I always assumed that it is fixed with screws or just tattooed. Not much need to do anything about that. And if it's natural: nothing beats a good out-of-bed style! So either way, the hair (?) shouldn't stop him!

He has nothing to gain from participating in them. The more he makes his views known in a non echo-chamber environment, the more likelihood that people realise just how idiotic they are.

He gains his supporters by shouting out hate speech at rallies and the like where nobody is there to call him out on what he's saying.

His website amuses me.....especially the tax part. He wants to kill the current tax brackets and make only 4. Those who make under $25k pay no taxes. Those who make $150k and up pay only 25%.

Current rates are:

$91k-190k: 28%
$190-410k: 33%
$413k and up: 39%

All these rich people get a significant tax break while the poor more or less pay the same (except for those who make under $25k.)

Washington Post: Fox News Head Lets Trump Walk, Keeps Megyn Kelly as Debate Moderator
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/01/26/fox-news-head-ill-let-donald-trump-walk-before-replacing-megyn-kelly-as-debate-moderator/

There was a nice article on CNN about this ...

http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/28/politics/donald-trump-fox-news-conservatives/index.html

TL;DR: Far right wing conservatives (Trump's main base) are already starting to distrust FOX News as being too liberal and too influenced by the mainstream GOP. As Trump is running on a platform of change, it only helps his campaign among those supporters to distance himself from FOX News.

And what is his platform going to be instead? I mean internet, okay...but surely TV is a huge bonus?

I believe he will mostly target forums on websites that cater to virtual board games, particularly those that include back stabbing.

By skipping the debates, Trump can avoid questions and comments that show his incompetence.

@CM: the described behaviour has brought him quite far, why should he stop now?

@Randomizer: taking into account how he went from an outsider to THE republican candidate, I wouldn't say he's incompetent. It rather seems like he has understood the mechanics of US presidential elections in the 21st century and plays them brilliantly. As a long-time diplomacy player, I can only learn from him.

And he has great entertaining factor! He himself of course, but the entailing discussions between his supporters and enemies as well.

@GOD - Trump is doing well in the polls, but that doesn't always translate to delegates for the nomination. Hillary Clinton was the front runner in the polls, but Obama was better at getting the delegates and working the system.

Besides more stories of Trump's incompetence in business, at school, and life in general keep coming out. People will eventually tire of a guy that yells about unfairness when people question him and his past. Entertainment will only last so long because after all how long do you want to watch a car crash?

GOD: Please don't learn from trump. That can't lead to a good place.

Trump's supports are not the far right wing Conservatives. He has little record of ever being very Conservative. People claiming to support him when interviewed by pollsters are most distinguished by being a bit more blue collar and largely irreligious. Aside from that, support for him is pretty broad based demographically and not particularly male. That the Republican debates not aired on fringe, niche cable networks (I have never seen one second of programing on the Fox Business News Network) have been averaging audiences roughly double the largest audience to ever watch Obama debate Hillary speaks to his people not really being part of the Republican Party primary voting coalition.

"Incompetence in business" is well beyond unfair. Essentially, he ran a casino business in Atlantic City that expanded using debt right before a recession that was followed by the legalizing of gambling in multiple surrounding states. Harry Truman opened a men's clothing store during the inflationary boom immediately after World War One to get immediately whacked when the Fed jacked up interest rates in 1920 and crushed the economy. As for Trump's performance given the circumstances, Wilbur Ross (and incredibly sharp operator) and Rothschild did not force him out of the casinos when they had the leverage to do so. While much of what Trump has done in his professional life has been "crony capitalism" related to working a highly politicized system in NYC, one cannot accurately call his performance "incompetent". He made his career doing the nuts and bolts work sifting through the PennCentral bankruptcy which sounds like a hellish way to spend a decade of one's life to me. The Reichmanns actually went broke in his world. The Uris family lost the buildings that started the Reichmanns' empire in bankruptcy. The great William Zechendorf went bankrupt. Trump held on to all of his buildings in New York with the exception of the Plaza Hotel. Harry Helmsley is the only elite New York real estate guy at the top level that I can think of who never had a near death professional experience and he almost went to jail for tax evasion. Coverage of business by journalists can oftentime be astoundingly bad. I have read multiple articles pointing out that Marvin Davis sold Fox to Rupert Murdoch for roughly what he paid for it 5 years earlier and implying that he therefore made a mistake buying Fox and that Rupert Murdoch then turned Fox around. Davis kept Fox's massive real estate portfolio (the Pebble Beach golf club, the Aspen ski resort and Century City in LA including the office building from Die Hard...RIP Alan Rickman) for free, which had been the whole reason he bought the studio in the first place.

My presumption as to Trump's tactical thinking is that he is well ahead in all of the polls and there are a half dozen candidates who are going to have a very tough time surviving very much longer without generating some fireworks. That is a recipe for kamikaze attacks from all corners.

