Good theory but for all of the previous iterations of Trump: George Wallace, Spiro Agnew, maybe Ross Perot, etc. The difference, if there is one (and I'm not convinced), is that this version is fueled by Gilded Age II, Electric Boogaloo money and grown in a cultural petri dish, especially reality TV, that's become ever crasser through the years. Neither of those things have much to do with "leftist political correctness" -- about which, fuck you, clown -- though I'm open to the idea that the latter emerges out of a context in which politesse makes some people want to shout crude epithets.
Oops, I forgot to be more respectful of your half-baked ideas, my beige brother. Off to reeducation camp with me!
If everyone just behaved like I want them to behave ladies and gentlemen we wouldn't need speech codes, loyalty oaths, etc., etc., etc.
I don't believe this theory. I'm just surprised no one has floated it.
I thought "evil twin" was enough of a tip-off, but I forgot we have historians reading.
What's with the Goldblum/Goldberg shape shifting implication?
Well the literal left-wing/Clinton plant theory is certainly alive and well.
Mustaches for evil twins, ogged. Thick glasses just help nearsighted people see.
Yeah, I have had somebody tell me in all earnestness that Trump was a stalking horse for the Clinton campaign and that he was paying off pollsters to get his numbers. I can't actually tell any difference between listening to Trump and listening to Limbaugh, about whom my harrumphing conservative acquaintances have never harrumphed, but I'm increasingly convinced that Trump could carry a decent sized bloc of delegates to the convention.
11
That Trump is a Clinton mole is an idea that's pretty widely circulated on NRO and Redstate etc. I've seen mention of Trump as a "Colbert conservative" (i.e. a liberal parody of a conservative). If he is, he's doing a fabulous acting job, not even Colbert could play it straight for so long. I think most people assume Trump is a straight up liberal, rather than a conservative-ish (over)reaction to liberalism.
Anyways, the "mainstream" rightwing blogs are getting pretty desperate to destroy Trump, which is simply feeding into the narrative that they're part of the cuckservative RINO lamestream media by Trump's supporters (or at least internet trolls pretending to support Trump. Though, angry MRA internet trolls make up a core constituency of the Republican base, so this may not be much of a distinction.)
I can't actually tell any difference between listening to Trump and listening to Limbaugh
True, which is why the OP's theory is several layers too simple. (Pretend I said that more elegantly.)
The right has been building a tale about the left's horrid obsession with identity politics, victim narratives, cultures of dependency and 'special rights', and so on for years, if not decades now. I'm not willing to say that Trump is the result: Wafer gets it right in 1 that he's more about the wild popularity of reality TV*.
A wide variety of Republican politicians have been saying outrageous things for the last several electoral cycles, to the extent that it's become a yawn.
* It was pretty freaking obvious that the recent GOP debate was being run like a reality TV show, complete with the 'moderators' turning to the camera from time to time to leer toothily at the viewers ... if you've seen the first Hunger Games movie, it was eerily like the games depicted there.
Watching Erick "abortion Barbie" Erickson emerge as the conscience of conservatism when it comes to women is hilarious/infuriating.
7: Who will save us from the terror of Hillary Clinton's sinister plant people now that Rowdy Roddy Piper has been promoted to glory?
DON'T EAT THE QUINOA SALAD! IT WILL TURN YOU INTO ONE OF THEM!
Watching Erick "abortion Barbie" Erickson emerge as the conscience of conservatism
Yeah, I keep wondering what the more intelligent Republican commentators have to say. I often fail to remember who they are. Who was it who wrote a column not long ago calmly explaining the various segments of the Republican electoral base: there were your moderates, your religious conservatives, and your screaming idiots. Something like that. I believe the first group were/are by far the largest segment (like 40%) of likely Republican voters, and the idea was that anyone who can't appeal to them is a loser. Erickson is doing the party a disservice with his hysterical anti-abortion stance.
Maybe it was Reihan Salam. I don't poke around the Republican sites enough to know whether there's any pushback against Erickson.
I was thinking more of his overall gross misogyny:
"Yet another angry dateless feminist upset at Tim Tebow for being pro-life: "
"that's it?!?! That's what the feminazis were enraged over? Seriously?!? Wow. That's what being too ugly to get a date does to your brain"
"All these angry feminists in my timeline today. I thought Sam Alito ordered them all home to make sandwiches this morning."
"First night of the Vagina Monologues in Charlotte going as expected." (Dem Nat'l Convention)
Not to mention calling Souter a "goat-fucking chld molester."
And now he doesn't want his daughter to be in the same room with Trump. A microcosm of the whole fetid movement.
Irony on life support after this tweet from Erickson:
"Emails from Trump supporters upset with me have called me "queer," Megyn Kelly something awful, and the President the n-word."
And now he doesn't want his daughter to be in the same room with Trump.
Can you explain this to me in short sentences? (I don't want to actually wade through his verbiage.) Why?
It occurred to me that I do really need some site to provide an overview of the talk going on in the conservative/Republican sphere. What would that be? There's, um, Right Wing News. And Right Wing Watch. I've never been sure whether they're news aggregators for pro-red state views, but I guess not.
I usually just read Edroso's alicublog for an overview, but I am aware that that may be an exercise in epistemic closure.
20
It's not an aggregator, but NRO is a large popular site with a variety of conservative opinions, and reasonably articulate versions the even wingnuttier viewpoints come out in the comments. (Comment sections are often illuminating rather than totally painful, especially when the issue is on the state of American conservatism or the Republican primaries, and not simply on how Obama/Clinton are like Hitler.)
The following logic chain seems to be operating 1) effete intellectual liberals have mocked us for being dumb and offensive, but we have been basically correct about everything (this is the view of St Reagan the communism destroyer and supposed prosperity creator, 2) therefore, we should elect the stupidest, crassest person who liberals hate the most, because he will be the best.
I mean, it doesn't really make sense as a matter of logic or anything else, but that seems to have been the operating theory for a while now (remember "Misunderestimated"?). Maybe Trump is where it devolves into farce and stops for a while, but I wouldn't bet on it.
I do really need some site to provide an overview of the talk going on in the conservative/Republican sphere. What would that be?
Facebook?
21: Thanks, but good lord, I'm not going to spend time reading NRO! Need an aggregator, not particularly of just the nuts, but also of the more sensible Republicans/conservatives, those who are thinking in terms of electoral politics. Do they not have that?
24: You jest.
{clears throat} In any case, my fondest wish is that Republicans will realize that they've created a monster -- not just in Trump, who blindsided them anyway -- but in the constituency they've fomented who are very, very angry and mostly stupid (ignorant).
I understand that this will not happen. We're back to the same old concern: a two-party democracy in which one of the parties is out of its senses (I don't mean just Trump) is problematic. There's the hope that things will go all Democrat all the time. Good luck with that.
I'm worried about how bad the Republican party has become. Is that dumb of me? Should I be celebrating?
OH. And the real battlefield is in the individual states. ALEC.
