When I went to bed last night, I was pretty sure that Hillary Clinton would win not only the Mississippi primary (the Clintons always get heavy support from black voters), but the populous state of Michigan as well. I also thought, or rather hoped, that Donald Trump, now the target of heavy criticism by the doyens of his party, would lose in most of the four states having Republican primaries.
I was wrong.
Clinton won Mississippi handily—there was no doubt about that—but Sanders had a narrow win over Clinton in Michigan, a diverse state where his victory shows he has broad appeal (figures below from the New York Times).
Had Clinton won Michigan, it would have been all over for Sanders. The smart betting is still on Clinton to take the nomination, but this is going to be a drawn-out process, and every victory Sanders gains gives him more momentum. Still, Clinton is way ahead on delegates.
In the GOP race, Trump won three out of four states, beating Cruz by at least 8 percentage points. Cruz won in Idaho, but didn’t pick up many delegates in that depopulated state. Marco Rubio is basically now out of contention, though I once thought him the prime pick for a Republican nominee. (Who could have anticipated Trump’s victories?)
It’s still a good bet that Clinton will win the Democratic nomination, but the Republican Party leaders are appalled by the prospect of running Trump against anyone. Not just because he seems unelectable (I’m getting less sure of that), but because he is the embodiment of greed, ambition, bigotry, and dislike of the marginalized. Of course, all that means is that he’s simply instantiates in a clear way the values of the GOP, but they don’t like those being so out in the open! Trump is in fact the very product of what Republicans stand for: he’s a monster they created, but now they don’t like it. They want those values, but expressed sotto voce, and by a slicker candidate.
The Times shows how a floor fight at July’s Republican convention in Cleveland could depose Trump, but that will leave the GOP with a last-minute candidate who would have to campaign furiously to stand a chance of beating Clinton. For I still think she’ll be the nominee, and though I’m growing less keen on her all the time (where is Elizabeth Warren?), she’s better than any Republican by a long shot. Most of the polls still show Clinton winning were she to face Trump in November, but don’t forget what happened in 2008. And even a Democratic victory won’t be the panacea we want, for if Congress remains Republican—don’t forget to vote for your Senators and Representatives!—we’ll have at least another four years of acrimony and stalemate. The only saving grace is that, even if Republicans succeed in postponing the choice of Antonin Scalia’s replacement until after January, we’ll still have a chance for a more liberal Supreme Court.
At times like these, I always think of the question that H. L. Mencken posed to himself, along with supplying the answer:
Q: If you find so much that is unworthy of reverence in the United States, then why do you live here?
A: Why do men go to zoos?
Our (UK) lot are a right shower of clowns, but having watched the 2008 and 2012 US elections I wasn’t sure that anything was going to trump those for right-wing insanity
Ahem. I’ll get my coat.
I just spent ten days in the UK, and talked with a number of family and friends about the whole Brexit issue, it is clear that the conversation is taking place at a very different and more thoughtful level than the republican primary dick measuring contests. No matter the outcome I do think that having the discussion to some extent defangs the extreme right in a way that will not happen in, for example, France or the Netherlands.
Shower of clowns. Very nice! I must try and remember that.
Clinton picking Warren as a running mate would be a bold move, but I don’t think it will happen.
I don’t think Warren would accept being a VP, to Clinton in particular. And two women on the ticket probably isn’t a good idea.
I and my wife contributed in our own small way to the Sanders victory in Michigan since we voted for him yesterday.
It reminds me of my parents. When they were aligned, they voted dutifully, but when they were divided, they stayed home knowing they would cancel each other. My wife and I have always voted the same way…so far.
That’s when you ‘pop out for a bite to eat’ real quick…
8-o
My mother always told my father she would vote Republican like he did. Then go into the booth and pull the Democratic lever.
Mark, Feeling the Bern? I just joined Democrats Abroad and submitted my vote (for Bernie). Initial results from local “mini-caucuses” put Bernie in the lead with 60%-70% of the vote. Every delegate counts.
I like both Hillary and Bernie, but I like The Bern more, as I consider him to be truly committed to social causes whereas Hillary is more of an opportunist who will change with the winds. Although I am not sure how Bernie would fare in the general election, I think that to get the president you want you gotta vote for them.
“Although I am not sure how Bernie would fare in the general election, I think that to get the president you want you gotta vote for them.”
Polls have for some time now shown him performing better than Hillary in match-ups against the various Republicans – particularly against Trump.
He hasn’t been subjected to a 20+ year smear campaign. But if he gets the nomination, fear not: The Republicans will come after him hammer and tong. And his numbers will go down.
Perhaps, perhaps not – that is pure speculation. The Republicans have been going after Trump “hammer and tong” for months now, to no avail.
My boss is a libertarian who thinks that a Sanders presidency where Sanders gets his policies implemented will put us out of business – but he respects Sanders’ honesty and integrity, unlike Hillary who he views as a lying, hawkish snake bought and sold by Wall Street (his exact words), and he’s hoping that Sanders gets the Democratic nod. I really don’t think that a few months of Fox and fiends going after Sanders is going to change my boss’s position very much.
Oh no, the Republicans haven’t been going after Trump hammer and tong. They have been going after him with pussy willows. None of the other candidates even started doing opposition research until quite recently. One Republican operative called it “political malpractice.” Lulled by the belief that Trump was just a flash in the pan, no one did anything. And believe me, there’s a lot in Trump’s past. They’ve barely scratched the surface. Mob ties, very dodgy deals, a history of screwing people.
