Hoo, boy, lot of reading since the last time I peeked in. A handful of things I'd like to reply to!


Remember Lincoln's comment about a house divided? That's the GOP. That's *been* the GOP since Goldwater. People like to call keeping the Democratic Party on message "herding cats," but there are at least three distinct constituencies within the Republican Party and their priorities don't mesh particularly well with one another. What's united them in the last 20+ years has been a hatred of first the Clintons and then Obama. That's about the only thing they've been able to consistently agree upon.

Security conservatives don't care about budgets - their focus is on giving the military all the toys and building border walls.

Fiscal conservatives don't give a shit about who takes a shit where or what goes on in the bedroom - their focus is spending (and even there you'll see some difference between those who define "fiscal conservatism" as "cut spending" and those who define "fiscal conservatism" as "fiscal responsibility" - meaning don't spend a half trillion on the military if you aren't going to raise sufficient revenue to meet that AND your other obligations).

Social conservatives don't care about either budgets or shock 'n awe - they want God in the classroom, gays back in the closet where they belong, and the return of the mythical 1950s.

What unites those groups is their opposition to Democratic Party ideals. If any of them truly believed they could win without the other two, they'd have been gone long ago. Look at the Bush years for what happens to the GOP when they actually gain unified power. They aren't ever going to be a party which can govern effectively without internal backbiting, because their core priorities are diametrically opposed to one another.


We're overdue for one, if not both, parties undergoing radical realignment. I have a pet theory that the reason the GOP continues to defy predictions of its imminent demise is because the Democratic base primarily turns out in Presidential years.

"All politics is local," and Republicans have had marked success at controlling local politics even as their national politics have been the stinkiest of tire fires. That has enabled them to redistrict otherwise blue/purple states such that Republicans are in essentially permanent control (hi, Wisconsin!) and allowed them to remain relevant in the US House. That was the most significant outcome of the 2010 wave. Barack Obama losing Congressional cooperation put an end to the lofty rhetoric about what he was going to accomplish, but Republican redistricting allowed them to seize control of blue/purplish states in a census year, and that has generational implications.


I feel like some bridges have been burned. Some of the higher-profile defectors, if they come back, they're going to find that they've lost their voice. An Erickson isn't going to be as influential in a post-Trump GOP as he was before. So those who have left, their best path forward at this point is to try to build a third party on "Republican principles" and try to bootstrap that party into national relevance. What happens next in the GOP depends on the success of that counter-movement, I think.


Yeah. Republican success since 1994 has generally been oppositional. They've defined Republicanism as being opposed to Democrats and their ideals, not necessarily as being for a particularly Republican vision. The Contract With America was the last time Republicans said "here's OUR vision for the country and what we're running on." Since then, it's been identity politics.


The religious right is in a weird spot. They've been courted since Goldwater, but what part of their agenda has the GOP actually been able to accomplish? Or, outside of state-level attempts to make an end run around Roe, even tried? It's kind of an abusive relationship at this point.


Might be the most apt description of 2016 I've seen so far.


I think if it's close (defined as "the winner takes home fewer than 300 electoral votes), the Senate remains in Republican hands and the House laughs.

If Clinton wins comfortably, I think the Senate flips - either because the Democrats whip their turnout, crossover voters don't split their ticket, or some discouraged element of the Republican Party stays home in key states.

The House, though? There's a Republican house advantage baked in (pun intended) thanks to 2010 redistricting. Maybe more. Florida's congressional delegation has 17 Republicans and 10 Democrats. President Obama carried the state by about 1 point in 2012. Michigan's a 9/5 split in favor of Republicans, although President Obama carried the state by 10 points in 2012. Wisconsin is a 5-3 split in favor of Republicans. President Obama carried the state by 7 points. North Carolina is a 10-3 split; that state has been decided at the presidential level by fewer than two percentage points each of the last two presidential elections.

Now part of that is demographics - Democratic voters tend to be more urban, and so their voters end up in overwhelmingly Democratic districts where anything over 50%+1 is a wasted vote.

Part of that is Republican state legislators redrawing the map precisely to emphasize that. They don't need aggressive majorities in their districts. Having, say, 55% of a district be Republican voters is enough. Pack the Democratic districts, especially with minorities, and say "there see they have the ability to pick one of theirs," and then scatter a bunch of Republican-leaning districts and you wind up with Congressional delegations that look like North Carolina's despite how contested that state is at the Presidential level.

