US Election: How many plan to vote AGAINST someone, rather than FOR them?

"I don't like it when people call my favored candidate what he actually is".

Dude, seriously - people didn't do this (or at least anywhere near this level) for McCain. This video says it all -

Plus, Trump's response at the end was not even a fucking answer. Dude basically just responded with "We're doing stuff".

Hell, for a minute - even if you disregard the blatantly hateful and bigoted piece of crap he is, this is what's confusing me - what do his supporters see in him? His "policies" and "plans" are as nonsensical and more importantly, non-existent as it gets. He has never offered any solutions to any real world issue. He never proposed any semblance of detail in any single one of his plans. All of his "answers" are as vague and stupid as the one he offered above.

@sravankb: I don't think they were talking specifically about Donald Trump being called those things.

No one would call Trump a racist for being against the Affordable Care Act (or single payer or public option). No one would call Trump an Islamophobe because he wants to do away with common core. Birtherism isn't just a simple opinion that we can disagree on. No, that shit is racist. People are calling Trump a racist because he says racist shit and does racist things. Same reason they call him Islamophobic, a bigot, and a misogynist; and it's Pence that's the homophobe. The only ones in an echo chamber are people that are willfully ignorant in their support of a racist, then trying what amounts to the tired old, shitty excuse that the real bigots are those that don't tolerate their bigoted ways. It's not just a liberal thing. Moderates and conservatives, including some that are supporting him because party comes before country for them, have called the shit Trump says and does racist.

I don't think this is a slam dunk like it should be. I am worried that there are enough people like you that will drive this country off a cliff by getting this fascist elected.

And now, some entertaining videos:

@metempsychosis: They are being hyped up, but I think Trump needs to come out and be relatively calm and restrained. If people are expecting him to be crazy he needs to prove them wrong. I highly doubt Clinton would duck out of them though, they've been preparing for weeks.

Trump is the one most likely to duck out of any of the debates, as he did during the primary debates. He's already tried to delegitimize the debates by insinuating they will be biased against him, which he's probably correct if he can't get away with the lies he's accustomed to saying. Unlike the primary debates, where he didn't have to say anything of substance, and hid among the many participants, while delivering his short answers that played to that audience, he only has one opponent this time, needs to give more substantial answers than he ever has, and will have to aim it at a bigger audience that finds many of the shit he says to be awful.

I wouldn't be surprised if he does the first debate, since NBC has handled him with kid gloves; skip the second debate, because he's scared of Anderson Cooper; and do the third debate with the home field advantage, where Chris Wallace has said he won't bother fact checking. I would be fine with Clinton skipping the last one if she does well with the first two, but I doubt she would.

I feel like now this election now is going to be a battle of "mistakes" and whoever makes the most mistakes or is portrayed more negatively by the media is more than likely going to lose. I think Trump knows this and its the reason why is playing the "nice guy" card right now after insulting military veterans. Hes a bit of a ticking time bomb right now though because he can only say so much to pander to people before they get bored by his "nice guy" act or he alienates another conservative group. Hillary isn't very likable to begin with, but I feel her skeletons in the closet are already revealed, if she can just maintain some transparency from here to November she might actually win. Basically anything Trump says or does is ammunition for her to use in debates or in campaigns in general and shes good at making a clear logical case against him. Her main campaign strategy should be to rope in as many democratic and even independent voters to actually vote this election. She basically needs all of the minority and young adult/student to turn out to vote for her to get the numbers and dissuade people for voting independent. Although it seems that the independent vote is losing its steam anyway.

@sergio: Wait, can they just skip debates? That doesn't sound too fair at all. Also, as a norwegian, I must say that I feel sorry for the people in the US right now. We're all watching you and starting to think you look more like a third world country than a major western country. Too bad.

She's got them, always has, always will.

She may have the majority of the ones who will actually bother to vote, but she doesn't by a long shot have anywhere near ALL the young adult / students vote. I've heard a lot of negativity about her coming from older teenagers and people in their early 20s where I live.

So Donald Trump is a literal racist, not figurative as in there is figuratively a ton of proof that Trump is a literal racist, and people are okay with that?

@godzilla_sushi: Students/young adults are still pretty attached to the notion of independent candidates, writing in Bernie Sanders, or just not voting. At least this is from my own perspective at University here. The majority are probably for her, but certainly not all of them. I think the big problem too with what I was trying to point out is that young adults and minorities need to actually go out and vote, this is a pretty big problem here where these groups don't have a big voter turnout compared to all the senior citizens.

@bartok: Yes, people are okay with this because there are literal racists out there and they see that this is their big chance to attach themselves to a leader that has their same ideals. Scary shit.