Look, the Republicans have never cared about the truth anyway. They lied and lied about the Clintons for over 20 years. Whitewater, Vince Foster, Mena, and on and on. None of it true, but they didn’t care. Hillary has been falsely accused of so much it’s no wonder some has stuck. And none of it’s true. So believe me, they’ll beat up Bernie even if it’s just with lies. No candidate keeps high favorables once they start running. And I seriously doubt that Bernie will get the benefit of the doubt the way Trump has. Trump’s fans don’t prize truth and honor. Bernie’s do.
Sorry about your boss. Maybe some day, they’ll come up with a cure for that libertarian thing.
Don’t be sorry – aside from the libertarian thing, my boss is awesome. Best I’ve yet had.
I stand by my claim of speculation, though. As you said, they’ve spent decades hammering on Hillary – I don’t see a few months of Sanders bashing creating nearly as much vitriol against him as they’ve already built against HRC.
Being an atheist has its drawbacks, I can’t say “God Save Us From The Reich-Wing with sincerity”.
Well, lets first hope this is not what keeps you up at nights.
I still believe the republican party, as it has stood and evolved over the past one hundred sixty years is finished. What will rise from the ashes…who knows. This Kardashian of politics may get the nomination of the party but that’s as far as it goes. Either Bernie or Hilary will beat him.
And if I have missed this we can still pack our bags and move to Canada.
Cape Breton is inviting Americans to settle. They’ve even set up a website. Fox dubs Canada as the “Land of the Flee”. With an endorsement like that, what are you waiting for?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/cape-breton-trump-immigration-minister-1.3481803
I hear this “move to Canada” idea thrown around a lot and at one point I believed it myself. However, I am now of the opinion that I would NEVER simply surrender this amazing country to a small group of maniacs. That is, I can’t imagine myself leaving for political reasons. Resistance is our duty and we owe it to our children to stay and fight. We need more liberals not less. If anything, we should be recruiting like-minded people to come here and join the political and social fight.
Amen and Hallelujah!
Thinking more about this, it occurs to me that the United States was founded for and by people who looked around the place they were living and thought “screw this shit, I’m outta here”. So ironically, moving to Canada when things get bad is a very American thing to do.
I know some near neighbors who are moving to Canada. I think they are very conservative, but I suspect they either 1) know that Hillary will win which causes them pain or 2) think Trump will win which also causes them pain.
I do not fight for anything political. The candidates are all the same to me (*), but I will never move. USA is where I will live and die. Best country in the world.
(*) – Advocacy for science and humanism. The day a candidate supports those missions above all else and proclaims, proudly their secularism then I will pay attention.
“The candidates are all the same to me.” Really.
I hate to be snarky, but that is about the most insane thing I’ve heard yet today. And I just watched Ted Cruz give a press conference, so the bar is pretty high.
When Kevin says that all candidates are the same, I must shake my head. For him to say this, he must be oblivious to the world he lives in. Does he think that Ted Cruz would be an advocate for science and humanism as compared to Bernie Sanders?
He also says that the USA is the best country in the world. I would love to know how he came to this conclusion. What criteria has he used?
The only criteria I have is the observation that good people disagree. For example, I think Steve Jobs was amazing and I have met so many people who hated him. I thought JFK was mediocre and yet I have met so many people who loved and respected him. And so forth…
I am not someone who can dislike or fear people just because they say or believe stupid things. Likewise, I disagree with Krugman that presidents matter. Policies are decided upon in procedural ways that no long depend on one person.
WRONG!
I trust that you think Steve Wozniak also amazing. Plus, he seemed to treat other humans quite consistently decently. He taught in elementary school for several years after parting ways with Jobs (and sought to keep his Apple history under wraps) so as to while teaching.
My sentence structure flawed, but I’m in a hurry. You get the gist. Cheers!
I like Woz more than Jobs. I was a school teacher once and will be again.
Whenever I get that “the candidates are all the same” feeling, I remember that the president gets to appoint US Supreme Court justices, who in turn get to define (among many other things) what constitutes “sodomy.” We are just a vote or two away from having that term defined as “anything other than a quick and dutiful hump in the missionary position by a hetero-married couple for procreative purposes only.”
So they’re not exactly all the same, ever.
Exactly. And anyone who thinks that a president’s legislative agenda will be the same irrespective of who wins is fooling only themselves.
John McCain would never have given us the Affordable Care Act. Whichever side you’re on, that alone puts the lie to “they’re all the same.”
And a better example might be if Gore had been president. For one thing, I suspect 9/11 would not have happened (it would have been thwarted, at least in part), and there’s no way we would have invaded Iraq.
+1
+ another 1
cr
I have heard that there is a definite uptick in the # of online searches for ‘how to move to Canada.’
In the (still unlikely, I hope) event that Donald Trump gets elected president, it’s over for me & America, at least for a while. Maybe I’ll take up Cape Breton’s kind offer to host exiles, or (more likely, since I’m a warm-weather guy), decamp to somewhere south of that ludicrous wall Mistah Trump says he’s gonna make the Mexicans pay for. Or maybe I’ll just light out for the boondocks to find a cabin somewhere off the grid, there to lick my wounds and work on Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 “restoring sanity” campaign.
It really is not that easy to just pack your bags and move to Canada. Yes you can just arrive but unless you have a Landed Immigrant Visa or a Labour Market Opinion Work Permit you can only stay for six months as a visitor, then you have to leave, you can come back straight away but the Canada Border Agency does not like this practice and can refuse repeat “visitor” entry. In addition as a visitor you have no access to health care or any other benefits accorded to Canadians or Permanent Residents.
