Maybe I should just stay in Canada. In yesterday’s “Super Tuesday” primaries, Donald Trump, the Clown Candidate, and a huge embarrassment to America, won the GOP race in seven states, while Ted Cruz won in Oklahoma, Alaska, and Texas—and Rubio in Minnesota. The delegate count for the three candidates, respectively, is 285, 161, and 87.
Among Democrats, Hillary Clinton took seven states, most in the South, while Sanders took four states, but is severely behind on delegates (544 vs. 349).
The Canadians I’ve met don’t know what to make of Trump—or rather, they do, but can’t believe he’s so popular. If things go this way (and I suspect the Republican Party is getting worried about Trump’s victories), the election will be Clinton vs. Trump. Clinton will win, and I’ll be voting for her. I’d prefer to vote for Elizabeth Warren or even John Kerry, but the laws of physics have decreed that this is not to be. As today’s New York Times editorial said,
The Republicans seem to be reeling, unable or unwilling to comprehend that a shady, bombastic liar is hardening the image of their party as a symbol of intolerance and division.
. . . Now voters are deciding. They are leaning, in unbelievable numbers, toward a man whose quest for the presidency revolves around targeting religious and racial minorities and people with disabilities, who flirts with white supremacists and the Ku Klux Klan, who ridicules and slanders those who disagree with him.
Trump represents all that is bad about American politics: jingoism, intolerance, dissimulation, and a total lack of empathy for anyone but himself.
A while back we had a contest for who would be the GOP and Democratic nominees for President, and the Democratic nominee for vice-president. That contest is still open, but only the first correct answer wins. Two of the slots already appear to be filled, though I predicted a while back that Rubio would be the Republican candidate. I was almost certainly wrong.
If anyone thinks that Trump can or will be elected President of the US, weigh in below. I can’t believe, cynical as I am about American politics, that he could lead our country.
I sincerely believe if Clinton wins the Dem Nomination, Trump will get the White House, she is carrying too much baggage that Trump will exploit, he’ll have a field day muckraking. for me the ideal P and VP would be Sanders and Warren, and America will have a chance of being saved , anything else would be disaster.
Trump’s baggage will completely overshadow Clinton’s.
Clinton’s biggest concern is turnout. A Trump candidacy would boost Dem turnout (through fear), solving that problem.
James Carville’s organization recently conducted a poll of base republican voters that found 20% of them were prepared to defect if Trump were the nominee. They could not bring themselves to vote for him, even if that means Clinton or Sanders became president.
“Clinton’s biggest concern is turnout”
Yep.
Beware confirmation bias… 😉
One aspect of observing this from afar, is perhaps, that it make it easier to stay somewhat more detached and objective.
And one thing I have noted is the apparent size and tenacity in the “denial” of what over the past six month, to my mind, became ever more obvious, i.e the ascendant of Trump.
I have also read a lot of comments, in newspapers and elsewhere, that a race between Trump and Hillary is a forgone conclusion, (i.e. with Hillary winning), but from my point of view and from what I see and read, I don’t think that necessarily is the case.
I agree. I think most of the rules derived from the past score of elections are right out the window. This is a historic realignment underway. Typically only 55% of the voters turn out to vote. That other 45% may be a factor in this election, and it seems foolish to make any strong predictions on which way that turnout factor might break.
Also, it’s foolish to assume too strongly that Clinton will win because things happen. She could have a heart attack, or get caught in bed with an underaged boy, or there really could be a real scandal behind the fake email scandal, or a terrorist attack, etc.
There is no use in panic, of course, and odds are on her side, but complacency should be right out. Petty, “Bernie didn’t win and I’m not going to vote for Hillary” is especially foolish.
Just make sure you have a towel…
Jokes aside, I think this,
is very important.
I think it can be instructive (as a warning) to look at what happened in elections in Europe over the course of 2015, and the many “upsets”, rapid shifting voter preferences, and, not least, the many (often dramatic) failures of opinion polls to catch those changes in voter behavior beforehand.
I agree too. And I am even starting to think it might not be such a bad thing. Something has to shake up the accomodationist power structure controlling the Democratic party. As long as they think they automatically get the votes of Democrats, they will continue to put up business-as-usual candidates and will continue to obstruct and play dirty tricks on real reformers like Sanders. So though Trump might be a disaster in the short term, it might be good in the long run.
And I have begun to grudgingly admire Trump’s fearlessness and willingness to say the truth (eg Bush lied our way into Iraq, Planned Parenthood does some good things, etc). If only he would stick to saying true statements…
All of the other candidates except Bernie are spineless actors eager to do favors for the powerful.
A lot of people said similar things in 2000, went ahead and voted for Nader who didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell, and arguably gave (along with the SCOTUS) Dubya the election on a silver platter.
Had Gore been installed instead it’s widely agreed that the course of history would have been quite different and hundreds of thousands of people both here and in the mid-east would still be alive.
So I can’t get behind the “teach ’em a lesson” theory, no matter how tempting it is. Being still in the clutches of the plutocracy is still a better bet than having a narcissistic megalomaniac in charge of everything.
I am delighted with Sanders’s success in this campaign and hope that, even though it appears that it won’t bear fruit this time, it bodes well for tweaking the course of Democratic politics in the right direction.
As a first time voter who had just left home in 2000 and still under the religious clutches of my family, I sincerely apologize for my Bush vote. I lived in FL then too. That aside, my mom, a very conservative Catholic, almost went for Nader (and did go Perot in 1992), but I suspect you’re right that Nader largely subtracted Democrat votes. One thing is for sure, regardless of your stance on every other issue, we absolutely cannot have an anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-free speech, pro-carpet bombing lunatic at the helm (and that applies to all the front-running Republicans). The hundreds of thousands dead in the Middle East from Bush’s reign attest to that.
What’s worse from my own perspective is that I was staunchly against the invasion of Iraq in 2003, even though I still considered myself relatively conservative. (I’ve basically moved from libertarian to left libertarian over the years, my loss of religion was no small part of this).
I’m not convinced the Democrats won’t get us engaged where we don’t need to be engaged in the Middle East, but they’re orders of magnitude ahead of Ted Cruz Missile and his ilk.
Well, in 1960 I was for Nixon. Fortunately by the time I reached voting age I’d seen the light, and thus began a long history of voting for losing Democrats…
Interesting about your Mom. Of course it’s widely felt that Perot gave the election to Clinton.
I love “Ted Cruz Missile!” 😀
Perhaps, but if foreigners are better at predicting US political contents than citizens, I have yet to see the data. I suspect you’re no worse, but probably no better, either.
Can you explain the dislike of Clinton? (Non-American asking, so am curious.)
I personally see her as part of a political system that is in desperate need of reform. Being so invested in the current system, how can we expect her to be a force for change? Also, her campaign feels like a coronation by the ruling class rather than a ground-swell of public support. Everything she says has been carefully considered based on focus groups and polling. She is a robot being programmed by the highest bidder. What are her actual opinions?
See her placement on the political compass (Authoritarian right – I’m libertarian left), there is so little difference between the candidates that the suggestion that we have a choice is discouraging to me.
I live in a very conservative area and the amount of hatred for Clinton is borderline pathological – perhaps exceeding that directed toward Obama. I don’t think her path to the white house is a slam-dunk. Most of my neighbors will turn out to vote against her and I will be there voting against her opponent. What a shitty way to chose a leader.
The voters in your very conservative area are filled with just as much hate for Democrats in general. Their opposition is constant. The question is always down to relative turn-out for R and D voters with some degree of uncertainty from a few who might go either way.
I suspect that Trump will cause many of the “uncertain” voters to go for Clinton, and even some otherwise reliable Republicans who may flip, or not turn out at all.
That said, I think Sanders would do better against Trump than Clinton. But I could be wrong about all of this.
Yes, the conservatives in my area (in general?) love to have a boogie man to be afraid of and cast blame upon. Generally these boogie men (boogie persons?) are democrats. I think what makes Clinton special is that the Clintons have been a target for decades and the ascension of Hillary feels like the fulfillment of an ominous prophecy.
Trump scares me because he seems like he says what he thinks. As George Carlin said (ironically in this context, about Bill Clinton) “Because given a choice, Americans prefer their bullshit right out front, where they can get a good, strong whiff of it. Clinton may have been full of shit, but at least he let you know it. And people like that….What did Clinton say? He said, “Hi folks! I’m completely full of shit, and how do you like that?” And the people said, “You know what? At least he’s honest. At least he’s honest about being completely full of shit.””
I don’t think Trump says what he thinks (except by coincidence). I consider him a habitual liar.
“Just remember, it’s not a lie if you believe it” George Costanza
Boogie chilluns …
I’m not a fan of hers for the following reasons:
1. She’s very hawkish.
2. She takes a lot of money from Wall Street, while refusing to consider that might influence her policy decisions.
3. She panders to the religious.
4. She refuses to take responsibility for her part in advocating and creating incredibly racist and destructive punitive and militaristic law enforcement (google “Super Predators”).
5. I remember when Bill was running for president they made a big show about putting a mentally disabled man to death, as an example of their being “tough on crime.” She still supports the death penalty.
6. Personally, I hate the way she talks to african americans. Maybe I’m misreading, or am influenced by all of the above, but it seems to me she has no compassion or humanity.
As for Republicans, they hate her because they are told to.
These are perfect articulations for why I have not been enthusiastic about Hillary. She has a strong lead with African American voters, and the ability to mobilize their vote, but it baffles me why that is so given factor # 4 above.
Meanwhile Bernie is the real deal, man. He has long fought for civil rights and for other liberal causes, without wavering.
Thanks!
I’m very willing to be wrong about Hillary, and her support from the african american communities suggests there’s something I’m missing. Unfortunately I suspect that support is due primarily because of Jesus. Religion ruins everything.
Whatever happens with Bernie, the important thing is for the movement to keep moving and not fall apart. Whatever happens in 2016, I’m hoping we see an Elizabeth Warren/Killer Mike ticket in 2020!
Yes, those are my feelings too. And watching Hillary and the national Democratic Party leaders pull dirty tricks and put out slanders and lies to ruin Sanders is turning me off of her candidacy even more.
Maybe there are some rare Republicans with vestiges of thinking ability.
