Mark Zuckerberg, The Rock, Katy Perry And Oprah Winfrey Are All Thinking Of Running For President - Michael Snyder THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG

Mark Zuckerberg, The Rock, Katy Perry And Oprah Winfrey Are All Thinking Of Running For President Posted: 10 May 2017  Michael Snyder  THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG Donald Trump has proven that you don’t have to be a career politician to successfully run for president, and so now a number of top celebrities are actually seriously thinking about running against him in 2020.  Unless Hillary Clinton runs again, the Democrats really don’t have an obvious choice, and so this next election cycle presents a unique opportunity for outsider candidates that may want to test the political waters.  In politics, timing is everything, and for celebrities at the peak of their popularity the 2020 election may be their best and only shot at the highest office in the land. One name that keeps coming up over and over again is Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.  As Salon has detailed, he is already behaving very much like a presidential candidate… Zuckerberg recently started his “personal challenge for 2017,” which is focused on meeting individuals in every state. Just last week Zuckerberg visited a Ford factory in Michigan and made an unexpected visit to Ohio where he was hosted by a family of Democrats that voted for Donald Trump, according to the Guardian. A few days later Zuckerberg was on the move to Indiana where he met with members of a fire department in Elkhart, and then he finished his trip in Wisconsin. He said he needs to visit about 30 states to complete the challenge by the end of the year. David Plouffe, who served as campaign manager for Barack Obama, “joined the philanthropic Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, to lead policy and advocacy. Other politicians from both parties have also joined the organization,” according to Vanity Fair. Zuckerberg also recently backtracked on his stance as an atheist. “I was raised Jewish and then I went through a period where I questioned things, but now I believe religion is very important,” Zuckerberg said. Of course, it’s quite difficult for someone to run for president and not believe in a God. Because Facebook has become so immensely powerful, there are some that would suggest that going to the White House would actually be a step down for Zuckerberg. So far, he seems to be the most serious of the “celebrity candidates”, but another that is getting quite a lot of attention right now is “The Rock” Dwayne Johnson.  During a recent interview with GQ, he said that a run for president was “a real possibility”… So, after all that consideration, Johnson doesn’t hesitate when I ask him whether he honestly might one day give up his life as the highest-paid movie star on earth—which is unquestionably easier, more fun, and more lucrative than being president of the United States—in order to run for office. “I think that it’s a real possibility,” he says solemnly. And this is not the first time he has made such a statement.  Even before the 2016 election, Johnson was openly talking about a political career… Last summer, Johnson, who was the highest paid actor of 2016, bringing home a whopping $64.5 million, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” co-host Michael Strahan that a political career is “very real” to him. The “Baywatch” star said the idea of him becoming commander in chief “has become a legit thing to some people.” He said he will take the “temperature of the American people” as “time goes on.” “If it is a very real, overwhelming, positive, strong, ‘We want you to run for president,’ and if I felt that I can step up to the plate and become a tremendous leader for our country and make a real difference and make change, I would do it,” he said at the time. Of course if he continues to make more than 60 million dollars a year, it may be difficult to throw all of that away for the world of politics. Katy Perry is another name that Democrats are throwing around right now.  She was more involved in Hillary Clinton’s campaign than just about any other major celebrity, and a message that she posted on Instagram has many of her followers wondering if Perry might step up to the plate herself in 2020… Perry was a constant presence on the campaign trail with Hillary Clinton, campaigning for the eventual Democratic nominee before the primaries began. And perhaps all that political chatter got her thinking — why don’t I run for office myself? In July 2015, she posted an Instagram with Bill Clinton and George W. Bush with the caption “42, 43, 46?!” If Perry were to run for president, one thing is quite likely: She’d run on a pro-Planned Parenthood platform. The singer donated $10,000 to the organization after the 2016 election. Many liberals would love to see “the first female president” in 2020, and a lot of them are suggesting that Oprah Winfrey would be an ideal candidate.  In fact, Michael Moore suggested that she would be an excellent candidate just one week after the election… “Democrats would be better off if they ran Oprah or Tom Hanks … why don’t we run beloved people?” Moore told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.” “We have so many of them,” he said. “The Republicans do this — they run Reagan and the Terminator and other people.” It was a reference to former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, as well as former President Ronald Reagan. “Why don’t we run somebody that the American people love and are really drawn to, and that are smart and have good politics and all that?” Moore said. And remarks that Oprah made during an interview with Bloomberg’s David Rubenstein did nothing to dampen speculation about 2020… RUBENSTEIN: Have you ever thought that given the popularity you have—we haven’t broken the glass ceiling yet for women—that you could actually run for president and actually be elected? WINFREY: I actually never thought– never considered the question, even the possibility. I just thought, oh, oh. RUBENSTEIN: Because it’s clear you don’t need government experience to be elected president of the United States. WINFREY: That’s what I thought. I thought, ‘Oh gee, I don’t have the experience, I don’t know enough.’ Now I’m thinking oh, oh. But of course you don’t have to run for president to get involved with national politics.  Just this week we learned that actor Antonio Sabato Jr. has decided to run for Congress as a Republican… Actor Antonio Sabato Jr has decided to run for Congress after claiming he was blacklisted by Hollywood producers for his public support of President Donald Trump. Sabato, 45,  will challenge US House Representative Julia Brownley, a Democrat representing the Westlake Village area in California, in the 2018 election according to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission on Monday. His choice to run was confirmed by Republican strategist Charles Moran, according to the Los Angeles Times. If they can do it, why can’t we? Is there still room for ordinary citizens to step forward in this day and age, or do you have to be wealthy and powerful to run for office? We can’t just sit back and wait for someone else to change the direction of our nation.  If we truly want to make a difference, now is the time for good men and good women all over the country to step up and take action.