Go back and look at those four states I cited again. Two of them are reliably blue and two have been a tossup the last eight years. And yet, 20 seats of the GOP's 29 seat margin come from those four states.

Think about what that means for what electoral turnout would have to look like this fall for a Democratic House to be sworn in next January. A four point win for Barack Obama wasn't sufficient to flip the House or even get the breakout closer to an even split. What would her margin of victory have to look like to flip the House? 8 points? 10?

And if you don't get Democrats into state Houses as well for a mid-decade redistricting (which SCOTUS has already set the precedent for by approving previously), then Republicans take it right back in the 2018 midterms, and Hillary Clinton is unlikely to win re-election in 2020 by anything like the margin she would have had in 2016 to get a Democratic House in the first place.

One of my favorite polling results this cycle is that Trump is flat with weekly churchgoing evangelicals compared to Romney, but he's added significant support from evangelicals that attend less than weekly.

I know it's more complicated, but basically Trump is killing it with people that say they are evangelicals, but don't live like it.

Heh. I hadn't seen that polling, but that makes complete sense and is a much more succinct way of saying what I was trying to say there. ;)

So, came across this story on the HuffPo about Manafort, and a bit of background about the troubles Manafort had in "managing" Trump.

The taco bowl incident, trivial though it was, is one example. On Cinco de Mayo, Trump happened to be eating a taco bowl for lunch at his desk in Trump Tower. Manafort was in the office with other aides when a member of the family suggested they tweet a picture of Trump enjoying his “Mexican” lunch.

Manafort politely suggested that this might be seen as condescending and cautioned against it. The tweet went out. Trump himself was delighted by the resulting controversy. “The people who were offended were people we wanted to offend,” he later said.

I dunno what makes me think of Trump worse, that he thinks doing such things make him a good candidate for prez, or if he was dumb enough to post it not knowing how condescending it sounded.

I bet that it will come out that a lot of Trump's WTF moments involved that phrase in some way.

I'm guessing Manafort also failed in convincing him how offended people would be at the picture of him eating KFC fried chicken with a knife and fork.

You can blame the GOP, but a lot of that problem is structural. As the federal government centralized power it's increasingly archaic to think that states should be the dividing lines Red State, Blue City: How the Urban-Rural Divide Is Splitting America - The Atlantic

Right now, in the Generic House race, Dems lead by 9 point, which may be enough to make things very interesting. Still about three months to go. That's what, 150, 200 Trump gaffes left?

During an interview with Fox News, Trump was asked about his upcoming intelligence briefing and whether he does "trust intelligence."


Alex Jones for CIA chief?

I'm finding it impossible to read transcripts of Trump without it sounding like Dustin Hoffman in Rainman in my head.

I can't install Adblock on my work browser...so I'm seeing Trump ads about "Leading the Way" (top) and "American Pride" (bottom) in this thread.

There have always been localized divisions within the US that had no care fro state lines.

Divided we stand: The sad truth about America — we have always been split - Salon.com

FOFC is the lynchpin to Trump's Grand Election Plan to Make Elections Great Again.

Lolz.

Doesn't really surprise me. Like I said, I am fully aware that "my" group of evangelicals is a self-selecting subset, and as such more inclined to think similarly on some things. And of course a lot of what I am saying is based on social media posts, so I'm sure that IF anyone is Trumptacular (love that term, btw) and is heavily in that subgroup, they'll be less likely to let others know that publicly or even one-on-one. ;) But still, I'm guessing my sphere of Southern white evangelicals is right now 5% Trumptacular, 65% nose-holders, 25% third party, and 5% HRC. The main reasoning in that last group has been "she will screw up the Supreme Court and I don't trust her one bit, but at least there's not a meaningful chance of her initiating an eventual nuclear war just because some two-bit dictator called her a mean name. Trump, on the other hand..." (Actually my wife is probably in that camp if NC looks close. Otherwise, she's third party like me.) I've seen/heard only one person claim that he won't vote at all for POTUS. He's a buddy from high school and I'm still close to all of his family. He told me a week or so ago on the phone that he probably isn't going to vote "BUT DON'T TELL MY PARENTS!!!!!" ;) (For the record, his parents have posted/said nothing, but I'm almost certain that they fit into a category that I mentioned here long ago: Ben Carson country-club evangelicals who are utterly aghast at DJT's lack of decorum. But because Ben has said hold your nose and vote and because Dobson is claiming Trump has gotten saved, :rolleyes: they'll hold their nose.