The thing that confuses me about their panicking is that taking Trump down shouldn't really be that hard. It's just that they've managed to pick the least effective way. His supporters* don't care that he says offensive things - that's practically the point, and the Republican party and party extensions have been hammering away at "liberals force you not to say anti-PC thing but real truth tellers shoot straight and tell it like it is!" for decades now. (See the massive applause he got for saying basically that when Kelly tried to attack him on his blatantly misogynist crap.) "I think you're great could you tell us more about your plan to (wonky thing)?" or "How would you address the serious problems America has with ?" would at least force him to choose between seeming like someone who refuses to talk about serious things (to moderates) or who dodges questions (to crazies), or bumbling around helplessly. But you have to attack him "as a friend", rather than as an enemy.
*The fact that he's drawing support from pretty much all the various Republican demographics is the bit that should be utterly terrifying for Republican leaders. It's one thing to be the candidate for the crazies - you just line everyone else up against him and the crazies will fall in line once they realize that someone else is winning. But he's polling almost evenly with Bush (prior to the debate) among Republicans who describe themselves as moderates.
I mean, probably the most serious thing he said as far as policy goes was when he directly advocated for single payer healthcare and defended it by saying how great it works in Canada. And instead of talking about that everyone is arguing about whether or not he's a sexist jerk, which could seriously harm him, sure, but nothing like what harping on that would.
29 that really is amazing. They're attacking him the way a liberal would attack him. Which just drives his supporters to level the "RINO/cuckservative charge against them.
I just hope he can keep it going long enough to do the GOP some lasting damage.
If they value logical consistency, then damage will be done.
I think the problem with Trump--whatever he is--is that he's revealing on a national stage that there is no limit to the right wing tail. The Republican Party has created an environment where there it was impossible to be "too" right wing, and figured that rules of basic decorum in the public sphere imposed and enforced by our capitalist overlords would prevent a full exploration of the rightward tail in public. The problem with the Tea Party and Trump is that they're not beholden to the powers that be--either through grassroots activism or their own money--so there is no structural mechanism to rein in the crazy. This is why they can shut down the government or propose concentration camps for Mexicans or mandate women carry dead fetuses to term or whatever, and there's no rhetoric the Republicans can use to corral them without being "RINO squishes." More fundamentally, I think the idea that Fascism is ultimately leftist has been so internalized by "thinkers" on the Right that there's not even a language for a critique, as calling someone a fascist is a codeword for leftist, and interchangeable with calling them a Marxist. The fact that large numbers of Republicans are actual fascists isn't simply not said for fear of scaring them, but it's not something that can be coherently articulated from within the contemporary American conservative worldview.
25
I admit it takes a strong stomach. If you skim the headlines and only read the articles on the Republican primary, it's mostly doable. It's one of the few places where you see conservatives openly supporting Jeb(!), or substantively debating Jeb vs. Walker vs. Rubio in terms of electability and positions.
That is, when you've been thinking in double think (civil rights is racism! Feminism is sexism! social democracy is Nazism!) for too long, you've changed the meaning of words in certain settings to the point you can no longer use them in the way they're normally/traditionally. Thus, critiquing actual racism can no longer be done with the language of anti-racism, and so on.
19: One thing the Internet has taught me about conservatives is that that either they don't experience hypocrisy at all, or if they do it's a minor embarrassment like an untied shoe.
I tried to explain Sarah Palin to the 14 year old last night. Pretty far out!
I think bcup has well described the rhetorical box the Republicans have got themselves in.
On a purely superficial note (this is me after all) I saw a picture of the Clintons this last week as guests at some trump wedding and the woman dressed as bride was in profile, she appeared to have a footstool built into her hairdo. All that was missing was the ships, montgolfiers, etc, full on Marie Antoinette.
I bet anti-Trump Republicans would be in favor of strict campaign finance laws if they could be applied only to Trump.
And now Roger Stone has either been fired or quit Trump's campaign (or it could all be a show). His Twitter feed is entertaining at any rate: @RogerJStoneJr .
36- campaign finance laws never restricted spending one's own money, did they?
If they value logical consistency
Ha ha ha ha, you're adorable.
38: I'm sure they'd come up with a principled law that amounted to: "It's ok if you're a Republican not named Trump."
Wait, was 31 not a joke about the material conditional?
It was a joke. I don't know what a material conditional is.
If you click on this link then you will find out.
I am surprised more people haven't noted that trump is our nation's berlusconi. titty-themed TV shows and all.
But I feel compelled to give a Frank Bruni trigger warning on that, however.
I continue to be amazed at the inability of the media and the vast rightwing conspiracy to get a handle on Trump.
I was listening to NPR this morning, and in its coverage of the Megyn Kelly remark and the RedState snub, someone was wondering if Trump wasn't deliberately sabotaging his own campaign to give himself the opportunity to withdraw.
All of the coverage assumed that Trump had wounded himself, probably mortally.
I eagerly await the next poll. I'd bet money that Trump is still in the lead, even if only by a few points.
The rightwing conspiracy will never let Trump get the Republican nomination, but that's a source of his strength. His supporters know they're being fucked with in an undemocratic way, and they're pissed.
And god help me, I have come to love Donald Trump. In some paradoxical, meta sense, he's telling it straight by being aggressively full of shit. Jon Stewart made a career of unmasking rightwing hypocrisy, but Trump has probably moved the ball forward on that more than Stewart ever did.
Trump is not just Berlusconi. He's Colbert.
Yup. That's another reason to consider the possibility that Trump is being taken too lightly.
Trump could win some Republican primaries. There's a large mass of the GOP that just hates hates hates illegal immigration, and most of the mainstream candidates are too accomodationist for them on that topic. The candidates were trying to not even talk about it, and the anti-immigration wing is mad as hell about it, so ... he could have a significant block of delegates.
Look on the bright side. If he wins we get single-payer, right?
I am surprised more people haven't noted that trump is our nation's berlusconi. titty-themed TV shows and all.
Both are examples of what the Knifecrime Island contingent calls the Evil Clown Tendency in politics - where the jovial surface masks the horrible substructure. That gets you Berlusconi and (to an extent) Trump, but also Boris Johnson, W, Idi Amin and so on.
52 - Nah, he backed off that I think, by saying that the time when we could have set up that system without destroying huge chunks of the economy/causing all sorts of insane disruption/etc. had passed. But he did, essentially, say we should strengthen Obamacare by making healthcare regulations, and the insurance market, a federal thing rather than something that varied from state to state*.
*Which, also, would probably be a really good idea. I've started to think that of all the available options Donald Trump would probably be the least damaging Republican president if only because he's (1) totally incoherent, and (2) not answerable to anyone else (and even if he was in a position where he should be he's too much of an egotist to act that way). It's less "he'd be ok as a president", and more "he'd be wildly unpredictable and mostly bad, as opposed to very predictably bad" though.