Michael Moore Explains Why Donald Trump Will Win In November – And It Actually Makes Perfect Sense - Michael Snyder THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG

Michael Moore Explains Why Donald Trump Will Win In November – And It Actually Makes Perfect Sense

Posted: 25 Jul 2016   Michael Snyder  THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG

Michael Moore is a radical leftist that is trying to destroy everything that America once stood for, but for once he is making sense.  In his recent article entitled “5 Reasons Why Trump Will Win“, he makes a compelling case for why Donald Trump could win the election in November.  I can’t remember the last time I actually agreed with Michael Moore about something, but in this instance I do. 

The American people are very angry and very frustrated, and they want someone that is going to shake things up in Washington.  Needless to say, that is not going to be Hillary Clinton.  According to Real Clear Politics, Trump has won five of the last six major national polls, and top Democrats are starting to understand that they could actually lose to the New York billionaire.

As Michael Moore has pointed out, the key to the election may be the upper Midwest.  That is why it may turn out to be very wise that Trump has picked a running mate from the region.  Residents of the upper Midwest have watched NAFTA and other “free trade deals” turn their formerly booming economy into an area now known as “the rust belt”.  Now that there is a major presidential candidate that is openly speaking out against these “free trade deals”, they will finally have a real opportunity to let their voices be heard.  The following is from the Michael Moore article that I mentioned above…

I believe Trump is going to focus much of his attention on the four blue states in the rustbelt of the upper Great Lakes – Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Four traditionally Democratic states – but each of them have elected a Republican governor since 2010 (only Pennsylvania has now finally elected a Democrat). In the Michigan primary in March, more Michiganders came out to vote for the Republicans (1.32 million) that the Democrats (1.19 million). Trump is ahead of Hillary in the latest polls in Pennsylvania and tied with her in Ohio. Tied? How can the race be this close after everything Trump has said and done? Well maybe it’s because he’s said (correctly) that the Clintons’ support of NAFTA helped to destroy the industrial states of the Upper Midwest.

Since NAFTA went into effect on January 1, 1994, the United States has lost tens of thousands of manufacturing facilities and millions of good paying jobs.  Once upon a time, the city of Detroit had the highest per capita income in the entire country, but now it is a rotting, decaying, crime-infested disaster zone that the rest of the world makes jokes about.
It was under Bill Clinton that NAFTA was implemented, and Bill and Hillary have long been supportive of NAFTA and other “free trade deals” that have been responsible for systematically dismantling America’s economic infrastructure.  Trump has already made this a major theme of his campaign, and the voters in the rust belt states could potentially make the difference in who wins in November.  Here is some additional analysis from Michael Moore…

And this is where the math comes in. In 2012, Mitt Romney lost by 64 electoral votes. Add up the electoral votes cast by Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It’s 64. All Trump needs to do to win is to carry, as he’s expected to do, the swath of traditional red states from Idaho to Georgia (states that’ll never vote for Hillary Clinton), and then he just needs these four rust belt states. He doesn’t need Florida. He doesn’t need Colorado or Virginia. Just Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And that will put him over the top. This is how it will happen in November.

But there is another factor that Michael Moore has pointed out that I think we should consider as well.  While most American voters take their votes very seriously, there is a small minority that will let some of the most frivolous reasons imaginable decide their votes.
Some Americans just want a good story.  Others want to stick it to the establishment.  Yet others just “want to see what will happen” if a certain person gets into the White House.  And it seems quite likely that Donald Trump will win the “curiosity vote”, the “anger vote”, and “the twisted sense of humor vote”.  Everyone pretty much knows what we will get with Hillary Clinton in the White House (and it would be horrible), but there is a great mystery as far as what Donald Trump would do as president.  I happen to agree with Michael Moore that this is a factor that greatly favors Trump…

You can take as long as you need in there and no one can make you do anything. You can push the button and vote a straight party line, or you can write in Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. There are no rules. And because of that, and the anger that so many have toward a broken political system, millions are going to vote for Trump not because they agree with him, not because they like his bigotry or ego, but just because they can. Just because it will upset the apple cart and make mommy and daddy mad. And in the same way like when you’re standing on the edge of Niagara Falls and your mind wonders for a moment what would that feel like to go over that thing, a lot of people are going to love being in the position of puppetmaster and plunking down for Trump just to see what that might look like.

But before you get too excited about a Trump presidency, let us not forget that the electoral map tends to greatly favor Democrats.  All Hillary has to do is to win all of the states that she is expected to win and add one battleground state…

Perhaps you enjoy talk of battleground states. Well, there’s a scenario for you, too. First, pick the six “closest” swing states (VA, NH, IA, OH, FL, NC). Got it? Now understand that New Hampshire excepted, Clinton only has to win one of them in order to reach the requisite 270 electoral votes to win.

It remains my contention that the establishment will do whatever they have to do to keep Donald Trump out of the White House.  And now that the general election looks like it will be much closer than anticipated, we may get to see what lengths the establishment is willing to go to in order to get rid of a “problem candidate”.

Hillary Clinton is an utterly evil and extremely corrupt politician, but the establishment absolutely loves her.  She would say and do just about anything to get elected, and the establishment knows that she will do their bidding.

So we shall see what happens between now and November, but personally I don’t see any way that this is going to end well…