You really should read the Canada Immigration requirements for Landed Immigrant status. The requirements for immigration are quite difficult, unless you are a refugee and even then it is not automatic. Even once Permanent Resident status is achieved becoming a Canadian Citizen is more trying and takes a qualifying period of at least 1095 continuous days as a Permanent Resident. Do not forget also that as a Canadian Citizen you have to surrender your Citizenship of the U.S.A. This is not a Canadian requirement but it is a US requirement although the US will still retain the right to tax you.
Trust me when I tell you that to become part of the best country to live in anywhere on this planet Canada has to really want you!
Please note, I am not saying that Canada does not want you!
We emigrated from the U.K. and from application to Landed Immigrant took 2.5 years, from there to Citizen a further 3 years and we were / are in a category of professional engineer(s) who are needed to fill a skill shortage.
Please do not just jump ship, sell up and move, it could backfire, badly!
Canada loves immigrants, just be sure of the facts.
I am sure it is just as difficult to get to into the U.S.A. but I could be mistaken.
This is mostly accurate and good cautionary advice. You may wish to consult an immigration lawyer as the rules change with time. “Do not forget also that as a Canadian Citizen you have to surrender your Citizenship of the U.S.A. This is not a Canadian requirement but it is a US requirement…” This is not true at all.
Since about 1985, the US has allowed citizens to hold multiple citizenships. So, a person can be a citizen of the US and Canada at the same time. But as such, you must adhere to US law wherever you are.
Shame on me for posting this US Citizenship incorrect requirement, the information was given to me by a US friend from Wyoming who told me that he would never give up his US Citizenship to become Canadian!
I should have verified the information before posting it as fact.
You no longer have to relinquish your U.S. Citizenship to become a Canadian citizen. The rules chsnged in the 80s, I believe.
” a person can be a citizen of the US and Canada at the same time. But as such, you must adhere to US law wherever you are.”
Really? Which US laws, federal laws or state laws? (And if so which state).
If you’re 19 and buy a drink in Canada will a black helicopter swoop on you and haul you off to Guantanamo? (Sorry, I’m being silly there).
It just strikes me as a can of worms. What if US law compels you to do something that local laws forbid (or vice versa).
cr
“Really?” Yup, really. US law supersedes local law. As one small example, for years, dual citizens could not legally vacation in Cuba while other Canadian citizens could. If a Dualie wants to own something illegal in the US (but keeps it in Canada where it is legal), he breaks US law and can be punished the same as any other US citizen.
Your example of drinking is interesting. Technically, states control the drinking age in the US, so visitors and dual citizens can follow local provincial laws. But in 1986, Congress enacted a standardized minimum drinking age (21) which states do not have to follow – but failure to comply results in a 10% cut in federal highway funding. Nevertheless, US feds would not enforce the drinking age in Canada because it is still technically controlled by state laws, not US laws.
As you point out, enforcement of US law abroad is difficult. Diplomatic, practical, and logistic considerations make such enforcement tricky. But if you look into “Extraterritorial Application of American Law” you’ll see that US citizens are bound by US law everywhere and having a second citizenship does not change that.
Doesn’t Canada care for (health care) all persons who need it in Canada? (Maybe Medicare goes after the persons insurance coverage in the US for reimbursement?)
It is quite difficult to become a US citizen — unless the US really wants your skill set, just like for Canada.
“…and that government of the wealthy, by the wealthy, for the wealthy, shall not perish from the earth.”
Canadian health care covers Canadian residents only. Visitors have to pay for services – else people would drop by for ‘free’ surgery. By the way, Canadian health care is not free. Canadians are required to buy health insurance from the government (it’s subsidized for low-income folks).
Rules vary by province. I live in Alberta where we used to pay about $3000/year for a family of four until the Conservative government of the time decided to use oil royalties to pay everyone’s premiums (!) – for the past ten years, Albertans have not had to remit health insurance premiums. Now that we have a Socialist government, there is talk of re-instating the payments!
It’s interesting that they describe it that way. In the US Medicare tax isn’t described as a premium (AFAIK).
Any USian would be thrilled to pay $3K/year for family coverage!
Sounds like it might be easier just to get out and campaign against Trump. 🙂
sub
“The Times shows how a floor fight at July’s Republican convention in Cleveland could depose Trump”
If this occurs, I think it likely Trump would mount an independent run.
I agree. At this point I’d say it’s virtually a certainty — if for nothing else, just to thumb the eye of the “establishment” GOP.
If the Republican Party drops Trump when he is in the lead, they will loose the Trump electorate. The GOP will IMO end up backing Trump in the name of victory.
I think there are about a dozen states or so where it would be too late for a candidate to get his or her name on the ballot after the GOP convention in July — not that that would necessarily stop the Donald, since he could still run as a write-in candidate there.
A third-party run by Trump — or by some bone fide conservative, if the Republicans nominate Trump — would, of course, split their vote thereby assuring election of the Democratic presidential candidate. Problem is, it would likely redound against the down-ticket Democrats, since it would also likely generate a large voter turnout and voters for both the GOP and third-party candidates would vote for the down-ticket Republican candidates.
If he did that, the Republicans would certainly lose, as would Trump himself.
Yes. I think he might run as an independent out of spite, but I am not sure he wants to lose. He might just walk away, say he was cheated, and let that be his story.
He doesn’t have the money to run as a third party. Not even close.
There’s a reason he hasn’t released his taxes, and it ain’t because of an audit.
Only a narcissist would split the vote that way, which is why I consider it a possibility.
