I think Bernie might have a bigger impact on Larry's political career than the reverse, though it seems state Green Parties here in America are starting to push for Sanders.

Also this:

Could the Republican establishment in the United States PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE for the love of Pete stop saying how Donald Trump is not "A True Conservative."

Do they realize how incredibly stupid that makes them look? (I'm a conservative, by the way)

Do they realize how completely and totally off-the-point that is when you're dealing with pathologically lying, mysogynous scum?

Can we please have a debate on what an absolute disgusting human being this guy is before discussing his ideological pureness? Can we all agree that if daddy Trump hadn't drowned him in money he'd be living in a cardboard box under a bridge?

Thank you.

I can't work out why people would vote for Trump, but I can't work out why people would vote for Cruz or Rubio either. Most of the time I don't have any strong preference for who wins the US election (although I had a soft spot for McCain before he erred on the side of Palin), but this year all the Republicans are poor.

The GOP shot itself in the foot by allowing so many competitors in the debates for so long. There was not time for establishment support to coalesce around one mainstream candidate. Jeb Bush was not charismatic enough to attract significant support, and the electorate at large is very tired of the Bush family. (This is also why Clinton will lose if she is the Democratic candidate.)

The GOP has been kicking out moderates for decades with their various "No New Taxes" oaths and litmus tests. It was just a matter of time, and that time is now, for either a populist (Trump) or reactionary (Cruz) to take hold. Rubio and Kasich are trying, but the shrinking mainstream is still fractured, and it's almost too late to do anything about it.

The great irony is that conservative voters are finally angry enough that the GOP has done nothing for them. 7 years of furious opposition to Obama with *NOTHING* to show for their efforts. Obstructionist politics have stopped Obama's agenda, but they have also made it clear that the GOP really has been taking the "little guy" for granted, and they are now royally pissed off.

"Could the Republican establishment in the United States PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE for the love of Pete stop saying how Donald Trump is not "A True Conservative.""

Exactly. The GOP is so concerned with ideological purity, they can't even have a real-politik discussion any more.

@Octavious
I know I've made a similar arguments before on this forum, but in the way of helping you sort out this election from afar:
Much of America is a simmering cauldron of resentment, racism and stupidity. People get mad at me for using such blunt words, but having lived here my whole life, I know it to be true. It is part of our history. It is where our original wealth, power and control came from. Both political parties have dabbled in these feelings for decades as a means of elevating themselves to power (especially repubs recently) and after "tickling the dragon's tail" for so long they have allowed it to become mainstream in this election cycle.
Most of America is not these negative, horrible feelings and impulses, but enough of us are to seriously effect things. It is truly depressing.

I feel there are a lot of good comments in this thread.

"And because of that, it's very probable that as eventual President, he may be able to bully Congress into passing his initiatives, because he will utterly destroy any opposition using his increasingly massive podium as President."

krellin you went off on a pretty good start, but this last scenario is hilarious. If there's anything we've learnt is that these are NOT the mechanics of US politics in this day and age, no?

But I'll be sure to tune in when President Trump forces a bill through congress to start building a wall on the boarder with Mexico being with the latter being bullied into paying except that no they won't.

The Secretary of Finance has joined in with Fox and Calderon in important people who have disavowed the possibility of Trump's Wall. So now major figures from both the PRI and PAN have said it's not happening. So it shows the obvious that Mexicans are united against the building of Trump's wall. Trump, however has threatened to place tariffs if the Mexican government refuses to pay, even though there is absolutely no political backing or financial possibility of Mexico following through to pay for it.
Meanwhile, Nieto assumes Trump is going to calm down a bit if he actually wins the election because the Mexican economy is tied enough to the US economy that it would be a considerable blunder for both countries if Trump really pursued it.

I don't think Peña Nieto gives a shit, actually, 'assuming' or 'thinking' is not his favorite activity.

@Hapapop: "Geeters is popular in The Netherlands."

As a Dutch person myself, I can assure you most of us never heard of a guy naned Geeters. Maybe you mean Geert Wilders?

