Guys, WTF?  I've been web surfing since around 1999.  The nation, and the gun / conservative groups I identify with, have gone through some tough times since then.  9/11 obviously, but also the dark days of the AWB, the uncertainty of whether AWB would actually sunset, years 2004-2007 of the Iraq War, Sandy Hook, and multiple critical elections (some won, some lost).  

Throughout all those tough times that I remember in part through the lens of reading stuff people write on the internet, I've never seen so much defeatism from so-called American Men as what I see now.  From reading this and other boards, apparently its all over. Hillary will win because polls, and even if the polls change voter fraud is guaranteed. It's pitiful: take away the endorphins from your guy being in the lead, and people just can't handle the uncertainty.  The problem is, it's not just venting, people are now trying to convince others that Trump doesn't have a chance.  It's a weird, creepy social dynamic in play and I'm calling out about a third of the active posters in GD, including some of the site staff.  

Sure, some of you are Mobys or GOPe operatives with your own motives, but some of you guys are just mentally defeated.  It's pitiful.  Do you like the thought of recruiting more people into your "Trump's gonna lose and we're all screwed" club?  Are you looking forward, the day after the election, to being able to reference an internet post you made months ago "predicting" a Hillary win?  Do you draw comfort from being on what you think is the safest path towards...towards what?  Being right on the internet?  
 
All you defeatists should man up, for your own sake and the sake of your kids who are taking lessons from you.  If you think it's so hopeless that you're not even going to bother to vote on election day, at least have the courage to stay home in silence and be alone in your fear, instead of running away yelling that other people should join you.  

OP thinks positive thinking wins elections.

First, I've yet to see anyone on this board say they will stay home or vote for Hillary because they don't like Trump. Trump supporters keep implying that the board is full of these folks, but I've yet to see one. This is an example of the imaginary world die-hard Trump supporters inhabit.

Second, people who think Trump is likely to lose (like me) think that way because of the effect of recent demographic changes on the electoral college, not because of polls. If you acknowledge reality, you understood from day one that Trump has always had to draw an inside straight to win the presidency. The presidential race is not the place to get behind long-shot candidates. Like it or not, reality says the presidency is now won with middle of the road voters in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. Trump supporters blaming the polls, the media, and other likely Trump votes for the effect of demographic and systemic facts on Trump's chances is another example of their denial of reality.

And before you say, "well McCain and Romney lost, so that proves middle-of-the-road candidates can't win," McCain's and Romney's losses do not prove that. George W. Bush and his father before him were middle-of-the-road candidates. Reagan, who was elected 32 years ago, was the last semi-conservative president. Even he was big-government. The demographics of the electoral college have changed dramatically over those 32 years. Indeed, the voters who will decide this election weren't even old enough to vote then. McCain's and Romney's losses show nothing more than how far behind Republicans start in presidential elections now. Any Republican is a long-shot. Supporting presidential candidates that only appeal to the base in states the Republicans will anyway just doesn't make any sense.

In short, if Trump gets destroyed in the election don't blame the majority of Republican primary voters who voted against him.

Can you recall a modern candidate as supportive as the 2nd Amendment as what we have now? I can't.

And if that doesn't impact you enough to GOTV, might as well go back to brushing that high horse in hopes for November.

Hell. You live in a battleground state.

TLDR: OP is right.

what makes me laugh is all my liberal acquaintances "know" Trump is going to win.

Every time a poll comes out one way or the other, the opposing side panics.

I'm going to vote. I think there is a good chance Trump won't carry all 50 states. I also don't think he is the second coming of Christ. Not much to get all hyped over.

lol cast that popular vote like it matters. I will but I'm not delusional.

Brainwashed by mass media and they dont even know it.

Because the anchorwomen are so good looking!

Very disappointing but we have remember to subtract the trolls and assorted other wimps. Many times less than a page  in total.

What you are witnessing is the power of propaganda.

i'm seeing more and more trump signs, while I do believe there is a good possibility we are about to descend into some of the most unbelievable corruption, and betray 200 years of American lives lost, I haven't given up hope, cause if not, well, I fear what the actual immediate consequences are going to be.

