If those guys on the other side of the aisle are so wrong about your side, could you be that wrong about them?

No. I am infallible.

The extreme sides of both parties are wrong about quite a lot. You have to ignore those elements as they don’t play into 80% of us.

“If former President Obama isn’t really a Muslim terrorist from Kenya, then is it possible that President Trump is sometimes innocent of sexual assault charges?”

Likely some but not all of the charges. Obama was no terrorist.

“If your side isn’t really driven by racism, then is it possible that the other side doesn’t really want to take all your money and give it to someone else?”

More probably favor redistribution than there are racists on the other side. Conservatives/Republicans are not driven by racism despite the best attempts of the Democrats/liberals to slander them in this way.

“In general, is it possible that you are as wrong about their side as they are about yours? Are they really more stupid/evil/misguided/whatever than your side?”

It’s not about being stupid and evil or being misguided. It’s that people won’t stray from the line and form their own opinion. Even though I’ll self identify as center-right I don’t like the right that much at the moment, they’re just not offering solutions and seem to only react to the bad ideas coming from the left. I’m really not liking the direction the left is taking and the solutions they propose though. Some of it’s actually regressive and frankly dangerous. The real danger is in the complete lack of cooperation between the two sides. All of this bickering between the two is fit for the grade school playground. I guess I don’t have to tell you how poorly I think of those that cast each side with a broad stroke as being either black or white. Can’t get anything done with that mentality except go to war with each other. We have too many here on this site to be honest. I don’t think they can be reasoned with as that would be viewed by them as an attack on their identity and self-worth.

I think the devil is in the details. Let’s look at some of the statements in the question. Is Trump trampling the Emoluments Clause? Possibly. But the details are…is he getting money for it? If he has stepped away from all his personal businesses then he is not trampling on the E Clause. If he is still directly benefiting from the use of his resorts (i.e. he is getting a paycheck or some other direct compensation) then he is. But when you compare that to Hillary and her e-mails you are comparing an unknown to a known. Hillary did, indeed, violate security laws by handling classified materials improperly. The FBI even came out and confirmed this. The law does not allow ignorance as an excuse. In fact, the law specifically says gross negligence is not an excuse. That is why Comey was asked to change his wording from gross negligence to extreme carelessness. But the law is clear…Hillary did violate the law and should have faced fines or jail time or both.
Obama being a Muslim terrorist from Kenya. Obama was a Muslim at one point in his life. His father was from Kenya. So there is some truth there. He was not identified as a terrorist though he did have some ties to known terrorists. Bill Ayers comes to mind. Also Obama was instrumental in forming ISIS. He armed and trained Syrian “rebels” who were mainly al-Qaeda members. The modern ISIS was formed from many of the “rebels” that took those arms and training and began their terrorist wars. Compare that to Trump and his sexual assault charges. Trump has been accused several times of sexual indiscretions. Many of those were construed as sexual assault. Not the same thing. He has also been accused of sexual assaults, but there has never been enough evidence to bring charges against him. Many of the accusations seem to be either political scams or efforts to shake him down for money. I have seen Cosby compared, but that comparison alone should be enough to make my point. Cosby was accused by women that had actual cases. They pushed their accusations and the legal system felt there was enough of a case to pursue prosecution and Cosby was convicted in a court of law. None of that has happened with Trump even though many of the claims are decades old.
Republicans are racists! Yes, there are probably some. But mostly that seems to be a tactic the left uses to try painting Repubs as the bad guys. They lack even basic evidence of that claim. If you disagree with them, they will claim you are a racist. Again…no evidence. Dems/Libs wanting to take your money and give it to someone else. There is evidence of this. Dems have always wanted to bloat the size of the government. They want to increase taxes. They have floated ideas like the Green New Deal and many, many Dems have publicly backed it. There are many Dems that have floated the idea of giving everyone a living wage whether they are working or not…legal citizens or not. All these ideas HAVE to have money from those working to give to those not working or to support the programs they want to create. So again…you have accusations from the left compared to facts from the right.
I have a hard time seeing anything other options. The motivations are what cause all the problems. MOSTLY, it seems to be political power that is the driving force. And when you get into that motivation, hypocrisy runs rampant. Example: I just saw an article about 6 Dem congressmen that accepted gifts from Qatar and never reported them as they were supposed to. Some have claimed these were oversights and they will correct them. But didn’t we just spend two years investigating Trump and, indeed, indicting Trump supporters for the exact same sort of thing? Not properly reporting their contact with foreign agencies? So it seems like the left will scream about foreign meddling and how these Trump supporters deserve prison for lying but then just want to give a pass when it is Dems doing it.

I’m a middle-of-the-roader so I think everybody is messed up one way or another.

This is why I am a centrist. I criticize all sides. It makes me very popular with the ladies.

@seawulf575 I’m shocked at so many of the things you’re saying, it would take forever to list them all. I’ll just pick one.

