alternative facts and rant about shit like "moralizing of the left" that reveals just what sort of people have commandeered the label of American conservatism. The country and the world would be a much better place on balance and per capita without anyone that supported or currently supports Trump.

I don't really care about the future of "the left," either. No agenda but to point out how the GOP has been taken over by the kind of people who really have no business calling themselves patriots.

Edited 1/6/2018 03:41:39

I'd also point out that the strengh of the economy isn't from 2017, but rather from 2011-2012, while it really started going well from 2014 on. Funny how some people just realized that the economy was working well last year when full employment was already in place on Obama's second term.

Also the economy doesn't work in short term periods, even with the best economists you can't fix shit in the short term, real economic gains coming from present policies start making effects in the medium term (arround 5 years). And last but not least, the budget goes from october of the previous year to september, and the FED chairman was chosen by the previous president so technically most of Trump's presidential term was still fully running on Obama decisions. The only republican/trump change to the economy was the tax reform which started counting 5 days ago.

However you can make a case for market expectations for a slightly better health of the economy as the bull-run is fully going atm, which the tax bill helped by all means. But that still depends on the republicans passing infrastructure bills, fixing the budget and not screwing up on the debt ceiling, all of which are fairly hard things to do when you think...

I'm worried about the US economy, a lot of those gains could be coming from bubbles. I'd say 2018 should work out well, but a big crisis is comming, and it should be worse than 2008...

Edited 1/6/2018 04:45:55

We're in the second longest expansionary period since WW2. No duh a recession is coming.

RNK is probably going to enter the workforce during it (or around the crash), so I hope he enjoys these GOP policies when his graduating class gets 2008'd.

In the United States things are far from good for many. The economy has grown since 2014, and many have benefited, including people in my own family. For that I am grateful.

And yet since the 1970s the middle class in the United States has been shrinking, which has happened as a direct result of policies advocated by the Republican Party. Policies which gutted unions and moved good jobs out of the country.

Which is why the United States has a rate of childhood poverty twice that of our peers in the industrialized world, and why the overall poverty rate also sucks.

Sickeningly we enjoy the peculiar status, in the industrial world, of having mortality rates that are growing worse rather than improving. Specifically the mortality rates of middle aged white men are getting worse. This increase ... (is) largely accounted for by increasing death rates from drug and alcohol poisonings, suicide, and chronic liver diseases and cirrhosis.

Read it and weep, or not as you choose: http://www.pnas.org/content/112/49/15078.full.pdf

The argument is over. It has been over for a long time.

Since when did my risk clone get overrun with lefties? KURWA

@Teamguns. You say we are going to have a crash in 2018 and that economic policy is a result of the decisions 5 years prior. So you are admitting that Trump will suffer a recession WORSE than 2008 and it will be Obama's fault.

I can't wait to see the upcoming mental gymnastics.

@knyte I entered the workforce in 2014. Bought my first car in 2015. No payment or loan. I just bought it using 100% my own money. No parental money. I am currently in college.

@Padraig The middle class is disappearing because those people moved into the upper middle class.

In 1979, 12% of people were in the upper middle class. Today, 30% of people are in the upper middle class.

According to the Bookings institute, a left leaning institute, if you follow these three rules you will not be permanently poor in the United States.

1. Get married before you have kids
2. Get a job.
3. Graduate high school

2% of Americans who followed these rules are in poverty. 75% of poor people who followed these rules are in the middle class. 27% of poor people who followed these rules are in the upper class.

According to Pew, 9 in 10 Americans have a standard of living above the global median. And as stated before America has the 7th highest GDP per capita in the world only behind Luxembourg, Switzerland, Norway, Ireland, Qatar, and Iceland. Unless you live in one of these countries then yours is poorer than the US and you should try to emulate us.

And lets not even consider that all the countries on that list are directly or indirectly behind the US security blanket which costs US taxpayers 611 billion dollars.

Edited 1/6/2018 06:49:18

Trump didn't campaign as a conservative but has governed like one.

well, he campaigned as racist, backward republican, which is probably something else...

Any real conservative wouldn't have voted for Trump in 2016.

so, who else did? and what exactly defines a conservative in your mind?


This game first and foremost appeals to children, which are most of the time egocentric. In an anonymous environment they start to behave rude to draw attention, due to a lack of character development. and trolling is very easy to achieve with offensive political statements. In my opinion this is one of the main reasons for so many right wing hardliners in warlight. and as knyte said:

Nowadays, conservative is just the politically-correct substitute for douchebag.

Edited 1/6/2018 12:21:58

I like your Brookings Inst. rules. They are almost, but not quite, a tautology.

Ya like stories? Here's one for ya.

A women of my acquaintance got married. She followed the "rules". She graduated high school, got married, and had a daughter - who is a charming, attractive, and successful young lady. Unfortunately her husband, who seemed like a decent fellow, was not. One day she did something to annoy him, and he responded by beating her until her skull was fractured. Unsurprisingly her brain was damaged, permanently. Subsequently she has not done so well. She has a menial job, and is living out of her car. Oh, and she self medicates. Perhaps you would call her a drugged up bum? I don't know. What I do know is that the drug use seems to have started after she got her head cracked by her lovely husband.

So if we want to be scrupulously fair, we would have to say that most of her life has been prosperous and she followed the rules.

The remainder of her life? Thankfully our Republican politicians are working hard to defund Medicaid, because that's what Jesus would do.

True story.

Kurwa; one of my Polish customers said it means Miley Cyrus.

What is your point Padraig? Your story could have happened in any country in the whole world.

No doubt she is better off in the United States because she can sue the crap out of her husband for mental and physical abuse and get the kids and half his wealth after the divorce.

And you refused to refute my statistics. Just more moralizing bullshit.

And now this thread turns into politic argument...jwow!

Well, I have a couple points. First off you were the one who introduced the rules discussed by the good folks at the Brookings Institute. My point is that, while 'following the rules' is all to the good, following the rules is no guarantee of financial success. The implication of pointing towards the Brookings rules is a kind of morality tale. Moralizing bullshit if you will. (Your nasty terminology, not mine.) The implication is that those who are not doing well financially in our economy have 'sinned' in some sense. They failed to graduate high school, they had a child out of wedlock, and so forth. Implicit in your argument is the notion that those who are poor deserve every misery that they suffer. My point is that people can, through no fault of their own, be poor. To be poor is not a moral failing. That is your argument, not mine, and that really is moralizing bullshit.

The second point is simply that she is better off then she might be elsewhere, and that the reason she is better off is because of medical care provided by a program which was brought into being by Democrats.

As to your statistics, provide a citation, and I might discuss with you the many facts which you overlook in your panegyric to the wonders of the American economy during the Trump administration.

lmao a high school job ain't "entering the workforce"; consequences aren't really real until you become fully financially independent, and that's when you feel the full weight of taxes, savings, the economy, and everything. The economy doesn't start feeling like an uncaring god until you hit your mid-20's, I think. Or at least that's the age when I think people are able to actually get a feel for how the economy's doing (in their area and/or industry, for their cohort) without having to check GDP statistics or inflation or the unemployment rate. Data is only as meaningful as your ability to put it in context and interpret it, and there's a good reason a lot of people have their political and economic views change non-trivially during their early 20's- and it's not just 'cause of the stereotypical scenario where you get your first paycheck and realize how big Uncle Sam's cut is.

Lots of time left until you get to the stage where the overall state of the economy means something. No matter how confident and capable you are before and through college, no matter what extra steps you take, there's always that one day where the full reality of adulthood hits you. I don't think you've had that day yet. I'm not all that sure I have either.

Saving up for your own first car is commendable, though - nice job