Oh, to be fair, I have some of those as well. Not exclusively Methodists, but probably a plurality. Regular churchgoers 'cause that's what you do in the South, not particularly "into" their faith, but "good Southern Republican Christian folk." Definitely more in that camp are going HRC/third party/sitting out on my end as well.

Totally get that. :thumbsup:

What percent of the population do people think are absolutely 100% locked into their vote without any possibility of changing it?

Heh. This feeds precisely into my "why I think the Republicans *could* lose everything."

1. I think the number of HRC voters who have any chance of switching to Trump is very low.
2. I think the number of Trump voters who have a chance of going third party, HRC, or no-showing is moderately to significantly high.

I think this because Trump still has almost three months to say/do crazy stuff, and I would think that the more he trails, the crazier he'll get.

I think the Republicans *could* even lose the house in a combination of "we blame this on Republicans" voting from the left and cneter and discouragement on the right if Trump goes even further off the rails and they don't thoroughly repudiate him.

Oh, so to take a swing, I'm going to say something like 90% of HRC voters are locked in, and 60% of DJT voters are locked in.

You'll notice that I pointed out the urban/rural differences as part of what causes that sort of imbalance.

But it is the height of head-in-the-sand thinking to dismiss the 2011 redistricting as not having anything to do with why a party can win less than half the total ballots cast in a state and still carry 3/5 of its Congressional delegation.

http://wisconsinwatch.org/2012/11/20...tion-analysis/


They won 60 of 99 overall. Does the urban/rural structure have something to do with that? Sure. Wisconsin's entire state population is about 50% more than the City of Los Angeles, so there's always going to be more rural districts than urban, and so without manipulation that advantage exists for Republicans.

But the 2011 WI redistricting was also the first since at least the 1980 census done on a partisan basis in Wisconsin rather than by the judiciary (split government in 1991 and 2001 resulted in district maps being drawn by the judiciary).

Seriously, go look at Minnesota. Like Wisconsin, it's a largely rural, agriculturally-based state with comparable population dynamics (Minneapolis/St. Paul are together about the size of Milwaukee, but Minnesota doesn't have a second city comparable to Madison). Comparable politically (at least in Presidential years).

Wisconsin has been a Republican lockbox since 2011 at the state level. Minnesota has swung back and forth (as I'd wager mckerney can attest).

Given their similar structure, to what would you attribute that difference?

You're down

Says who?

Polls.

Which polls.

All of them.

Okay.

(Fucking liberal media)

Well into the 90s somewhere.

More variability in whether they vote than in for whom they vote IMO.

Id guess a larger percentage of Trump voters are locked in. His base seems very "diehard" despite all of his idiocy. I think a large majority of the undecided's are going HRC's way which is why the tables are turning so quickly on the Trump campaign.

I'd take a swing at 80-85%. Honestly, I think the floors are:

Clinton: 40%
Trump: 35%
Johnson: 5%
Stein: 1%

That's 81%, for the record.

RCP's polling averages are currently:

Clinton: 43.5
Trump: 37.3
Johnson: 8.3
Stein: 3.1

That's 92.2%

This is my district, that's the kind of map you have to draw to get 50-50 splits most of the time.

Colorado's 6th congressional district - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Donald Trump aide on awkward exchange with CNN anchor: ‘I think I unraveled her’

This whole exchange reminds me of a story I read about Steve Jobs. Jobs was a master at creating his own reality, even if it was wrong. He was so adamant and persuasive that others would buy into it. In this case the Trump campaign sounds much more like the Iraqi Minister of Information.

After watching that exchange and his response that he unraveled her, I can't really fault you for coming to that conclusion.

I agree that his *base* seems very diehard. But before he was the only option, dude didn't crack 40% overall. Maybe he has won some over, but I'd argue that his "base" can't be much better than maybe 50-60% of Republican voters. I strongly suspect that there are a lot more "take a shower after voting" Republicans than "take a shower after voting" Democrats right now. (Or, maybe better put, even if the *numbers* are roughly equal, the length of the shower is gonna be significantly longer on the R side. ;))

Point being, I'm saying that current "I'm voting for Trump" people seem to have a much better chance of no-showing or going elsewhere, for one of two reasons:

1. There's a much better chance that Trump says something in the next 2 1/2 months that is the straw that breaks the camel's back for them and keeps them home (or at the polls but not voting for POTUS.)
2. Even if there's not a personal third rail that Trump hits, there's a much better chance of HRC's lead widening to the point of some saying "bah..not even worth voting for that asshat...every poll has him behind 49-39 or worse."