* She is a woman. The more bigoted and old-fashioned object to women in leadership roles, although they will dissemble about why they don’t like here (as they did with Obama and race)
* She and her husband have a long history of scandal and unethical behavior, dating back to Bill’s time as governor of Arkansas ( a U.S. state). Whitewater real estate scandal, Hillary’s remarkable success in livestock futures trading, Bill’s consistent womanizing, the mysterious disappearance and reappearance of files belonging to Vince Foster, a White House aide who committed suicide.
* Various other “scandals” which don’t actually amount to anything, such as the Republican fixation on Benghazi and her e-mail server.
* She has been around for a long time, which means that she has numerous reversals on her record. These will be characterized as “flip-flops”, (reversals made for political gain rather than out of sincerely held beliefs). Example: gay rights.
* Ties to money influences. The formation of the “Clinton Foundation” after Bill left the presidency. Money goes hand in hand with corruption. Lucrative speaking engagements for big banks, etc. These make it doubtful that she would favor reform over the status quo.
* Questionable ‘progressive’ credentials; she approved of the Iraq war, supports a “no-fly zone” over Syria (which would be very difficult since the involvement of Russia), supports the Republican-originated “Obamacare” over a single-payer government health program, etc.
Anyone would be hard-pressed to exceed Drumpf in flip-flips. He pulls them daily.
The progressive’s answer to your question can be found at the following link.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/300459389/The-Definitive-Case-for-Why-Hillary-Clinton-is-the-Wrong-Choice-And-Bernie-is-the-Right-One
Hillary, who takes a strong position on gun control in her campaigning, will be having a $1000-$5000-a-plate PAC campaign dinner on March 15 in Washington hosted (in part) by Jeff Forbes, congressional lobbyist for the National Rifle Association (self reported pay $30,000 per quarter for “second amendment rights”).
If you plan on attending, here is the link: http://politicalpartytime.org/party/40957/
Feel the Bern!
Sorry. Did not know the page would open!
Link(close the spaces): http: // http://www.scribd. com/doc/ 300459389/The-Definitive-Case-for-Why-Hillary-Clinton-is-the-Wrong-Choice-And-Bernie-is-the-Right-One
Well, if Clinton has to go up against anyone, it’d better be Trump. The results have been consistent across about a dozen or two matchup polls over the past weeks and months.
Clinton is tied with or slightly beating Trump. She’s losing to Ted Cruz, losing to Marco Rubio, and losing to John Kasich, in some cases by 10 points or more. She was also losing to or tied with Jeb Bush before he dropped out. She only has a 37% favorability rating.
Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, easily beats every Republican candidate, has the highest favorability rating at 60%, and has by far the highest ratings for honesty and caring about voter’s needs.
It’s clear that Sanders would be more electable in the general election, but he may not be the nominee… so we’d better hope that Trump wins.
Bernie’s problem is that he owns the demographic that doesn’t show up to vote.
That’s definitely true. In the last poll I saw, 90% of young(ish) people supported him, but in Nevada for instance, over 2/3rds of the people who actually showed up to vote in the primary were over 45.
Most of Trumps support comes from a GOP dislike of Hilary and the insecurity in their other candidates. This is rather shaky ground to live on.
Hilary has had baggage for twenty years. Trump hasn’t even opened his luggage.
Yes, I am pretty darned sure that the Democratic Party Leaders have a fine bunch of data (dirty laundry) and film clips to unleash upon the Donald (who has left a prominent footprint on the web and the press — one might even say a wide swath.)
They are keeping their powder dry. Why do anything while the Reps are doing it for them.
Just once, I want to hear someone call Trump in a debate on his substituting harumpfing in lieu of a substantive answer to a question.
“Yeah, right!” isn’t an answer. It’s a short-hand ad hominem.
Rubio and Cruz tried this in the last debate. Rubio even did a fairly good job of counter-mocking Trump on this exact lack of specificity (the bit about drawing circles around states). It looked like they were having a mild bit of success. I don’t know if it’s enough, though. Trump is not running a campaign about action items or policies. He’s running a campaign 100% about style and personality. You might win because his style repulses enough people, but to peel off any of his supporters you will have to find a way to break the illusion that he is on *their* side. The scam Trump U might have some promise in that regard, if you can convince his supporters that Trump scammed a lot of people just like them out of money (they won’t care if he scammed minorities or immigrants or whatever).
This is my worry. I don’t think it’s just minorities or immigrants. I think Trump supporters lack the empathy to conceive that they could be taken in by that scam. They’ll just think he took money from “losers”.
Muckraking against Trump isn’t hard. If you haven’t already seen John Oliver’s brilliant takedown of Trump, please check it out. My personal contribution to the cause:
http://imgur.com/PeLqOte
Woops, royally screwed up the link there but it still works.
I am not convinced that Trump truly wants to be president. I get the impression that he is just along for the crazy ride, seeing how far he can push the envelope before jumping ship right at the end. If he does proceed to the end it is just what the GOP has fostered and deserve.
Yes, I think there’s a 10% chance Trump is doing a Professor Snape thing (this is a Harry Potter reference, for those unfamiliar with the books).
I have a feeling Trump doesn’t actually care what the outcome is. It’s the wild ride he loves.
It’s all about the attention.
His Mommy must not have loved him enough …
Or maybe overdid it, propelling him down the path of narcissism.
That would be some olympic grade trolling.
“I’m GREAT! I beat them ALL!”
Oh, he want’s to BE president. He doesn’t want the JOB of president. He’ll farm the actual work out to someone who does want that job. He wants to be president because he craves the attention, and being president guarantees all the attention you want whenever you want it.
Like Reagan or Bush, then.
Trumps plan part two will be once he has the republican nomination he’ll rebrand towards the centre and claim it was all a ploy to get the nomination then tell those who supported him thus far that this new image is all a ploy to get the presidency
I’d like a considered American view on the likelihood of moderate Republicans endorsing Clinton (assuming she gets the nomination): and of its possible effect on the vote. Cheers, and commiserations for the existence of Donald Trump. x
“Moderate Republicans” – ha ha. Anyone with intelligence and empathy left that party long ago.
As for what remains of the party, examples of their putting their party loyalty ahead of the national interest are easy to find: shutting down the government, stating openly that their top priority was blocking Obama, curtailing stimulus spending after the recession. The promise not to consider any Supreme Court nomination by the current president is just the latest example, and one that will loom large over the election.
Highly unlikely that any important Republican would publicly do so; it would kill their chances of getting into office in the future and – for the money boosters – “taint” any future message of support they would give to other candidates. These days its really hard to shed the RINO label, and anyone supporting Clinton would certainly get that label.
Though I suspect that a lot of big business Wall Street types might happily vote for her in secret, as both Clintons have been very pro-business (him as President, her as Senator).
Actually it’s looking like the Wall Street types may get an ideal matchup (for them).
If you don’t care one way or the other about abortion laws, gay rights, or gun control laws but you care very much about banking and trade being deregulated and corporate taxes going down, then Clinton vs. Trump is probably a win-win for you.
I’m not so sure. One of Romney’s main advisors has come out saying Clinton would be a better president than Trump. I expect we’ll see more and more of this.
Meanwhile, Trump has been getting endorsements from the most heinous of the political right wing. LePage, Brewer, Palin, Jeff Sessions, Joe Arpaio, etc.
Clinton will get some endorsements from Republicans who aren’t themselves vying for office any more. Probably not the biggest names, but enough to mark this as something different.
As for votes, I have a GOP lawyer friend, whose only interest really is in keeping his taxes low and investment returns high, who has told me that he will absolutely vote for Hillary over Trump. Not only does he find Trump offensive on several levels, he doesn’t think Trump would be good for him financially.
I expect a there will be a lot of quiet cross-voting of this sort, and even more who simply don’t pull the lever for either candidate.
Of course, who can count how many people Trump will get to crawl out of the woodwork and vote for the first time in ages, so I don’t take too much reassurance from this.
Also, I should add, my deeply religious GOP relatives are split on Trump. A few are active Trump supporters, but about half are horrified by Trump because he is the anthesis of their image of the kind of Christian candidate they are looking for. I really don’t see them ever pulling the lever for Trump or Clinton so they will probably not cast a vote for president. If ANY other GOP candidate were running 100% of my religious GOP family would vote for that candidate.
Taint
One issue that would keep moderate Republicans from voting for Clinton is the prospect of multiple Supreme Court vacancies.
From what I read, the chances sound pretty respectable. The mainstream Repubs are aghast over Trump and wringing their hands over their lack of options at this point. (Like the rest of the non-idiot Repubs and the rest of the country, they spent the first several months of this campaign confident that Trump would never get anywhere.) They are cooking up schemes for how to fight him with a brokered selection process at the Republican convention.
If that doesn’t work, I believe many simply wouldn’t vote in the general election.
As that same NYT article that Jerry writes about puts it, “the Republicans are reaping the whirlwind.” WTH did they expect after acting like preschoolers for the past 8 years?
Hillary’s debate-prep stand-in will be Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.
Debate? They might as well play Liar’s Poker.
+1
It is foolish for Democratic voters to presume that Trump cannot win the general election. A large fraction of the population despises Clinton for one reason or another, and the Trump crowd seems to be much more motivated this year. Clinton’s biggest asset is the dysfunction within the Republican party.
Unless there is split of the Republican party (about a 50% possibility as i see it) we will likely see another nailbiter election which comes down to a few closely-contested states. If the GOP does split, Clinton should win easily.
I think a split in the Republican party is inevitable. If Trump is denied the nomination he will surely run a 3rd party campaign. And if he does win it (most likely) there are enough Republicans who will be too horrified to support him. They will likely not vote at all.
(As I type this, I would like to add that these non-Trumpster Republicans were largely responsible for creating they conditions for his take-over. They nurtured hostility to government minorities for decades. They deserve this catastrophe. The rest of us don’t, though.)
Bank-friendly, foot-dragging, hawkish Hillary also did a fine job in opening a space for Bernie.
That’s true. But assuming Clinton gets the nomination Sanders supporters will shift more easy to her than Trump-haters in the Republican Party will shift to him. I think. But I could be wrong.
Sanders, by going to the end, will attempt to shift Hillary’s policy more to the left in exchange for enthusiastic support. Keeping up he pressure to take it to the end is a win-win situation for Sander’s and his ideological allies.