As for the number of tax brackets, the 1986 Tax Act spearheaded by uber-liberal Bill Bradley left the US with exactly two tax brackets. Getting back to the 1986 framework seems to be the ideal that everyone holds up irrespective of which side of the political aisle they are on when the subject of tax structures comes up. There is a great book call "Showdown at Gucci Gulch" about it. The 1986 Tax Act (with a little bit of a delay) probably played a role in Trump's financial problems and brush with possible personal bankruptcy 25 years ago.

For people looking for entertainment from Trump, recognize that Roger Stone is circling somewhere in the background. If you are unfamiliar with Mr. Stone and his work, you should Google him. I recommend Matt Labash's cover article profile on him in The Weekly Standard from 2007.

Trump explained why on his Facebook page:

"As someone who wrote one of the best-selling business books of all time, The Art of the Deal, who has built an incredible company, including some of the most valuable and iconic assets in the world, and as someone who has a personal net worth of many billions of dollars, Mr. Trump knows a bad deal when he sees one. FOX News is making tens of millions of dollars on debates, and setting ratings records (the highest in history), where as in previous years they were low-rated afterthoughts.
Unlike the very stupid, highly incompetent people running our country into the ground, Mr. Trump knows when to walk away. Roger Ailes and FOX News think they can toy with him, but Mr. Trump doesn’t play games. There have already been six debates, and according to all online debate polls including Drudge, Slate, Time Magazine, and many others, Mr. Trump has won all of them, in particular the last one. Whereas he has always been a job creator and not a debater, he nevertheless truly enjoys the debating process - and it has been very good for him, both in polls and popularity.
He will not be participating in the FOX News debate and will instead host an event in Iowa to raise money for the Veterans and Wounded Warriors, who have been treated so horribly by our all talk, no action politicians. Like running for office as an extremely successful person, this takes guts and it is the kind mentality our country needs in order to Make America Great Again."

I assume it is to generate more news. After all, no one is history (I assume) has simply boycotted a debate, so it does help a lot to show how different he is from everyone else. And I agree with Gopher, his support isn't just "far right conservative nuts" as the mainstream media describes it, in fact many who used to be left are flocking to support him. I don't agree with many of Trump's policies but it is quite disappointing how they are simply rejected out of hand by the mainstream without even serious consideration.

I was saying something slightly different: the right wing nuts (as traditionally defined by the media) aren't really supporting Trump to a noticeable degree. Marco Rubio is probably to the Right of Donald Trump across the spectrum of the most discussed issues. And obviously, Ted Cruz is even more so.

BTW, I am an academic economist, and my main co-author went to Wharton as an undergrad where he was in Ivanka's cohort and took many of his classes with her. He said that she mentioned the possibility of her father running for President at the time on multiple occasions.

I would disagree with that, while Trump's policies aren't racist or sexist as the media tries to paint it as, some of his supporters are legitimately racist and sexist. I think what's going on is that with the collapse of the establishment this election, the left-right political spectrum as we've known it for the past few decades is collapsing. If Trump is allowed to be the Republican nominee, this might well be a re-allignment election, because the republicans will all of a sudden see the working class support them instead of the democrats

The white working class has not had a home in the Democratic Party for some time. I think that you are missing what is going on. Trump is not a "Conservative" as defined on the right-vs-left spectrum. He is at least mouthing "populist" positions as the Democratic Party has become ever more "progressive" in its manner and outlook. I'm not sure how things shape up today, but back in the late 1990s I came upon some issue by issue survey data for the US. Up and down the list, the position articulated by Pat Buchanan won anywhere from 2-to-1 to 5-to-1. The fact that he was fairly consistently demonized by the establishments of both political parties makes a lot of sense if the data was accurate.

Living within the academic bubble. I find the blinding effect of the right/left framework fascinating. Academics may lean left pretty strongly, but given that the Academy's power comes from a monopoly on credentialing, one should not be surprised that academics are almost monolithically "progressive" in that they believe in technocratic management by certified experts over democratic politics. Academic revulsion at the Republican Party is far more rooted in the "populist" tone of its current character than in its "Conservatism". After all, academics are the most astoundingly "conservative" people in our society....just try changing any aspect of their environment and listen to them howl with almost panicked indignation. I mean every time I have witnessed suggestions of even minor policy changes the knee jerk reaction has seemed to be something along the lines of "burn the witch".

Obama's landslide was largely the result of the economy absolutely caving in over the two months leading up to the election. I mean it is not like FDR won some intellectual argument to turn the 1928 Hoover landslide into a landslide for the exact opposite set of ideas. The lack of any meaningful realignment this time around can be seen in the virtual collapse of the Democratic Party at the local level in most of the US. If the bottom falls out on the economy again, any Republican will probably win comfortably. The interesting thing is going to be when this crop of 70 year olds shuffle off the stage since there aren't many Democrats left outside of states that aren't going to be producing any successful Presidential candidates any time soon. That the idea of Joe Biden launching a third campaign for the White House was the exciting possible alternative this cycle should be depressing for any political party. By my figuring, Jerry Brown the sequel, Cuomo the Younger and Terry "the Sleaze" McAuliffe are the only national stage Governors the Democrats have right now.

Just realised I made a spelling mistake in the post. It should say have a clue, obviously.

