Politics & Current Events
BlueBirdMB
member
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Anyone else listening to the Romney speech?
I think the speech in itself is a mistake. He needed to just stay quiet and sip coffee on his mansion here in NH (ugh it's such a a gorgeous house on a stunning lake).
HOWEVER, I completely agree with what he's saying. I also have always liked him as a person. I think he was a very weak candidate because he was never capable of competing in modern day politics. He's too polite and people perceive that now as weakness. But I personally appreciate class and I think he ran a gentleman's campaign, which as we can see clearly now, is not what the American people want. He lives here in NH and I've had the pleasure of meeting him a few times and he really is a class act and I believe would have made a good president. I never got excited about his campaign, but I felt sad the world would never know a President Romney (and shouldn't now! No running Romney again!).
He's saying everything we have been saying about Trump. He's absolutely correct in every point so far. But again, I don't think it was his place to give this speech, but it sounds like he is so upset, he just couldn't keep his mouth shut anymore. I feel the same way and if I had a platform, I would probably take it.
Re: Anyone else listening to the Romney speech?
I'm pretty much convinced that every time any "establishment" Republican says something against Trump, all his followers rally around him more, so Romney's speech really isn't doing much.
I also still really want to know-who are these Trump followers and what are they THINKING? The only hard-core Trump follower I know (living in a very conservative area)-is my bi-polar great aunt, and she's kind of off her rocker anyway. Trump's latest thing that scares me is his comments about "opening up the libel laws" (whatever that means). He specifically said his purpose was to prevent the New York Times and Washington Post from saying anything bad about him, which is so clearly anti-American it's not even funny. Are Trump's followers even listening to what he is saying? These are the questions that are puzzling me.
It may be a media constructed term but it's been used for as long as I can remember. I think it's getting used more because it seems to be such a bigger factor in this election.
I agree with the bolded for a definition of "establishment."
Sanders and Carson (too bad it seems he's leaving) are anti-establishment, I think. "Anti-establishment" doesn't mean being a tool or a jerk (A la Trump). Sanders and Carson both prove that. I certainly don't think Cruz fits into the establishment and Rubio might (I'm not sure how likely it is that he would follow through on his promises or just maintain status quo).
Just like we have attempted to define "political correctness" here before, and also attempted to define "natural born citizen" here before, perhaps the "establishment" word also fits into a category of terms tossed around, but everybody has nebulous ideas of what the term actually entails.
Like, "it depends on what your definition of 'is' is." It is also possible that everybody using the term "establishment" takes their meaning based on their own perspectives and if we talked to a Trump supporter s/he would give a different definition than a Rubio supporter or a Carson supporter would give.
It seems like it is a highly nuanced word.
Hillary is a good example of this. It happens in both parties but she's an easy, quick example. When she ran for Senator she had ZERO personal political experience and had not grown up or spent any significant time as a resident of New York. Yet she had the political clout to walk in there and run a successful campaign over people who were likely born and raised and spent the majority of their life there. These were eople who knew the people and way of life there and what was really needed yet she was chosen over them by the political machine and then the people. She may even have done a bang up job there but still it goes to show that you don't have to really have to appear to be the best person for the job provided you have the right political name and pull.
Something that has come about, somewhat I think unforeseen by the founding fathers, is that we live a lot longer than we used to and this country has grown exponentially. The people who serve us started out doing it in their "side time" sort of how some people currently serve on their local school boards and county commissions in addition to their regular jobs. I don't think the founding fathers recognized that we'd have people who turned this into their whole career and would serve 30, 40 and even 50 or more years without providing room for fresh voices and fresh ideas. It's become an incestuous cesspool of power with very little actual "service" as servants of the people. Ordinary people are the props and what they have to put up with to get elected and get favors for their friends. Donald Trump is doing the same thing and without the veil of being "establishment" it's very obvious looking in that is what is going on. We don't just accept that this is what he has to do to "get things done". We call a spade a spade when it's Trump but we have let Congress do these things for years.
This is exactly, exactly, exactly the biggest thing I hate about politics. I feel like many politicians run their campaigns and behave in a way that if they were pre-school, and not Congress (or other political position), would not be tolerated at all.
It's just sad for all when our population is swayed by the biggest loud mouth instead of the candidate with the best POLICIES and SOLUTIONS. My attitude is if, a politician's commercials/campaigns are primarily just a beat down of their rival(s), that tells me they must not have much to offer themselves. So they use the "look how much the other guy sucks" strategy as a smokescreen for their own inadequacies.
While I agree with the statement of the population being desensitized, I don't agree with the general sentiment. Not saying you do either! I understand you're just pointing out herd mentality.
In fact, I think this very forum is a great example of how people with differing views can "speak their mind" without resorting to crude and rude behavior.
I did hear some of Mitt's speech on The Daily Show last night. Agreed so much with what he said.
But, of course, The Daily Show then juxtaposed that speech with a speech he made when he was running for President. At that time, Trump had endorsed him and was standing right up there on the podium with Mitt, when Mitt gave a glowing speech of thanks to Trump and talking about what a great man he was.
To be fair, the Daily Show does that kind of thing to everybody. It just makes me glad I don't have a lifetime of recorded sound bites, lol.