And the one good thing to come out of this election cycle!
I tend to agree with your ‘nailbiter’ comment. There are only 10 states that have changed party affiliation once or more the last four elections. They contain 116 electoral votes out of 538. I think it’s going to come down to those ten states again, with the classically red states (not in the group of 10) voting for Trump regardless of what GOP voters personally think of him, and the classically blue states voting for Clinton also regardless of what individual democrats think of her. The Dems start with a pretty big lead on paper (242 vs. 180). However the four biggest of those ten swing states are Florida, South Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia, and I don’t know if Clinton could take those from Trump or even split them with him. I think if you’re a liberal, you should look at that group of four with some fear, because its really easy to imagine a GOP sweep of all four.
Michigan is usually considered a swing state, and has more electoral votes than either South Carolina or Virginia.
One thing that truly worries me is the fact that Democrat voters are not heading to the polls like they did in 2008, while Republicans are breaking records. Hopefully, if Trump winds up on the ticket, that very fact will get out the Democrat vote.
I believe Dem turnout is low because most of us would be Ok with either Hillary or Bernie.
That’s why I didn’t caucus.
Turnout is complicated. This time around in Massachusetts, Hillary got 100,000 votes fewer than she herself did in 2008, when she beat Obama in the state primary. On the other hand, Sanders received 50,000 more votes than Obama did in 2008. Figure that one out.
“Democrat voters are not heading to the polls like they did in 2008”
There is less at stake, depending on how seriously you view the competition from Sanders. I do not think this is necessarily what we will see in the general election in November.
Aside from Trump, there is also the Supreme Court issue, which Republicans have helpfully agreed to maintain as an issue for the entire year.
There are Bernie supporters saying they will not vote if Clinton wins the primary. It’s childish attitude amounting to cutting off their nose to spite their face.
Except it won’t just be them that suffer.
I think this is much less likely to stand up to the final decision than for anti-Trump Republicans.
I, on the contrary, have much respect to people who don’t want strings of presidents with the same family name. Jeb Bush is out, I think it is high time for Ms. Clinton to follow him.
I sympathize at least a bit with your position. Too bad for her that her husband, Bill Rodham, was elected president first.
So whoever does not do what you would do is “childish”?
Disillusion is a sign of adulthood, not childhood. Believing in fairy tales, such as “your vote matters” is very child-like.
I would agree with you that it is childish to “give up” if you don’t get your way without considering alternatives. But that’s not what you are saying here (though perhaps it’s what you meant?). Giving up after considerable reflection and taking a realistic view is not at all childish. So how do you know in every case it is the former and not the later that motivates people to make such statements?
Yes. Yes it is childish. And selfish. They will take their ball and go home and mope like children not caring who else gets hurt or the consequences of their actions or lack thereof, refusing to acknowledge their responsibilities to larger society.
Such as resisting an extremist political party that continues to gather power and manipulate the US voting system.
If someone thinks both parties are the same, then it’s likely they are not considering the problems at a level much greater than a child.
Or perhaps they are just rationalizing their actions. Not so much childish as just poor reasoning, or lack of introspection. If a person fails to vote in a federal election I question their ability to make rational decisions.
In my opinion, if someone believes Republicans and Democrats are the same, if they think Republicans taking more power is of no consequence, then they are of childish thought, and quite frankly, I wonder what that person is doing reading this website.
Are they skipping over half the articles?
Like the ones about religion in government? The danger of theocracies? The difference between faith vs fact, how Republicans deal or more properly, fail to deal with science in government? Republicans making teaching creationism legal. Putting prayer in schools. Being against critical thinking in education.
Republicans are worse than Democrats. In the last election large numbers of liberal leaning people failed to show up. That has resulted in serious negative consequences for people all over the USA. Many women are not able to get constitutionally protected abortions. States are blocking action by the EPA, allowing companies to pollute drinking water. Besides being the worst do nothing congress in the history of the USA.
Unless you count 60 useless attempts to vote down the ACA, or shut down the government twice, or their attempt to force the US into default. I could go on and on and on.
I could add my list of crazy insane things elected Republicans say and do, (putting creationists on the Science Committee, accuse Obama of trying to take over Texas with the armed forces) but it’s close to 3000 words and growing almost weekly.
Yes, Democrats have idiots and politicians I don’t care for, and have made bad policy and the two parties have some similarities, but Democrats don’t go out of their way to elect crazy people. Democrats is still a big tent party with varying opinions and most importantly, a base and leaders that are not driving the party to extremities. Unlike Republicans. I don’t know how any rational person can support Republicans, or allow them into office by not voting.
I’ll just finish with this:
“Today’s Republican Party has little in common even with Ronald Reagan’s GOP, or with earlier versions that believed in government. Instead it has become “an insurgent outlier — ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition . . . all but declaring war on the government.”
“It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism” by Thomas E. Mann & Norman J. Ornstein
Well said!
BTW
A year in advance they are saying they aren’t going to vote and they are making that decision without knowing all the facts.
That sounds childish to me.
It sounds like bravado to me. I simply won’t believe that Sanders supporters will actually refuse to vote – no matter what they individually say – until I’m shown exit polls indicating a slump in normally-democratic voter turnout.
In terms of what to do when you don’t like either candidate, my views on the matter have changed over the past 10-20 years. I used to be firmly in the “vote your preference, period, even if its third party, because that’s the only way things change” camp. Now I’m not; now I’m in the “if you think they’re both bad, choose the least bad” camp. The reason I’ve changed is because the tea party has shown that there are other, much more viable ways to change the political system. If you’re unhappy with Clinton because she’s not liberal enough, the way to effect change is to put up more left-leaning challengers in the Congressional Democratic primaries. Unseat status quo Democrats there. Get a block of 20-40 left-leaning Congressional Dems in office, and you will have a big impact on legislation, on budget priorities, on state and national party platform, and yes on Presidential choice. Just look at the way the Tea Party has lead the GOP by the nose these last eight years, and I don’t think they ever hit more than 40 Congresscritters in their Caucus. It’s a long-term building strategy that doesn’t yield instant big results, sure, but its much more achievable. As an incremental strategy it doesn’t bet your whole political outcome on a single roll of the dice. Challenge in enough races and the incumbents will have to win using their own homegrown support rather than DNC money, because National won’t be able to throw huge gobs of money at every race you challenge. And it allows you to accomplish a leftward push in politics without threatening allies with a Cruz or Trump Presidency. It takes forethought, forward planning, and it may not be as satisfying as getting “your guy” in the White House. But frankly your chances of that were extremely low to begin with, so you’re giving up basically a nice daydream for (albeit smaller, less spectacular) concrete results. Which is a good trade.
Can Trump get the nomination? I didn’t think he would last this long, but somehow he’s managed to find his constituency. On the upside, he’s still not pulling straight majorities in any of the primaries, which means that there are more people, even in the Republican primaries, that don’t like him than do. Also, Cruz has 2/3 of the delegates that Trump has, and Rubio, Carson, and Kasich together have more than he does.
Could he win the general election? Damfino. It depends who he’s up against; I am not sure Hillary could deal with someone like him. I think the odds are against him, though. He has yet to show that he can be presidential in demeanor, and every day increases the chance that he will make that major gaffe that causes him to unravel.
There is still a chance that the republican convention will become a brokered convention. I don’t think Trump is the defacto nominee just yet. But that can change over the next several weeks.
I agree, I think a Clinton nomination gives Trump the popular vote. Usually I register as republican in the primaries so I can pick the less lunatic of the bunch and trust the rest of the dems to pick the best candidate. That plan isn’t going to work this time around.
My last hope is that the electoral college members will stand up and say no, absolutely not, we will not elect Trump.
Dammit, that was meant as a reply to Mike @1.
Nope, the electors in each state are generally picked by the candidate who wins the state and then approved by the executives of the State branch of the party they’re in. So, unless the GOP changes procedures it would be Trump who names the GOP electors in each state (in the case where he wins the primary), and so no, we can assume they will not defect.
If State GOP leadership refuses to let him name the electors…I don’t know when the selection process happens, but if it happens early enough, Trump would be right to see it as a fix and a betrayal and I would bet that might push him to run as an independent.
“Maybe I should just stay in Canada.”
You’re all very welcome but just so you know – American immigrant voting privileges will be strictly limited eh. 😉
It seems you better get ready and prepare yourself on the Canadian side, according to this article in The Telegraph anyway 😉
How to move to Canada searches up 1000% in the US after Trump Super Tuesday win
To be honest, I have been concerned since mid 2015 when people started saying they hoped Trump gets the nomination because he will ensure a Dem victory. (I won’t mention any names!) I have also asked for reassurance a few times on various forums (including here) that my fears are unfounded, and always received clearly worded and credible sounding reassurances that there is no way he can win.
I hate to say it, but….
HC will run a carefully scripted campaign, with the traditional rhetoric (I will make America… whole…. again *pause smugly for applause*). I don’t know how that will stack up against Trump’s rabid bluster. It all hinges on whether the sensible people can motivate themselves to turn out in greater numbers than Trump can motivate the crazies.
On a less apocalyptic note,Bill Maher called it in June last year. (Note: He was being sarcastic)
“I would love to see a Trump-Christie ticket. An all-East-Coast, all-“F*ck-you” ticket.”
(Link goes to You Tube)
I share your doubts.
Everyone talks about how many republicans (neocons and sundry) would rather vote for Hillary than Trump, but few seem to contemplate a reverse situation, where democrats (or normally democratically leaning groups) would rather vote for Trump, than Hillary.
I feel that much of that reasoning is based on assumptions that Trump would continue to run a presidential race exactly the same way he does now, and, some of it on old (previous) sound assumptions, that might not hold in a changing environment within the US itself.
And, don’t forget changing external factors. For example, the economical and financial outlook for 2016 is worrisome (to say the least), and, it might very well be that come autumn, the world and the US might once again be thrown into a recession and financial turmoil that rivals 2007/8.
And what impact that could have on such a race may (to my mind) not be easy to foretell…
Indeed. Hillary has spent her life preparing for battle against a rigidly ideological opponent who themselves are bound to a fairly tight script. Her playbook is probably deep, but largely useless against an ad hoc and mercurial candidate like Trump.
