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#102 Feb 18 2016 at 4:46 PM Rating: Default
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Almalieque wrote:
He doesn't care about being treated fairly as he claims because the more the establishment attacks him, the more support he gets. That's why the RNC is afraid. If Trump wins the popular vote but the RNC elects someone else, it would be ugly. Their best outcome would be for him to go 3rd party if he is in the lead and chooses not to drop.


He can't win the popular vote. He might, at best, get a plurality of votes. Maybe. But, as I've pointed out repeatedly, his negatives among the GOP are too high for him to get anywhere near a majority of voters. His only route to victory is to take advantage of the delegate award process to garner proportionately more delegates along the way than he actually has in voter support. And yes, the possibility of that happening does increase the longer the rest of the field remains divided. But by no means does he have anywhere near "popular support" among Republicans.

He also signed a pledge not to run 3rd party. Which may not matter at all to him, of course. And he's certainly trying to play up some kind of "I got back stabbed, so previous deals are off" angle. But the reality of his debate performance is that he just plain did poorly. He got rattled by the first actual serious attacks against him, and dropped his Republican mask and started speaking his own mind for once. And what came out was far left rhetoric. That was not lost on conservatives.

I kinda see Trump like that big bug alien in Men in Black, walking around in his Edgar suit, hoping no one notices that he's not really human. Trump is walking around in a Republican suit, hoping no one notices that he's not really a conservative. He let that disguise slip on Saturday. That's why he got booed so much. Not because the GOP was being unfair or something.
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#103 Feb 18 2016 at 5:08 PM Rating: Excellent
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Trump's numbers haven't moved since the debate. There's no indication that he "hurt himself" at all. Still polling around 35% same as it ever was.
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#104 Feb 18 2016 at 7:52 PM Rating: Good
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I kinda see Trump like that big bug alien in Men in Black, walking around in his Edgar suit, hoping no one notices that he's not really human. Trump is walking around in a Republican suit, hoping no one notices that he's not really a conservative. He let that disguise slip on Saturday. That's why he got booed so much. Not because the GOP was being unfair or something.


He got booed at because the RNC paid people to stand in the crowd and boo at him. --and you want to talk about wishful thinking. The clock is running out. Unless more voters who identify as conservative start to share your opinions on Donald Trump(and they won't), any hope they have of beating Hillary/Sanders is dust in the wind.
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#105 Feb 18 2016 at 9:31 PM Rating: Default
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I kinda see Trump like that big bug alien in Men in Black, walking around in his Edgar suit, hoping no one notices that he's not really human. Trump is walking around in a Republican suit, hoping no one notices that he's not really a conservative. He let that disguise slip on Saturday. That's why he got booed so much. Not because the GOP was being unfair or something.


He got booed at because the RNC paid people to stand in the crowd and boo at him. --and you want to talk about wishful thinking.


Lol. Um... That's what Trump said, so it must be true! If they'd packed that room with random voters from last years GOP primary in SC, he'd have been booed at the exact same spots, and for the exact same reasons. He was spouting rhetoric that could just as easily come from the mouth of Ed Shultz if he were there. Hard to imagine how he could be surprised that he got booed. It's like he forgot that he was running as a Republican, not the representative from Air America.

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The clock is running out. Unless more voters who identify as conservative start to share your opinions on Donald Trump(and they won't), any hope they have of beating Hillary/Sanders is dust in the wind.


So he'll do well in Kansas? Smiley: clown
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#106 Feb 18 2016 at 9:51 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
Trump's numbers haven't moved since the debate. There's no indication that he "hurt himself" at all. Still polling around 35% same as it ever was.


"Around 35%" isn't terribly accurate though. RCP numbers just a couple days ago (when I last looked) had him at 35%. Today it''s 33.5%. He was up like +17, and is up +15 today. Remember that those are rolling averages of a number of polls, not all of which gathered data only after the debate itself, and certainly not all after a few days of media coverage about said debate (which is where most of the impact usually occurs). I'd say that it definitely hurt him. How much in the short term versus long term? Hard to say.