I find it very strange that the US is living so comfortable with two parties for so long. There is only black and white, yes or no. How come that there is no moderate party in the center?

@Gopher: I never said Trump was a conservative. I guess the only thing we are really disagreeing on is choice of word to describe the political landscape, but the words themselves have been twisted of their meanings by the media and the like. E.g: Liberals are be definition those who are willing to respect and accept other's opinions, but for some reason they are now calling everyone racist or sexist and imposing speech codes.
@GOD: This election can give you clues. People are tired of those who "sell-out" principle, which they see the establishment as. Also, even though people might not hold extreme views, they will elect for an extreme candidate to pull the medium ground in their direction. Plus, most people aren't living a great life, and they want change in any form, just to get them out of their present situation. Just my two cents, based on my own thinking. As for why there are two parties, look up duverger's law. Any moderate party will be torn apart by the left and right rapidly, since both would see it as abandoning them.

@GOD....we have a first past the post regionalized voting system with regularly scheduled elections. That system tends to yield two parties that will both be a "moderate party of the center" which it does. You are watching arguments occurring within political parties driven by actual voters. In Europe, these processes are kept out of public view and out of the hands of any real people. I recognize that this is something alien to you and probably seems strange, but it is actually how real democracy works. It is a German ideology based voting system that allows a Nazi or Communist party to exist. I am still fascinated by the Jews who fled the Nazi disaster choosing to build a new state around exactly the Weimar political framework that had produced the inferno rather than adopting an English or American style system that naturally moderates ideological excesses. When I was learning about political systems in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Israel seemed like the worst possible structural system given that regular democratic elections were held and respected.

Trump is being portrayed by a media incredibly hostile to "populism" as something analogous to the rise of Hitler when his only substantive policy proposals are that the government start enforcing immigration laws that have been systematically ignored for decades and a shift to more mercantilistic trade policies that I personally associate with contemporary France. As someone who thinks about international trade for a living, I find such discussion just terribly entertaining as Paul Krugman won his Nobel Prize in 2008 largely for disproving the whole Ricardian Comparative Advantage model back in 1979. Some of the most interesting stuff going on these days is research showing that Ricardo fails even more catastrophically as a predictive model than Krugman thought in the 1970s.

Are the two main opposition parties in German still in coalition with each other? Is Schroeder still the only German Chancellor to ever gain office through a change of government caused by winning an election?

Didn't get that Schroeder part...he's been elected the same way Merkel or their predecessors were.
I just don't believe that a "system that naturally moderates ideological excesses" is democratic, because who is to decide what is a excess? Some may call preventing billions of normal people entering the country because of their religion excessive. The system doesn't really work there ideologically, does it?

Please note that I don't oppose Trump. I view him as Pop Art, which is why I recently purchased some of his make America Great again stickers.

Relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o10-Aqjifa8

Schroeder entering office was the only election driven change of government in the history of the Bundes Republic. Willie Brandt replaced Kiesinger through a maneuver within the governing coalition. Helmut Kohl replaced Schmidt solely as a result of the Free Democrats switching side from one coalition to another through a back room deal. Merkel came to power through the formation of a Grand Coalition rather than a meaningful electoral victory and she has sat in government with her supposed opposition for two of her three terms. Schroeder beating Kohl and there being a change of government defined by election returns is the only time that that has happened in Germany since the war.

It is so strange to someone from an English style system that people in Continental systems don't even recognize that this is occurring and how citizens in traditional Democratic Republics would find it strange. If you don't have a representative, then you don't have a representative. You can't get rid of your politicians; there will never be a Portillo Moment in Germany under its current system. Much of what is wrong with the EU can be laid at the feet of the EU having designers who view the aforementioned as a normal way to run a political system. Heads of the Democratic Party in Congress have been defeated multiple times (in 2004 and in 1994 with a close call in 2010). Strangely, I cannot think of a Republican leader to lose re-election over the last century; although, the number 2 Republican lost a primary election last cycle.

Median voter theory and the laws of normal distributions do a pretty good job without any human being exercising personal judgment.

Some may call NOT preventing BILLIONS of people from entering the country excessive.

Yes, because a system that effectively forces two parties, and actively stifles any attempts at bringing in fresh viewpoints that haven't been thoroughly vetted by the current extreme minority power holders in those parties, is /obviously/ far superior to one that actually attempts to represent the wills of the majority of its populace.

As someone from a country with a Westminster system, the only saving grace we have is that the lower house carries over votes from otherwise spoiler candidates, and our upper house does a reasonable approximation of proportional representation when people fill out the sheet themselves rather than handing their vote over to a party's back-room preference deals.

The American electoral college system, where in all but two states up to 50% of total votes cast are actively assumed to be for their opposition, is what makes absolutely no sense to me.

I was very interested in its conversation at its outset. A global perspective on my counties current ridiculousness. Admittedly, the vast majority of this conversation has been well over my head, but as much as I would love to have one of you highly intellectual individuals explain it to me, even I can tell that this once academic conversation is becoming derogatory in nature.

Country's*

A peculiar typo.