The biggest problem for Hillary will be misunderstanding the nature of Trumps’ appeal. Trumps whole brand here is being the anti-PC middle finger to everyone who looks down on his supporters. Any attack on Trump that can be framed, even falsely, as political correctness will only make him stronger. He draws power from touching the old third rails of politics. Hillary’s instinct to see him near one of these rails and to push him right on into it will backfire badly. Of all the candidates the Dems could put up, she will have the hardest time not coming across as smug or condescending.
The Trump style is playing to the most activist end of the GOP (and not by the much, overall, we’re talking ~40% of GOP activists).
How will that play to the general voter? To the “values” GOP voter? How will his insults and denigration and mockery play to Hispanics, blacks, immigrants? How will his blatant misogyny play to 50% of the electorate?
After March 15 (the next big block of primaries), let’s see how the GOP line up. Many are already publicly declaring refusal to support the Trumpster.
I agree that a HC over DT victory is nothing liek a foregone conclusion and 2000 and 2004 show how dopey the American electorate can be at times. But I don’t see us electing a fuck-you yahoo like Trump.
Can we haz a 3rd Obama term? 🙁
Trump probably has burned too many bridges for the general election.
I think it’s a mistake to imagine Trump’s base as subset of the GOP proper, though. The Movement Conservatives are not his base. This is why all attacks on him not being conservative enough fall flat… his supporters don’t care. Trump is not a conservative. He’s non-ideological demagogue who has every chance of crossing party lines. Will the working class whites who voted Democratic in the past few elections hear his siren call? I don’t know. Probably not enough to lose it for Hillary, but if I were Hillary I’d be frantically searching for some bones I could throw to those voters just in case.
Since you bring up Christie —
I must say that I am rather disappointed in him right now for endorsing Trump. He was supposed to be one of the more principled republicans, not as deeply flawed as the rest of them. But now he is just a tool. Lately people are making fun of him for it, and he deserves it.
Principled? Shirley, you jest!
Perhaps he was never principled but merely opportunistic. His voters were not as rigidly ideological as the GOP, so he wasn’t. People mistook that for principles. Now the opportunity comes from hitching himself to the demagogue and he goes for it.
The mocking is very funny:
Chris Christie Introduces Donald Trump, in What Appears to Be a Hostage Situation
More here
OK, try that again:
More mocking here
My guess is that Drumpf has proof of something very damaging/embarrassing in Christie’s past. He certainly doesn’t look happy to be on the leash.
What demeanor should he have presented to the media and public? Should he have rather done double backward somersaults? Maybe he was enjoying the opportunity to be still and rest his voice. I certainly would have been glad for his having done so.
You don’t think Christie’s angling for the VP nod?
Wouldn’t THAT be a ticket!
I can’t help thinking that Drumpf is the logical conclusion of neo-capitalism; a narcissist and fantasist, born in to privilege and fashioned with a sense of exceptionalism that comes from a cushion of yes-men that surround him.
He has stood on the shoulders of giants. It is MUCH easier to make a few million when you start ahead of the game (and in a rising economy). He is NOT self made.
He has not worked harder than a front line medic, policeman, firefighter or soldier; never has. He is NOT an innovator. He has little to offer but macabre entertainment for the media, and wealth of his lackeys.
He is lucky to be born in to a society that has such strong social fabric (albeit eroding). He should value the social fabric of the US and seek to contribute to it. THAT will make America great again.
For all his hot air, it is damning that no one simply responds to his verbage with a question of ‘how’ he will fulfill his pledges. There is no detail in what he says, and a collective failure to target him on this.
(Putin & Kim Jong Un must laughing at the USA right now! The rest of us are simply aghast.)
I forgot about #makedonalddrumpfagain by John Oliver on last week tonight
In fact, he would be richer now if he had put all his inheritance in an index fund and spent the intervening years painting or something.
No doubt true, but also quite funny. 😀
“it is damning that no one simply responds to his verbage with a question of ‘how’ he will fulfill his pledges”
But they do! He just harumpfs at them or says crap like “We’re going to BE GREAT!” “We’re going to WIN AGAIN!” “It will make your head spin!” Or he just hurls an insult at them.
The amazing thing about the GOP is that such nonsense SELLS to them. Nice to have my low (very very low) expectations of the GOP activists confirmed. Just as looney as I thought.
I have gone back and forth about whether Drumpf is a kind of narcissist. He fits the spectrum in at least some ways. Continuously self-centered, thin-skinned, people near him become miserable, and he makes up shit on the fly.
Why back and forth? Where’s the doubt coming from?
Indeed. He’s one of a handful of (public figures who are) absolutely textbook cases.
To me, he misses some of the markers. He does not seem overly envious of others who are more successful than him. I have not seen that he ‘uses’ others. I am just being cautious.
Beat me to it!
” . . . a sense of exceptionalism . . . .”
Yes, he lives in the Land of Amuricun Exceptionalism.
I see no reason for Putin or Kim to laugh at the USA, nor do I think that Americans should give a damn.
Trump’s rise is the culmination of 40 years of economic stagnation for the white working and middle classes. Realizing that they have been duped by the Republican “establishment” and believing that the Democrats only care about minorities, these people have now turned to the demagogue, the man on the white horse who promises that through his force of will he will make everything all right and return the country to some mythical golden age. Thus, they are duped again and have yet to realize it. If Trump should win the general election, American democracy as it has traditionally operated will be altered in ways we can only now speculate. This alteration will certainly not be good. If Cruz should somehow win the country will hardly be better off. In fact, Robert Reich prefers Trump to Cruz.
I think that Bernie’s valiant run is just about over. If I’m right then the only choice is Hillary. True, she is extremely flawed, but the alternative is appalling, not just for the United States, but the world.
Law professor Paul Campos has presented a short, but incisive analysis as to why economic stagnation for just about everybody but the very rich has resulted in Trump’s appeal.
http://www.salon.com/2016/03/02/listen_to_the_donald_trump_voters_it_has_taken_an_ignorant_demagogue_to_tell_truth_about_gop_humiliate_party_establishment/
I think you’ve accurately described the situation.
The Republican party is largely responsible for nurturing the xenophobia, racism, and theocratic numbskulls in their ranks. But the Democrats colluded with Republicans since 1980 in creating the economic conditions that has destroyed the middle class. To that extent they share responsibility for Trump’s success.
There’s a reason I call them the “plutocratic party” and the “theocratic plutocratic party” respectively.
The GOP have convinced the white working and middle classes to vote against their own economic interests since Raygun — by using the 4-Gs: God, Guns, Gays, and Blacks.
And it’s still working.
The nuts voting for Trump all think: “Hey, that would be me up there, if the damned (godless) gummint just didn’t tax me or stop me from dumping my used oil in the back yard!”
I, on the contrary, think that the Democratic infatuation with political correctness made the white working and middle classes turn to the crazy-looking guy voicing their hidden thoughts, a phenomenon often seen in emerging and troubled democracies.
Yes, there is a great deal of truth in that observation.
As I’ve said before here, The Trumpster harkens back to the “good old days” when white, middle-aged men were in charge of everything; and women and “colored people” stayed in “their places”.
This also accounts for the GOPs insane level of hatred for Obama. How dare a black guy be President!
They are still in shock and denial that you can no longer win a national election by only appealing to white men (and their obedient dependents).
I agree with you and Campos, but I think there’s another factor too. For years now the GOP establishment has been promising things in elections that they either can’t, or have no intention of, carrying out once they’re elected. One example is reducing the size of government. This failure has got their electorate increasingly frustrated. It’s led them to believe that only a non-politician can deliver what they (think they) want, and along comes Trump pressing every button. Imo the GOP has brought this situation on themselves.
I keep saying Trump can’t get elected in the general election, and there are plenty of figures to back that assessment up. However, relying on voters to make the best choice in the US has never been a good bet – the system itself is too damaged.
Whatever you do, don’t expect the GOP to reduce government (the Defense Dept. is part of it!) or the deficit:
http://www.berettaconsulting.com/barbarossa/M/stuff/inc/deficit.jpg
Federal deficit and top marginal income tax rates. Reddish shading is GOP presidential administrations.
Interesting.
“Smaller government” as far as I can tell is just marketing.
Agreed.
Those are the two prongs. Erosion of wage earner prospects plus 40 years of the GOP nurturing racial resentment and xenophobia to get votes they couldn’t have gotten on their ideas alone (face it, tax cuts for the wealthy is not the foundation for a winning coalition). They made a deal with the Devil. The Devil has come to collect.
They also enacted a plan to make US citizens hate and mistrust the government (specifically but not limited to congress) by making it dysfunctional and not work. They accomplished the hate, mistrust and making government not work, and continue to perfect government dysfunction.
You’ve got to hand it to them, they are very good at making government dysfunctional.
I agree with Reich. Cruz scares me a hell of a lot more than Trump. Cruz accepts the apocalypse and believes we are in the “end times”; I suspect he secretly wants the world to end, like so many unhinged evangelicals. In his own words, he puts g*d ahead of everything…family, party, country. This to me is a lot more disturbing than the bombastic and empty-headed Trump. Plus Cruz has a better chance of winning HC (assuming she’s the nominee). Bernie would beat any Republican…I wish more Dems understood that.
@Mark R: I agree. The Ayatollah of Austin is a lot more scary than the Donald.
Thirded!
No one thought Trump had a chance in hell of getting the nomination. Now it’s all but certain. Hopefully we are not also wrong about his chances in the general election. I worry that with his momentum will come the “aw fuck it” vote. The “lets see what happens if we push this button” vote. The “its so crazy it might just work” vote.
Young men doing it as a joke between their friends. Take a selfie with your ballot for Trump and post it on FB. You know. For laughs.
I am genuinely worried. And I’m Canadian. Not even my country.
We would be a much more liberal country if we could just disenfranchise men.
😀
You’ll never take my Starbucks franchise!! Wait, is that what you meant? 😉
Uh, yes. Yes of course. 😀
My dream scenario is that Trump goes to the convention with almost but not quite enough delegates, the party establishment denies him the nomination, and then all hell breaks loose.
I read speculation that if it comes to that, Paul Ryan may be the establishment choice.
Hey, maybe Mitt will be his VP.