I also think that Trump is a great (and hilarious) example of how wrong the polite-American-consensus on things really is. While I don't think many people are likely to figure out that the mainstream-non-partisan beliefs/analyses/etc. are in fact their own separate ideology with their own political group, as opposed to just some kind of neutral pragmatic sportsmanlike attitude. But in this case we can clearly see that both the (serious) right wing and (from what I can see) the left are seeing very clearly what's happening with Trump, and the 'non-partisan' people are wildly off base. I think they'll continue to be wildly off base for a really long time, too, because it's almost impossible for them to see what's happening while still believing what they do about politics. So while Trump will eventually (probably) get kicked out of the race - though I think it'll take more aggressive kneecapping than we've already seen - I think we'll get to see a few more cases of 'this will clearly end his candidacy' followed by confusion and denial when it doesn't.
But he did, essentially, say we should strengthen Obamacare by making healthcare regulations, and the insurance market, a federal thing rather than something that varied from state to state
Is that what he was proposing? Given that it was clearly a walkback to distance himself from anything that might actually be good for people (and therefore liberal), I took it as a throwback to Romney's (I think it was?) "alternative" of repealing federal law that prevents people from obtaining insurance out-of-state (the point of which of course would have been to start a deregulatory race to the bottom) rather than to actually try to build a functioning single nationwide health insurance market.
That's also possible? It's hard to tell with Trump sometimes, because honestly I'm not sure he knows what he means by what he's saying either.
Trump is not just Berlusconi. He's Colbert.
Trump is the power behind the throne of Louis XIV? Heaven help us all!
The establishment seems to have picked Graham to be the pinch hitter sacrificial lamb they send out against him.
I'm afraid that having Fox News turn on him may be the nail in his coffin. But I've been wrong about this before. I truly didn't think Regan could win. This is entertaining but I fear the consequences - who knows how it ends?
Wouldn't Graham be the worst choice of all the candidates, though? I mean, Trumps base of support pretty much already hates his guts and he's probably the most establishment-Republican-y of the candidates to boot.
59- Someone needed to send that guy a link to the analogy ban a long long time ago. Did he drive his car into some people while crossing the Rubicon or is his campaign a car wreck in the river because he was playing with his ball while taking it home?
59 I'd guess that like nearly everything else in American parties, Graham has chosen himself.
I won't say worst until they've reanimated the corpse of Hitler and cheered him as he gives a speech about how the Democrats are selling out Israel.
64
You have to remember, in Zombie Hitler v. Sanders 2016, Sanders is the real Nazi.
Initial polling (covering Friday/Saturday) seems to indicate that Trump hasn't been particularly hurt by Fox's attempts to damage him. I don't know if that's surprising, but if they keep it up long enough it probably will knock him out of the race. The question is whether he can hang on long enough that people still remember him when the election really picks up.
My guess is that their plan is to try to get him out of the race early enough that he and his supporters aren't still angry about it after the primaries because, and this is the part that has got to be keeping them up at night:
Among Trump supporters, a majority - 54% - said they would vote for him for president as an independent candidate, even if he does not win the Republican nomination.
67 to 52 -- for some reason, none of the intervening comments had loaded.
56: I also read Trump's remarks that way, confusing wording but probably the bog-standard GOP deregulation line. Although saisegly didn't.
65: 2016? Do Protestants ever read Revelations right?
66: I'm not surprised that Trump's numbers haven't changed. The interesting number in that poll is that Ted Cruz, the guy who intended to campaign as the heel but got jobbed by Trump, moved into second place with 13%. That means the Asshole&ProudOfIt caucus is pretty much driving the boat right now.
I love the results in that poll (and I hope they aren't entirely overturned when bigger ones come out tomorrow). Almost every single political commenter got the thing backwards. All of the moderates either stayed where they were or lost ground (especially Bush!). Cruz, who is almost as toxic as Trump, got a boost. People believe that Rubio did a good job at the debate*... but no one cares. Why, it's almost as if they're a bunch of useless hacks who are desperately trying to create a narrative and discovering that for whatever reason a lot of people aren't interested in it!
I can only assume that Carson got a boost because of the assholes-vote as well, because I don't know what else could have done that. It could just be a statistical blip, though, at that level.
*I suspect that the explanation here is similar to the Fiorina result: the press immediately leaped onto that narrative (or had already written it ahead of time when it became clear that JEB! wasn't catching on with anyone), and people were willing to go with it despite the fact that he looked like a scared rabbit and was clearly repeating memorized blocks of text. But it didn't really matter to whom they supported. Fiorina got a better result because no one was watching that one anyway.
69: I think saisegly read it the same way, he just thinks that it would be a good thing. And I guess that, against the backdrop of the ACA and the nationwide floor it imposes on plans, maybe it would be. But as an alternative it'd be terrible.
OP is this article, I guess.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/422247/donald-trump-republican-debates
72.1: A lot of push back on that poll given that it was online, but it does have a methodology. Interesting to see how it compares to the more standard ones.
campaign as the heel
This may stem from my lack of familiarity with both cultures, Republican voters and Pro-Wrestling fans, but this seems pretty insightful. There has to be a pretty big demographic overlap between the two groups, right? That common fondness for cartoonish masculinity, arrogant bluster, and often racist caricatures can't be a coincidence.
Since I get most of my news from here, I just now realized that Trump said "blood coming out of her wherever". I knew he was offense and crazy, but none of you managed to convey just how fucked up he is.
I mean, is it any more fucked up than the regular Republican candidates who just want to outlaw all abortion?
Nice comment from Eric Kleefeld:
Remember LBJ's famous quote about J. Edgar Hoover? Well, in that spirit Donald Trump is now actually inside the GOP tent -- and pissing *in*.
Until they start using "wherever" to refer to a vagina when trying to explain their position, yes.
77: And I think the real damage to his brand will be do to his trying to pretend he meant nose or ears, just like any squish politician would do. rather than doubling down on the insulting juvenalia.
81, 82: I doubt it. He's playing the bully-tested "I'm not touching you" game and getting to call everybody else deviants while he does it.
Is it worse to be a deviant or a wherever?
60: Not to worry. It never happens that masses of people follow some nutcase down a path into the punji stick pit.
I think Donald Trump is the GOP's Leeroy Jenkins.
One remarkable thing about Trump is that he's managed to survive and thrive despite being so indelibly 80s. He's a contemporary of Max Headroom, Spy Magazine, and the DeLorean. I can't think of a single other 80's pop culture phenomenon that's lasted as long, aside from maybe singing "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" at a girls' summer camp. I guess Bloom County came back just in time.
Come to think of it, that alone may be part of his appeal to the GOP base.
No. But you may have your choice of a Wacky WallWalker, a Chia Pet, or a Rubik's Cube.
You know, "I'm the most 80s thing since Ronald Reagan" might actually be a winning slogan in the GOP.
95: But do you think the country is ready for a Black Ranger president?
I thought the Power Rangers were more 90s.
They must have started in the 80s, because I remember them from babysitting.