Polling isn't the same as voting.  Lots of people that don't care for Trump don't like Hillary enough to show up at the polls for her.



Besides, all this "Hillary has it in the bag" talk works in our favor that way.  Those same folks think there is no need to bother themselves to head to a polling station.



Everyone is going to be shocked the morning after.

You don't have to be so blunt about it.

If Trump loses, I will place the blame directly on the shoulders of the #NeverTrumpers and #GOPe types.

We all held our noses and actually supported the last two cycles' shitty candidates.

Yeah we may not have turned out in record numbers, but we didn't actively campaign against them or outright support the other candidate.

Fuck you guys, I despise you even more than the libtards

Nay sayers said same thing 2 years ago when polls showed ties in most of the Senate races...Republicans ended up winning by 7-10%. Polls also showed Republicans losing 3 Governorships...they won 3 instead.

Just be glad Cruz isn't running. He is trailing in the polls in our home state of Texas, and many families including ours stopped supporting him after his crybaby antics.

If Trump loses, it's Trump's fault, and it is the fault of those who voted for him in the primaries.  

Blaming anyone other that him and his supporters is nothing but denial.  There is no force that undermines him other than his own incompetence.

Trump became the leader of the Republican Party, and he and his supporters decided to NOT attempt to unify the Party after his nomination.  Instead, he continued to attack and alienate large blocs of his own Party.

You tell someone to fuck off, and then whine when they won't support you?  

Wake up and take responsibility for what you've done.  This falls squarely on YOUR shoulders.

That's a fair statement, but it isn't representative of the posts on this board that represent outright sabotage of the campaign.

Sabotage?  Trump's mouth has sabotaged his campaign, not posts on a board that will have no effect on the election.

You don't think this board is influential?  Romney lost because conservatives stayed home.  But keep trash talking as if GD is you're personal safe space.  The Mobys and concern trolls appreciate your assistance.  


Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

Politics is a tough sport & the whiny bitches didn't just take their ball and go home, they went to play for the other team.

Even the demoRats know to support their candidate no matter how rough the primaries were.

Bottom line is that Trump brought our more voters than any other primary candidate in history. Hillary is the weakest candidate by far with
all of the shit hanging around her neck, and the #neverTrumpers attack the republican candidate. Fucking babies would literally cut off their nose to spite
their face

FGOPe, FHRC, and FBHO all three birds of a feather need to fall ass first on a rusty barbed wire wrapped, aids infested cactus

No one outside of the Trump campaign is sabotaging his campaign.

People notice his screw ups and comment on them.  That some people choose to not wear blinders is not "sabotage."

The true sabotage comes from Trump's own mistakes (choosing corrupt and conflicted campaign staff, attacking blocs of Republicans, getting constantly off message, etc).

Good post OP, I concur completely.  The defeatism is prolific in GD, with many of those same Negative-Nancy's placing a lot of effort towards trolling and mocking those of us who care to remain hopeful against seeing a Clinton presidency come to pass.  To bad they can't channel some of that negative effort towards edifying those in their circle of influence what a disaster Clinton may be to our 2A rights, and motivate themselves and others to vote against her.

Regardless of the outcome, every vote counts in November and represents our individual choice as to how and whom we will be governed by. Is that naïve? Perhaps, but I am voting nonetheless.  

Surprises me that so many firearms owners here in GD appear to have simply acquiesced to the worst possible outcome and don't care to do anything to try to change that heading into November.

Guess it's true what they say about "misery loves company", "peoples being "sheeples", etc...  

It's a massive conspiracy man, stop harshing peoples' feels with that annoying reality stuff.

just wait until he flips on his plan to deport.  ha ha ha its gonna be huge you will see.

I will vote for him but like others say I dont feel the win in the air.

...are the ones who point fingers at others and refuse to accept responsibility for their own mistakes and incompetence.

Oh, I see.  NOW'S the time for intra-party navel gazing about the candidate, his platform, and the future of the nation.  August 22nd, weeks before the general election with the opposing party all but promising the destruction of the 2A and a dystopian economic future.  

Now is apparently a perfect time to complain about Trump saying mean things and just generally being a poopy head.  

Thanks for making my case.  

