[QUOTE=kladner;435978]
The Donald has a great talent for pushing the buttons of the willfully ignorant, who are willingly hornswoggled thereby.[/QUOTE]
And the cognoscenti are willing to vote for him anyway along party lines. Sad!

This bizarre campaign continues to extract the strangest stories, allusions and comparisons. These from a Washington Post article: [URL="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/romney-loyalists-divisions-over-trump-spill-out-into-the-open-at-utah-summit/2016/06/11/700ab4a4-3000-11e6-9b37-42985f6a265c_story.html"]Romney loyalists’ divisions over Trump spill out into the open at Utah summit[/URL]
The Game of Thrones:
[QUOTE]Anthony Scaramucci, a New York financier who was one of Romney’s top funders in 2012, came to Park City seeking to galvanize his old friends to help him raise money for Trump. He likened the atmosphere here to the hit HBO series “Game of Thrones.”

“I feel like Jon Snow, trying to get the Wildlings to team up with the kings of the castles,” Scaramucci said.

Recalling what he told Romney loyalists, Scaramucci said: “Your father just got slayed by your uncle, whom you don’t really like, and your uncle is now in charge. You’ve got the White Walkers descending from the north and they’re coming to hunt you and all the living. What do you do? Do you fight with your uncle or band together and fight the White Walkers?”[/QUOTE]
And how about if [I]World War II bedfellows can cooperate, so can we[/I]:
[QUOTE]“If Joseph Stalin and Franklin Roosevelt could get together to defeat Adolf Hitler, we can end the schism in our party,” Scaramucci said. “We’ve got to change the rhetoric and the nonsense that’s going on in the party right now. We have to unify this party.”[/QUOTE]

No, ultimately we have to unify the country.

[QUOTE=davar55;436067]No, ultimately we have to unify the country.[/QUOTE]
Unity is hard to achieve in 'Merica these days.

A dysfunctional family often will unify against an external threat. From some perspectives though, the external threat is perceived to another political party candidate.

While Republicans have issues with wall evading migration and perceived religious security threats, the Democrats seem to have a narrower focus directly opposing the other party's candidate.

[URL="http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-democrats-unity-20160611-snap-story.html"]How Obama and 'a threat from Mars' are uniting the party behind Hillary Clinton.[/URL]
[QUOTE]Obama can play the role of character witness who knows better than anyone how Clinton set aside her hard feelings after the 2008 primary to campaign for Obama and then serve in his administration, said one White House official. He already served that function while trying to broker the peace between Sanders and Clinton on Thursday. Obama and Sanders talked a lot about the 2008 campaign during the course of that chat, according to Obama aides.

“He was acknowledging that you don’t sing ‘Kumbaya’ on Day One,” said an Obama advisor about 2008. “It took awhile for the staffs to work through it, for everyone to come together.” And for it to ultimately reach the point where Clinton swallowed her pride and came to work in the Obama administration.

Hours after meeting with Obama, Sanders held a rally before some 3,000 supporters. He did not utter a negative word about Clinton. Nor did he threaten again to overturn her now-certain victory in the popular vote and pledged delegates by waging a battle at next month’s convention for superdelegates in states he did not win.[/QUOTE]
So unifying may be on course there.

Between parties, not so much. I don't think the multiparty coalescing seen in other parts of the world is a viable path currently here in the states. With a powerful enough external threat though maybe things would be different.

The Republican party has considerably unified against threats. The threats though have been in the past been conveyed by dog whistles and are more overtly spoken now. These run such a gamut of issues including race, religion, nations, economic marginalization, demographic trends, perceived place on the world's stage, and so on.

Further Republican party unity at this moment seems to be somewhat difficult. Things change all the time so who knows moving forward. [URL="http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/features/2016-05-31/the-donald-trump-gop-unity-tracker"]The Donald Trump GOP Unity Tracker[/URL]
[QUOTE]As the Republican National Convention nears, with Donald Trump the almost-certain nominee, the GOP has been struggling to unify behind him. Party leaders are watching their words, with some saying they will endorse “the nominee” rather than using Trump's name; others are offering support that they insist stops short of an endorsement.[/QUOTE]

Unifying a country with a two-party system and a wide variety of views
begins with a coalescing of peoples with common views or ideas.
In our case, that means finding a way to stratify the reasoning
behind the choices we make on each and all issues among
the electorate having to make the presidential decision.