Dola:

Here's a pretty good example of what I'm talking about. This was on FB from a HS buddy of mine last night. Southerner. Christian. Attorney. Country-clubber since birth. Private school since Pre-K. Partner in his father's law firm since his early/mid 30s. Office is just a few blocks from the country club, and his house is in the same area. Kind of guy whose vote you could normally just chalk up in the R column.

...and then later in the same FB thread...
Dude went from "I will vote for him" to "I will probably vote for him" in a couple of hours. :D That reads to me like a vote that Trump has a very good chance of losing if he continues on his current course or escalates it. This is obviously one anecdotal example, but it's very representative of what I've been seeing and hearing. (Well, and you don't post that sort of thing on your own FB Wall unless you're either trolling or expect approval from your friend list--list that's nearly 3,000 strong for him. ;))

Ah, Baghdad Bob ... bring back fun memories.

My guess is this is what terrifies the GOP establishment. If Trump is looking at an 8-10 point loss a lot of folks won't go through the hassle of voting. That won't change things for Trump, but it could be the difference between House district X staying R or flipping to D.

And, wouldn't you know, in today's 538: How A Trump Debacle Could Affect The House And State Legislatures | FiveThirtyEight

Some cool reading in there about the nature of the link between the top of the ticket and the rest of the ballot.

With the Breitbart guy now in charge the odds of Donald calling Hillary a bitch have to have gone up. What is it, 50% chance he says it before the election?

I'd say "bitch" is now at about 75%.

We're still only at about 10% for "cunt." But it is only August.

Give it time. It'll happen!

This article at 538 had me ask myself if we could see Johnson come in 2nd in a state or two this cycle: Trump Is Doubling Down On A Losing Strategy | FiveThirtyEight

For instance, the 4-way polling of Colorado shows Clinton generally in the mid 40s, Trump in the mid-30s, Johnson in the teens and Stein from 3 to 6%.

This is a marked difference from 2012, where Obama won Colorado with 51% of the vote to Romney's 46%, with Johnson coming in at 1.3%.

Those two data points alone, to me, show the flight of voters to the 2 main 3rd parties, and I would suspect more of this is GOP to Libertarian.

Johnson winning Utah, and getting actual electoral votes, would seem to be the sort of thing upon which the Libertarians could build.

They will have to work, though, to make it seem pro-Libertarian and not just anti-Trump. The post-election spin will be critical.

I'm going to parlay that with "malignant" and retire once it hits.

That is a big word for Trump to know.

PredictIt needs to create markets for those.

I'd agree that Colorado seems like the most natural place, I wonder about a decidedly liberal state where the Republicans are pretty moderate being a possibility as well--a place with a relatively small group of Republicans who have no chance of winning anyway and are predisposed to be anti-Trump. Does somewhere like Massachusetts have a chance of being 65 HRC 20 GJ, 15 DJT, maybe? It was 61-38 in 2012 for reference. Haven't looked for any 2016 polls for it. (Does anyone even spend the money to do that sort of thing???)

Just looked it up and answered my own question RCP has two polls from MA from back in May. HRC was up 58-28 then.

Vermont would be my bet. It's usually third in % vote for the Democratic nominee behind DC and Hawaii, but I'd wager there's enough of a Libertarian streak among those in the hinterlands to push Johnson to 2nd. Though Massachusetts could also happen if the Establishment GOP there are still fondly disposed to William Weld.

I would've thought Maine would be a good bet, since that's where Perot finished 2nd, but the polling has him pretty far back there. I think Colorado and Utah are his best bets.

Vermont or New Hampshire, yeah.

Dola - Utah. If the bleeding continues, Evan Mullins splitting the Republican vote there with Trump is something I can absolutely see happening, with Hillary a distant third.

What Libertarian streak Maine may once have had (and I don't think it ever really did) pretty much doesn't exist anymore. Maine's basically two halves. The southern part of the state (first congressional district) is very liberal, 50% "urban" and is basically the reason Clinton leads by 10 points in the state overall.