MMPR started being shown in the US in 1993.
104: Huh. False memories, then, unless there was some predecessor. That's peculiar, though -- I should have been kind of totally unaware of a kids show starting in 1993. I wonder how it crossed my radar.
The Simpsons are quintessentially of the 90s. I think the first episode premiered in very late 1989, but it was never of the 80s in essence, as Donald Trump is.
106 -- IIRC, PowerRangers were the object of many chin-stroking think pieces in the 90s about kids today and their hyperactivity and their violence and their stupidity.
The Simpsons started with the Tracy Ulman Show, a few years before they got their own gig, and were basically an outgrowth of "Life In Hell," which was very '80s.
The transition from "Life in Hell" to "The Simpsons" is actually not a bad exemplar for the transition from 80s to 90s culture. Bleak, edgy, depressive alterna-comic becomes mainstream, substantially more hopeful, still vaguely "alternative" but wildly popular TV series.
91 may be on to something: I've never seen Trump's Apprentice show, but is it not reminiscent of the movie Wall Street? Which I see is 1987.
I've never actually seen that movie either, but there are so many famous-ish Gordon Gecko quotes. 'Greed is good,' 'America has become a second rate power' that sound Trump-like.
So in the main, the lasting legacies of the 80s are juvenile entertainment, and Donald Trump.
106: MMPR was from the 90s. Its predecessor ("Moderately Capable Consistently-Shaped Power Rangers") was released in 1985.
106- Voltron- power rangers are well known to be a rip-off of that earlier show which was definitely 80s.
That's completely different. Those were five robots that came together to make a big robot instead of five actual human who came together to make a big robot.
Those were five robots that came together to make a big robot
Five robot lions. The lion part is what made it kick ass.
And in the last episode, a dentist killed them after using a taco truck to lure them from the castle.
I never watched any of this stuff when I was a kid (too old), but it's all on Netflix and little kids still have shitty taste in tv.
For an ultimate 80s revival moment, Trump should declare "I AM HEEEEEE MAAAAAAN!!!!" during the next debate.
121: Because "I have the power!" is too on-the-nose?
His campaign song could be Stan Bush's "The Touch."
Look at the orange hair. Trump is clearly Lion-O.
125: I don't even know that song.
How about "The Greatest Love of All" or "Hip to be Square"?
If Trump wants to up his game, he needs an entourage of those identical girls from the Robert Palmer videos to follow him around at all of his public appearances.
How about HEYYEYAAEYAAAEYAEYAA Whats going on?
127: Clearly you need more exposure to 80s juvenile entertainment.
Different post-debate poll:
Trump 32%
Bush 11
Carson 9
Walker, Rubio 6
Paul 5
Cruz, Huckabee, Christie 4
Fiorina, Kasich 3
Even the five lions were bullshit- the good version was the (15?) space vehicles that turned into a giant robot. I'm fuzzy on the storyline, but I believe space robot gave rise to lion robot when some of the space people were stranded on some planet?
At some point I actually read the wikipedia article on Voltron to clarify all this in my mind but I'm not doing that again.
Even the five lions were bullshit- the good version was the (15?) space vehicles that turned into a giant robot.
Blaspheme!
I'm fuzzy on the storyline, but I believe space robot gave rise to lion robot when some of the space people were stranded on some planet?
Apparently you need to go re-read wikipedia. The Lion Robot (Voltron III) actually came before the vehicle jonx (Voltron I) - which happened when some space people were stranded too far away for Voltron to help them. The producers fucked up the numbering because reasons, and Voltron II only existed in toy form.
I know, right? I don't know anything about that polling firm to judge how legit their numbers are, but they have Trump tied with the 2 through 5 of Bush, Carson, Walker, and Rubio combined. Not enough popcorn in the world for this.
You figure that can't be real, though. The Trump supporters are doing it now because they're jerks and it's not serious yet, but most of them have to be going to melt away when it comes to actually voting, right?
Not melting away when everyone wants them gone is a kind of a key component of jerkiness.
I don't see why this would be different from last time around. Frothing momentum for a series of clowns, followed by everyone falling in line around the establishment candidate. I'd thought for awhile that Walker could upset the apple cart by having enough toes in enough camps, but he doesn't seem to have it together.
I don't know. This is, after all, the same party that made folk heroes of Ted Nugent, Cliven Bundy, and Rush Limbaugh.
This is a pretty nimble response from Clinton.
The problem I think is that there isn't actually an establishment candidate. We're supposed to think it's Bush*, or Rubio**, or Walker***, sure, but there are three of them there not one, and none of them are very good candidates*. In 2012 even when people supported one of the crazies there was a basic underlying sense that they were thinking "I mean, sure Romney will eventually take it but..." And I don't recall any point where Romney wasn't at least obviously the second place candidate (or even very far behind whichever loon was winning at that point).
I mean, if Trump flames out who takes over as the real candidate? Cruz isn't interestingly different, just less fun to watch.
*Bush fumbles around a lot, possibly even worse than W did because he doesn't have the one thing that W had that made him popular - swagger. Instead he's the smarter but less arrogant/nasty one and it's not W's smarts that endeared him to people. Also he can't stop apologizing for things which is the one thing that you cannot do with right wing voters. (Even Romney refused to back off of things - he just said the opposite and insisted that he'd always said the opposite with a bully's "oh yeah what are you going to do?" smirk.
**Come on this guy just looks like he's terrified of cameras. I know journalists insisted that he won the debates but look at clips with the sound off...
***Walker would absolutely be the best candidate for the right wing crazies, but he just seems so... bland. Also he's really not photogenic in any way.
What fuels Trump, and the GOP establishment ignores, is in part hatred of the GOP establishment by the GOP base. It's also part of what fueled the Tea Party. The more they try to sideline him the better he'll do up to some crazification saturation point which I believe to be above 50% of the GOP base. The establishment looks to Ross Perot as spoiling the Bush 1992 reelection but misses the fact that among the contingent supporting Trump GHWB was a RINO of the worst kind (raised taxes! wimped out on going to Baghdad!). The best bet at this point for the GOP establishment is to reach out to Trump and drop all attempts to sideline him. Embrace him and he'll lose support but won't run as an independent. But they can't. A certain petty dogged persistence in holding grudges is baked into the conservative DNA.
I bet Trump's favorite is the stupid lion Voltron.
Bush has been out of politics for a while so maybe he's still getting his feet under him, but he has been a terrible campaigner so far. He makes Romney look like a rock star by comparison.
There is no potential universe in which Trump actually wins the GOP nomimation. That doesn't stop all of this from being super hilarious, though. The best case scenario is he hangs around as an independent, makes Presidential debates awesome, and takes 3-4% of the popular vote in the final mostly from the Republican nominee.
148 - It's also worth noting that Perot didn't actually act as a spoiler in that election. He drew more or less evenly from both candidates.
