Donald Trump Woos Republicans By Speaking at a 4th Grade Level

Being an accomplished imbecile isn't exactly an out of this world concept. There's even a word for it: fachidiot.

4th graders do not vote and, in an ideal world, people that are allowed to vote will have a high school diploma or equivalent. God forbid our populace be somewhat educated...

Then again, since Republicans and their conservative puppeteers are essentially against a smarter American public, education assistance of any kind, and so forth, I suppose it is not surprising that their candidates are talking down to people and treating them like idiots.

Completely agree.

Obviously politics is a touchy subject, but for the most part there are, surprisingly, good qualities in either candidates. Generally the losing party in the election can go "Well, we did are best, and the other guy won't be that bad" and then you vote again in four years and hope for the best. Democrat, Republican, third party...generally there is good in all of them to see.

But once in a while you get someone that is dangerous. Someone who lusts for power for power's sake, and has built his existing power base on the broken dreams of many people. This man or woman is manipulative, a liar, and will do just about anything to sit in the seat of the most powerful person in the country (and arguably the world). This person will have access to the armed forces, nuclear weapons, law-making tools, and so forth. Trump is one of those people; he is dangerous to this country.

The sad part is that conservatives/republicans are so desperate for a candidate, a good candidate, that they are willing to get behind anyone. "Speaking your mind" is not a good quality in a politician; while honesty is nice as often as possible, diplomacy is better and shaking hands with the leader of a foreign country, telling him "Thank you for your generosity", while knowing he is responsible for killing thousands is a necessary evil of politics and deal-making. If the alternative is to tell him to "**** off" and that cripples your country's economy, I'd say youre a bad politician.

And that is the only likeable attribute Trump has (as a person, not as a politician); he speaks his mind. Unfortunately, he usually speaks garbage, but I guess honest garbage appeals to hateful people. Whenever I hear people compliment Trump, it is usually preceded by "Yeah, but at least...." as if they are trying to apologize for his flaws. Also, I see a lot of similiarity between people finding Trump as an "everyman" and people saying "I bet George W. Bush is a nice guy to have a beer with". Like that HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH POLITICS.

I put in some text from one of my typical assignments and the Flesch-Kincaid readability test rated it at Grade 11. Gee. I wonder if I should be concerned.

You just called a brain surgeon a moron. *drops mic*

Using typical work terminology:

The Polar Front Jet currently outlines a longwave trof over the western United States with the base of the trof over the 4-Corners area before arcing over a longwave ridge over the eastern United States. A northwesterly 130-knot jet maximum over Utah is deepening the longwave trof with a 24-hour drop of 4 millibars.

I got a grade of 13.7. Oh well. At least, it's college level.

If your lot in life is to be king of the idiots then I certainly respect that. I mean, they did what they strove for.

No, he called a creationist, climate change denier, homophobe, and someone who doesn't understand basic math (when it comes to budgets) a moron. I'd take Trump over Carson any day, and that's saying a lot.

It's possible to excel in one area but be an idiot in others. There's a psych term for it IIRC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savant_syndrome

The problem is that many of these problems are fairly complex that face the U.S., and when you approach them with simple language that he uses: his opponents are "morons", "losers" and the solution are "wall". It would be dangerous to get somebody like that in office because they clearly don't put deep thought into what they want.

Never said anything of the sort, just sited a source reporting on a study that has shown that Donald Trump speaks at a 4th grade level.

However, what else is there to say about Trump? His stances basically rely on racism and Xenophobia, and it's digging the party a grave.

Also, just because you disagree with this article, it does not automatically become biased.

Like racism and xenophobia?

It is weird to me how some people (outside of OT as well) think it's possible to be tolerant of intolerant positions.

@Aljosa23: I was not referring specifically to those two ideas (more along the lines of Trump's economic plans), but I suppose I will address them. As long as intolerant positions are not acted upon, then they should be tolerated. If not, the term 'freedom of expression' is not applicable.

Trump isn't an exception though, the same can be said of the entire Republican line-up, Trump just illustrates how despicable one needs to be to have Republican voters eating out of his hand that any imbecile could do it quite effortlessly. Sarah Palin is another perfect example of this. These people just don't come around painting the party in a bad light, THEY ARE THE FUCKING PARTY!!

Freedom of expression just means the government can't arrest you for expressing yourself. Doesn't mean private citizens like us need to enable or give a platform for someone to spew their stuff.

like the blowback against legalization of gay marriage. Where bigotry against gays is ok because discriminating against people who discriminate is wrong.

So yes, opponents of gay marriage of gotten exactly as stupid as the last sentence.

LOL You're calling him an idiot savant?

Yeah, but it is all a big joke to him, anyway. Doesn't excuse the rest of the GoP...