Wall!! Herp, Derp! Mooslimes! Derp.

This election was lost when mouthbreathers voted with pure emotion instead of reason and what was best for the country. This will be on you and Trump alone.

I'm guessing you haven't actually been paying much attention to this election cycle.

This.

Hahahaha!  He is your Candidate and he told me that he didn't need my vote or the state of Colorado to win.  OWN IT.   pathetic.

There's two different kinds of defeatism that are much different.

Defeatist Guy #1 thinks that our candidate licks balls and that there's no hope of rallying the party and the mushy middle sufficiently to win the electoral college vote.

Defeatist Guy #2: recognizes that Hillary's people will be counting the votes in key districts/states, and therefore even if we get more actual votes, we still lose.

I definitely think that Trump can get more votes in the battleground states...I'm also pretty sure the entire vote counting game is rigged. This means that Trump needs to DESTROY hillary in the battleground states in order to overcome her vote-counting advantage. I don't see that happening. I still tell people to vote and support Trump, and will vote (we vote by mail here, it's hella easy), but I am a defeatist in that way.

Always easier to blame others than look in the mirror and realize you were suckered by an obvious flimflam man with a few jingoistic platitudes that appealed to your feels. If that doesn't work for you, the conspiracy theory route is open too (see the multiple threads here for a start).

At this point, they have to keep up their shtick because they've been so critical of Trump since the beginning.

If he wins, they look incredibly stupid.  If he loses, they are vindicated.


It comes down to personal pride.

That's a load of crap. People have been sounding the alarm about Trump for more than a year and this is playing out exactly as many of us predicted. Also, the polls aren't wrong. Team Trump knows it too. That's why they are prepping everybody for the loss by saying it's rigged, which it isn't.

This should have been a shoo-in presidency for the GOP, but GOPers brought us Trump, and well -- here we are.   Maybe next election people will exercise a bit of critical thinking before casting a ballot in the next primaries.

Or point fingers at the establishment types who turned traitor.

We're not talking "won't endorse" types, we're talking endorse Hitlery types.

When in your lifetime have you ever seen this happen ?  

Rep. Richard Hanna (N.Y.)
Henry Paulson,  fmr treasury secretary
Carlos Gutierrez, fmr commerce secretary
Rosario Marin, U.S. treasurer
John Negroponte, director of national intelligence and deputy secretary of state under
Richard Armitage, deputy secretary of state and adviser to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush
Brent Scowcroft, chairman of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board and adviser to three previous Republican presidents
William Reilly, Environmental Protection Agency adminstrator
Alan Steinberg, regional EPA administrator
Robert Blackwill, former deputy national security adviser and ambassador to India
Scott Evertz, former director of the Office of National AIDS Policy
Lezlee Westine, former White House director of public liaison and deputy assistant to the president
Shirin Tahir-Kheli, special assistant to the president and ambassador and senior adviser for women's empowerment under Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
Ashley J. Tellis, special assistant to the president and senior director for strategic planning and Southwest Asia
David A. Gross, State Department coordinator for international communications and information policy
James Kunder, assistant administrator for Asia and the Near East at USAID
Matthew Waxman, senior official in the State Department and Defense Department
Kori Schake, National Security Council and State Department aide
Frank Lavin, former Reagan political director
Doug Elmets, former Reagan spokesman
im Cicconi, former Reagan and George H.W. Bush aide
Fred T. Goldberg Jr., former assistant U.S. treasury secretary and IRS commissioner
Charles Fried, former U.S. solicitor general under Reagan
Pete Teeley, press secretary to then-Vice President George H.W. Bush
Richard Howill, former deputy assistant secretary of state and ambassador to Ecuador under Reagan
William Ruckelshaus, former Environmental Protection Agency head, deputy attorney general and acting FBI director
Carla Hills, U.S. trade representative under George H.W. Bush
Robert Kagan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, former Reagan State Department aide and adviser to the presidential campaigns of John McCain and Mitt Romney
Max Boot, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and adviser to GOP presidential candidates
Peter Mansoor, retired Army colonel and former aide to former CIA director David Petraeus
Meg Whitman, former Hewlett-Packard chief executive and California gubernatorial nominee
Chris Shays, former congressman from Connecticut
Connie Morella, former congresswoman from Maryland
David Durenberger, former senator from Minnesota
William Milliken, who served as governor of Michigan from 1969 to 1983


And that's just part of the list of fuck-heads, not including those here in GD who want to see that POS criminal elected POTUS
rather than that big mean poopy head Trump

Eff all of ya

It's distracting and I wish he would knock it off, but really who cares?  I don't have enough time to worry about what he tweets and in the grand scheme of things most voters don't either.  Good fodder for political junkies though-the people who by definition aren't undecided one way or the other so we're back to the who cares question.