I said, “If former President Obama isn’t really a Muslim terrorist from Kenya”

And you said, “Obama was a Muslim at one point in his life. His father was from Kenya. So there is some truth there.”

No, there is absolutely no connection between the two statements. Being a Muslim has nothing to do with being a terrorist. There are Christian terrorists and HIndu terrorists too.

Mr Obama Sr being from Kenya lends no truth whatsoever to any claim about the former president being from Kenya. Presumably it wasn’t lost on you that my point about Kenya was about the former president being a natural-born US citizen. His father being from Kenya is entirely unrelated. Where is the former president’s mother from? It doesn’t matter. What matters is where the former president is from.

Many of your other statements are equally flawed, along the same lines as what I’ve said here. I’d be interested in your thoughts, minus the unfounded connections and plus some even-handedness. But then we’d have to talk about each point, and I imagine that would be a lot of work that you might not be in the mood for.

So I’ll just put this here as a stake in the ground: I don’t disagree with you on anything you’ve said, because the flaws in your commentary dissipate your meaning into unrecognizability.

Peace and luck

Just wait it gets worse.

@kritiper @Caravanfan Same. Although if there’s one thing being a centrist doesn’t do, it’s make you popular. haha. Love taking crap from both sides and being accused of being a fence-sitting amoral milquetoast.

So I guess if I’m on the side of moderates and the “other side” is extremists on both sides, then no, I’m right about them. Consistently. ;)

I don’t think they’re evil; I think they’re doing what they believe is best for the country without realizing that the polarization they encourage is actually ruining it.

I get what you’re asking, though—people need to engage with the other side, not just write them off for seeing the world differently. This applies to any kind of “tribal” divisions in society.

There is no question Hillary put sensitive information at risk with her emails.
The way you might look at a parallel of guilt is not to hold that fact against some fictitious accusation against Trump, but look back before Trump. Did republicans know about those emails significantly sooner than represented, without issuing any sort of warning to her, or any authority? Did they sit on important information so they have a greater volume to point their bony fingers? That is one of the questions which bother me.
I think Trump is torn on such matters. I think he honestly wants to change how things are done in our politics, but he is stuck with having to resort to some of it just to equip himself.
It was said in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, that sometimes the best way to catch a pirate is to resort to piracy. Maybe there is some truth to that, maybe not.

I don’t know what Trump has planned, where his current loyalties truly sit. I do know that as we age, many of us take long looks at ourselves, our lives, and how things add up. Trump raised a family with certain values. Drugs, booze, they have no place in his life. He has instilled in their lives a solid sense of work ethics.
People poke fun at him for The Apprentice shows, but I think it gave him and others a good look into the work behind various exercises.
I believe Trump wants to give back to a homeland which gave him the opportunities to have a full, rich life, where he could marry whoever he chose, raise a family safely, and always enjoy comforts of living.
I could be wrong, but I hope not.
I think he makes some mistakes in how he handles certain hurdles, but I think he honestly wants to improve as many things as he can, while he still can.
If he does manage to improve “the machine” and it’s inner workings, I think he should be acknowledged, by all sides. People who lend themselves to public service should not suffer hate in their sunset years.
If I am wrong, and he is using the office to advance himself and his family at the expense of American citizens, then I hope he rots to putty as he draws his final breaths.

@Patty_Melt Trump’s tax bill benefits him personally to the tune of at least $11 million a year and his son in law will save at least $5 million. The total cost of slashing taxes for corporations and the wealthy will add $1.5 trillion to the national debt over the next ten years. And who’s going to end up paying this debt? Low income John Doe that’s who.

@Demosthenes Maybe so, but I can’t change who I am inside. There are others like me so I’m not alone. And at my age I don’t care to be popular…

Isn’t a moderate the same as being a centrist??

@SaganRitual I think you are misunderstanding my comment. As I said, the devil is in the details. Your statement that right would say Obama was a Muslim terrorist from Kenya. There are portions of that statement that are, or were true, but overall it is not correct. He was a Muslim at one point. He was enrolled in a Muslim school in Indonesia and had to be a Muslim at that point. That doesn’t mean he continued on that path. His father was from Kenya, but he was not born there and has no citizenship ties that I know of. And he was not, as far as I know, ever listed on some list somewhere as belonging to a group of terrorists, but he did associate with them and used the power of the presidency to support known terrorist who then went on to become worse terrorists. Overall, the statement Obama was a Muslim Terrorist from Kenya is false, but you have to get to the details to separate the fact from the fiction or the innuendo. Pretty much every statement I made was on that same line of thinking. Except Hillary…she really did break the law. The fact a biased group covered for her doesn’t make it any less of a crime.

@Patty_Melt Pls read this article and see if maybe it’ll change your opinion of trump a bit.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2019/06/14/feature/how-donald-trump-silenced-the-people-who-could-expose-his-business-failures/?utm_term=.921e9b94405f