The northern part of the state (second congressional district, 70% rural) is essentially Appalachia and buys in hard to Trump's rhetoric. He's ahead in that district and because Maine splits its electoral votes, he may get those: RealClearPolitics - Election 2016 - Maine CD2: Trump vs. Clinton

Once upon a time there was a strong independent streak in the state that emphasized fiscal conservatism and tolerance on social issues (of the "it's none of my or your business" variety). The collapse of traditional mill, paper, and agricultural jobs in the 2nd district especially, combined with a rising opoid epidemic, however, have given rise to the kind of angry, populist movement now seen in Trump, but also seen in Governor Paul LePage.

Anyway, more explanation than was needed, but I grew up here, and moved back 3 years ago.

Seems more likely you'd see all four (including Johnson) clustering around the same vote percentage.

Despite being more conservative than the rest of the state, ME-2 is still 3 pts more Democratic than the nation overall. Obama won it by 12 and 8 pts. I'd say there's no way Trump wins it unless the overall nature of the election changes.

I could see Johnson finishing 2nd in Colorado. Trump got crushed pretty hard here and the Republican party leadership in the state in general is unpopular and incompetent. Mix in a healthy dose of potential Democrat votes with a heavy lean of libertarianism and I wouldn't be shocked. The Republican candidate for governor finished 3rd here behind the Constitution party in 2010.

I don't think so. I think if Johnson and Mullins are both pulling significant enough pluralities to be competitive with Clinton, Trump is probably essentially being shut out.

What I think is more likely to happen is if Utahns have two non-Clinton choices who ALSO aren't Trump, they're going to coalesce around one of the two. It isn't going to matter whether it's Johnson or Mullins because neither is apt to be elected, but it will matter, if only optically, that the state doesn't vote for Clinton.

For Two Hours There Was a Naked Trump Statue in Union Sq.

OK. This is glorious.

Here's How NYers React To A Life-Size Naked Donald Trump Statue In Union Square: Gothamist

But the best part is the alleged official statement from NYC Parks Assistant Commish and Epic Shademeister, Sam Biederman:

DAMMIT LOGAN!!!!!!1

That's pretty awesome.

This is pretty shifty of Sanders:

I dunno. I dont blame him at all. He found a loop hole and exploited it.

fwiw, CNN reported that exact comment from the ass't commish

Trump sounding presidential. But can it last?

I would be concerned if he continues like this as he could make it close. Hillary needs a fresh angle of attack to make Trump counter-punch (e.g. mouth off) like he's been doing

I imagine that they have lots stored up that they haven't needed to use yet.

That said, the media is fawning over the new Trump. Which will reinforce his latest behavior.

1. I can't imagine he has the self-control to stay in this zone.
2. The media is a slam trip. One speech vs. over a year of his foolishness,.

Gotta wake up pretttty early in the morning to beat me to small dick jokes.

Lots of Twitter buzz that Manafort is out.

Yeah I think Hillary's PAC's will keep reminding people of the old Donald Trump and how he needs controlling on the campaign trail by always having his new campaign manager by his side to be an explainer for his behavior and comments, to make sure he stays under control. Almost like he's speaking in a foreign language and needs subtitles or a translator.

Per AP, Manafort resigns.

Given his pattern I'd expect him to do something outrageous this afternoon.

Why Trump Isn’t Tweeting About the Olympics - POLITICO Magazine

GOP insiders: Trump's overhaul won't succeed - POLITICO

trump's first general election ad:

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/0...t-ad-tv-227189

Probably sneaking out of the country before tax evasion charges come out.

I love that they give "insiders" 3 options and the results are basically (sample size was probably not suuuuper big) evenly split 3 ways. That tells you a whole lot in and of itself, doesn´t it ?

Imma just leave this right here.

To be fair to Trump - which isn't on my list of favorite things to do - the context of that quote was "If I win THIS year, in four years I'm gonna win 95% of the African American vote during my re-election campaign."

I mean, delusional either way, but we're not talking about Karl Rove "math you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better" levels of delusion, because he's musing about a theoretical re-election campaign.

It's a tier or two below that.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in that clip (did not see full audience pan), there was not a single black person.

They kick out any black/brown people as "potential protestors"

http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/19/politi...lly/index.html



Oh, and I'm sure Jon considers this a positive, but another sign of the GOPocalypse:

Donald Trump’s New Chief Steve Bannon Called Republican Leaders ‘C**ts’ - The Daily Beast

Well that's just one event, lets see how one of Trump's advisers handled questions about him speaking in front of white crowds with the message of his African-American voter out reach.

"Maybe it would have been nice if he went and had a backdrop with a burning car"



If it had happened recently I'd say he's just testing the waters in the room in preparation for Trump using the term talking about or to Hillary.