@whitestripes09: I honestly don't think Trump or the majority of his fan base are racists. I think a lot of them legitimately fear that Islam is incompatible with the west and that many illegal immigrants from south of the border are either involved in organized crime or will end up as criminals through extreme poverty, not that the races most associated with these two things are inherently worse than theirs. Every time they hear someone just sweep their concerns under the rug as 'racism', they feel even more entrenched in the view that they are right and the best argument against what they believe is a lazy insult meant to devalue their opinion.

I also think many people would rather the bumbling oaf as a president than the most obviously corrupt, status quo politician they've ever seen, and to let her be president is tantamount to admitting that America is run by the corrupt and the rich. The most interesting argument I've seen in support of Trump though is that he will be the best president to burn the whole system to the ground, and that building it from the ground up is the only way to make things right. Honestly, I personally can't get a read on the man due to how willing he is to say whatever pops into his mind at any given moment and his outrageous promises (spoiler: deporting all of our illegal immigrants over night would do terrible things to the economy)

All that said, I encourage everyone to vote Lib this cycle. Johnson isn't a great Libertarian but 5% popular vote gets a third party matched federal funding I believe (and we really could use a third party in power) and on the scale of lesser evils I wholeheartedly believe Johnson is the least. Just my opinion.

Jill Stein.

@bartok: It's hard to fathom why anyone would support a racist like him, but I think Trump's supporters fall into several groups.

1. The obvious racists. These are the KKK and Neo-Nazis that don't hide who they are. This (I hope) are still a minority of his following.
2. The rebranded racists. These are the white nationalist and alt-right groups. These made up a significant portion during the primary, but are outnumbered during the general.
3. The casual racists. These are the ones that don't think they're racists, but have had racist opinions before. Birthers make up these first three groups.
4. The converted racists. These are the people that prior to this election cycle might not have had any racist thoughts. Trump has successfully stoked their fears into believing the worst of Muslims and immigrants. This group is pretty stubborn, because the one thing that people dislike is being called out on any racist opinions they have that they don't think is racist. These people and the rest that are not the first three groups seem to be the most upset about being called deplorable and defend the first three groups.
5. The racist apologists and enablers. These are the people that don't share the racist beliefs Trump espouses, acknowledge the shit he says is racist, but have no problem supporting him anyway for a variety of reasons. These are the Paul Ryans of the world.
6. The racist deniers. These are the people who don't know what racism is, because they don't think Trump is a racist. They support him for a variety of reasons.

The last two groups have a lot of uninformed voters. These are the people that think Hillary Clinton is the most obviously corrupt politician they've ever seen. They believe the conspiracy nuts that have no real proof of corruption on her part, basing their opinion on the speculation of the second group. They ignore all the proof of Trump's actual corruption.

I encourage everyone to ignore this advice. Instead, you should go and read the platforms of each party if you're considering a protest vote or feel we need a viable third party. Johnson is still a terrible choice, he just happens to not be a racist like Trump. Go beyond the idea that Libertarians are for the legalization of pot.

Stein has no chance of winning. She doesn't have enough support to reach any thresholds to make the Green party any more viable. With the tightening of the race, she might be able to get enough support to be a spoiler to elect Trump.

She also thinks wifi is bad for our children's health.

As a Mexican American trust me when I tell you that he's actually racist. He entered the political scene by spouting racist nonsense about my people. I made a thread about his initial comments here on Giant Bomb asking why the American media tolerated the racist bullshit he spouted against Mexicans. You wouldn't believe the number of people who came to his defense. Many claimed that "Mexican" wasn't a race so he didn't actually say anything racist or that it was only the "illegal" ones that he was talking about. Utter nonsense.

"Illegals" don't matter anyway so there's no need for the rest of the brown people to worry right? Well, there is the issue with his desire to deport US citizens because he doesn't believe they are legitimate US citizens. They are the so called "anchor babies" that are Americans under the 14th Amendment, but he doesn't think it matters.

That isn't his only issue with Mexican Americans. Apparently we aren't "American" enough to serve as judges due to our inherent bias.

However this election turns out I feel this is a tipping point for the US. After WW2 we went to a bipolar world were the dividing lines between the democratic west and the communist east were an easy way for politicians to create a sense of us vs them. When the wall fell some believed we would witness "the end of history". We had won and the land of milk and honey was just around the corner. Things have turned out differently though.