A battle between Clinton and Trump is a battle between someone who lies between 10 to 20% of the time, and someone who lies 100% of the time.
Trump and the truth are orthogonal. He has no truth — nor even any sense of the truth — in him. In his world, there are not so much things as “facts,” as there is a steady flow of raw material to be spun one way or the other depending upon what serves the immediate Trumpian interests.
Trump inhabits a cartoon world in which everything is either “great, phenomenal, the best” or “awful, terrible, the worst.” No grey-scale, or any mixed-bag of good and bad, is ever admitted. And what constitutes “the best” and “the worst” can turn on a dime, anytime the Donald’s perceived interests shift.
Hillary, on the other hand, has her own clear perception of the truth — something to be improved upon in the retelling where possible, and to be denied where needed.
No candidate is 100% honest, so I consider it a given they will lie about something sometime. I want someone in the office who can lie with a straight face to Putin or a Saudi prince.
The problem is when the person also lies to themself.
I moved from the USA to Canada decades ago.
Re: H.L.Mencken – I can see the zoo quite well from here, thank you!
I think that should be rephrased: “…why do men go to circuses?” Zoos are serious places, with lots to think about and question and supposedly helping science by making possible the observation of animals up close.
Many of us do not like zoos, cages – many of them.
Isn’t kasich the best of the sorry lot of Republicans?
Not really. He just sounds reasonable by comparison. But he is pretty far to the right. He has proposed forming a new federal agency to promote judeo-christian values.
Yes, very likely. Therefore, he hasn’t a chance!
As I’ve said before, the Venn Diagram of GOP nomination winners and the possible winners of the general election no longer have an intersection.
The rise of Trump is, to me in some ways, the right wing (or as some one said well, the Reich Wing) of the GOP reacting to the fact that a candidate/party cannot be elected president anymore by just appealing to white men.
I sure think so, but one can’t credit Republican fans with an over-abundance good sense. They sure display over-exuberance over celebrity.
… ‘of good sense’…
I wonder if one can attend a given candidate’s rally, stand still and silent, and not provoke some politico toady’s opprobrium and desire to escort one out.
I’m reminded of Ralph Nader being forced to leave a political debate, though he had a bona fide ticket like any other member of the audience.
It can be worse than that. Check this out – happened at a Trump rally on March 9:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/10/black-protester-punched-donald-trump-rally-north-carolina
I’m glad you brought up the total absence of coverage of House and Senate races. Perhaps that’s a conscious Republican strategy? Trump is a real blessing for those Republican candidates, as he has rendered them invisible to the media spotlight, and that is more than a little worrisome.
While the invisibility of other candidates is mostly true, US Senate Judiciary Chair Charles Grassley, contrarian in re getting a SCOTUS nomination to its Committee .now. and who is up for senatorial reelection on 08 November y2016, (or not !), is, after a bagazillion terms, well, ~36 years actually, in .that. office, finally getting a fair amount of quite justified blowback .already. and .specifically because of. his tantrum – stance thereupon.
Two Democrats, Ms Patty Judge and Mr Bob Krause, greatly influenced, they both have stated, because of Grassley’s crusty poutiness at his age of 83, have just so recently announced that they will run against him.
And there is thus playing out on television screens in Iowa now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVVtSDhAx3Q from here http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/iowa_ads_debate_grassleys_opposition_to_hearings_on_scotus_nominee which is, as well, just a darling challenge thereto !
Blue
Oh how I wish Obama could serve for another four years.
The real answer to Mencken’s question is that it’s no small thing to move to another country.
I wonder how easily Kanye West would be accepted by Canada. What is his “skill set”?
I have said this elsewhere; but the GOP needs to quickly drop their Bibles and pick up Faust and figure this out.
Trump is the logical outcome of what they’ve been pushing since the 1960s. He takes all their old scare tactics, wraps them up in a big ball and pulls the cover off of it, so everyone can see them even more clearly.
The Devil has barged into the GOP living room and is pounding his fist on the table (spilling all the expensive drinks) demanding his due. And he’s getting it.
Somehow I don’t think the theocrats would find having devils as characters (especially sympathetic ones) congenial.
Nice one.
I think many more politicians should read Goethe. Even though Goethe is probably way above what most of them can understand some ideas may filter through.
Marco Rubot did not get any delegates and has no viable path to a majority. But let’s dispel for once and for all with this fiction that Marco Rubio doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s losing – badly.
Yes, yesterday seemed like his last gasp. He will likely lose FL next week …
I wonder if Trump will win Ohio as well. He needs to if he wants to stay on course for a majority of delegates. If Kasich and Rubio drop out, then the Republicans must choose between a dangerous theocrat and a brash nitwit who doesn’t even know what the “nuclear triad” is.
Polls say Trump will win in both FL and OH. And he’s been 3exceeding the polls most of the time …
I can’t express how embarrassed I am for my nation.
Hey don’t feel too embarrassed, our country of nitwits elected the Mad Monk, Tony Abbot.
Australian politics is brutal. It reflects the harsh conditions of the Outback.
That’s amazing because, except for photo opportunities around election time, very few of our politicians spend any time in the outback (nearly none of our population does). Even the parliamentary members of our rural party, the National Party, spend most of their time living and working in pleasant rural towns. The sorts of places a lot of people dream of being able to retire, and generally can’t.
I think the reason our politics is brutal is two fold:
1/. Our politicians, like most politicians everywhere, are arseholes.
2/. We play our full contact sports for blood and without body armour*, and feel politics should be played the same way.
—————–
* We’re kinda stupid that way.
