Great. I've never had trouble with the Secret Service before.
You know, he's not Magneto; he's not out there doing this stuff all by himself...
If he began dividing mitotically, it would be time.
He would have to pose a clear and immediate physical threat to human life which could not be averted in any other way. Same criterion as for killing Lindsay Lohan, Isabelle Huppert or Bill Nye.
Random off-topic PSA: if you have a Kindle and don't use it much, make sure you connect it to wifi today and tell it to download updates: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_left_v4_sib?ie=UTF8&nodeId=201994710
4 - getting mixed up in a Nye/Lohan/Huppert threeway would be a hell of an accomplishment, more impressive in its way than killing Trump.
Trump seems like the kind of politician who'd be assassinated by a former supporter for not following through on extremism.
What 2 said: Trump is awful, but the Trump story isn't about Trump it's about the massive chunk of the population who want someone like Trump.
11:
That's what's been worrying me lately. Those people are not going to stop existing as a part of the electorate that is large enough to exert lots of sway over a major political party. What the Republican party did and is still doing re: the Southern strategy was pandering to crazy people, but it was also an attempt at management of those same people -- who were going to exist whether they did it or not. We're in for a long, shitty ride.
If he began dividing mitotically, it would be time.
Who would you rather assassinate? One Trump-sized Trump or 32 1/32-sized mini-Trumps?
Ted Cruz now attacking me for reproducing asexually. Cruz can't reproduce sexually or asexually. Jealous!
14 is great.
13: Speaking as someone with a mouse problem, I would much rather have a single, fairly large opponent than 32 much smaller ones.
By the time it would be appropriate to assassinate Trump it would also be too late by definition.
12: What the Republican party did and is still doing re: the Southern strategy was pandering to crazy people, but it was also an attempt at management of those same people
Huh?
The Republican party has spent five decades pumping poison into the airs of that part of the electorate, telling it that liberals are a totalitarian commie enemy that's out to get them, mainlining fear and alarmism over every issue of the day and a whole battery of made-up non-issues (War on Christmas, anyone?), creating a parallel fantasy universe for it in which all that hate and fear had "valid" referents that were being suppressed by the "liberal media," promoting and preying on bigotry in only barely-coded ways. Decades of that behaviour is "management"? The only "management" they've been doing is managing to sucker these assholes into voting against any law or program that might possibly actually benefit them in exchange for being fed a steady diet of hate.
1/32-sized mini-Trumps
How many mini-Trumps could you take in a fight?
Gosh, I don't know. I wish someone heroic and admirable had written a book about precisely this conundrum.
The Mini-Trump Free-for-all Conudrum
The New Yorkers in particular might be leery of describing a potential crime on the internet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilberto_Valle
Buncha pussies, as the The Donald might say. I just wanted to know under what circumstances. Anyway, I'm going to eat all your children. Let me google up some recipes.
21: Heroic, sure, but I'm not sure I'd call OJ admirable.
12: What the Republican party did and is still doing re: the Southern strategy was pandering to crazy people, but it was also an attempt at management of those same people
Castock's response is correct. I would also add that Brad DeLong has a very interesting* post today about the shift in the Republican party represented by the Southern Strategy.
As I have said before, I think the key to understanding the moral and--I hope--political bankruptcy of the Republican Party lies in its transformation from a party of those who think they will have wealth, and so have something to gain, into a party of those who think they have had wealth of some sort, and so have something to lose. The first party is very friendly to enterprise, progress, growth, change, and creative destruction. The second is quite hostile to them: it is friendly to established property alone.
...
It never struck Acheson that the Republican Party might just be beginning a very long term transformation from the party of those who wanted to carry on and grow the nation's business to the party of those who wanted to protect really-existing property. And this second party is, I think, quite useless and detrimental to the world and the nation.
The change took a long time. But it started well before Trump or even Gingrich. What do you think Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, or Herbert Hoover would have thought of a William F. Buckley, Jr. and his demand that the Republican Party "stand athwart history, yelling Stop!", even as a joke? They would have been bewildered at any claim of Buckley's that he was, in any sense, a member of their party. Yet Buckley launched his career in Acheson's day.
* I think one of his best posts in quite a while.
What they should do, I think, is join the Democrats and try to make technocratic arguments to shift Democratic policy positions away from stupid leftist shibboleths, and perhaps to add some right-wing ideas that make actual technocratic win-win sense to the Democratic policy mix.