But you're right about what the GOP should be doing. They should treat him carefully and cheerfully, and do their absolute best to avoid anything kind of media circus around him. If they'd treated him with kid gloves at the debate I'm guessing his support would have dropped. I can't be sure because no one has tried this yet (?!) but probably just asking detailed-ish policy questions would leave him in a place where he couldn't effective bluster his way out of the problem, and he'd start to look weak and foolish rather than strong and dominant.
I get it that having frothing clowns out there for the Republicans is tactically helpful for Clinton.
But honestly, I would prefer to live in a country with two effective political parties rather than one, and a country where public discourse was different from a reality-TV clown show cocktail. I think that this means that I want different right-wing voters, or at least media and an establishment that does not reward bad behavior.
Shorter-- this is just depressing, I have a hard time laughing at it.
It's baffling to me that this could be true, but I'm starting to wonder if the Republican party and political journalists generally don't actually understand what the GOP base wants in a candidate. They don't give a crap about policies or basic sense - those interests have been carefully bred out of them by, well, Fox News and the Republican party. And being authoritarians they couldn't care less about consistency or careful thought or even the slightest inclination to think about things. What they want more than anything else is a strong bold father figure who looks like he's on a hair trigger all the time and who makes their tribal enemies act confused and freaked out. And right now Trump is giving them that good and hard, and they'll keep liking him as long as he can do it. If the press can take the air out of his sails by keeping him out of any controversial territory, or without giving him any opportunities for bluster, threats, and so on his support will probably start to fade. But until then I'm not sure it'll happen.
Or I suppose the easy way to think about whether or not Trump could take the primary is to think about the political moments that Republicans love the most ("I am paying for this microphone", "fuzzy math", etc.) and think about what each candidate would sound like saying it.
|| So I have a question you guys can help me with. I'm here in Canada and their dollar is pretty low right now: 77 cents. But lots of things (eg cars) are priced as if the currencies were more or less at par (as they were not that long ago). I'm sort of planning to buy a car, maybe a new VW. Hey, maybe I could buy the car in Canada, and then drive it home. Question: what's the hidden flaw in this plan? |>
If they'd treated him with kid gloves at the debate I'm guessing his support would have dropped.
The formal GOP - that is, the Party and every one of its candidates - did handle Trump with kid gloves. Fox went after him. And now, Fox has apparently surrendered on Trump's terms, at least for now.
The GOP establishment can pick its nominee, and surely that nominee will be anybody but Trump. But the more the establishment has to impose its will, the worse it will be for the GOP.
Kid gloves is the wrong answer. Cruz needs to win over the affections of the Trumpkins, and he needs to do it authoritatively.
156: Is there a duty charged on bringing a new car over the border? If there is, would it be enough to make it not worth it?
Foreign-made vehicles imported into the U.S., whether new or used, either for personal use or for sale, are generally dutiable at the following rates:
Auto 2.5%
Trucks 25%
Motorcycles either free or 2.4%
Duty rates are based on price paid or payable. Most Canadian-made vehicles are duty-free.
LMGTFY
But in short as far as duty- is it a foreign car (made abroad that is, not a foreign company assembling in North America?)
The lesson seems to be if you have a big enough family you can save more money.
Duties and Taxes to Import a Vehicle into the United States Most vehicles made in Canada or the U.S. are not subject to duties. For foreign-made vehicles you will likely pay the followingAutos - 2.5%
Trucks - 25%
Motorcycles - No Charge or 2.4%
As a returning U.S. resident, you may apply your $400 Customs exemption and those of accompanying family members toward the value of the vehicle. After the exemption has been applied, a flat rate of 10% is applied toward the next $1,000 of the vehicle's value. The remaining amount is dutiable at the regular duty rate. To qualify:You must be driving it across the border
The vehicle must be for personal use
You must have made the purchase on this trip.
Certain imported automobiles may be subject to a "gas-guzzler" tax if your car has a combined EPA fuel-economy rating of less than 22.5 miles per gallon. This EPA rating may be different from fuel-economy ratings indicated by the manufacturer.
At least I provide links to my source, neb.
157 - 'Formal' and 'Fox' is a pretty shaky distinction at this point. But yeah - the candidates did treat him as gingerly as possible (except for Paul who promptly got eaten alive). And the moderators should have as well - anything to deprive him of oxygen.
He's always going to get the hate from the professional center left because he makes their concerns about balance look pathetic and stupid. But the Republicans who want him out of there need to prevent him from getting attacked on "He's OUTRAGEOUS!" grounds, and force them to go after him in as close to the same terms as they do the other candidates. That's how they'll exhaust his support base.
I think they panicked, though, because even though it's a ways out they really need Trump to be done with before he has a chance to start getting delegates. The second he does that he'll start to look like a real candidate rather than a "fuck you!" gesture, and a bunch of the people who don't like him now will suddenly start to have always supported him.
This site seems to summarize the typical hurdles, which are mostly paperwork: http://www.bordercenter.org/chem/vehicles.htm
It linked off to this page, which has specific requirements for what you look for when importing from Canada: http://www2.epa.gov/importing-vehicles-and-engines/importing-canadian-vehicles
I suspect looking at your state's DMV site is actually the best bet for identifying hurdles.
Thanks, guys.
Duty is obvious, and at that level, not a big deal. And I think I get GST (or whatever -- maybe I should buy the car in Alberta) back. I've been thinking that the truly hidden flaw will have to do with financing/insurance/warranty issues.
153: Trump raises the level of debate in the GOP. A Trump-less GOP would be a substantively worse party.
How many of the 16 other candidates would clearly make a better president than Trump? I propose that the answer is "Zero."
Of the prominent ones, I'd easily take Trump over Walker, Cruz, Christie, Huckabee, Paul and Carson. And I'd also take him over Kasich, Bush and Rubio, though YMMV.
Not only is he better on substance, but he's pretty much unelectable, making him a much better GOP candidate than we had any right to expect.
Trump's contribution to the debate has been almost entirely positive, even when he's been completely full of shit. How else would the topic of single-payer healthcare be brought up in a Republican debate? What else would cause Erick Erickson to take a stand against overt sexism? Who else could make fools out of Fox News in a Fox-moderated debate?
Tell me who among the prominent Republicans is likely to be a better leader? Who is less extreme? What has Trump done that compares with, say, Terri Schiavo? Or Kasich's efforts at union-busting? Would you rather have Trump or Rubio selecting Supreme Court justices?
And when he inevitably is crushed by the GOP establishment, I won't feel the least bit sorry for him. I'm telling you, he's perfect.
I second 167. From what I can divine from his word salad, Trump would be better on a domestic policy level than the entire rest of the GOP field. And doing worse on foreign policy than the last GOP administration is difficult to imagine. That's not praise for Trump, but a godawful indictment of a GOP that stopped being a serious party some time ago. I really hope it actually was the Clintons' idea to send him careening madly through the primaries because it would be such genius. You couldn't pick a better wrecking ball.
This will have been the greatest piece of performance art in human history if, in a few months and still in the lead, Trump says that he just wanted to see what would happen if he spouted nothing but truculent bullshit.