People like me have been looking at Trump as a faux-conservative all along, but he's done a decent job at masking this to those who don't pay as much attention to politics. And maybe this is wishful thinking on my part, but it's hard to imagine that there are many conservatives who failed to notice that he more or less repeated verbatim several arguments that were stock anti-Bush talking points of the Left from 10 years ago. Even one of my co-workers, who's not a conservative by any means, and is actually a Sanders fan (we've had some interesting "conversations" about his views on Wall Street, wealth, etc), was shocked by Trumps language in the debate. He more or less saw this as Trump unraveling (I think he even made some argument about the wheels coming off the bus). He couldn't believe that someone trying to run for the GOP nomination would say stuff like that.

I get that Trump's supporters are pretty staunch and whatnot, but at least some of those numbers have to be coming from normal Republicans, perhaps dissatisfied with their leaders of late, but who still hold to the ideals of conservatism. And while I can see some number of these people thinking Trump represents something new/fresh for the GOP, and are perhaps impressed by his brash countenance, but I can't believe that very many of those folks would think that he would actually represent them after what he said in that debate. He's been pretty clever and coy with his language up to now. But he totally lost that on Saturday. He more or less sounded like a liberal. And not a moderate liberal. He came off as being well to the left of Clinton on that stage. And that's kind of a problem for someone running for the GOP nomination.
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#107 Feb 18 2016 at 9:59 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Jophiel wrote:
Trump's numbers haven't moved since the debate. There's no indication that he "hurt himself" at all. Still polling around 35% same as it ever was.
"Around 35%" isn't terribly accurate though.

Yes, "around" is not terribly accurate. Great sleuthing there, Slylock Fox.

On any other day, you'd be going on length about how a 1.5pt change is well within the margin of error but today it's apparently evidence that Trump's lead is collapsing. Sure, go with that, why not. At this rate of decay, he might only win S. Carolina by 12 points!

Edited, Feb 18th 2016 10:02pm by Jophiel
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#108 Feb 19 2016 at 8:31 AM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
People like me have been looking at Trump as a faux-conservative all along
People like you were certain how "astonishingly well" Romney was doing.
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#109 Feb 19 2016 at 8:51 AM Rating: Excellent
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What people like Gbaji don't get is that most people don't really adhere to ideology the same way he does. I was reading a piece a few days ago talking about how the bulk of Trump's supporters are white Republicans, middle class or lower, often without higher education, who feel that "conservatism" is failing them. They're struggling to get by and see wealthy GOP donor class people, pundits and politicians preaching about poor people being lazy or lacking initiative when the real immediate problem is that the factory closed and moved to China. Trump's populist message, attacks against the GOP establishment and promises to lock trade, punish China, get rid of job-stealing immigrants, etc appeal to them far far more than his views on abortion or eminent domain worry them. Trump talking about how the deck is stacked doesn't scare them because they already agree that the deck is stacked against them and everyone else's answer to it is "stick-to-it-tiveness". So they may not meet Gbaji's definition of "conservatives" but they are still Republicans, vote Republican and will be voting for the Republican in this race who is actually telling them something that gives them hope. If people like Gbaji are waiting for these Republicans to be horrified that Trump is a "faux-conservative", he's going to be waiting a long while. If he wants to say that they don't count as real Republicans, well, welcome to being a big part of the problem.
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#110 Feb 19 2016 at 3:48 PM Rating: Decent
I'm only feeling the Bern!
#111 Feb 19 2016 at 4:10 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Jophiel wrote:
Trump's numbers haven't moved since the debate. There's no indication that he "hurt himself" at all. Still polling around 35% same as it ever was.
"Around 35%" isn't terribly accurate though.

Yes, "around" is not terribly accurate. Great sleuthing there, Slylock Fox.


And.... today RCP has him at 31.8% and a lead down to 13.5%

Quote:
On any other day, you'd be going on length about how a 1.5pt change is well within the margin of error but today it's apparently evidence that Trump's lead is collapsing. Sure, go with that, why not. At this rate of decay, he might only win S. Carolina by 12 points!


Smiley: oyvey
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#112 Feb 19 2016 at 4:26 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
What people like Gbaji don't get is that most people don't really adhere to ideology the same way he does.


We get it. It's why we constantly have to remind people about the importance of the ideological basis we operate on, and why this will result in better outcomes for everyone than simply separating ourselves into groups and pointing fingers at each other as the Democrats (and populists like Trump) do.

Quote:
I was reading a piece a few days ago talking about how the bulk of Trump's supporters are white Republicans, middle class or lower, often without higher education, who feel that "conservatism" is failing them. They're struggling to get by and see wealthy GOP donor class people, pundits and politicians preaching about poor people being lazy or lacking initiative when the real immediate problem is that the factory closed and moved to China.