Where did I say that? I was just responding to what you said about it not being possible for a brain surgeon to be a moron.

ben carson is a special case. idk any other politician who claimed to have stabbed someone as a teen

@mrbojangles25: that quote isn't real

you have to be educated to be a surgeon. That's like at least 7 years of higher education. Not to mention certifications, residencies (or whatever they're called), and so forth. It also takes drive, money, and a lot of time.

I think savant syndrome is when you're skilled at something, but deficient at most everything else (also afflicted by autism to some degree). Like you're amazing at chess, but can't read. There's also the phrase "idiot savant" which is the same thing essentially, only you're uneducated/"stupid" and not suffering from autism. Like a hillbilly tractor mechanic knowing how to work on a Lamborghini.

I don't think anyone just happens to be skilled at surgery, while being deficient in other areas. Maybe ignorant, obtuse, and obstinate...but not a moron.

oops

maybe not real, but believable :P

Racism is something one should NEVER be tolerant of...

I agree. This argument has been derailed from my original point. What I was trying to say is that calling the majority of Americans, or whoever endorses Trump tax system, dumb/stupid because the OTer don't see his plan as viable (regardless as to whether it is or not), is arrogant. The belief that my points are absolute, that I could not be wrong about them, and that people who don't share my views aren't smart.

His view is that taxes should be cut by around 20% on the wealthy which every economist has said will cause a multi trillion dollar deficit.

By the way, instead of passive aggresively attacking oters over and over saying that they just say people who support trump are dumb while simultaneously calling those people dumb, why don't you either leave the topic or pick a side? You aren't adding anything, either make a point or stop calling the kettle black mr. pot.

As someone put it, Carson is a paragon of someone who knows a lot about one thing and absolutely nothing about everything else.

To be has corrupt as Hillary* is, you have to have at least an 8th grade education. I am surprised hers isn't even higher than that as the most conniving member of the current government. Sanders makes sense, Trump makes sense, but Clinton? The bells are ringing, we have a dangerous threat to the country in her being the president.

Trump gets the lion's share of my attention because I know he'll win the Republican nomination. He's the materialization of conservatives' wet dreams; no way they'll pass on that in the same way they couldn't pass on Ronald Reagan.

A Republican black president would be a freak of nature, which accentuates Carson's anomalous lead in the polls. He's running on a meager platform of being anti-establishment, pro-big business, and conservative extraordinaire. I reckon there's more substance, and sincerity, in Trump's platform than in Carson's, which compels me to believe he isn't serious about this at all; the guy took two weeks off campaigning to sell his book.

Carson knows he doesn't have a real shot at the Republican nomination, let alone at the presidency, which explains his lack of a platform and his apathy in general. He'll eventually cut a deal with Trump and end up dropping out and endorsing him; the two are already acting like good time buddies.

If this was about ostensible infamy, Huckabee the deranged would reign supreme. It's not Trump's professed conservatism that bothers me; his machiavellianism far exceeds that in malignancy, which will make him disastrous to the U.S and potentially to the world. He's the final stage in the breakdown of the system. For instance, he knows nothing about foreign and security policies and he isn't Establishment. How do you think he'll manage that part of the presidency? he'll defer it to someone else, a choice that will be whimsical and easily corruptible.

Trump is in no way an exception. He's only the culmination of the Republican phenomenon. The only thing exceptional about Trump is that he does better what all Republican politicians do, and he mainly has his wealth to thank for that.

Eventually, a democratic polity has to face democracy's consequences. It may appear to the many that Trump is a contingency, while in fact he's the natural progression of the democratic process. Democracy's lawlessness of sanctioning everything and bestowing a kind of equality on equals and unequals alike creates the demand for order and the means for a thug to get a hold of public life. Trump is a thug who's promising the many order, or as he puts it, making America great again; that's all that is to him.

What's exceptionally malignant about Trump isn't that he speaks his mind; the man is far detached from honesty. It's how skillful he is at pandering to the muck of an advanced democratic polity that's dangerous. If you believe he actually means any of the crap he spews, you got it all wrong.

@magicalclick: Explain how forcing Mexico to pay for a wall on the border and delivering 11 million people is impossible? Ok..... We have no way to compel Mexico to do the first and the costs of the second would be astronomical. The personnel force required for it would be Herculean.

I suppose it is fair enough that I take a side. I believe a Trump presidency would be a disaster. I think he takes advantage of people's insecurities about the state of the nation, more so than other candidates. This whole wall project delivers the wrong message to the world and to citizens alike.

the question of what anybody wants is academic. Hils is going to be the prez and that is that.

It baffles me how a maniac like Ben Carson is actually a qualified brain surgeon. I think the true intelligence isn't excelling at something and knowing how to do something good specifically, its common sense, and knowing to have sanity and good judgement, where that is clearly completely absent in an increasing and overflowing number of republicans. The whole thing just feels really creepy, it also baffles me how so many top of the line maniacs are in a position to be able to run for president, I mean really, of all the brain surgeons in the world, allowed to have this much power. I don't think there's (hopefully) a whole lot of brain surgeons out there that somehow possess Ben Carson's craziness.