112: Gordon Gecko is articulate, almost intellectual, compared to Trump. He sets reading The Art of War as homework for the Charlie Sheen character. He's a crook with a philosophy rather than a trust fund brat with attitude. I couldn't endure The Apprentice but as the other commenters say, Trump is more like a reality show spinoff where Wall St celebrities learn professional wrestling instead of dancing.
169 - You mean, like, for the election? Or just generally?
Hey, maybe I could buy the car in Canada, and then drive it home. Question: what's the hidden flaw in this plan?
Your speedometer will be in metric. And your gas mileage gauge will be in kilometers per liter, which mean you will actually have no idea what your mpg is.
My speedometer will switch between km and miles (it's a hardware button!) And I think the mileage units can be reset in software. (Toyota.)
BTW, I've started seeing Canadian candidate signs today. The Conservative incumbent has his last name on the signs, while the NDP challenger has his first name more prominent. I haven't seen any signs at all for the Liberal.
The whole Republican party is a Sokal hoax?
I always thought Trump was obviously playing a cartoon version of himself on The Apprentice. Now, I don't know if that was wrong and that's the real him, or if he's still playing the same cartoon. I still really have a hard time believing he could be serious.
Looks like Perry is throwing in the towel (reports that he is not paying campaign staff).
The first one out of the race in this field is some distinction. Couldn't happen to a bigger idiot, though.
167 is very good.
I'll breathe easier when Walker is out of the race. He's the only one I've been truly scared of given the way he's destroyed unions and higher ed in Wisconsin.
GI Joe was your mother's thing.
Skipper's dating GI Joe
And Barbie's stuck with Ken
I suspect Perry will stay in through Iowa at least. I would bet that Jim Gilmore is the first one out.
I guess I can bury this here. So we had two brothers who are good friends of Noah and Cassidy over for a slumber party. We do this regularly at one house or the other, have known them all their lives, etc. So anyhow, we get a text the next day from the dad:
The boys were talking this morning, and a little last night about something they saw Noah watching yesterday on the internet. They said it had a girl in a star suit and a black guy shooting people, with real blood, called sexual something. Tough to get a full story out of them. They said it was weird and scary and they didn't want to talk about it. They also said, Noah said, yea, sorry, that was scary, here's a funny one... I'm going to bring it up again tonight to see if I can figure out what it was. I'm not upset by any stretch, this is the internet age and kids will be kids, but I am curious what it was so I can know how to approach it with them. Could you talk to Noah to see if you can figure out what it was? I'm happy to chat on the phone if you like. Call any time.
Well. That certainly sounds... potentially disturbing. Sigh, stupid iPads. So I go to Noah, with the whole, "Hey, I'm not mad and nobody's in trouble, but I need to know what you showed M&H" approach. It was this. Which, yeah, not really appropriate for 7-10 year olds, but on the other hand, not remotely as disturbing or difficult to explain as what we each imagined from the description.
184: I might have thought as well. But Perry probably had some actual expectations (surely not of getting the nomination I'd hope but of getting at least some attention) while Gilmore seems to be engaged in something more personally quixotic.
184: But to your point, it appears that Gilmore will not be invited to the September CNN debate.
Pointless political media rant #575:
It was extremely irritating to see all sorts of media folk (and even some media critics who I generally respect) praising the Fox moderators for being such tough questioners during the "debate" because they didn't give all the candidates blow jobs. Sure there was some selectively "tough" gotcha-type questions, but all-in-all the thing was a horror show from the Fox side as well. It's the bigotry of low expectations all the way down for the media and Fox/other hate speech outlets.
And then to top it off with the Ailes/Trump "let's just say we fucked up equally on that one all continue to be great" rapprochement. I know it's not even worth saying, but imagine the result of anything close to that with a media outlet and a Dem, much less the Hilmonster.
One last point of interest in all of this for those of us who are in way too deep on the sausage-making behind the scenes. Roger Stone--the Trump adviser who was fired/quit over the weekend--has been going on all sorts of media outlets saying how Trump is still the best candidate and should be President. Whatever he is doing, we are not seeing the straight story, although Stone is something of a backroom Trump when it comes to ego and is probably just miking an opportunity. He is a guy who blows smoke if there is fire or not, but sometimes there actually is a fire.
Not of one single bit of import for anything real having to do with the election, but I, at least, am nonetheless fascinated.
188: God yes. Most of the candidates didn't even get softballs thrown at them; they had wiffleballs set on batting tees. "Governor Walker, in what way do you most resemble Ronald Reagan? Governor Bush, same question."
185: For reasons I can't recall, I watched that linked video with the sound off. Can you explain it to me, apo? Was the sun sexually molesting those boys? Did they kill her at the end? If so, why wasn't it dark?
Can you explain it to me, apo?
Not succinctly, no. But it's essentially Youtube humor aimed at 12-year-old boys. Invoked the Sexual Sun by emoji, great at first but couldn't handle Sexual Sun wanting to sex him up all day every day (hm, maybe I can succinctly explain it). Anyhow, we were all prepared to discuss torture porn or snuff films only to find it was closer to live-action Beavis and Butthead.
You may as well give the torture porn talk now, while it is fresh in your head.
192: Thanks, that was helpful.
I think it would have better better if everything turned dark when they shot the sun.
194: First "better" should have been "been". Oy.
177: Per this , he still has ~$17M in Super PAC money (apparently $15.3M of which comes from three people). So "apparently throwing in the towel" was inapt.
LIVE UPDATE. I just had a haircut from a new barber woman (barberess?) who did a fine job cutting hair but would not shut up about how she is from Wisconsin and just looooves Walker, he's been so great for the state, the rare conservative politician who actually acts like a conservative not just on the campaign trail but also once he's in office, blah blah yadda yadda, but she's very intrigued by Trump. She didn't know much about him before the debate, but she thought his debate performance was very impressive. She doesn't love that he's said so many offensive things about women, but at least you can tell he's being honest, amirite? No bullshit. That's refreshing. She might be leaning towards him over Walker.
Anyway, I'm not sure if I can bring myself to ever have my hair cut there again, despite it being super convenient to my office.
I'm not sure I'd want someone with that judgment like that near my ears with a scissors.
My brother-in-law related a story from his left-wing barber about people who come in with half a hair-cut that needs to be finished, because the local right-wing barber kicked them out of the barber chair after discussion became political.
My stylist/barber was wearing a "Black Lives Matter" t-shirt when she cut my hair last Sunday.
I used a barber for a while who was deep into Ted Nugent, like he got some political newsheet written by Ted that was only available to hardcore political Ted Nugent superfans and would talk all through the haircut about Ted's views on bow hunting or the "inner city." I probably should have stopped going for hair-related reasons alone.
I had a stylist who was big into ghosts and how they show up in pictures and stuff and you can't explain that with your "science", can you? Now I go to the somewhat crotchety but nice Syrian guy.