In retrospect, the showdown between billionaire builder Donald
and former secretary Hillary that is now in the cards and probably
was not anticipated by anyone at the start of this election season,
could be considered the wildest presidential election primary
competition of the last fifty years or more. Since one of these two
will win the election and should become our next president,
the coming party conventions and thrashing out of issues and
candidates will leave the country with a choice that the subsequent
debate series will help us clarify. The Supreme Court vacancy issue
will most likely polarize the parties to the point of bringing every
current constitutional issue into the debate arena. The November
election, only five months away, will focus the nation on its own values.

[QUOTE=davar55;436087]
In retrospect, the showdown between billionaire builder Donald
and former secretary Hillary that is now in the cards and probably
was not anticipated by anyone at the start of this election season,
could be considered the wildest presidential election primary
competition of the last fifty years or more. [/QUOTE]
I considered this particular showdown as the most favorable possible for the Democratic party - and the most dangerous. I even entertained using dirty tricks in the primary voting to ensure that this particular matchup occurred. These next three quotes were from early in the thread:

################
[QUOTE=only_human;417509]The only question in my mind is how long Hitler will stay in the race.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=davar55;417510]When the polls collapse for him, and he stops getting any acclamation,
(when his supporters come to their senses), someone will give him a
good talking to. And if he doesn't fire himself, the media will.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=only_human;417512]Maybe not, if Democrats want to take a page from Rush Limbaugh's dirty tricks department, lots of them could change parties, if required, and vote for him in the primary. Then the Democrats would have a tragically flawed opponent for the main election. But then, anyone might win on any given election Tuesday; no outcome is completely certain and kids love to play with matches.[/QUOTE]
##################

[QUOTE=davar55]Unifying a country with a two-party system and a wide variety of views
begins with a coalescing of peoples with common views or ideas.
In our case, that means finding a way to stratify the reasoning
behind the choices we make on each and all issues among
the electorate having to make the presidential decision.[/QUOTE]
We are unifying in that younger millennials recognize that both parties have been catering to business oligarchs and just throwing enough red meat to the voters to get elected. This is why Trump and Bernie have been getting so much mileage. Neither has been perceived as cynically and directly serving the traditional wash, rinse and repeat cycle.

This is where any Democrat platform changes Bernie can accomplish as his price for working with the existing party to retain his voters may have a beneficial influence.

[QUOTE=davar55]The Supreme Court vacancy issue
will most likely polarize the parties to the point of bringing every
current constitutional issue into the debate arena.[/QUOTE]
Actually, although this is a hot button issue for me, most voters seem unaware or unconcerned about the issue. It has more power in influencing close down ticket races. Most voters don't even know Obama's appointed judge's name. From a Republican side, it does have a party unifying power as it raises the stakes of what is delivered to the next holder of office. That obviously does polarize parties as you say but still does not seem to be a primary voter issue.
[QUOTE=davar55]The November
election, only five months away, will focus the nation on its own values.[/QUOTE]
In this particular race voters are already strongly focused on values. So much of the energy has been that the voters don't want to merely eat the red meat thrown to them when the follow-up is status quo politics of parties that don't deliver on promises and instead cynically shake etch-a-sketches and cater to lobbyists instead of voters.

The Tea Party movement had a lot to do with harnessing angry voters and those voters are even more angry when both Congress and the Senate in Republican majorities also containing a crop of Tea Party candidates has not materialized in delivering their promised objectives. So when The Donald even more directly talks to issues that previously were alluded to in coded whistles, these voters perk up. It's harder to act like you didn't say something when you blatantly rabble rouse overtly and specifically on it.

The Republican party is working on forming a platform but Trump seems somewhat independent of that. Platform statements are not currently trusted as much as in the past and he is winning voters more on his perceived personal business negotiation experience.

Latest from Scott Adams:

[url=www.washingtonexaminer.com/dilbert-creator-trump-bitch-slapped-fox-news/article/2593496]Dilbert creator: Trump 'bitch-slapped Fox News'[/url] | Washington Examiner
[quote]And by the way, Trump has given us the best job interview of all time. What he is selling is, "I am selling my persuasive ability, my ability to get things done in a broken government." What he did was to take over the entire Republican Party without being much of a Republican while we watched. He did that right in front of us. Every part of that he did in front of us.