Sure. I don't doubt that. The problem is that they're supporting a guy who is more or less the poster child of the exact form of opportunistic capitalism that has most screwed them over in their lives. That's the freaking insane part. Trump has made most of his money (well, the parts he didn't inherit) by exploiting government regulations (or lobbying politicians to create them for him), and crash and burning businesses, never caring about those who worked in them, as long as in the end, it made him money. He has on several occasions dismissed allegations about the businesses he drove into bankruptcy by countering that "I have never gone bankrupt". It shows how self centered he is. It doesn't matter if other people lost money and lost jobs, as long as he had more money in his pocket in the end.

And that's who these people are championing? I think that's stupid.

Quote:
Trump's populist message, attacks against the GOP establishment and promises to lock trade, punish China, get rid of job-stealing immigrants, etc appeal to them far far more than his views on abortion or eminent domain worry them.


Sure. It's called a populist message for a reason. What's strange is that they don't stop to think about how many job-sealing immigrants were likely working in the hotels and casinos and golf courses that are his preferred purchases. Trump cares about trade with China only to the degree that by talking about it, he can get foolish people to support him. He frankly knows even less about trade with China and how it actually affects business and jobs in the US.

Quote:
Trump talking about how the deck is stacked doesn't scare them because they already agree that the deck is stacked against them and everyone else's answer to it is "stick-to-it-tiveness". So they may not meet Gbaji's definition of "conservatives" but they are still Republicans, vote Republican and will be voting for the Republican in this race who is actually telling them something that gives them hope. If people like Gbaji are waiting for these Republicans to be horrified that Trump is a "faux-conservative", he's going to be waiting a long while. If he wants to say that they don't count as real Republicans, well, welcome to being a big part of the problem.



Yeah. Again, those people don't normally vote in GOP primaries and likely not in the general either. You get that a set of people who historically feel disenfranchised by both parties likely also historically don't vote in general elections. See my whole point about how these people staying home likely doesn't affect GOP election math much, while young voters staying home massively affects Dem election math.

I get what you're saying, I just don't agree that it has much weight in the long term. It's easy to find groups of people who are angry and feel marginalized. And you can even sometimes get them to rally around someone with the right messaging. But that hardly represents a broad ideological shift in our political landscape. Trump's level of support among GOP voters is driven by two groups. The disenfranchised right leaning independents you mention above, who will support him pretty much no matter what, and some percentage of more rank and file GOP voters who see him as a strong candidate who may not be mainstream, but is "conservative enough", for them to support. That's the set that are going to shy away from him now, and that's the set he really needed to put him in a competitive position in the race. The outsiders coming in to support him just aren't a big enough faction by themselves to do it.
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#113 Feb 19 2016 at 4:53 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
And.... today RCP has him at 31.8% and a lead down to 13.5%

Due to a single (probably outlier) poll from NBC.
Edit: an Augusta Chronicle poll shows Trump in the high 20's but curiously flips the very different numbers for Cruz & Rubio; of course Trump wins that as well. He also wins the other polls out today. More importantly, he has a very strong lead in yesterday's House GOP poll of 3500 likely voters versus the 400-700 voters in the other polls.

What's to shake your head about? You realize that the primary is tomorrow, right? It's too late to catch up at a rate of a point and a half per day. Even per the NBC poll, Trump wins S. Carolina.

Edited, Feb 19th 2016 4:59pm by Jophiel
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#114 Feb 19 2016 at 5:48 PM Rating: Default
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I'm calling it as Cruz, Trump then Rubio.
#115 Feb 19 2016 at 6:02 PM Rating: Excellent
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Maybe. If Trump doesn't win, it won't shatter my world view or anything. He came in 2nd in Iowa because his GOTV effort sucked and Cruz's was excellent. On the other hand, New Hampshire was a primary state (like SC) and not a caucus and Trump actually beat the polling expectations there. I think Trump will decisively win because all the evidence is pointing to it right now. If he loses, it'll be a "Huh, let's figure out how that happened" moment.
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#116 Feb 19 2016 at 6:11 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
Trump has made most of his money (well, the parts he didn't inherit) by exploiting government regulations (or lobbying politicians to create them for him), and crash and burning businesses, never caring about those who worked in them, as long as in the end, it made him money
Tell me again why you think that's bad when Trump does it, but it's Super-Cool when Romney does it?
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#117 Feb 19 2016 at 7:06 PM Rating: Decent
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Friar Bijou wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Trump has made most of his money (well, the parts he didn't inherit) by exploiting government regulations (or lobbying politicians to create them for him), and crash and burning businesses, never caring about those who worked in them, as long as in the end, it made him money
Tell me again why you think that's bad when Trump does it, but it's Super-Cool when Romney does it?