So I am embarrassed to say, I did not follow Tony Abbott when he was in the PM’s office (or before or since).
Why is he called the Mad Monk?
Partly a play on his surname. Partly because he studied for the Catholic priesthood, and continues to come out with god-bothering statements at inappropriate times. And partly because he keeps doing and saying crazy things.
I see what you did there… and I approve.
Trump can beat Hillary. Hillary and Trump belong to the same country club group, and Trump knows all the Hillary gossip, her weak points, her personality flaws, and how to push her into doing stupid things. He will imply, true or not, that his political contributions to the Clinton’s have given him access to the highest reaches of government. Trump’s mocking will unite behind him the Hillary-haters of the world. If both Trump and Hillary are nominated, the world is in for bad times.
Well, nobody really knows if he can or not, but your opinion is just as valid as any of the experts. I find the stories about how he can win just as plausible as the ones where he loses badly.
I think it unlikely he could win against Clinton, but he shouldn’t be written off by any means. He’s shown an ability to attract support that any candidate would envy.
At the moment, the polls show both Clinton and Sanders beating Trump head to head, but that could change of course. They also show Cruz beating Clinton one on one, so there could be a big push to ensure he’s the GOP candidate.
Within the GOP, all remaining candidates beat Trump significantly one on one. He seems to be pulling in voters who have never voted before. Cruz beats him in caucuses, but open primaries always go heavily for Trump. Perhaps Democrats are voting for Trump because they think he’ll be easy to beat?
“He’s shown an ability to attract support that any candidate would envy.”
Well, for the numbers maybe! 🙂
Their vote means as much as anyone’s.
Indeed; but are they worthy of envy? Are they the associates you desire?
Ha ha! Good point. Though I don’t think most politicians care too much about the quality of their voters, just the quantity. Having said that, at least the others would have done a better job than Trump of disavowing the support of white supremacists.
“And even a Democratic victory won’t be the panacea we want, for if Congress remains Republican—don’t forget to vote for your Senators and Representatives!—we’ll have at least another four years of acrimony and stalemate.”
This sentence is spot on and gets to the heart of the dysfunction of American politics and society. Even if the Democrat wins the presidency and the party retakes the Senate, the Republicans will certainly retain control of the House of Representatives. Thus, the political posturing that characterized most of the Obama years will continue with little accomplished.
I think that the root cause of this sad situation is what Bernie Sanders has been saying: the extraordinary increase in income inequality and the resultant hollowing out of the middle class. The shame is that so many who are suffering, who have seen that the American Dream no longer exists, who see a bleak future for their children, are turning for salvation to the demagogue or to the senator from Texas, who is the most conservative member of Congress. So, the future holds three likely possibilities: continued gridlock, a proto-fascist president who believes in nothing except himself, or a government presided over by an arch conservative with theocratic pretensions. I will take the first choice. It is not a good one, but it so much more preferable than the other two.
You may have to wait until the midterms in 2020 to regain all of congress but it will also come. And I certainly understand why some find Hilary a bitter pill, not the perfect person for the job, but when did we ever have that? Elections have often been a vote against the other guy and whether it is Cruz or Trump – it’s just not going to happen.
There’s an interesting graph prepared by Kevin Drum at Mother Jones which suggests, in a comparison of states, that there is a strong correlation between support for Drumpfism and more widely held racist attitudes from state to state.
That seems like a no-brainer, based on Drumpf’s rhetoric.
What’s left of the Republican establishment seems to be holding their nose and coalescing around Cruz, but I can’t help thinking he would even be worse than Trump. His father is a Christian Dominionist, and though Cruz is too smart to play too much of that hand now, I’d fear for what he might do should he become the president.
Yes, better a charlatan than a zealot.
It really scares me to think of a President Cruz (… gak, just back from vomiting …), pining for the “rapture” and his finger hovering over “the button”. Though perhaps we can hope that cooler heads at the Defense Dept. will not obey in the breach. (And won’t follow a Prez. Trump’s illegal orders.)
OMG, hell yes Cruz would be worse than Trump. I’d vote for Trump myself if it were necessary to prevent Cruz from reaching the White House. Lucky for me I won’t have to.
I agree as well. Embarrassing as it would be for the US to have Trump for president, he will likely do less damage than Cruz.
Cruz – the man whose father thinks atheists should be placed in camps.
I’ve just been watching the new season of ‘House of Cards’ – made last year I assume. The sitting President has just lost a primary because someone publicised a picture of his father with a KKK member: how time flies!
“Dislike for the marginalized”?
It ain’t dislike. It’s hatred, pure and simple.
Contempt is more the mark, in my opinion.
(In my opinion, Trump really thinks he’s “self-made”. Ha!)
Mitt Romney in a TV interview averred that Trump was not a “self-made” man. No doubt Romney avers that about himself. Pretty rich coming from a guy whose American Motors president-/Michigan governor-father paid all the bills for his married son/father of children to get a Harvard MBA/JD.
From the outside looking in:
– Finally the Obama period is over. Maybe that will stop the slide into the mudwrestling. A gifted speaker, with the hearth in the right place, but morals he has not.
– Clinton is realpolitik with a hearth and plenty of morals, the best kind. Sanders doesn’t know european soocial democracy if it bites his hand, so is a loose cannon.
– Speaking of loose cannons, Drumpf is another one – as much as his populism makes him suggest realpolitik (at least against his voting support) he has no hearth. Or morals.