For all the issues on certain media outlets concentrating on a certain kind of news ... They dont have to look hard here, do they ? I mean, how can a presumably decently intelligent guy with experience go into an interview and just casually drop a passive-agressive line like “Maybe It Would Have Been Nice If He Went And Had A Backdrop With A Burning Car“ to a perfectly valid and not even overly agressive inquiry ? What the hell did he expect to be asked ?

Somewhere Jon Oliver is debating if thats too easy a laugh for him to use it.

I have a theory. I think Trump knows he's going to lose. I think at this point it's about future business endeavors. We're going to see TrumpTV or Trump Media after this election I believe. I think the Breitbart guy is for that. No point in moderating his appeal or toning down the rhetoric. Lose by 10 points, claim it's rigged, stir up a contingent of voters, and cash in.

I think this particular rally was in a part of Michigan that's >90% white.

Of course it was. Doesn't prevent black people from showing up if they really liked him.

It's the Palin plan, but with an actual plan.

For me there's something very uncomfortable about watching a bunch of white people cheer on Donald's diagnosis of black pathologies.

Is it because you are extremely prejudice?

Trump and Clinton wreck Facebook friendships - POLITICO

Yeah see this with my family and friends on Facebook. I don't post pro-Clinton/anti-Trump stuff on Facebook (I save them for here :) ), and the only political stuff I post there have been gay rights stuff like when the Supreme Court OK'ed gay marriage.

But three of my brothers and a family friend (retired police chief no less) don't like Obama or Clinton and post a lot of pro-Trump/anti Clinton stuff. My twin brother is a evangelist conservative on most things, and worked in the White House during the Clinton years, and has nothing good to say about them. So I kinda have to grind my teeth during Thanksgiving/Xmas visits and have basically asked them to stop talking about politics as I'm the only real pro-Democrat amongst them.

I let everyone have their say on Facebook (though I've blocked Trump/Pence), but after the election if they keep bashing Clinton (or god forbid Trump wins :) ), I will likely have to threaten blocking them if they can't stop posting such negative things.

anyone else having these problems?

I don't have any friends that post Pro-Trump things. A few rip Hillary and a couple Bernie folks embraced Jill Stein and post things multiple times a day which actually irritates me more. The (R)'s I have either felt the Johnson or just ready for this to be over.

I've tried to take the tact that with folks who will just disagree with me, we
ll "Agree to disagree" and if they don't interact with my stuff, I won't interact with theirs. Kinda like how I treat others here on FOFC, I won't get into a full fledged argument, but I'll make a comment. (my tweaks of Jon being slightly to the right of Atilla the Hun, being an example)

Stuff where it devolves into them insulting me (sheep, idiot, etcetera), yeah, I'll unfollow (and in one case, unfriend someone who is so hard-left wing and so.. agressive for lack of a better phrase about pushing his beliefs, that I finally said It's not worth it)

heh here I posted about facebook, and this pops up on my facebook page:

Why You'll Always Lose As A Woman On The Internet | Cracked.com

I found the bold part interesting and would like you to expand.

Right now, as it stands, I read this as, your twin knows the Clintons first hand and doesnt like them. Yet you are ignoring your twin and backing them. Even though your twin doesnt like them

This is weird that you would put your blind trust in a person that your twin knows first hand and dislikes.

You would think it would be the opposite.

As opposed to blind trust in the person with no political experience?

I think most car mechanics are crooks. I'm still not having my engine rebuilt by someone that isn't a trained mechanic.

Which one is the evil twin?

But wouldnt you look for someone you trust to tell you who is a more reliable mechanic? Or is a really terrible mechanic?

You would think right? I actually will answer this in a PM as it goes a bit far from the intent of this thread.

I have a couple friends who support Trump and several more who were very anti-Trump in the primaries and will either hold their nose and vote for him or vote for Johnson. However, the only people who have defriended/blocked me have been Sanders supporters.

Not if I didn't think that person was a good judge of mechanics, or at least a good judge of what I look for in mechanics. My closest friend in the world could personally know Trump and say he's a wonderful person, while also knowing Clinton and saying she's a terrible person, and that wouldn't change my voting decision. I firmly reject what Trump wants to do as President and will not support him under any circumstances.

I would guess that would depend on whom you are voting for? :devil:

I don't know why it took me until last night to make the connection between Ted Cruz and Maj. Frank Burns.

Obviously, but I can never remember if I hate the white people or the black people.