There would be blood in the aisles at the convention.
I think it would be better if Trump humbled the party establishment. I think they hate him and Trump is an embarrassment to them. I also hope he continues to mock religion as being the derisive counterfeit of a Christian that he claims to be. It makes me laugh.
Trump is all their innuendo come to life. They deserve him. They deserve whatever damage he does to the party. I just hope the damage doesn’t spread too far outside the party.
I do hope that the net result, when the dust settles, will be a chastened and better GOP, a GOP that realizes that you can’t shake the Devil’s hand and say you’re only joking. Progressives need a functioning conservative opposition to keep them honest. The GOP isn’t functioning, and hasn’t been for some time, to the detriment of everyone.
Indeed, this could be fun! Conventions have been much too dull lately. 😀
I understand electors are only obligated to vote for their state’s frontrunner on the first ballot–after that all bets are off.
I still think Bernie isn’t out. Hilary won States that go Republican in the general election. If you look at the voter turnout in Alsbama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tenesse, Texas, etc., Republicans outnumbered Democrats by 2:1. Bernie did fine in MA – 45 vs 43 delegates.
Plus, you’re more likely to get Warren on the ticket with Bernie.
It’s true that Clinton’s winning states that go Republican in the general, but I don’t think the DNC can or will take that into account. If Clinton gets more delegates, she’s gonna be the nominee.
But I agree that Sanders isn’t out yet. Winning four states on Super Tuesday and nearly tying in Massachusetts is respectable. He’s still behind, but he started out behind by 60 points and he’s been continually closing the gap. The question is whether he can close it fast enough. The next big voting date is only two weeks away, I think. We’ll see.
Yes, 15-March.
“Trump represents all that is bad about American politics: jingoism, intolerance, dissimulation, and a total lack of empathy for anyone but himself.”
In other words exactly what I’ve always believed about the majority of the members of the republican party. The problem many republicans have with him is that he so obvious in his representation of all those things that it’s almost impossible for him to win the general election.
This may be unpopular, but Trump is far preferable to Cruz or Rubio in my opinion. Cruz is a dangerous ideologue, who fortunately is a peak appeal in the primaries. Rubio is a virulent opponent of reproductive choice and the notion he is a ‘sane’ Republican upsets me.
Being xenophobic, which is Trump’s major failing, is far, far less serious in the context of democracy (i.e. a nation is supposed to preferentially serve its citizenry, even at the expense of foreign nationals) than denying female citizens our reproductive choice, which is the sine qua non of our freedom to pursue self-actualization in the same way as men.
Trump’s xenophobia is further aided by aspects of Regressive Left thought which have become mainstream in media and Democratic discourse. I note the following as a socialist-leaning voter:
1. Immigration
Trump has been aided by the almost uncritical approach to immigration in the media which developed since the late 90’s into a quasi-religious moral good that cannot be subject to rational cost-benefit analysis. This dovetails with cultural relativism such that judging immigrants in any way is “anti-immigrant” to use the new smear I see seeping into journalism.
We still live in a Westphalian system of nation states and are manifestly not ready as ISIS and dozens of other conflicts show to love as one big happy world.
One reason immigration is so unchallenged, besides the endless appeals to “humanity” that make no attempt to judge a society’s carrying capacity environmentally or socially, is the also unquestioned belief in free trade, which has an unspoken corollary of free movement of labor.
We suffer from lack of full workforce participation among citizens and lack of stable living wage jobs for citizens low-skill citizens that pay living wages. There is disturbingly little interest on either front from supposed liberals, and Hillary is Wall Street’s candidate through and through.
2. Islam
Ali Rizvi, my favorite ex-Muslim commentator, offered the penetrating analysis that the essential element of Trump’s demagoguery gaining real leverage via-à-vis Muslims is the establishment providing the appearance that Muslims are a protected class.
This is manifest from every pearl-clutching “backlash” article that follows inevitably in the wake of Islamic terror in this country to Obama’s morally tone-deaf visit to a gender-segregated mosque to Hillary Clinton’s petulant refusal to call a cat a cat (to use PCC(E)’s delightful phrase) by simply saying “Islamic extremism.”
Despite being 1% of the populace Islamic terror and honor murders have claimed lives since 9/11 at a ratio of roughly 12:1, not to mention horrors of FGM which impact hundreds of thousands of predominantly Muslim women in this country. Yet the mainstream media (CNN, nYT, WaPo, LA Times) is almost non-stop with an Islamophobic victimhood narrative. This gives Trump the opening he needs to demonize all Muslims as somehow a pet class of the establishment by feeding off just enough legitimate grievance.
(Sorry this was long.)
Don’t apologise for the length – an analysis that good is worth it!
Well, thank you. I will apologize for all the typos.
Trump has a lot of problems, but I think you make a good point that in some sense Trump may be the less-bad candidate. He was a Democrat for a long time, supported liberal causes, and even in the current Republican climate he was willing to speak in favor of Planned Parenthood at the debates. He’s a wild card and would almost certainly pursue a mix of left- and right-wing policies, unlike Cruz or Rubio who would be almost entirely right-wing.
Aside from the embarrassment the US would suffer for electing him, I agree. In the end, he is more toward the middle than Cruz or Rubio (pardon me while I vomit into my waste basket).
He seems pretty favorable towards universal health care. He’s definitely not as ideologically conservative as Rubio or Cruz (gorge rising again …) which is why the establishment GOP hates him. He’ll give the Heritage Foundation, etc., the finger too!
“almost uncritical approach to immigration in the media”
I’ve tried to Google in the past for data about whether immigration was a net good for the country. I am concerned that wages in some industries have been flat for a long time because of competition from workers who can work very cheaply. I know that my rates in IT aren’t much better than what I could find in 2000.
But, since the topic is so politically loaded, it’s hard to find objective analysis.
It really comes down to basic reasoning. Is the supply of laborers going to impact the bargaining position of labor, especially with the weakening of organized labor since the Reagan era.
Economics has largely become a monoculture, like its sibling sociology. It is a one-two punch of neoliberalism and identitarianism.
I think tenured socialists and Marxists just want to watch America burn out of sour grapes and thus provide minimal pushback, with honorable exceptions like Adolph Reed. There are also rogue economists, who recognize our perilous environmental situation, who provide some critical feedback like Brian Czech.
Agree. $1.50/hour labor has consequences. It’s foolish to pretend otherwise. I think everyone has hoped that we would just be able to value-add our labor until it was worth the $15/hour we’d like to pay… through education or some such. But the fact is, lots of people are never going to become engineers, etc. Not from a lack of tuition, but from a lack of that kind of ability. Between cheap labor overseas and automation at home, the economic value of labor has to be falling. What could stop it?
My brother is a perfect example. Our father worked for 25+ years in an electronics factory. He changed jobs many times within the company. They had good benefits. He was always comfortable. That facility still exists, but houses only engineers and managers now. 100% of their manufacturing is now in China. My brother works at a plant processing chicken into nuggets. I presume because the need for refrigeration makes it uneconomical to ship the chickens to China to be processed. His job pays worse, has worse hours, has worse benefits, and in practice is much less stable (they seem to suffer from a lot of cycles) than our father’s electronics job. As a result, compared to our father’s life, my brother’s life feels always on the edge of a crisis.
That is a perfect example of my concerns. The health of our society rests on how we provide opportunity to the bottom third of the socioeconomic scale.
Well, since Native Americans (American “Indians”) are less than 2% of the population, I think the question answers itself.
What I don’t understand is why anyone would think that (limited, controlled) immigration would be a bad thing. (Having no filter at all isn’t good.)
I admit I am not deep in the US election campaign, but from what I see, no one other than Trump promises limited, controlled immigration.
Drumpf is promising no immigration. (“Stop all Muslims” “I’m going to build a wall, and Mexico is going to pay for it!”) Of course this is all just crap; but it’s scary in what it says about a significant slice of the US electorate.
But it goes right along with this segment’s desire to go back to “the good old days” when white men we in charge. (See: All the English only rules that lower levels of government (cities, counties) are trying to put in place in GOP-controlled areas, voter suppression rules, etc.)
Rubio and Cruz seem to be OK with limited and controlled. Certainly Clinton and Sanders are.
“Drumpf is promising no immigration. (“Stop all Muslims” “I’m going to build a wall, and Mexico is going to pay for it!”)”
So Trump’s idea of immigration control is to stop Muslim immigration until a way is found to reveal potential terrorists (which is likely to mean “indefinitely”) and to stop illegal immigration from Mexico by land.
It seems that both proposals find support among many US citizens by birth; and I know legal immigrants who feel the concessions to illegal immigrants as a slap in the face.
To me, if a border is systematically and illegally cross, some physical barrier is badly needed. Of course, it is the interested party, i.e. the USA, that has to build the barrier.
Or is it? I just googled “US economic aid to Mexico” and found in Wikipedia that Mexico is among the “Top 25 Recipient Countries of U.S. Foreign Aid FY 2013”. So it turns out that Mexican politicians feel entitled to suck US money while “solving” the problems of poverty, mismanagement, corruption etc. by sending their poor compatriots across Rio Grande. I think that, after Mexico receives US aid, there is nothing wrong to ask her to use a part of this aid to build a border fence. If there is any objection, it is practical (the fence will not be good or will not be built at all), rather than ethical and legal.
“Rubio and Cruz seem to be OK with limited and controlled. Certainly Clinton and Sanders are.”
I don’t think so. They are not attacked by liberals, so I can only conclude that they intend to keep the status quo, which is definitely not “limited and controlled”.
” Mexico is among the “Top 25 Recipient Countries of U.S. Foreign Aid ”
And in return, they’re one of the top victims of our egregious drug policy, from which stems much of their internal strife and violence. Seems like a wash to me.
The USA may have wronged Mexico, but I don’t think this makes it OK to pour there money unconditionally.
To me, Vicente Fox’s statement about “not going to pay for that … wall” carries a breathtaking arrogance of at least 25 trumps. And I didn’t see any reaction to it by US commentators.
Emigration/immigration is a beginning of a new life. I think it’s not good if this happens by violating the laws. If Americans think that the legal quota for Mexican immigrants is too low, I think they should increase it, rather than allowing illegal immigration.
maya, last I read more Mexicans were leaving the US than entering it currently. The influx now is Central and northern South Americans and Cubans, all of whom we’ve destabilized over the years with our self-interested policies.