But that is much better than the maniac Cruz. Oh, you thought Carson was the only loonie. But Cruz is from another planet:
“LETTER FROM TEXAS: LISTEN AMERICA, TRUMP IS JUST EMBARRASSING. CRUZ IS SCARY.
Dear Republicans:
Let me get this straight. You want to take back Donald Trump. You want to take Trump off the table. But you want to give us Ted Cruz instead.
I know you’re not totally insane. Your problem is that many of you are not from Texas. You don’t really know Ted Cruz. Last week Sen. Lindsey Graham told CNN, “Ted and I are in the same party. Donald Trump is an interloper.”
Senator Graham, please listen to me. You and Donald Trump are from the same planet. Cruz is the interloper.”
“Wow. You’ve got a lot of faith in the Ivy League. All we can tell you, here in Texas, is that you can take the boy out of outer space, but you can’t take the outer space out of the boy.
Are you not watching? Did you not notice last December when Cruz appeared on stage in Des Moines, Iowa — his father’s face bobbing behind him like a rain-dance mask — at a conference headed up by Pastor Kevin Swanson, who reiterated his call for the extermination of homosexuals?
In fact Cruz has been endorsed by — and has not renounced — virtually every frightening, apocalyptic, wackadoodle preacher in the land, from Mike Bickle of Kansas City, who preaches that God is going to “raise up” somebody in the End Times to hunt down all the Jews who have failed to convert to Christianity (big group), to Bob Vander Plaats of Iowa, who preaches that same-sex marriage is a Satanic plot to get people to marry their own children (theory with important missing synapses).
Then there is Phil Robertson, the ZZ Top-resembling reality TV personality from a show called Duck Dynasty, who denounces homosexuals as “wicked” and “evil” and sometimes takes the stage with Cruz while blowing urgently on a duck call.
But, wait a minute. I forgot. You don’t even know where Cruz came from, do you? He was no one and nowhere, not even a duck-sized blip on the radar, and then all of a sudden he was in the United States Senate shutting down the government.
In the 2012 Texas Republican primary runoff for the Senate nomination, which in Texas is the general election, Cruz harnessed everything good he learned at Harvard and Princeton, where he was a brilliant student, to everything dark and addled he learned from his father, who is totally nuts. Cruz brought Sarah Palin to Texas, along with RedState’s Erick Erickson; Sean Hannity of Fox News; Senators Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina; and Mike Lee, Republican of Utah; and a host of even farther-right luminaries.”
“But, look, the problem with Cruz won’t be embarrassment. He means every single word he says. He means what he says about pushing 11 million people back across the Mexican border, about using the government to hound, harry and herd human beings based on their sex lives, about stripping women of their physical autonomy, and about all of the superstitious claptrap that issues from his old man’s mouth on evolution, global warming and science itself.
The Ivy League took none of that away from him. He held it dear then and holds it dear now. It’s all right there in front of you, not a millimeter beneath the surface. His only bluff is that he shows you less than his full hand, not that he fakes having more.
An orange-faced, thin-skinned, narcissistic, blow-hard clown versus a truly scary, malevolent alien from the dark side. Oh, and before I forget, gee, thanks for the choice. But I gotta go with the clown. I have examined the clown pretty closely, too, and I think I can outrun him. The other guy, I’m not so sure.”
[ http://www.dallasobserver.com/news/letter-from-texas-listen-america-trump-is-just-embarrassing-cruz-is-scary-8095715 ]
TL:DR; Looks good.
Oy. Heart.
Are you saying Obama has no morals? Are you kidding?
And, no, his absence will not stop the Republicans from wrestling in the muck. It is what they do. It is, in fact, just about all they do, since they refuse to legislate or follow the Constitution. They have been at it nonstop since at least 1992. Where have you been?
What lack of morals are you talking about? Obama has more integrity than any president in recent memory.
Yes, y’all, try to think back to one with solid morality:
(Bush 1st wasn’t too bad) Carter? Ford? Eisenhower? Truman? Then a huge gap back to Wilson or TR maybe?
Our presidents do not have a great track record.
I’m a solid Democrat voter, BTW. Last one with solid morals before Obama, however … maybe Carter, then back to Wilson I think …
Wilson is held to have been quite the racist.
TR’s morals bear examination particularly during the so-called “Philippine Insurrection.” From what I’ve read, the good Christian Amuricuns subjugating the Filipinos were of the habit of calling them the “N” word.
Yes, that’s all true. As I’ve noted elsewhere, racism was universal: Just a couple of generation back …
Even Lincoln was something of a racist. He supported emancipation on more or less intellectual and moral grounds, not because he wanted true racial equality.
If you read Darwin, the Zeitgiest of the 1800s comes through pretty clearly.
Whites were the top of the heap. Wealthy male whites the top of that. It was simply assumed.
With the possible exception of Carter.
Obama has no morals… but Clinton does.
Seriously?
I’d like to see a contested Republican convention for a couple reasons: First, it would make for great spectator sport. Brokered conventions are part of American political lore; there hasn’t been one in my lifetime, and I’d like to witness it for my own selfish reasons.
Second, and more important, the Republican party needs a good blood-letting. It has been shitting its own nest for the better part of a decade now — cleaving to its breast the worst elements of the tea party, as well as festering “birthers” and far-right remnants of the John Birch Society. The GOP must purge these elements if it is to serve as the “worthy opposition” a two-party system requires. Cleveland in July seems like the right time and place to do it.
They have been at it for more than just a decade. Try 24 years, at the least.
Yes, the Trumpster is the logical outcome of what they’ve been up to for a LONG time. Hence my reference above to Faust.
