I'm sad to say you're correct.

One must always remember that Trump is not the problem, he's the symptom. We've been leading up to this for a very long time.

This cuts both ways:

(1) A future president may be as corrupt and sociopathic and conscience-free as Trump, but lacks his impatience and incompetence and intellectual limitations. What if someone like Manafort were President and Trump was just his bumbling minion? Manafort has actual charm and steely ruthlessness and actual negotiating and persuasive skills, not blustery but unreal claims to such skills. One day, a Mussolini-like figure will make us long for the days of Trump, I suspect.

(2) A future president may be a person of principle, totally well-meaning and as virtuous as anyone can actually be if they've made it as far as national office, and still undermined and thwarted by a bureaucracy full of sociopaths and idiots. Indeed, remember that Carter, who no one suggests was not a good and decent man, was a very ineffective one-term president because of a combination of him being outmaneuvered by other actors, and the simple fact that his approach to things requires lots of time and patience and tolerance for counterintuitive approaches. That's way beyond the scope of a 4 year presidential term. It would only get things done if we had an improbable STRING of such men in the Oval Office. Which isn't ever going to happen.

The fact is that nearly half the people in this country are fine with Trump or at least think he'll do more good than harm. They think this out a combination of moral degeneracy and complacency and ignorance (some good portion of that ignorance being willful). We are probably following the Roman model of a gradual decline into ineffectiveness and irrelevancy.

You must be talking about a different Sam Harris!!!

You need to listen to Sam more.

@Jacar

Yes, he may give some intelligent input on things through writing and speech, but I simply disliked his input on this video with his stupid "I just cannot believe that Trump is president" statement. How on earth can someone not believe this? He won the election process by doing the Republican Party's usual schtick, which is using their immense wealth, connections, election specialty, etc. it's not rocket science. All they had to do was appeal to the biggest demographic, which is complete retards, and then they were practically a shoe-in. His competitors simply did not rock the house hard enough....how can Sam Harris not believe in this? It's basic stuff.

You're not old enough to know anything.

@Secretguy

This is likely a truth

@DZhukovin I have been saying ‘I still can’t believe that trump is president,’ even as I write this! Truth be known...not many days go by, that I ‘can’t believe!’ I have not been witness to anything like this in 50yrs!

@DZhukovin It is an expression of bewilderment, nothing more. Sam doesn't have a problem with getting a grip on reality.
He is talking to Australia as well.

Nobody is that dumb, and certainly this extends to you, Hitchens.

Please note that when the brain grows, it grows wider and the occiputal bone in the back of the skull opens up. Sam Harris is an actor, he's not a great intellect.

@DZhukovin An actor???? Stage, movies, television, give me an example of him acting will you?
Anyone that has written the caliber of books that he has, and carries a successful podcast like he does, is a Great intellect IMO.

@zblaze

Whatever

@DZhukovin "Sam Benjamin Harris is an American author, philosopher, neuroscientist, critic of religion, blogger, and podcast host." And what have you done lately to receive any kind of noteworthy recognition?

@DZhukovin
This is Sam Harris the Actor.. but we are discussing the world renowned Writer who has published a myriad of books in 20 languages. He has a P.hd in Neuroscience and a degree in Philosophy. He is regarded as one of the most dynamic of contemporary intellectuals...all of this I feel sure you will concede requires a certain amount of intellect.
Regarding the relevance of the Occital bone..I am not sure.. I am aware that the Occital base bone..not the posterior part is markedly wider in Neanderthals than Homosapiens.

@SLBushway

I avoided those childish ways to spend time, except for neuroscience, authoring and philosophy, because those actually have complexity to them. If he wanted a real path in life, he should have chose something like Mathematics instead of that blogging and podcasting gobbledygook.

@DZhukovin I do know something about the social sciences, I guess you could say, that Harris is ‘acting them out well!’

Whatever faults Trump my have he was by far a better candidate than Hillary

@gater you are so off , don’t get me wrong but a boring insider like Hilary, a grad of Yale and lawyer as well as a Senator and Src. Of State. Trup was many units short in school inherited not only his fathers money but his father was a Kkk supporter and arrested in NYC. Trump is a liar, white supremacist, embezzler, money launderer, worked with Italian and Russian mob , and mr Mueller will prove a dozen dozen charges and we may see them unsealed in the next2-3 months . Sorry he has violated laws against the constitution the he may never be held accountable for ..... one more issue Benghazi vs Trunps Niger

@gater yeah, if you're into racism, sexual assault,those kinds of things....