Fuck DeLong.
The neoliberals and centrist Democrats see Trump crackup on the right as an opportunity to shed their bothersome left wing.
Fuck DeLong.
Eh? I don't think that will happen (and I think his analysis of the problem is better than his proposed solution), but if it did happen and there was a period in which the Democratic party moved rightward* and also became the dominant party in American politics, that would seem like an improvement over the status quo.
* Would the democratic party even have to move meaningfully rightward to be friendly to business interests?
29 written without seeing 28, but I think that mis-reads DeLong.
First, he notes that isn't going to happen and is just, "what I think they should do." So, secondly, if we're just talking about the vision in his head I would note that it's (emphasis mine) (1) join the Democrats (2) try to make technocratic arguments (3) and perhaps to add some right-wing ideas that make actual technocratic win-win sense to the Democratic policy mix.
Which is to say that DeLong isn't suggesting that the Democrats should make policy changes in an attempt to reach out to Republicans. He's suggesting that technocratic Republicans should first join the Democrats and then, secondly, as Democrats participate in the intra-party policy discussions.
The neoliberals and centrist Democrats see Trump crackup on the right as an opportunity to shed their bothersome left wing.
I will admit that DeLong has taken that position before, but I still think my reading is solid.
You Know, I Arrived in Washington in 1993 to Work for Lloyd Bentsen's Treasury as Part of the Sane Technocratic Bipartisan Center...
And it took me only two months--two months!--to conclude that America's best hope for sane technocratic governance required the elimination of the Republican Party from our political system as rapidly as possible. Dole and Gingrich's "We really don't care that these policies are good for the country--are a lot like policies we would enthusiastically support if proposed by a Republican president--but we are going to try to block them because that will weaken Clinton" wad a real eye-opener...
Nothing since has led me to question or change that belief--only to strengthen it.
We really need a very different opposition party to the Democrats: a less dishonorable one.
[Taken the position of a neoliberal and centrist Democrat, that is.]
That is the context in which I was reading it. It's not the first time DeLong has yearned for a Republican party without the Trumpists.
Would the democratic party even have to move meaningfully rightward to be friendly to business interests?
No, which raises the question: To what stupid leftist shibboleths is he referring?
Would the democratic party even have to move meaningfully rightward to be friendly to business interests?
No, which raises the question: To what stupid leftist shibboleths is he referring?
Context for proud neoliberal Delong:
From Wiki:
NAFTA:The agreement's supporters included 132 Republicans and 102 Democrats. The bill passed the Senate on November 20, 1993, 61-38.[6] Senate supporters were 34 Republicans and 27 Democrats.
TPP fast-track:The bill passed the Senate on 21 May 2015, by a vote of 62 to 38, with 31 Democrats, five Republicans and both Independents opposing.
The bill, known as TPA, passed by a razor-thin 10-vote margin, with 28 Democrats joining all but 50 Republicans to send the bill to the Senate.
So that is the context, and I am not sure what DeLong was doing in Washington in the 90s Clinton administration...
...but remember both NAFTA and TPP (TPA fast-track) are very fucking Republican bills pushed extremely hard by Democratic Presidents.
Whether that, and other moves riders amendments etc pushed in Congress says Democrats are "unfriendly to business" or it says, as I believe that Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and soon Hillary Clinton are neoliberal scum who are way too cozy with business and Republicans to even be called "Democrats..."
...well, most people here love love love Obama, and will tolerate HRC.
Last one:
If Barack Obama had joined 170+ House Republicans to repeal the Voting Rights Act or over turn Roe v Wade some here, though probably not all, might get angry at Obama and no longer love love love him and his folksy downhome ways.
But I on the economic left am considered a crazy man for thinking Obama has broken the deal.
"Repeal NAFTA" sounds different when you rephrase it as "impose wide-ranging punitive trade sanctions on Mexico".
I'm okay with them shedding the left as long as they can take over the Republican Party. Hillary Clinton should be the Republican nominee, and Sanders can be the Democrat.
The OP is exactly the kind of oh-so-clever stuff that I was complaining about in the other thread. Sure, let's talk a lot about assassinating politicians we don't like. Then let's think a bit about which party has been hurt by that attitude the most in the last 60 years. Geez. +1 for the moronic trolling award.
19:
I didn't say it was in any way a justified, successful, intelligent, or noble attempt on behalf of the Republican party.