And Wilders endorsed Trump.

Indeed he did. Luckily for us, we have many political parties and Wilders won't get 51% of the votes so he can simply be by-passed by the other political parties which will form a coalition excluding the PVV. Interestingly, I think we'll be taken down an even more moderate path because quite an inclusive coalition is needed and many parties excluding the PVV will have to compromise to get a majority.

That's potentially dangerous because if the government is unpopular the only way to dislodge it would be to vote PVV.

Meanwhile Slovakia quietly elected 14 MPs from Kotleba's party. It's getting frightening.

@Putin: I'm not sure you got my point. The 'problem' occurs because a lot of seats 'go to waste' because they go to the PVV, which is extremely unpopular by anyone who doesn't support them. Since any coalition is bound to exclude them. If the extreme right people want influence, they'll have to vote a bit more moderate right, otherwise we drift further left because even the right won't work with the PVV.

If no one wants to work with a party with less than 51% of the seats no matter what, they have no de facto influence, except forcing the rest of the country to work together better.

I understood your point - that a large coalition will be more moderate. My point was that in the event people want to remove the government, they will be compelled to vote PVV because they would be the only opposition party. So while it might seem like PVV's influence is being diminished in fact its status is being elevated.

If anybody bothers to read what the UK Greens actually say about Animal Rights and not Octavious's propaganda about them, it is very reasonable.

https://policy.greenparty.org.uk/ar.html

But then again you can forgive Oct when his party's ministers say things like "just google" your health problems or don't have the foggiest idea as to how EU agreements work.

But PVV voters will be compelled to vote more moderate as well, which seems more likely due to the amount of people who despice the PVV or don't take it serious at all.

Maybe, or they'd relish their outsider status and continue to grow with protest votes as people become dissatisfied with an unworkable coalition that cannot get anything done for fear of alienating one of their coalition members. I find it more likely that PVV supporters would work to build up their party rather than bemoan the fact that they're not in government.

Oh by the way Putin is right to note the worrying developments in Slovakia:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35739551

The PVV's success is due to the recent developments which are worrying to many: terrorists, refugees, etc. I think they're pretty much at their max popularity because everyone else just outright disagrees with them. They can only lose popularity when people's primal fears calm and their brains start working again, the way I see it.

Wilders is also scared to take any minister posts because that would require them to make sense and cut in some places to pay for any crazy plans left, which will reduce popularity amongst the many people who just hear bar talk and decide to vote for that.
His worst fear is probably being forced to choose between becoming a voice of reason or screwing up badly, since both of those options would ruin his popularity.

I'm not in the Netherlands obviously but it seems that the current government is extremely unpopular. If you hold a new election and get more of the same while PVV more than triples its seats in parliament I think you're in big trouble. Especially as PVV's call for an EU referendum, at least, has majority support.

The current government is nowhere near as extremely unpopular as the PVV though.

Maybe it is time to do something though..

There is nothing reasonable about the Green Party's stance on animals. They want a complete ban on any scientific animal testing and want to educate children to not eat meat. They will devastate UK farming and try and tax meat out of the British diet.

"They want a complete ban on any scientific animal testing and want to educate children to not eat meat."

So what? Plenty of animal tests have nothing to do with humans. Of the millions of animals destroyed for human research, few ever do anything that actually end up helping. How many monkeys did we vivisect to find a cure for polio for no reason?

"and want to educate children to not eat meat."

Heaven forbid. And what they said was they want to educate people away from a meat-"dominated" diet and to a more plant based diet. Seems like they're interested in people's well being.

"They will devastate UK farming and try and tax meat out of the British diet."

Again so what? Does animal cruelty now exist as some kind of sadistic jobs program for British farmers?

Well, if you support all that then the Green animal related policies probably sound just peachy.

And if you support the party of fox hunting and gratuitous badger culling, no surprise you find even the promotion of vegetarianism in schools problematic.

The part of fox hunting? Call me crazy, but I'd imagine that if there was party of fox hunting that had been in power for 6 years then you'd probably expect fox hunting to have started up during that time.