 
Those 2 retards were shit-talking Trump all morning and have been shit-talking Trump for months.  He made 2 tweets.


The rest of the Liberal media spun it into a story because it's been awhile since they've had anything negative on Trump.


You feign outrage right along with the media every time they come up with a bullshit headline.  It's ridiculous.

Talk about defeatism. Most of Trump's ardent supporters on this board have just retreated into excuse making. It's the #nevertrumpers, it's the media, it's Hillary's vote counters. What's with all the excuse making? Making excuses before the contest happens is defeatist to me.

I voted for Cruz, but Trump won. No matter how you spin it, it's a binary election.

You either vote to have a shot at decent SC judges and no more attacks against the 2A, or you roll over and accept hitlery and every gun control law or EO she signs, like submissive little puppies.
Hey at least you have your principles right?

But all the awesome high-fives and zingers, brah.....

 
Riiiiiight.


People, mostly Ron Paul supporters, said the same shit in 2008 and 2012.


The folks who voted for the loser in the primary always claim their guy would have had an easy win.  Always.


You sound like college football fans whose team didn't make it to the championship game.

The solution to the problem is not binary.  The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. We all heard this in '08, '10, '12, '14 and now. Sending any politician to Washington DC will not stop the juggernaut of the national government.

Article V is the answer we are looking for.

This board certainly can be influential, but you're delusional if you think this forum had an impact on the 2012 election.  Romney lost by almost 6 million individual votes and over 100 electoral votes.  If every single one of us had moved to one swing state and voted Romney, we could have made sure he only lost by close to 6 million votes and a few less electoral votes.

However, people from this board did send anti gun legislators in CO packing, have elected members to the NRA board, and have done some amazing work on the local and state level for gun rights, with legislation, lawsuits, etc.  That is where we truly wield influence, and calling people names and blaming them for the results of national elections decided by millions of people who don't have a fucking clue about this forum is....deranged.

I think that sort of work is where folks on this board can shine, so that's what I do and has always been my top priority over "my individual vote in the general election is life or death".  I'm a Life member of the NRA, I volunteer for Friends of the NRA, I teach new shooters monthly, I am a member of multiple state level gun orgs and have encouraged others to do the same here, so on and so forth.  Bringing the next generation on board to protect and defend gun rights is a huge thing we should all be working for, so I work towards that end because unlike national elections, it's something I can actually influence with my work.  

You've laid out a lot of blame/responsibility for a national election on this forum, so I'll ask you:  What are you doing?  Show us your Trump yard sign, your bumper sticker, your donations.  Have you spent time volunteering for the campaign?  What state are you in?  I'm sure others would be interested in joining whatever group you're working hard with to make sure Trump wins.  

I'm curious if you back your words with actions, or if you're yet another keyboard commando, scorching others for "losing the election" while you sit on your ass in front of a screen.

Let me get this straight, because I've seen this common thread in a number of replies to my post: if Hillary wins, only Trump supporters will be defeated; in fact everyone who supports Trump is a loser making various excuses...there's no way a normal person would associate with those Trump people.  

Does that about cover it?  Have we sufficiently normalized defeat on this board to the point that if Trump loses the people who failed to support him will be the new cognoscenti here?  

and also this.

Still calling names instead of trying to get people on board.

"Fuck you" is a great way to win people over.  

Science.

 
Really?


Most of Trump's ardent supporters on this board are claiming Trump will lose and giving those excuses for why he'll lose?


I'd like to see your source for that statement because it smells suspiciously like shit, I'm just not sure whether it's horse or bull.

Exactly.