Two reasons:

1. Totally different business models. Some people make money by building things. That's Romney. Others make money by the equivalent of gambling (I win, someone else loses). That's Trump.

2. Romney didn't run on a populist "help the poor working folks against the big bad powerful people who've kept them down" platform. So even if you yourself believe that Romney's business actions were harmful for working class folks, you can't argue that he himself is being hypocritical. The same can't be said of Trump. He's pretending to be something he's not.
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#118 Feb 19 2016 at 7:17 PM Rating: Default
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Jophiel wrote:
Maybe. If Trump doesn't win, it won't shatter my world view or anything. He came in 2nd in Iowa because his GOTV effort sucked and Cruz's was excellent. On the other hand, New Hampshire was a primary state (like SC) and not a caucus and Trump actually beat the polling expectations there. I think Trump will decisively win because all the evidence is pointing to it right now. If he loses, it'll be a "Huh, let's figure out how that happened" moment.


A week ago, I would have said Trump, Cruz and then Kasich. I believe the combination of attacking President Bush, attacking the Pope, proof of lying about the Iraq war with the lies from Ted Cruz will have an impact. However, I still believe Trump has a better chance of winning than not winning.
#119 Feb 19 2016 at 7:23 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
And.... today RCP has him at 31.8% and a lead down to 13.5%

Due to a single (probably outlier) poll from NBC.
Edit: an Augusta Chronicle poll shows Trump in the high 20's but curiously flips the very different numbers for Cruz & Rubio; of course Trump wins that as well. He also wins the other polls out today. More importantly, he has a very strong lead in yesterday's House GOP poll of 3500 likely voters versus the 400-700 voters in the other polls.


Except the question wasn't whether Trump will win SC, but whether his debate performance hurt him. Your argument was that he was at 35% before the debate and was still at 35%, so it must not have hurt him. By your own chosen criteria (polling numbers) since his numbers have gone down, we must conclude that the debate *did* harm him. Maybe not enough to turn a double digit lead into a loss, but enough to significantly narrow that gap.

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What's to shake your head about? You realize that the primary is tomorrow, right? It's too late to catch up at a rate of a point and a half per day. Even per the NBC poll, Trump wins S. Carolina.


Eh? Released poll numbers tend to lag behind opinion, especially opinion shifts that might result from a really bad debate performance. But again, that's not the point. I said that his debate performance hurt him. You said it didn't. The sharp downward trend in his numbers right after that debate would seem to be strong evidence that I was right.

I was shaking my head at your pretty blatant attempt to move the goalposts away from "did it hurt him?" to "did it make him lose the SC?", complete with mention of a potential 12 point lead on primary day, while ignoring that he had like an 18 point lead prior to the debate. That's not a minor drop. The significance is that even if he holds on to a lead in SC, what he said in that debate will continue to affect his numbers going forward (although I suppose the next debate could change that, but I'm not sure how you unsay what he said). He's got to maintain a critical mass and momentum to keep winning. As I've been saying all along, he's got one set of core supporters who'll support him no matter what, and another set who are siding with him because he seems "conservative enough", and is at the top of the polling, so why not get on board. This is how momentum works in primaries. If he's even just perceived to have lost that, those voters will flock other candidates, and he'll suddenly be the guy who can't hit above mid teens. And given his negatives, I don't think he can crawl out of that hole.

Tons of speculation on my part, of course. But I really do think that last Saturday's debate was really really damaging to his campaign. He said things that most conservatives (and certainly many who are just jumping on his bandwagon cause he's the leader are in that mix), just can't abide. This isn't poor word choice, or fumbling an answer, or getting caught repeating memorized stump bits. This is him repeatedly making statements, in very clear language, that are strongly associated with anti-conservative anti-republican liberal attacks. Again, I just don't see how you walk that back. I mean, primaries can be crazy, but that's a lot of crazy to manage going on there.