Its as if the people allowing people like Ben Carson to have this much power actually know the right type of crazies to allow in for some sort of sinister destruction plan. Honestly, at this point, I don't think its all that bizarre and would actually be less of a shot in the dark, of actually going out into the streets and allowing a homeless person with poor reading skills that dropped out of high school, to be able to run for president, would actually be less insane and dangerous, than letting any repubs such as carson and trump take control of the white house.

And honestly, I think there are many homeless people that definitely deserve a home, that have gotten shafted by an increasing unfair and breaking economy.

1) I have no idea what you tried to say here.

2)

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/09/11/donald-trump-says-immigrant-deportations-done-in-two-years/

http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-saying-illegal-immigrants-have-to-go-targets-obama-orders-1439738967

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/29/politics/donald-trump-immigration-plan-healthcare-flip-flop/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/doliaestevez/2015/09/14/trumps-plan-to-round-up-and-deport-11-million-immigrants-within-24-months-prohibitively-expensive/

I seriously hope not. At least with Obama we didn't know what to expect due to his inexperience. But with Clinton, we have a proven track record of terrible decisions and lies. It's ridiculous that anybody supports her. The sad thing is that if she gets the democratic nomination, then she will win. Nobody on the republican side seems like an even remotely good leader. I'm still hoping another democrat can pull out the nomination. We really need a better solution than this stupid 2 party system. I say get rid of all parties and let the candidates run on their own merit.

And apparently Carson now leads the pack, and a majority of Republicans pick him as either their first or second choice.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/nbc-wsj-poll-carson-surges-lead-national-gop-race-n456006

This is getting fun.

I do prefer that one, I especially enjoy the fact that one paragraph talks about how bernie will be a champion for the middle class (as he always says) and in the very next paragraph admits that his tax will hit everyone (including the middle class). I was very surprised to see Bernie finally admit to having to tax the middle class since he usually talks only about being their savior.

Which I guess leads us to the next question. What is worse, a candidate who simplifies an issue to get people on board with his solutions, or a candidate whos policies completely contradict each other.

I am really glad you posted that article, unlike many others on here, I don't argue just for the sake of arguing, I come here to see other points of view and learn things that I did not know in the past. Bernie was my number 2 or 3 choice for president but after reading this I need to seriously re-evaluate that position.

I'm not a Bernie advocate, but I don't understand your objection. A proposal can be beneficial to a group while also costing that same group in another way. That's not a contradiction, that's realism. A very clear cut example of this, using the same candidate, is the analysis of Bernie's health care proposal.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/price-tag-of-bernie-sanders-proposals-18-trillion-1442271511

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/09/15/no-bernie-sanders-is-not-going-to-bankrupt-america-to-the-tune-of-18-trillion/

Economics and budgets are complex, and raising taxes on a group of people to fund a program they would benefit from is not necessarily to their detriment.

@mattbbpl: Fun for foreigners maybe but you Americans should be terrified. Carson is legit dangerous.

The contradiction of terms comes from the fact that Bernie has said over and over again that he will tax the 1% and leave the middle class alone, even in the interview you posted he had to be pressed before he would admit that the taxes would affect everyone, including the middle class. That is typical, shady, washington politics at its finest, and is one of the main reasons why so many Americans distrust politicans.

As for the other point, the programs he is proposing will not benefit the entire middle class. Mandating 12 weeks paid leave would have no effect on me at all, all it would do is raise my taxes for a program that does not benefit me or my family. Many middle class families have comprehensive vacation and medical packages which means they would also be paying for something that would not necessarily benefit them. Of course you could argue that most people don;t get 12 weeks off, you would be right, but we both know that if this legislation ever were to pass, it would be in a greatly neutered form and the 12 weeks would likely shrink to a far smaller number.

My issue is that the all the democrats talk about social program, after social program, giving so much stuff for free. The reality is nothing is free, and every program will cost people money. Tax increases have a negative affect on my life, the proposed programs either do not affect me at all, or have an additional negative effect(for example, obamacare has doubled my monthly insurance premiums, to the point where obtaining health care is just a pipe dream) which is why I cannot ever vote for a Hilary or a Bernie.

and for the record I am not a Republican either, I acknowledge that the Republican party is a joke and every bit as corrupt and ineffective as the Democrats, which is why I typically vote 3rd party in elections.

It's probably that's about all most primary voters are capable of understanding. Say whatever else you want about Trump but he's very good at selling Trump to republicans.

lol they are so fucked if they pick either of those 2 to run against Hillary.

Can you imagine the debate? It'll be amazing