Is Trump's real agenda to monetize the fringe right wing base?

[Final-Fan]

fatslob-:O said:

Final-Fan said:

1.  I never said it was a requirement.  I said that presidential candidates have done it routinely for decades to demonstrate to the voting public that they have nothing to hide as far as their personal financial situation goes, and the natural inference to draw from Trump's refusal to do so is that he does have something to hide in that regard.  Not necessarily something illegal, but perhaps it would show that he has been lying about something that he has been claiming in the campaign about his business acumen. 

I sympathize with the viewpoint of "don't do something purely because it's tradition", but there is actually a reason why the public should want to know as much as reasonably possible about prospective Presidents.  Do you disagree? 

2.  "The constitution" is a pretty bad answer.  If the existence of the constitution guaranteed that a president would do a good job and not abuse the powers of the office, Nixon would be remembered as one of our better presidents.  For that matter, why are you worried about Hillary Clinton if all you need to do to prevent abuse of power is to remind her that the constitution exists? 

I will ask you again, if Trump's promises are worthless except in the context of a binding legal document, what binding legal document exists to assure us that Trump has any intention whatsoever of doing any of the things he has promised you he would do?  Maybe he'd be happy to let ISIS through immigration for $10,000 per terrorist, cash only.  As long as he could find a constitutional way to do it.  He doesn't want to build a wall, and if he did he wouldn't make Mexico pay for it.  He'd make New Mexico pay for it, and tell us he didn't specify "which Mexico" he was talking about. 

I don't disagree that the public should want to know about presidential candidates as much as possible but they have the right to whether or not to disclose that information at hand and what reason would he have to lie about his business acumen ? There's more evidence to say that he's filthy rich from the financial discloure form rather than not ... 

The consititution doesn't distinguish good job or bad job, only boundaries. The difference between Trump and Clinton is that his interests are not easily bought with money when he is stinking rich so his integrity is far more protected than her's when you have to pay for a much more hefty price to even affect him and money matters even less with his existing age and fortune ... (Not like he'll care about extra cash once the grim reaper nears towards him.)

Hillary Clinton belongs to the establishment that's full of neoconservatives. Trump is the antithesis of establishments. His "I don't care" attitude in politics makes him all the more infallible to corruption when he doesn't give a damn about any parties so systematic corruption gets minimized in the process too if you can seperate political parties from power. Trump succeeded in taking power away from the republican party since it was easier to do so when it doesn't have superdelegates ... 

Also current law pretty much makes it impossible to not be persecuted for accepting bribes for handing out visa's automatically ... 

Machiavellian said:

Nothing really for me to learn.  You have not provided an answer or defended the position.  Hillary is getting killed because she is preceived a liar.  Why would this be any different for Trump.  As I asked before, what other means can we judge Trump character if not how he does business.  Since he has served no political office, the only way voters can judge him is based on his track record as a businesman and one he used as his political platform.

You should not confer professional life being the same as a personal life. The former is far more pragmatic. Why not go see what Trump's closest and longest known associates think of him or other former collegues if you want a fair judgement of his character ? They would know more about his character far more than anyone else here would ... 

1.  True, we agree that he isn't required to do this, but I think it's only reasonable for people to refuse to vote for someone who refuses to disclose that information.  I think if he did it would show he is not as rich as he claims to be. 

2.  You'd think that being filthy rich and having most of your life behind you would make you harder to corrupt, but I think that's not what proves to be the case a lot of the time.  Certainly Trump's history doesn't suggest he would be particularly good at holding firm against pecuniary gain at the expense of others in shady deals.  And I really don't see Trump's level of greed declining when he realizes he's close to death; I'm confident he is set in his ways; if he was going to pivot on that stance he would have done it already, since he's pretty old.  Anyway, I think he would actually prove to be highly corruptible, but probably a different style of corruption than the corruption life-long politicians tend to get into.  If your position is "they are both corrupt but at least Trump isn't the same old kind of corruption—I want some new corruption to see if it's not as bad as the type I expect from Hillary", then while I disagree with your decision I can respect it. 

3.  You still have not explained what reason we have to believe Trump actually intends to do what he has claimed he intends to do, given that you say his word is not his bond until he's signed a contract to that effect.  But if you accept that he may well be lying about anything and everything and he will be corrupt as heck, but a new and possibly less damaging kind of corruption, then it's not an important point. 

4.  His biographer is convinced that his personality is completely unsuited to the office.  He does not have enough attention to detail, and gets bored too quickly; as a result he will not want to go in depth on policy when he is not already familiar with it.