Then, when the news organizations began piling up on him, he basically bitch-slapped Fox News to where he needed it to be. CNN, it still has maybe a little pro-liberal bias people would say, but they are not terrible to to him. They are not terrible to Trump. They are giving him a fair shot at this point

So, if you look at the number of things he has co-opted, right down to Paul Ryan finally getting on board with an endorsement today, you've never seen a better job interview. He is literally doing the things he said I could do for you. Watch me make these things that were broken work again. He fixed the Republican Party, in a sense, because he took it over.[/quote]
And while no seer of Adams' caliber, I humbly submit a [url=http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/06/the-clinton-campaign-continues-to-help-trump-ensure-that-policy-wont-matter-in-this-election.html]small piece of analysis of my own[/url] for your consideration. (Being a Left Coast insomniac has its occasional advantages -- I snagged the first-comment slot on this one.)

In this presidential contest between billionaire builder the Donald and former secretary the Hillary the issue of qualifications for the office for both candidates is in question. Trump is a businessman turning to politics, Clinton is a politician seeking the highest office. Neither has demonstrated in any government position competent experience. In particular, Clinton announced on one occasion that she wanted to turn the job of running the economy over to the first husband Bill, our former president. We are voting for one candidate, not two. The fact that the Clintons are married and that she has acknowledged she doesn't understand economics totally disqualifies her for the presidency. Since Bill served two terms, he is constitutionally forbidden to run again, and yet they want to be partner presidents. This would be illegal, and the Democrats would be wise not to test the intelligence of the electorate by nominating the Clintons. Trump on the other hand is new to this and definitely goes too far in his pronouncements in an attempt to come to a policy agenda that can transcend his excessive original entry announcement issues, which of course offended just about everyone. He has said he would get the best people to run the country with him, and only this intention lends credence to the view that he may actually be competent to be president. This is a wild election season so far, and it remains to be determined whether either the Hillary or the Donald, the only candidates who realistically may be elected, can prove to the nation that the reason they're running is that they can handle the job and that their purposes qualify them to be president in the absence of any direct experience.

The most prominent flaw noticeable to me in your reasoning is [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasty_generalization"]hasty generalization[/URL].

If Hillary wants to give Bill some economic work in the administration, this does not mean she does not understand economics. Neither would the fact that Bill assigned Hillary the task of spearheading healthcare reforms in his administration mean that he did not understand healthcare.

As for your partner president concerns, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld ran Dubya's policy to sick degree, leading "the decider" by the nostrils, and no one stopped them any more than anyone delayed O. H. Simpson's jury nullification jurors on the way to the parking lot after a rendered verdict.

Saying that "Neither (candidate) has demonstrated in any government position competent experience." is absurd. I'll leave this one for you to consider.

I'm not going to pick apart the rest, I'm just going to add my two cents that in economic policy I think many people who think they are the most knowledgeable or have the best plans are dangerous.

[QUOTE=davar55;436653]This is a wild election season so far, and it remains to be determined whether either the Hillary or the Donald, the only candidates who realistically may be elected, can prove to the nation that the reason they're running is that they can handle the job and that their purposes qualify them to be president in the absence of any direct experience.[/QUOTE]

A serous question: would you want as PotUS (a person with the button to launch nuclear weapons) someone who [URL="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/history-donald-trump-small-hands-insult/story?id=37395515"]can't handle jokes about their fingers[/URL]? Someone so thin-skinned?

I still model a non-zero probably that Trump actually secretly wants Hillary to win.

Edit: [URL="http://www.vox.com/2016/3/2/11148356/donald-trump-short-fingers-small-hands-vulgarian"]This is even funnier...[/URL] There's a Super PAC called Americans Against Insecure Billionaires with Tiny Hands. DonaldTrumpHasTinyHands.com ROFLMFAO....

[QUOTE=chalsall;436660]A serous question: would you want as PotUS (a person with the button to launch nuclear weapons) someone who [URL="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/history-donald-trump-small-hands-insult/story?id=37395515"]can't handle jokes about their fingers[/URL]? Someone so thin-skinned?

I still model a non-zero probably that Trump actually secretly wants Hillary to win.[/QUOTE]

+1
I worry about that button.

Trump's motivations are unclear; there seem to be so many possibilities that could draw upon activities in the past. I'd feel a lot better if he released his tax returns.