I read the same about Mexicans. I think this is excellent. It shows the beginning of the end of the toxic culture equating success with emigration to a more prosperous land. I am looking forward for the same to happen in my country (some emigrants are indeed returning).
Let me repeat my opinion: the USA may have wronged some other countries, but this doesn’t mean that it is the right thing to give hasty “compensations” to these nations, be it aid or immigrant visas or, worst of all, taking illegal immigrants. Actually, a person thinking that the USA has wronged him and owes him things such as accepting him, is likely to become a bad immigrant.
The USA has made mistakes in Cuba, but the cause of Cuban misery is communism, hardly a US creation. Anyway, Cubans are outside the “wall”discussion. They reach the USA by sea and, as far as I know, are usually given asylum.
With the other countries, I think their poor state is due more to faults of their culture than to US meddling. Of course the USA will have self-interested policies there; EU didn’t have such in Syria and see what is happening now!
I suppose some people from these countries have legitimate claims as refugees while others can be accepted as legal immigrants, but many, particularly those who are bigoted against the “gringos”, have no place among these gringos.
(!@#$#@! Just managed to lose a fairly lengthy reply to you. Apologies for duplication if it somehow appears out of the ether.)
Maya, most of our Cuban immigrants are arriving overland now, from places like Ecuador and Costa Rica, from which they wish to ultimately reach the States via Mexico.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/09/
Most of our Mexican immigrants are here simply due to terrible conditions in Mexico. They don’t want to leave their country and families, nor do they think we “owe” them anything; they just want work.
To the extent it appears that we allow illegal immigrants (tell that to those who die trying to get here!), it’s because they play an important part in our economy. Those who rail the loudest against them could easily solve the problem by passing legislation requiring companies to require proof of citizenship before hiring, but they’re too happy with the cheap labor to really practice what they preach.
And I am unaware of many Latin American immigrants who are “bigoted against gringos.” They might disagree with our governmental policies but most are quite friendly and accepting. We have wonderful people both to the north and the south of us.
I paid a Mexican day laborer $435 last year to build my kids’ swingset. Not only did he do a terrific job, he cleaned up and left the yard in far more pristine condition that you’d get from the local handyman who would leave mess and charge double the price.
These people aren’t here to fleece us, they’re here to succeed, much like the waves of European immigrants in the 1800s and early 1900s. The issue I see in America (from our own citizens) is a sense of entitlement that they deserve success, but foreigners don’t. Well fuck that, isn’t that what rugged individualism is all about? There quite simply are no bigger hypocrites that the modern day conservatives in the United States.
I just used a (legal) Mexican immigrant contractor to remodel a house on my ranch. Aside from the plumber and the electrician, his crew was all (legal) Mexican immigrants. He was prompt, reliable, personable, and very reasonable in price. I hired him because of his excellent local reputation. I’ll use him for outside painting and new roofs when the weather clears.
Ah, had I seen this post first I’d have included you in the thanks for examples, Stephen. Given the post order here, it looks like I ignored you on purpose, when in fact I didn’t see yours until after posting mine.
I have no idea if the guy I hired was legal, but he also had a good reputation. Like Maya points out, I think it is wrong to use these people to do slave labor and that is a big unspoken point in the immigration debate. A lot of these workers are doing jobs no one here wants to do and being paid horribly for it. That is what makes me fall on the side of preventing illegal immigration and cracking down on it, but let’s stop laying down the gauntlet for them to get in for fuck’s sake. Provide a reasonable path that makes immigrating legally easier than immigrating illegally and we’ll have motivated people like the guy I hired doing labor at fair wages, as opposed to illegal aliens under threat of deportation picking fruit for a few bucks a day.
@ chrisbuckley
Thanks for the concrete example! And well said about the rightist hypocrisy!!
I hate when immigration, particularly illegal immigration, is used to supply cheap labor. To me, this is brutal exploitation of the new immigrants, and also of the natives and the established immigrants whose wages are driven down by non-market competition. I find this a heavy responsibility of the accepting country (in this case, the USA).
However, the villain here is not Trump, let alone his supporters. The villains are the wannabe slaveholders (sorry for the strong language). They will hire the newcomers for pennies, while the cost of this immigration (e.g. education of the children, emergency medical care) will be spread among regular taxpayers.
And you are right that these people have blood on their hands (like those who invited the Syrians to cross the Aegean on their own).
So what seems needed is to replace the illegal immigration from Latin America with legal.
Maya, we are very much in agreement here!
As are you and Cris and I on the entitlement issue, both here and in Europe.
Happily the Hispanic immigration has been going on for a long time and the vast majority seem to be following the traditional American assimilation path. Now if we can just out-vote the bigots, perhaps it will stay that way and we will not reach the European version of entitlement you describe.
“The issue I see in America (from our own citizens) is a sense of entitlement that they deserve success, but foreigners don’t… There quite simply are no bigger hypocrites that the modern day conservatives in the United States.”
I cannot agree more. However, I think that it is more of a European disease. We Europeans tend to think that the Universe owes us some lower caste of people looking slightly different from us who are to do for no money the work that we do not want to do. Americans, because of their immigration history and the American Dream idea, are far more likely to accept that, once an immigrant has naturalized, he has the same rights as them in every respect.
Also, I don’t find anything wrong with enforcing English as the official language in the USA.
Interesting points.
Trump is in many respects preferable to Cruz, in that he appears capable of judging a situation on its merits (and deciding how to best exploit it for personal gain), whereas Cruz is a religious fanatic would do it all for Jeezuss. (Trump saying he wouldn’t trash the Iran deal, like all the others want to, is sign of realistic thinking.)
On the other hand, I can’t imagine Cruz galvanizing the criminally insane in the way Trump has already demonstrated he can. I shudder to think what kinds of acts his mere presence in the White House would inspire.
Plus his father was a KKK member and Mussolini fan, and he has done nothing to distance himself from such tendencies.
Trump has made the GOP face truths about their own party that are the stuff of my dreams. And yet… such a demagogue…
Encourages his fans to rough up demonstrators on the one hand, but committed to not letting people die in the streets from lack of healthcare on the other.
That’s a real mind scramble.
Hear, hear! Rubio is – please excuse my language – batshit insane as far as women’s health is concerned. I read he wants to ban abortion, full stop. No exceptions, not even in the case of rape or incest.
Or even if the woman’s life is at stake. Good old Catholic boy!
When he isn’t attending a conservative Southern Baptist church.
From the Wikiness:
As many commentators have noted, Trump is preferable to Cruz or Rubio. I think is because we know what the latter two will attempt and it is very bad. With Trump, we have no idea what he’ll do except to try to build a wall. However, chaos is a likely outcome as it seems unlikely that he will be able to work effectively with the mainstream, i.e., far right, Republicans in Congress. So, the bottom line is Trump may be better, but things will still be very bad if he takes office.
Some people have listed all the negatives about Clinton and they are largely true. My response, in terms of whom I will vote for, is I don’t care! Those who will not vote for her because they don’t like her, i.e., she is not pure enough for them are fools and I hold them in utter contempt. I say this as a Bernie supporter. Such an attitude got us George W. Bush in 2000. The future of the Supreme Court is reason enough to vote for her regardless of what else she may do.
“Those who will not vote for her [i.e. Clinton] because they don’t like her, i.e., she is not pure enough for them are fools and I hold them in utter contempt… Such an attitude got us George W. Bush in 2000. ”
I strongly disagree. To me, the election of Bush Jr. and the prospective election of H. Clinton are different sides of the same phenomenon, namely, members of political clans convinced that it is appropriate for them to take turns as US presidents, and voters ready to support such clans. I utterly dislike this. Other things aside, it sets an awful example for the Third World.
Is Hilary Rodham a blood relation to Bill Clinton?
As far as I know, not. Her situation makes me remember Isabel Peron.
Historian, I couldn’t agree more!
The uncomfortable truth is that most political movements have a fair bit of truth in them. It’s not all The Truth Party vs The Lie Party. A lot of the differences depend on which true thing you care about most.
I agree with much of what you write. However, I find it next to impossible to figure out what Trump really thinks and what policy he will pursue if elected. It seems to me that he does not feel bound by his word, does not possess principles of any sort, and is mentally unstable or at least pretends to be. To me, his promise to control illegal and Muslim immigration is likely to be nothing more than talk.
Trump’s rant on immigration will not hurt him. It’s retail politics. I suspect the news from Europe will only benefit Trump.
As for the U.S. immigration problem, I think everyone on all sides is either lying or disingenuous. My kids work in the construction industry, and from their point of view, immigration is about a steady supply of cheap labor and little need for employee benefits. It has nothing to do with the welfare of the immigrants.
I think that the immigration policy should be determined by the best interest of citizens.
I agree with you too. Especially after I’ve seen some of his unedited speeches. Turns out the media sometimes goes to some effort to take outrageous statements out of context. We have to always remember that the media are not neutral and are playing hardball against both Trump and Sanders. It is disturbingly obvious this year.
I agree. My instinctive reaction to PCC’s post was, ‘would he be any worse than Cruz or Rubio?’
Additionally, he is reported to be against the TPPA as it ‘gives far too much power to big corporations’. With which most New Zealanders fervently agree.
Not sure if we can rely on him to stick by what he says if elected, but even a loose cannon is pointing the right way sometimes.
He may be nuts, but he does seem to be free of some of the more nauseating policies that the ultra-right has instilled into Cruz and Rubio.
cr
Well, Victoria, your post was the opposite of “unpopular.” Add me to those completely in agreement with you.
You and others here who’ve been talking about immigration may be interested in this article…in addition to the economic side, it brings up questions about the cultural effects as well, a sort of 3rd rail for liberals, but one that really should be considered:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/anthony-browne/folly-of-mass-immigration
Insightful article in Vox about Trump and authoritarianism:
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11127424/trump-authoritarianism
I’m sorry but Vox has no credibility. Their open borders ideology that Klein, Yglesias, and Matthews push is precisely the sort of mindset that fuels Trump’s candidacy. Trump is a populist, not a fascist, authoritarian, etc. It shows that ‘liberal’ jounalists liek that don’t really understand his appeal, because doing so would require self-criticism of their economic views.