To our surprise not everyone was so eager to adopt our western democratic values. Russia has gone back to what it basically always was, a totalitarian regime but now again with a capitalistic economy instead of communistic one. Even more important was the succes story of China that has also reformed it's economy but hasn't gone the democratic route politically. And as far as Europe goes things are a mess. Politicians are playing out the nationalistic card all over the place to capitalize on the economic failures and xenophobic feelings. This leaves the US in a troubled place historically speaking. People are having serious doubts about the validity of our enlightened democratic values. There is no room for a American president who puts these values front and center. There is only room for a cynical, almost laughable version of the strong leader figure. And the other candidate represents the final remnants of a dying elite.

I think we will see a trend towards nationalism for some time to come. Nationalism is the easy answer for politicians when they have no other convincing narrative. Even Clinton doesn't have a believable progressive vision. She puts the veneer of progressiveness on her narrative but everyone knows she just represents the interests of a specific elite. I think she will play out the old US vs Russia card to validate her position when she gets into power. I realize this is a bleek and certainly incomplete analyses of the current global political theater but at the same time it's just how I see things. Sometimes I think we are willingly giving up our values because we want conflict. People maybe want a reshuffle of the system and maybe think that setting the world on fire will get us there. I really hope this won't have to happen though.

One way or the other, I just want this bullshit to be over...

I know this site has a love/hate relationship with wrestling but Donald Trump is just a heel. I'm sure him running for president is a storyline that will eventually reveal itself.

There are actually some people that legit think hes a Manchurian candidate, those people are stupid, but they exist.

@sherlock22: So let me get this straight, the West can't get along with 1.3 billion other fellow human beings that are of Islam faith because their incompatible with our own culture, even though they come willing to work hard and succeed where other domestic people fail? I think that says there is something wrong with our own culture rather than theirs and we are the ones that need to change.

You basically say how liberals are trying to use racism to sweep issues underneath the rug, yet with your main issues that Trump supporters have trouble with have to do with the fear mongering of followers of Islam and the Mexican race. How can you say then that racism isn't a factor here?

People's major issue is that they are set on a bipartisan election, it must be candidate A or candidate B., those are our only options. I'm a republican for the most part, but that doesn't mean I have to vote for or against anybody. Donald Trump is not a republican, he does not share republican values. The most republican candidate out there is actually the libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson. While I don't agree with everything he preaches, he is far and away the most qualified to run a country. He's not not extremist one way or the other, and he is not running on the premise of "F' you, I'm great!" like the other clowns running for office.

In short, you're poll is impossible to answer, and it frightens me that folks are content with voting for candidates who use, essentially, high school drama as a platform.

My high school drama didn't revolve around a racist bigot promoting violence and hatred, praising dictators and fascists and insulting democracies and religions.

Emails may have played a factor in my high school's drama though.

You could always ask. Have you tried asking?

@wrighteous86: Well, I went to high school at a small-town, Texas school that wasn't very racially diverse. Unfortunately, bigotry was prevalent where I was.

People are still debating this like a there's even a debate to be had? What in the actual fuck? Looking at the polls I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

There's one candidate that represents most of the status quo. If you elect her there won't be much change but at least you'll have 2 new alright supreme court justices that might start the process of reforming your corrupt ass electoral system. And who knows, she might do a couple of good things. She does have the reputation of getting things done, making necessary alliances and playing the political game well.

The other candidate is an unstable, narcissistic, stupid moron. He's a professional scam artist. His retoric is full of fear and hatred. He is literally dangerous. You want to hand him the most power anyone can have in the entire world. What, the, fuck?

Don't really know if this is worth making a thread about so I will just mention it here; apparently Palmer Luckey is funding an alt-right, pro-Trump group:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/09/22/palmer-luckey-the-facebook-billionaire-secretly-funding-trump-s-meme-machine.html

Kinda surprising to me. Obviously you can't discern someone's personality from interviews alone but he never seemed like that kind of person.

I have. The response is usually repeating garbage from Trump, Breibart, Alex Jones, and the like. So far I've been lucky to not run into anyone that screams about building a wall like other Latinos have had to deal with.

They say Clinton is corrupt? I say point me to two reliable sources of information that don't involve Fox News or any Murdoch owned news media, any white nationalist or alt-right web sites, or any lies Trump and his surrogates have said, that are actually based on facts and not speculation. There are plenty of facts regarding Trump's corruption that his supporters willingly ignore. I only get unsubstantiated lies and half-truths that ignore other facts.

Hunh.

Well she is pretty bad and I haven't seen so many lies and backtracking from a politician before.

I don't think Hillary would have a chance in hell if her opponent wasn't a joke like Trump.

I would never say that she has never told a lie or that she is infallible. The truth is, all politicians lie. They spin facts into half-truths, which is why you need to fact check everything they all say. I find your statements dubious, and feel that you just aren't paying attention.