203: You went more than one? And he even did a lousy job on your hair?
Extravagantly permed Korean dude for me-- great except the day that I got a haircut while Korea played in the world cup.
Left-wingers cut hair like this, right wingers cut hair like that.
Can't believe that any self-respecting hair professional would vote for Trump.
Can't believe that any self-respecting hair professional would vote for Trump
Mentioned Trump to my stylist this week and she said more or less that.
So basically the not clicking on links thing is an inherited disorder.
(18th century apostropher: don't read the footnotes! )
Is it possible Drum just articulated what this OP was reaching for this weekend?
189: For instance, Zeke Miller on Twitter:
Growing more convinced that Trump and Stone faked the 'I quit'/'you're fired' thing so that Trump could get another surrogate on TV
Don't mind me, I'm just getting this all down here for the historical record.
212: I think that is a fair assessment. Trump is basically a bundle of ressentiment topped by a bad toupee. As I believe as I noted here earlier, forget whether he is in the polls for the nomination, more telling is the utter reversals of his favorable/unfavorable ratings among Republicans.
Some large grains of salt to be taken with any of the specifics, but this report on the Ailes/Trump "negotiations" is fascinating.
Sort of on topic -- and I think it may very well be the best thing ever...
https://twitter.com/ClareCoffey/status/630482872877608960
213: I saw Stone on the Today show this morning. Lauer said he sounded like somebody who might be working from Trump again soon.
212: Drum has been circling around it for awhile now, but he's finally got it. People are pissed, and they're especially pissed about being polite about how pissed they are. Sophisticated cranks like Erick Erickson were slow to figure it out, but I bet (like Ailes) he thinks twice before crossing Trump again.
Against Trump, Erickson made the standard move he would have used against liberal opponents: He pretended to be outraged about sexism/racism/whatever. That shit won't work on Trump, because Trump actually is a racist and sexist, and so are his supporters, and they know (in part because Erickson taught them) that racists aren't the real racists.
214.last: Interesting. Megyn Kelly has often struck me as being much more of a serious reporter than anyone else at Fox. Perhaps this is the beginning of her departure from the network.
A key to the appeal of Pulp Fiction is that although the film is populated by vile criminals, in every confrontation, the killer you're rooting for wins. The movie delivers one happy ending after another.
Trump is great for the same reason. He mocks McCain and lives to tell the tale. Erick Erickson boycotts him, and he comes up smelling like a rose. He stomps all over the Republican Party, but Reince Priebus can't lay a glove on him. The other candidates are a craven, cowering, unprincipled lot, and they clearly fear him. When they bring out the big guns - an ambush by Fox News! - Trump walks away unscathed and Ailes has to scramble to apologize.
Will Trump's absurd, racist attacks hurt or help all those Mexicans who are being sent over the border by their government? Stay tuned ...
A key to the appeal of Pulp Fiction is that although the film is populated by vile criminals, in every confrontation, the killer you're rooting for wins. The movie delivers one happy ending after another.
Very perceptive. The structure allows you to enjoy Vincent Vega both being killed and surviving til the end of the movie.
and you can't explain that with your "science", can you?
I never know what to do with this. I have smart friends who believe in stuff that's on my list of "obviously not a real thing." I tend to leave it at "of course I don't know everything" with fine print that says "but obviously not a real thing." Recently I listened to two orkers talk about the super accurate stuff psychics had told them. (Yeah, things like "and then she guessed that I have some native American ancestry" says white woman from the Western US.)
but this report on the Ailes/Trump "negotiations" is fascinating
"Fascinating" is... maybe one word for it. But certainly not the first that comes to mind.
A coda on the Red State outrage about Trump's sexism: lead of a front page post there (Erickson is editor-in-chief).
If Hillary Clinton possesses any unique selling propostion[sic] beyond proving even a homely woman can sleep her way into power,
I'm starting to think that Trump emerging more or less unscathed from the Fox News/Megyn Kelly thing has caused a lot of journalists to wake up to the fact that he really isn't just a random blip who will disappear in a day or two. (The planned parenthood thing might cause trouble if he doesn't carefully ignore that he ever said it: planned parenthood may have a positive approval rating overall in the country but there's a bit of a difference between conservatives and liberals on that, I suspect.)
Of course that just means that instead of reading "It's way too far out from the first primary to think Trump will have any real support" to "Sure Trump is popular now but he doesn't have the campaign staff he needs to get out the vote in February". There's kind of a tension there between those two claims. I really that now that people are coming around to the idea that he's not going away we'll see some of the serious professional organizers showing up to work for him.
The planned parenthood thing might cause trouble if he doesn't carefully ignore that he ever said it
The people who support Trump are not exactly issues voters. Trump sends a message, and that's what they respect.
Trump voters are pro-bully. That's the entirety of their interest in the issues. They love Roger Ailes, but if Trump can cow him, they like Trump more.
For Trump voters, abortion isn't about abortion. It's about abusing women. As long as Trump makes it clear that he's abusive to women, then he's in good shape. He could reverse himself on immigration if he took a strong enough racist stand elsewhere.
Trump can come out for single-payer healthcare tomorrow, as long as he makes it clear that he's deliberately abusing somebody by favoring it.
He can even get away with opposing past wars, as long as he doesn't oppose future ones.
He's got a lot of freedom. The only other issue where I can't see him reversing himself is torture. He's pretty much got to be pro-torture.
225.last He could probably come out against torture ("because we're the good guys") if he proposed nuking Iran at the same time.
The people who support Trump are not exactly issues voters.
Sure, he's lovable and can spring back from what he said by being a gigantic asshole about something else. But he's not just a single constituency candidate, at least as far as the general GOP coalition goes - that's what makes him dangerous to the Republican party overall. He has support among the right-wing moral majority demented Christian section of the party as well. Also what he did say wasn't very mean to women either so I can't help but suspect he got bad advice somewhere along the line.
This poll looks initially a lot like the previous ones, in that Trump is beating everyone else (HAHAHA) and that Carson is in second (hahaha) and any of the establishment candidates are falling even further back in the rankings. But there's something here that I haven't seen before and that really, really seems like something dangerous for the Republican party:
He's most cited as the one with the best chance of winning the general election...
Am I the only one who still thinks he's going to evaporate like a snowman in a heatwave? It might be a while, but there's going to come a point when people remember this is an election rather than a reality show, and he's just going to quietly go away. The man is ridiculous, and even people who enjoy his schtick know that.
Maybe on topic: I don't really understand this whole deal. On the one hand, if there's somebody you want to respect laws about not releasing sealed info presented to a grand jury, it's probably the attorney general. On the other hand, given what happened at Penn State and the absurd corruptness of courts here, I do tend to believe her on the conspiracy stuff. On the third hand, when public officials get indicted and start to talk about how much they love their family, that's usually not a good sign.
230: Kevin Drum, at least, definitely agrees with you. I think you're probably both right, but I'm not sure why -- do you have trust in the fundamental sanity of the American voter?