Sounds pretty closed-minded of you, refusing to look at evidence because it can’t possibly be true.
And it’s odd that you think a populist can’t be a fascist or authoritarian.
Rather than focus on Trump’s legitimate failings, the Regressive Left types at Vox use guilt by association. Populisms casts a wide net and scoops up all manner of constituencies.
Since it apparently must be said: Right-wing bigots are still citizens who deserve stable jobs, equal access to education, affordable healthcare, etc.
Again Trump scores points because the intelligentsia, mainly white and thus inclined to scorn lower-class whites, treats certain manifestations of bigotry as dehumanizing failures. This is contrasted, of course, with the willingness to deal with Islamic misogyny or anti-Asian bigotry among black Americans in a more understanding and nuanced manner.
There can’t be “evidence” of Donald Trump secretly being an authoritarian because he has never held public office as the article quickly admits.
One does not need to be an office-holder to be an authoritarian. The word refers to an attitude, not a position.
Indeed. The guilt-by-association reasoning of the leftist media is asinine. As is their insistence on equating populism with fascism. As is their Islamophobia narrative, which, as an ideological weapon, they’ve used in the form of carpet bombing rather than targeted strikes at actual bigots.
That NYT article PJC linked to is a perfect example. It claims Trump should be exposed “through detailed, dispassionate analysis and smart debate,” but instead describes him as “a man whose quest for the presidency revolves around targeting religious and racial minorities and people with disabilities, who flirts with white supremacists and the Ku Klux Klan…” and that mere “rage” is the reason he’s so popular.
Until the media actually tries to understand Trump’s appeal, rather than simply calling him and all his supporters racist, they will only feed his movement.
I think you are right about your critique of many on the left and how they degrade the people who make up Trumps support. This is why so many of those people hate liberals and have come to hate the GOP establishment too. There is a lot of denial among liberals that they could be contributing to Trump’s rise, even indirectly. I have only skimmed the Vox article, but it seems to fit that mold.
Still, the fact that the Vox analysis is self-serving, ideologically, does not mean that it has no truth in it. More than one thing can happen at the same time. Trump comes across as authoritarian to me. His message seems to be, “I’ll do what it takes to fix things”, and as evidence he flaunts a lot of normal constraints (e.g. vague threats against press, vague intimations of violence in his rallies, vague threats against, for example, Paul Ryan… these usually are not done). I don’t think authoritarianism is the cause of his rise, though, but a consequence of the powerlessness his supporters feel (rightly or wrongly). His rise comes more from a combination of legitimate working class grievances coupled with decades of GOP nursing for votes every resentment they have ever felt, along with a fair dollop of old fashioned racism and sexism. The GOP deserves more blame here for making that vote-getting deal with the Devil, but liberals are not blameless in dutifully playing their role in the GOP script of resentment.
It should be a time for soul searching on both sides of the isle, not just one.
And to that point…the most personally illuminating article I have read about Trump’s appeal is this one:
Donald Trump and The Politics of Resentment
I think he doesn’t give enough attention to the role the GOP has played in actively cultivating unhinged anger and resentment, and there are probably other factors that the article neglects as well, but a lot of things make sense though this lens that are hard to follow otherwise. Current events are especially hard to follow if you think in terms of the stale GOP/Dem ideological divide that has held for decades now.
Thanks for the link!
One can be a populist *and* a fascist or other authoritarian. (Example: Peron in Argentina on the right. There are left examples, too.)
Excellent article!
I’d noticed the correlation myself, but hadn’t realised just how strong, significant, and important it was.
This is a long article, but if you’re interested in politics, I highly recommend it.
Thanks Scott. This is an important article and should be widely read. The mere fact that authoritarianism is so ingrained in human populations helps explain why Trump has such wide appeal across a disparate array of voters. I’ve only read the first section of the article so far, but I hope they do some correlation of authoritarian personality traits and the groups of Trump voters. My perception is that an authoritarian (AU) evangelical, and AU democrat, an AU PhD, or an AU ‘what have you’, would be much more likely to be a Trump supporter than the non-authoritarians in their respective cohorts.
I agree with Victoria. When a large part of the population wants something, you cannot – especially in a democracy – answer with simple demonization and silencing.
A conservative friend of mine thinks that because Trump is a dealmaker, he can bring the country together.
Hmmm, well my friend has been wrong about pretty much everything he’s ever given his opinion to. Smart money will figure out what he thinks, then invest assuming the opposite is true.
The nomination for president is occurring right now in the dnc. The gop is dead. They are the laughing stock of America.
The movement conservative party has suffered a potentially mortal wound, yes. Trumps voters, and what animates them, may only be getting started.
Your friend’s statement has two components: that Trump can be elected and that he can be a good president if elected. I agree that the latter is unlikely to be true. However, I think that the former can come true.
Don’t kid yourselves people. Trump is likely to win. I live in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. If we can vote in Rob Ford as our mayor it’s not much of a stretch to see Americans vote in Trump as president.
The fact that an idiot can be elected doesn’t mean that it’s likely. But I do agree that it’s possible, which is why I didn’t want him to get the nomination.
It will be interesting to see how Hillary handles him in the debates.
sub
I agree with the Young Turks both that the secret to Trump’s success is his racism and that he is a Frankenstein monster created by the Republican party.
I think that his promise to put a halt to Muslim immigration appeals to many voters. Islamophobia is not racism.
As for who created him, I think that the Democrats with their support to large-scale Muslim immigration, to fundamentalist Islam (they support covered Muslim women, Obama went to a mosque) and to political correctness have contributed very much to the Frankensteinian monster creation.
If I am a US citizen and do not want in the USA the migration processes we are seeing in Europe, for whom exactly can I vote?
Should Trump win, I’d suggest a serious look at regionalization. Starting with how taxes are distributed. I’m tired of being tied to the Jerry Springer Show.
The GOP establishment is so darn hypocritical! They cultivated distrust towards ‘Washington’ and now they’re surprised the Republican voters vote for someone with zero political experience in Congress or anywhere else.
Also, I have rarely seen so much hate from a political party towards one of its members.
I think I have said this before: The chickens come home to roost.
Also, the Republican establishment hates Trump because he has captured to himself the electorate whose beliefs the GOP worked so hard to construct and now Trump, the hostile takeover artist, has stolen it away from them.
Or, as someone above put it well (I think it was Gluon Spring): The Devil has come for his due.
Turnout could be a key indicator. In the 2008 primaries, the turnout ratio was 8:5 democrat. This year it’s 8:5 republican.
As for smearing Trump, how’s that been working so far?
Another thing that would come into play in the general election. Trump is a nelson Rockefeller Republican. He does not have the religious or social conservative baggage.
He has supported single payer healthcare; he doesn’t seem to oppose abortion.
What issues are the democrats going to use against him, other that his personality?
Against Hillary, I suspect that’s a wash.
Hillary started out as a Rockefeller Republican and even attended the Miami convention in 1968. There are photos of Bill and Donald playing golf together. I suppose you can google them. Trump has made big donations to Clinton causes and will claim, or imply, if nominated, that his big gifts helped him get him access to the Clinton’s.
“As for smearing Trump, how’s that been working so far?”
Exactly. That’s his secret weapon. Increasingly voters are fed up with that, and (correctly) see most of it as class based disdain aimed at them.
But those who oppose him just won’t stop.
This week the WaPo compared him to Hitler, and thus his supporters to Nazis, and the Financial Times called his supporters racists and fools.
Well then, perhaps one should praise bad behavior of such narcissists.
I think he can.
1. He has great cross over appeal to blue collar democrats.
2. Liberals misunderstand his appeal. It isn’t about his policies. It’s about class and the disdain his supporters receive from, frankly, people like those who comment here.
3. Hillary is a very bad candidate.
4. Insulting Trump voters is the best way to create Trump voters. This matters because so many liberals enjoy insulting Trump voters more than they enjoy winning elections.
5. Trump is right about political correctness, and the insanity we see from the regressive left. If that gets even crazier, Trump gains.
6. Something could happen this summer. What if Hillary is indicted, or war breaks out, or another 9/11?
I still think he will lose, and badly. I still think at some point voters will balk at entrusting power to a man who seems so reckless and petty. But I have been wrong about that up until now.
Forgot to add: look at some polling. Trump might do well amongst black and hispanic voters.
+ 1
He’s not a commenter on this site, but someone asked the great cultural critic Greil Marcus the same thing. His response:
“Anyone nominated by either the Democratic or Republican party has a chance to win. Each candidate would start with a floor of about 40%, which is to say that within the 20% the candidates have to play with, anything can happen. Trump, like any Republican, would be helped by the voter-suppression laws in place in many swing states run by Republicans. The Democratic nominee could self-combust, be deligitimized by endless and scurrilous attacks, or even, given some unpredictable health, personal, or legal surprise, be forced to leave the race. In a presidential election, Nate Silver will prepare careful and accurate guides to what should happen, what is most likely to happen, but not what will happen: anything can happen. Add to this the disbelief on both sides that Trump could actually win, which energizes his followers and confirms his claims to outsider status, and add to that the fact that in many circles, particularly among better educated and better-off people, and particularly on the coasts, there are plenty of people who are attracted to Trump, who are secretly thrilled by the current of nihilism he is riding and the specter of destruction he embodies, but are keeping their mouths shut.”
(greilmarcus.net/ask-greil/)
This is a very poor bit of analysis. “Current of nihilism”? One thing Trump isn’t is nihilist. Even if you think Trump is a jingo and intolerant you can’t think him a nihilist, because he would still be fighting for certain values. Trump is clear saying “this is good, that is bad” about something — which is the opposite of nihilism.
Yes – authoritarians are *not* nihilists. (How could they be, authority is a presumed value?) Also, Trump is in his own way a patriot – or plays one – so same question?
I don’t think Trump actually believes in anything beyond his personal aggrandizement. He pursues it through Republican politics, which favor egomaniacal rich men. I therefore classify him as a nihilist, a master showman and con-artist who delights in throwing red meat to the crowds. He has a masterful understand of mob psychology, and that determines his policies.
“He has a masterful understand of mob psychology, and that determines his policies.”