I'm talking about corruption. For example, the Clinton Foundation versus the Trump Foundation. Trump and Republicans have attacked the Clinton Foundation. There hasn't been any actual evidence of quid pro quo. There is zero evidence of the Clinton's lining their pockets with donor dollars. Meanwhile, there is evidence of Trump profiting off his foundation and breaking the law. He has had to pay fines, and he's under investigation. Trump supporters rail against Clinton for not releasing speech transcripts. Meanwhile, Trump has yet to release his tax records. He hasn't released his medical records other than two questionable letters from his gastroenterologist.

I didn't vote in the dumb poll. I'm voting Gary Johnson and its not to "vote against" anyone. He's also on the ballot in 50 states. Hillary is a crook, a warmonger, a liar, a cronyist, and should be a federal felon...Trump is basically a guy who should be a white collar criminal and in jail. Not voting for either.

You know what the most infuriating thing about all of this is... if you live in NY, TN, TX, UT, OK, KS, LS, MS, AL, GA, KY, SC, WV, IN, IL, CA, OR, WA, MN, MI, MW, MASS, VT, or NJ, your vote kinda dosnt count, your state is going to go the way it always goes, and yet we still have to hear this shit for another 2+ months.

Having said that everyone should still vote for who you feel is the best choice.

Personally I don't like ether of them, but I am relatively sure that the country will be here in 4 years if she fucks up and we can vote her out. I am not nearly as sure about with Trump.

And as far as voting for a 3rd party, the time to change the rules is not in the 3rd quarter of a championship game. If you want shit to change if you want more then just Democrat or Republican, on November 9th call your congressman and senator and tell them this shit needs to change.

I still hold out that, given Trump's position within his own party, a Republican House of Representatives will keep him in check.

Guys, before you support Hillary, do your homework on that sociopath. She will destroy America for the middle class and keep the lower class where she believes they belong... rioting and Democrat. The indoctrination is palpable here.

@sergio: PolitiFact ain't all that. They cherry-pick which statements to evaluate. Sometimes they choose to be anal-retentive sticklers and sometimes they choose to acknowledge the context in which a statement was intended. In some of their Bernie Sanders coverage, they would reach really, really far to make his statements untruthful, like citing some BS biased study from some BS biased think tank as if it's empirical fact to prove he can't pay for his healthcare plan (no need to evaluate his opponents healthcare policies, of course, because she said little to nothing that was concrete on the subject). Even PolitiFact should be taken with a couple of grains of salt. Anyways, I wouldn't accuse Hillary of being one of the most dishonest politicians, but she is objectively one of the most secretive. She and Bill are probably the most cagey politicians since Richard Nixon. Now that Trump is a legitimate candidate, he's obviously taken the record for most dishonest politician and lapped the field. What a wonderful couple of candidates, huh? American democracy isn't broken at all!

I felt something was way wrong the moment I saw Hillary was ranked as more honest than Bernie Sanders. I mean, Sanders doesn't represent my political views at all, but he seems like the most honest politician to run for president for a long time, and also seems like a genuinely good person with good intentions. Even hardcore Republicans I know will admit that much.

Also, the idea of a "non-biased" and "independent" website deciding which lies are "pants on fire," "false," or just "mostly false" is a ludicrous concept. That's not a task that anyone could accomplish without severe bias.

On the bright side, at least you don't have to put up with political ads.

@spaceinsomniac: Actually we still get all the political ads, its just not NEARLY as bad as it is in places like Ohio and Florida

I think the most depressing thing about all of this is that Hillary Clinton was never the problem but was simply a normal American politician who like the vast majority of politicians took money from dubious sources. Even Hillary the hawk isn't some unique thing to her considering every modern US president is disgustingly hawkish. The point was that it was and still is a systemic problem.

That's the worse thing in all of this is that not only is Donald Trump a piece of shit who is actively encouraging hate and violence but even if he loses the very precedent that his campaign has set solidifies that systemic problems with US government cannot be changed for the better period.

If the only non-100% horrific party is constantly under threat of their opponent in the general being extremists then primaries become dangerous and despised.

Donald Trump has done permanent damage to the US political system by even existing.

@thephantomstranger: I think Hillary gets more flak for what is, yes, normal behavior for a Democratic politician these days, because her husband was arguably one of the architects of the Democratic party's transition to being the second of two parties of big money and she continues to work from that blueprint in an era in which my generation (millennials) is keenly aware of the fact that plutocracy and neoliberalism are literally dooming the planet. Obama was able to effectively fool people into thinking he was a reformer in a way that Hillary Clinton probably never could even if she didn't have the charisma of a sheet of drywall.

Mostly against Trump, but I do like Clinton's policies even if she has repeatedly shown bad judgement.

I don't vote.