They’ve made a deal with the devil to enrich themselves and their buddies and now the devil wants his. I’m enjoying the spectacle.
I am torn here. I agree that the Republican party needs a shake-up. Both parties do, in fact. I think there actually is a broad consensus in this country for the role of government and the rights of the individual that is increasingly absent from the two parties, but could be the basis of a new one. I think what Trump represents (opportunism on his side and crass nativism on his supporters side, with a dash of stick-it-to-the-establishment) is the opposite of that. At the same time Sanders has highlighted a real divide on the left as well. We might have to suffer through four years of President Trump, but we might get a new alignment out of it.
I don’t think the republic can survive four years of Trump. For one thing, should he get elected, I suspect other heads of state won’t take his calls. But more worrying is that his popularity is the product of the Republican Party ginning up anger, resentment and fury in order to get votes. They are reaping the results of that, which consist largely of people with no understanding of how government works, and no commitment to the Constitution.
Should Trump get elected, a number of things could happen. First, he may go back on the totally impossible promises he made to get elected, pissing off millions of people who actually believe that “solutions” to “problems” are simple. Second, he could try to implement his policies, only to discover that a real estate huckster can order his folks around, but a president largely can’t. And when the legislature refuses to kowtow, the courts will gleefully block him at every turn, because he doesn’t have an inkling how the law works. (Which is kind of pathetic, given how often he gets sued.) This is a man who thinks judges “sign bills.” Seriously.
Yes, though I think we would survive. 🙂
Oh, they think they are supporting the constitution (which they’ve never read of course): “‘Murica is a Christian Nation — it’s right there in the constitution.”
We tried this once already in Minnesota 1999-2003, with Jesse Ventura. And it played out about as you predict for a potential Trump presidency. I wish people would review that history.
A disaster but a survivable one.
I thought Jesse Ventura was a wrestler?
(I’m dismayed by the trivially worthless nature of the bits of information that plop out of my brain sometimes).
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Jesse “The Body” Ventura had a colorful life. Navy SEAL, professional wrestler, actor (did I already say that?) and governor of Minnesota. I wonder what he has been doing since then?
“I ain’t got time to bleed!”
Since then he has been promoting Jesse Ventura and suing Chris Kyle’s widow.
Podcasts. Lots and lots of podcasts.
Go to Raw Story’s site – you’ll see him on the first page. Talking and talking.
Trump makes promises with scant thought to the policies that support them, and with no thought at all to the practicalities of how they could be accomplished. (How, for example, would he go about “taking ISIS’s oil”? And he’s yet to give a straight answer about how he’d force the Mexicans to pay for his wall.) He would accomplish nothing if elected, I suspect.
Still, I think the Republic would survive four years of Trump. It does, nevertheless, give me great pause to think about how he might handle an emergency like the Cuban Missile Crisis. I can imagine a President Trump needing to show the Joint Chiefs how huge his balls are by launching a nuclear first strike.
We’ll survive alright, I hope, but the whole country will be gobbling Xanax like Milk Duds with him in the Oval Office.
If you understand the danger he could pose in a crisis, then how can you say, “We’ll survive all right”?
Those kind of crises — the truly existential ones like the Cuban missiles — only arise once every couple generations. I’m counting on shithouse luck (and my own wishful thinking) to get us all through four years of Trump, if we have to.
You think Hillary will run a “Daisy Commercial” to make this point about Trump?
Not unless she’s way down in the polls. And even then, there are probably more effective ways to make the point. Like just let him keep talking.
As for crises, I don’t have your faith. The Cuban Missile Crisis was quite the deal when I was a kid. But the question should be, how many crises happen that we never learn about? I believe it’s far more than people think.
Two things I think are worth commenting on. First, Trump continues to poll at less than 50% in all the primaries, and is not on track to get to the convention with the necessary majority of delegates. All of the media are “Trump is back!,” but all I see is that everyone else is eating his dinner. Second is that I am fed up with these polls. I just saw another about Trump’s huge lead in Florida (where I live) that has a +/-5.5% margin of error. Most of the polls I’ve looked at (and I’ve look at more and more), have absurdly high margins of error that in most cases actually show a potential dead heat. Part of the problem this year is that the media love the Trump show, and want to talk it up.
Yes, he’s polling less than 50% of the GOP’s most activist types.
He would have huge negatives and likely major vote suppression on the GOP side (people just not showing up).
Is there somehow a patriotic duty to participate in polls? Or do pollsters wave a dollar bill under the nose of the grasping Amuricun consumerist? Or does it somehow stroke the ego of the “pollee”?
I once received – unsolicited and unencouraged of course – such a dollar bill as supposedly a carrot to respond to a survey. I didn’t want to participate, and didn’t. But I contemplated what if any moral duty I had to return their dollar to them. Well, I didn’t. To do so more than a dollar’s-worth of trouble. But, if I had it to do over, I would, but it would be “postage due,” if at all possible.
I haven’t read the other posts to see if this point has already been made, but the Dems award their primary delegates proportionally. So who “wins” is far less important than what the percentages are. With Michigan’s 130 delegates, it would only make a 2-3 delegate difference if it was Clinton 51% Sanders 49% instead of Sanders 51% Clinton 49%.
What this means for the long run is that Bernie will have an easy time incrementally adding to his delegate count throughout the race, but it actually makes it much harder for him to stage a ‘come from behind’ win.
To add to the bizarrity (and bash Texas. Hey, it’s always okay to bash Texas! 😉 let me – no, let John Oliver – contribute the inimitable Robert Morrow:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgoypDIHKAQ
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Oh, that is hilarious!