Heck. Add in attempts to sue Cruz over political ads that merely showed clips of Trump giving answers to interview questions, and he just looks bad all the way around. Even those who might previously thought, he was brash, but speaks truth, so I'll support him are beginning to think he's just plain unhinged and perhaps should not be allowed anywhere near the nuclear launch codes.

Edited, Feb 19th 2016 5:27pm by gbaji
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#120 Feb 19 2016 at 8:09 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Except the question wasn't whether Trump will win SC, but whether his debate performance hurt him. Your argument was that he was at 35% before the debate and was still at 35%, so it must not have hurt him. By your own chosen criteria (polling numbers) since his numbers have gone down, we must conclude that the debate *did* harm him.

Or, you know, one of the other 10,000 things happening this week had an effect but I guess you were unaware that anything's happened since the debate Smiley: laugh
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I was shaking my head at your pretty blatant attempt to move the goalposts away from "did it hurt him?" to "did it make him lose the SC?"

Well, the only reason to really care about "hurt" is if it's costing him the election. Look, if you want to feel better by saying that Trump will sweep 60 delegates in SC by 15 points instead of 18 points because of the debate, go for it.

Edited, Feb 19th 2016 8:13pm by Jophiel
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#121 Feb 19 2016 at 8:11 PM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Except the question wasn't whether Trump will win SC, but whether his debate performance hurt him. Your argument was that he was at 35% before the debate and was still at 35%, so it must not have hurt him. By your own chosen criteria (polling numbers) since his numbers have gone down, we must conclude that the debate *did* harm him.

Or, you know, one of the other 10,000 things happening this week had an effect but I guess you were unaware that anything's happened since the debate Smiley: laugh

Just that silly Pope thing, but that wouldn't affect anything.

Edited, Feb 19th 2016 9:14pm by TirithRR
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#122 Feb 19 2016 at 8:14 PM Rating: Excellent
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Just that silly Pope thing, but that wouldn't effect anything.

In S. Carolina, probably not much. That's Baptist and Evangelical country. If we were about to vote in Massachusetts it might matter.
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#123 Feb 19 2016 at 8:37 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
1. Totally different business models. Some people make money by building things. That's Romney.
If you think Bain Capitol didn't make a habit of buying up businesses and them breaking them to pieces to suck the marrow out....well, you're consistent.
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#124 Feb 19 2016 at 9:42 PM Rating: Decent
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TirithRR wrote:
Just that silly Pope thing, but that wouldn't affect anything.


Honestly, if anything, the Pope thing has kinda helped him. Most people (yes, even conservatives) overwhelmingly poll that the Pope was wrong to say what he said about Trump. Of course, that polling is the result of some pretty amazingly poor reporting of what the Pope actually said, but that doesn't mater, since the same misreporting that might affect the poll results will presumably affect people's election choices (at least to the degree it might anyway).

Hint. The Pope didn't say Trump wasn't a Christian. And he didn't say that anyone who proposes building a wall along the border is not a christian. He said that anyone who thinks only of building walls and not of building bridges is not a christian. He was being pretty metaphorical in the statement. But never underestimate the media's desire to sensationalize.
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#125 Feb 19 2016 at 9:51 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
He said that anyone who thinks only of building walls and not of building bridges is not a christian. He was being pretty metaphorical in the statement.

The right wingers frantically Tweeting about how the Vatican has a wall around it was pretty hilarious though. Especially when they'd edit the Pope's quote to remove the bridges part so they didn't have to, you know, explain why the Pope somehow meant a literal wall but not a literal bridge.

True Fact: I actually got into a very brief Twitter argument with a candidate for Congress (in FL-11) when he made the same asinine "Jerusalem had a wall in Jesus' day" remark.
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Honestly as a pastor I am struggling with what the Popes reasoning was. Jerusalem had a wall around it in Jesus day.
I wrote:
Pope mentions bldg bridges & walls but only "walls" being taken 100% literally since that makes cute comparisons
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Yea, illegals coming in on bridges we build makes a lot of sense said no one ever. They have tunnels already sheesh.
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so you understand metaphor 50% of the time. That's... Interesting, I suppose.
Jack Martin wrote:
The pope is the head of the Catholic church, not the United States of America.

I couldn't argue with that last line so I guess he won? Vote for Jack Martin, everybody! Smiley: laugh

Edited, Feb 19th 2016 9:51pm by Jophiel
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#126 Feb 19 2016 at 10:04 PM Rating: Good
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