@eric788 yes I loathe Trump for the very reasons you identified

Yah. Pulling the country back from the brink of a depression was definitely shitting on workers.

@Secretguy you are so right and some of the folks got so wrong. So many people can’t accept an African American elected Pres. Harvard law and head of the law review as well as pro bono work for the poor and underrepresented in Chicago. No corruption in 8 years as well as Minski law of strong economic restrictions on Russia for annexing Crimea and assisting in the war on the Ukraine besides cyber spying yes that Obama messed up the country unlike Trump

@Secretguy the recession ended with a bank bailout. How do you not know this?

@Millerski25 before you, no one included race in the discussion.

I'm just asking because I don't know your sense of humor, but is this a joke?

Bush signed the unfunded bailout on the taxpayer's dime. Obama bailed out the people who were victimized by the banks' bad mortgage loans. Obama also signed off on quantitative easing which was the only thing keeping workers employed in the middle of a recession which prevented a depression.

Also, Obama didn't expand war. He didn't reduce it, but he didn't expand it either. He took boots off the ground and just droned people. But you can't really blame him for expanding war. Technically, Russia expanded war. Do you expect America to let Russia invade sovereign nations at strategic locations, and fight proxy wars in the Middle East unopposed?

Also Obama reduced drilling. I don't know where you got that. He pumped more oil, but he made near irreversible bans on arctic drilling and cut the the number of new leases in half during his first term.

You are so wrong - Trump is no racist - would black unemployment be the lowest in history if he were racist? Did you forget about 911? Maybe we should just welcome all Muslims into our country. Those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

@gater Trump hasn't done anything to reduce the unemployment rate among Black Americans - it was already declining. And there are millions of Muslims in this country - what happened on 9/11 was an anomaly - it wasn't representative of all Muslims and so your analogy is meaningless.

Irony alert.

@gater yes he is a White supremacist, racist dating back to the 1970s attacks on Mudl isnt ok and if you are endorsing this our exchange can’t go any further

@gater the fact that black unemployment is down certainly was not a goal of trumps, it is still thru the efforts of Obama that were set into motion. trump is a racist thru and thru. If Obama had a name like Sam Smith he would never have been subject to what they threw at him. And, as for 9/11, no one will ever convince me that THAT wasn't an inside job, for I will never believe that all of that happened such a short time after george took office by pure coincidence !!!!

Why would you even comment that? You know full well that Sam is not stupid.

@zblaze Then can't he believe Trump is president? We almost had that criminal Clinton - The Economy is booming, lowest unemployment in history, trillions coming back into this country due to Trumps business plan. Every person on earth should be so grateful to America for electing Trump! - We finally have hope for World Peace.
And if Sam doesn't realize this he is .

@gater Sam is just exclaiming what we all think. He is not being stupid.

@gater LMAAO Talk about stupid gater, you just exposed yourself as a tRump supporter, and likely someone that was duped into voting for that Buffoon.
Clinton is not a criminal. Name me one criminal act that she has been indited or prosecuted for gator.
Perhaps you're confusing convictions with accusations or rumors and conspiracy theories off of the internet my friend.

The economy and low unemployment are due to Obama's policies. Tax breaks for Corporations and the wealthy, and strengthening the Religious Right in the USA, not to mention bringing us to the brink of WW III a couple of times already are the things tRump has done for us; I have no clue where you're finding hope for world fucking peace man. SMH~

"Peace will not reign on this earth until the last King, is strangled with the intestines of the last Priest." -unknown

@zblaze Oh course Im a Trump supporter - you just figure that out?

@Jacar What we all think? who is we?

@zblaze he's a trump lackie.

Careful the an ad homem act instead of acting the issue

Could you explain the Pluto reference in your comment? Also the video can't be that old as he refers to "Clinton's loss in 2016". I'm nor being argumentative...just curious.

@GodlessFred must have not been paying attention At All if he just figured all this out....therefore, must have been on Pluto (very poor reception there)