This morning I saw on TV that Sanders had won (proportionally, barely, ha) Michigan. Today’s hard copy NY Times did not mention any winner/loser. If not so reporting was because the race was too hard to call prior to hard py publication deadline, the Times did not say so. From looking at my map of the U.S., I gather that the polls did not close any later in Michigan than in Mississippi.
This afternoon I noticed that the online NY Times posted a headline to the effect that Clinton was “shaken” by the results. It is my perception that the human primates who run the NY Times are bound and determined not to mention a Sanders victory in a page one headline, except indirectly with reference to a Clinton defeat.
I look forward to seeing if a Sanders Michigan victory is mentioned on page one of tomorrow’s NY Times.
Also:
‘A Republican committee deleted its Twitter post that said Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq veteran and double amputee, has a “sad record of not standing up for our veterans.” ‘ http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/11/us/politics/tammy-duckworth-and-backers-denounce-gop-tweet-as-insensitive.html
“STANDING” up, aye! Just as he would have no doubt been shot down and have avoided becoming a POW like John McCain, no doubt Donald Trump, unlike Tammy Duckworth, would have similarly avoided suffering grievous wounds in a helicopter crash. No doubt Trump is despondent in not having had these “opportunities.”
I.e., Trump NOT shot down. Zounds!
The polls in Mississippi closed earlier than Michigan. In fact, four Michigan counties are on Central Time, so they closed at 9 Eastern (8 Central), and no one was calling anything until those polls closed. The Republican race was called almost immediately in Michigan, the Democratic race was called, if memory serves, around midnight Eastern Time.
And if there’s any paper that is not going to do Clinton favors, it’s the New York Times. The NYT worked massively to take Bill Clinton down, and are doing the same to Hillary Clinton this year.
Trump is disliked by the globalist donor wing of the party because he threatens the Corporate “conservative” consensus on “free trade” as a means of labor and environmental arbitrage, and the consensus on “immigration” as a means for holding down wages (and increasing profit) for those goods and services that can’t be off-shored to an authoritarian hell-hole in the third world.
In other words, he is going to cost some wealthy and powerful people some money.
Trump is disliked by the neoconservatives because he is not in support of “American exceptionalism” and our historic mission to spread liberal democracy all over the planet at the barrel of a gun. If he is elected, it spells a lose of influence for folks like the Koch brothers and the neocon foreign policy establishment.
Trump is mostly about fair trade, immigration restrictions, and against foreign crusades to spread liberal democracy. David Axelrod is right to characterize his bid as a “hostile takeover” of the Republican party.
Now for all that, he is something of an ass, and it is unclear if he will follow through on his promises, and he has said some things that were not nice about illegal immigrants and Muslims, but if that were the whole story, he wouldn’t be where he was. . . interesting that the MSM won’t even utter the fact he has the support he does primarily due to his anti-globalist and anti-war positions.
If you want to understand Trump, it would be nice if you had the slightest knowledge of the guy, which it doesn’t seem you do.
First, if you were listening to him, he is campaigning on the whole “exceptionalism” theme. Now, I understand he shouldn’t be taken at his word, but he has harbored these attitudes for years, so it doesn’t surprise those who have watched him. Those who know him know he has no political positions beyond what will get Trump what Trump wants while making Trump look like the biggest dick in the house. He contradicts himself so often and so brazenly that it is obvious that he will say anything, and has no core convictions. Except thuggery.
Second, you display virtually no grasp of who he actually is. He is, in fact, a wannabe tough guy who inherited a lot of money, but has run much of his life like any other New York thug (not picking on New York, just noting his particular style of thuggery) who inherited a ton and has hustled his way to riches and fame by building crap buildings and doing business with mobsters from the Gambino and Genovese families, from whom he buys his concrete. Did you know that the New York’s (and Chicago’s) Trump Tower is made from concrete, not steel? (Concrete is used in just about all skyscrapers, but in conjunction with steel.) Well, the GAmbino and Genovese families own a concrete company. Trump Plaza in Atlantic City was built with the help of Philadelphia mobsters.
Third, giving him the role of commander in chief is like giving a .45 to a two-year-old. Because he takes offense at anything that he deems disrespectful, his reaction in a crisis would almost certainly be terrible. And he would have no trouble sending troops overseas, because he has no understanding of military science, and thinks we can just throw enough bombs and men at a problem and solve it. Hence his ludicrous references to Patton.
Also, like many thugs, he is a complete bigot. He pushed hard for the Central Park “wilding” defendants to be convicted. And when they were later cleared, he still wanted them to remain in prison. He loathes blacks, Latinos, Hispanics, Arabs and every other non-white race. This is very much part of him, as natural to him as breathing. It will animate his domestic and foreign policy, and if you don’t realize that, you have been sleeping.
Notice, too, that Trump really doesn’t have many significant wealthy friends. That is one source of his insecurity, because those who know him at that level consider him a buffoon and a crook.
He won’t release his taxes because it would expose the fact that he has been telling the IRS something very different than what he tells the world about how “rich” he is. This is a guy who has repeatedly lost other people’s money while he walks away. He’s a fast-talking real estate hustler who has spent his life lying to people to get what he wants, which is money and recognition. But what he really wants is respect. And that’s one thing he’ll never get because those he wants it from know exactly what he is. He doesn’t hate the powerful “elites”: He’s mad as hell that he will never be one, because he has no class. If he hadn’t had Daddy’s money to get himself started, he’d just be another wannabe wise guy hanging outside the strip club, trying to impress the bouncers.