230 - If we were talking about a sane party, sure, he obviously would. And if we were talking about an insane party which sane but sociopathic people controlled, like we used to, then also sure. But I don't see that either of these things are true. Right now most of the Republicans haven't really decided who they want to run, probably because it's stupidly far in advance. But right now Trump is sitting about where Romney was, not one of the flash-in-the-pan candidates and all it would take is to maintain his current position and win Iowa or New Hampshire and he'd be a very credible candidate for everyone in the party. Everyone likes a winner, but authoritarians do especially, and Trump for all his bluster is very, very good at conveying that he is an obnoxious, over the top winner.
I mean, think about how sane the Republican party was when it nominated Goldwater. It's gone way, way past that point by now and it's not obvious to me that Trump is much crazier than Goldwater was.
Trump is sitting about where Romney was
Except for the part about Romney having had a multi-state campaign apparatus, having run multiple political races, having established ties to (admittedly mostly incompetent, but still) GOTV people, and having any legislative experience, this is 100% true. Honestly, I have no idea what's going to happen in the race. But comparisons between Trump and Romney don't seem to make much sense -- and I'm not just thinking of the hair -- particularly in a context in which we all know it's too early for anything that's happening now to have much bearing on the final result.
I know this makes me a bad person, but I loved this exchange between Trump and Rand Paul.
Trump's response to Paul's ad is great, but Paul's counter-response if fucking amazing for its lameness.
Paul's campaign tries to out-Trump Trump:
Donald Trump couldn't set the intellectual conservative agenda of anything, not even the tiniest rooms, never mind a country.
Not even the tiniest rooms! Paul isn't above engaging in insults, but he's not very good at it. Then the Paul campaign explains why Paul is going to continue to get his ass handed to him by Trump:
He is devoid of ideas other than he likes the idea of power and getting attention for foolish statements and bluster.
Paul tries hard, but he can only dream of being this devoid of ideas, or as talented at delivering foolish statements and bluster.
And finally, the Paul campaign acknowledges that Trump is right that Paul is a loser on the golf course, and confirms that Paul's charity accepted Trump's money. (Trump fans know that winners write the checks.) Paul even provides a lame excuse for being a loser - home course advantage:
While he appreciates Donald's golf skills, I will note that [the game] was on his home course that he plays often. And he does sincerely appreciate Donald's generosity to the eye clinic. In fact he has mentioned it often, including in his op-ed and speeches this weekend.
The best minds in the Republican Party are going to be looking for ways to sabotage Trump, and they've got plenty of time to figure it out. But so far, they're firing blanks.
do you have trust in the fundamental sanity of the American Republican primary voter?
After the last 6 years? No, not the tiniest bit. Trump may well implode, but I doubt the normal rules really apply to him. Whatever else happens, I suspect he will at least end up carrying a valuable bloc of delegates to the convention and will want his pound of flesh in exchange for releasing them. So he hangs an independent run over the party's head and has just demonstrated his immunity to the standard unwritten GOP rules by openly kicking Fox News in the wherever and then getting an apology. In a poll from last week, he's running dead even with Jeb! in Florida.
I wouldn't write him off at all.
I love that Trump's response was mostly "I kicked your ass at golf." It encapsulates his entire campaign - the unpredictability, the nastiness, the alpha-male posturing, and so on. I can only imagine Rand Paul's people looking at that response and going "Wha? Huh? I... um... What?"
I'm starting to wonder if Paul, who cannot possibly believe he will win, is working at act as the guy with nothing to lose who takes down Trump for the GOP in exchange for some favor or other, possibly to be named later.
Having said all of that, I completely agree with this:
If we were talking about a sane party, sure, he obviously would. And if we were talking about an insane party which sane but sociopathic people controlled, like we used to, then also sure. But I don't see that either of these things are true.
And especially this:
because it's stupidly far in advance
Junkies and paid political operatives are paying close attention and trying to come up with meaningful analysis. Everyone else is on vacation and/or fascinated by the spectacle of Trump's hair. Things happening at the moment might have a meaningful impact on the end result. Or they might not. But again, it's very clear that the Republican Party is in a bad place. I'm just not sure the Democrats are as much better off, in terms of party organization or connection to likely voters, as I'd like them to be.
And boy do I agree with every word of 236.
I am rooting for the establishment Republicans to successfully undermine Trump from getting the nomination, and in doing so, to piss him off so that he decides to launch a war to take them down by hook or crook. Maybe run as an independent.
As to the fundamental sanity of the Republican primary voter, yeah, their median voter is a lunatic. But, it wouldn't be irrational or inconsistent for them to decide that the GOP field is a bunch of sad sacks that Hitlery Klintoon will destroy in a general election no matter what (thanks to Obama unleashing his ACORN shock troops), so may as well pull the level for the guy who promises to dislodge the McConnell-Boehner establishment and let some real conservatives run the party for a change. Certainly nobody else in the field (except maybe Ted Cruz, who has yet to demonstrate any notable skill at this game) is going to fill that role.
do you have trust in the fundamental sanity of the American voter?
I know none of us have any faith in the fundamental sanity of the Republican primary voter. I was asking (I thought) a more interesting question.
I don't think 241 is how Republican primary voters think at all. My sense is they can't imagine how Donald Trump could lose to Hilary Clinton. He's a winner, and she's a loser!
243: Well, to the original question then: Democrats have won the popular vote in five of the last six elections, so I'm mostly okay with that median, given the crappy choices regularly on offer. The (even more!) interesting question: do you have faith in the fundamental sanity of the average Florida voter, because that looks like the electoral linchpin for the foreseeable future.
244 - Or "she's a poll driven politician phony who just says what she thinks is useful but he's a strong outspoken man who has strong opinions and isn't ashamed of them!"
This is probably true, and falling prey to it as a convincing reason requires nothing more than failing to notice what those opinions actually are.* But we're social animals and I'm totally absolutely willing to believe that a lot of voters will go for the candidate who comes off as the stronger/better person**. Caring about social/personal factors like that rather than the kind of political concerns that require more than basic primate social evaluations isn't necessarily a hallmark of a decent chunk of the American electorate, and that group isn't spread evenly across the party lines.
*For whatever reason most people seem not to notice that someone who wants power and advocates a certain agenda that gets them that power will probably pursue that agenda because they, accurately, perceive that having/getting that power is dependent on precisely that agenda. Politicians are sleazy liars, often, but they do tend to fulfill or at least fight for the promises they made on the campaign trail.
**I mean, falsely, yes, but not being ashamed of your values and openly standing up for them isn't a bad character trait either. It just matters more what they are.
244 is responsive to 229's discussion of electability. In the poll in 229, Trump gets the same 22% score on electability that he does on general support. Trump will lose his supporters if they conclude that he doesn't have 30 goddam dicks.
I don't actually think that Trump has strong opinions -- at least about politics.
Strong, loud, actually quite reasonable, whatever. It's all the same for most people.