I’ve noticed that the NY Times frequently throws out the word “populist.” Reckon by that the Times means “mob”? What is the opposite of “populist” (other than “non-populist”)? (Monied) “Elite”? Strikes me that populism is a fundamental tenet of democracy.
All democrats (not Democrats) are populists, weakly, but not conversely.
I’m watching with fascination, and some alarm, from Canada. Aside from Trump’s barnum-storming style, and Ted Cruz’s nastiness (Trump is not wrong about EVERYTHING, close, but not quite), what dismays me most is the adolescent quality of the debates: the name-calling, the god-bothering, the lying, the lack of any clearly attainable policy direction. They are children. The only adult among the Republicans is John Kasich, and when he’s the responsible ‘moderate,’ then ceiling cat save you, my American freinds.
Sorry,I do know how to spell `frìends.
Apparently a lot of Cruz’s and Trump’s supporters, noble Exceptional Amuricuns that they are, like this nastiness and juvenile behavior.
Bring back the Nixon-Kennedy debate format and civility. But that would deprive the yahoo Philistine faction of attendees the opportunity to ululate and caterwaul for the edification of the television audience.
Three cheers for the British!
http://mashable.com/2016/03/01/republican-urinal-london-pub/#oBIvNjSbNaqF
I think one thing to keep in mind is that the primaries are very different then the post-nomination home stretch. Trump’s bombast should have less general appeal though I expect he will keep to more or less the same playbook. I think if Hillary can keep away from being dragged into an exchange of absurd petty insults, stake out the high ground as the better informed, more qualified and reasonable candidate, then she should do better with the middle 20%. I must say too, despite the so-called baggage of hers that so many refer to, the fact that a woman is still the odds on favorite (I don’t see how Bernie can beat her and last I saw Vegas gave her 2:1 odds versus Trump) to be elected the next president doesn’t seem to be doing much for her right now. I think it’s a big deal and puzzling that more don’t seem to at present. Perhaps once she’s the nominee.
This is certainly the most um, interesting campaign I remember in my life time. However, on the off chance that the Donald, or heaven forbid the Ayatollah of Austin wins, can someone from Canada or Australia tell me how to immigrate there?
Last night I listened to a spray-tanned nonsense machine with a dead animal stapled to its head declare that it would build a 1,000 mile impenetrable wall between the US and Mexico. The wall, which will be a great big big wall and will be beautiful, will cost 10 billion dollars. How was that figure arrived at? Nobody knows. Oh, and Mexico will apparently pay for it. Why will Mexico pay for it? Because trade deficit. It’ll be easy.
And this was uttered in a room full of adults, broadcasted by a major media outlet. I then listened to the talking head analysts comment on the muppet’s speech, and NOT one of them stopped to say “Hey, the frontrunner to be the Republican candidate for President of the United State of America, a terribly important and difficult job, THINKS THAT HE CAN BUILD A MAGIC WALL FOR FREE. THAT IS HIS IMMIGRATION POLICY. WHAT THE F$#% IS GOING ON HERE???”
You had to love Vicente Fox’s answer to Trump’s ranting: “I’m not going to pay for that fucking wall!”
Can anyone from US explain to me why is Trump perceived as worse than Clinton? When it comes to the whole KKK thing, didn’t Hillary refer to Robert Byrd as her life-long mentor? And if we are talking about jingoism, didn’t Hillary paraded Henry Kissinger as if he is not a war criminal. And when Trump says that he will go after families of ISIS members, people flip out, but in reality Obama has been doing this ever since he entered the Office. Economy-wise, both Clinton and Trump are interested in making tones of money for themselves and maintaining status quo for the rest. Where’s the difference?
The more interesting speculation on the political beat in the U.S. is the question of the republican party. Will it come apart or possibly divide into 2 different parties or what?
The fact of Trump getting the nomination is still up in the air and lots of people in that party are attempting to defeat this from taking place. If he should get the nomination he will be defeated easily by Clinton in Nov. The dirt and garbage on Trump will come out in quantities that would fill at least one landfill in New Jersey.
Even further speculation continues that if Trump becomes the nominee, the loses in the Senate and possibly the house will put the democrats in charge and something might actually get done. This kind of thing has taken place in our short history before so no need to sell the house and move to Iceland just yet.
It may briefly come apart while the parties realign along the populist/nationalist fault line that Trump is revealing, but it won’t stay that way. The winner-take-all quality of national elections means that if there is a third party that is even slightly smaller than the other two parties, that party will be more or less shut out of power. Faced with the prospect of 0 representation such parties face overwhelming pressure to make peace with one of the larger parties and merge. A third party is likely to arise temporarily as a vehicle for people during the realignment.
The other possibility is that the current GOP will contrive to maintain ostensible control of the party and put on a brave face for a few years before it blows up on them even more dramatically. I don’t think the Democrats will be spared in the coming realignment so if the GOP doesn’t blow up now, or soon, the Democrats will.
Movement conservatism is probably the biggest loser either way because it is the hardest sell to a wide audience. Both nationalism and socialism are easy to cast in a populist light. Once you peel off the resentment/nationalist/racist vote movement conservatives have counted on to bulk out their party there simply isn’t enough support for making the lives of rich people easier to win national elections. Of course, those people make up most of the chattering classes of the GOP, so expect to hear lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth as it happens.
I don’t see the democrats coming apart at this time. Clinton will have to come around to a more progressive direction but not as radical as Bernie. This is their big chance if the democrats unite. The numbers are on their side in the future. The minorities are going to be solid for democrats, they just need to get out and vote.
The republicans had already split before Trump came along and Cruz is one who lead the split. Moderate republicans, what is left of them, cannot stand Cruz and the tea party crazies. Don’t see how the republican party does not come out very damaged and maybe too broke to fix. Trump may just be the additive to blow it up.
The last time the republicans had a nominee they did not want – Goldwater. It did not kill the party but the party was not already messed up the way it is now.
She is already showing signs of that; using phrasing and themes in her speeches that sound more like Bernie, in order to make her more appealing to the more lefty side of the Democratic party. IMO its a front. I doubt her policy positions are getting more like Bernie’s, just her speech is.
Here’s how I see her: she’s liberal on abortion, gay rights, health care, immigration, and supreme court nominations in a way probably indistinguishable from Bernie. She’ll be moderately liberal (similar to Obama; not as left as Bernie but not as right as any of the Republicans) on domestic police powers, international security, environmental regulation, and tax policy. She’ll be considerably more conservative than Bernie on Wall Street regulation and finance regulation, and foreign trade policy.
A very mixed bag if you are fairly left-leaning liberal. But still pretty much reflecting most of the core social values of the Democratic party.
I also can’t believe Trump could lead your country, although he might become president.
Apparently it doesn’t really matter. Dubya couldn’t either, and he got 2 terms.
Same with Obama.
NOT AT ALL the same with Obama.
“NOT AT ALL the same with Obama.”
+ 1 !
I am evaluating the foreign policy. I admit I know little of the domestic policy.
Here’s a very insightful take on this whole mess.
It’s also telling that the article mentions H.L. Mencken as a leader in conservative thought prior to desegregation. Imagine how today’s Republican Party would react to a quote like this (among many others) from Mencken:
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
Mencken is practically calling out Drumpf from the grave. The greatest threat to our democracy is not our enemies (real or imagined) abroad, it’s an ignorant electorate willing to vote away the rights of others in exchange for their own temporary security.
Cannot see how anyone can argue with that or with the article. The blue collar losing substantial ground economically is also at play and caused by Washington politics of the past 40 years.
The only thing I would add to your last sentence is – imagined temporary security. Jefferson, Madison and others recognized in the beginning that without an educated electorate, this system would never last.
I’ll accept your modification. This is the far right’s version of safe spaces…imaginary, temporary and anything but secure.
In my opinion, the widespread belief that Hillary Clinton is dishonest and untrustworthy is misinformation quite successfully spread and promoted by the Republicans. They’ve done it with endless, tedious investigations of trivialities that eventually lead to nothing. Vince Foster murdered? Really? It’s a case of repeating something often and vociferously enough that people believe it regardless of actual evidence.
Is there some legal reason that prevents the two front-runners for a party in this “Primary” race from joining together to present a President / Vice candidacy? This should avoid splitting the vote, and be a simple decision (Pres vs Vice) because you should have a pretty clear measurement of who has more support in the party.
Is it legislation, or is it “custom and practice? Or, indeed, has it happened before, but before I paid attention to foreign politics?
As recently as 2004 (Kerry/Edwards) two primary rivals became the ultimate pair in the national election.
So … sometimes ego can be submerged. Or at least, could be only 3 cycles ago.
Even if Trump wins the presidency, I doubt that the USA will go down the tubes. The system of checks and balances is like a leaky steam engine seriously in need of patching right now, but it was designed to work even with a complete jerk in the White House.
Having said that, I wouldn’t want his finger on the red button that would unleash Armageddon. His “solutions” to world problems worry me greatly.
If Clinton gets the Nomination I think Trump will get the White House, she is carrying too much baggage for him to have a go at, My nom for President would be Bernie Sanders with Elizabeth Warren or Tulsi Gabbard as VP. I thnk the odious Trump “or Fart in Brit English” is a shoo in for the the Repugs.
Would you care to evaluate and specify the honorable Mr. Trump’s “baggage”?
Trump is a clown candidate but Clinton, the corrupt, lying and pandering tool of every interest group known to man is not?
And these statements about Trump are factual, I think not! More or less the Media twisting, turning, sidestepping, slandering and writing things out of context, like they always do. The number one reason the Media does this, is to sell news.
One thing that scares me about Trump is one of the reasons I find him interesting. It is without a doubt a risky move. He is very passionate and direct, the Anti Politician! If not factual on what he says, he persuades many to believe what he says. Remember he is a master salesman who has written books named, The Art of the Sale! He is a hugely successful businessman, that has contributed ironically to the Democratic Party and developed personal relationships with many of the opponents running for office as well as established politicians, currently in office.
What this country needs is a leader who will balance the power in favor of the middle class, which has been ignored and intentionally broken for much to long. Take away the backbone and you can’t bare your own weight, much less stand. A strong and prosperous Middle Class contributes to this country greatly and can pay the taxes for necessary programs and hopefully a healthcare and education system that won’t bankrupt people, such as what happens today!