I want to believe that Trump won't win the general. That he can't. That a country that would elect Barack Obama TWICE would never turn around and vote for this blatantly racist, sexist, xenophobic, clearly unhinged asshole.Perhaps all the "America is two countries" thing is actually coming true?
Mr. Romney made a blunt demand Wednesday on Fox News: Mr. Trump must release his tax returns to prove he was not concealing a ¡°bombshell¡± political vulnerability.Mitt Romney demanding tax returns is not so much beyond parody as, well, madness.
The reality is that if the Republican Party didn't feel like Trump wasn't electoral ebola they wouldn't be hand-wringing and telling endangered Senators to run away from Trump.I think, though, that they're not just scared about losing the election. They're scared about losing control of the party. If a nominal Republican wins but he's not a Republican who shares their priorities or gives a flying fuck about their party as an institution, it's a bigger disaster than losing any one presidential election.
CNN "State of the Union" host Jake Tapper asked Trump if he would "unequivocally condemn David Duke and say you don't want his support."Stop calling this execrable racist hatemonger a moderate.
Trump dodged the question.
"I don't know anything about David Duke," he said. "I don't know what you're even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacist. I don't know. I don't know, did he endorse me, or what's going on? Because, you know, I know nothing about David Duke. I know nothing about white supremacists. And so you're asking me a question that I'm supposed to be talking about people that I know nothing about."
Tapper pushed back. Trump suggested Tapper send him a list of "the groups" and he could research them. At which point, Trump said he would "disavow if I thought there was something wrong."
"The Ku Klux Klan?" Tapper asked.
"It would be very unfair," Trump continued talking over Tapper. "So give me a list of the groups and I'll let you know."
"I'm just talking about David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan here," Tapper said.
"Honestly, I don't know David Duke," Trump said. "I don't believe I've ever met him, I'm pretty sure I didn't meet him, and I just don't know anything about him."
Trump is playing dumb re: KKK because his dad was a member.That's apparently true, but it's true for a substantial number of white Americans his age, most of whom still manage to say that the Klan is bad. He could disavow the Klan, which is actively campaigning for him, and he's not. People have to stop pretending that doesn't mean what it looks like it means.
Since i can only vote in one primary, i'm voting for Trump. Why? Because i love what he's doing to the GOP. And i HATE TED CRUZ.Please don't do this.
Mr. Trump painted a fairly dark picture of the Reform Party in his statement, noting the role of Mr. Buchanan, along with the roles of David Duke, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, and Lenora Fulani, the former standard-bearer of the New Alliance Party and an advocate of Marxist-Leninist politics.I guess he's changed his tune about the company he'd like to keep, now that they like him, anyway.
"The Reform Party now includes a Klansman, Mr. Duke, a neo-Nazi, Mr. Buchanan, and a communist, Ms. Fulani," he said in his statement. "This is not company I wish to keep."
"Chris Christie's endorsement of Donald Trump is an astonishing display of political opportunism. Donald Trump is unfit to be President. He is a dishonest demagogue who plays to our worst fears. Trump would take America on a dangerous journey. Christie knows all that and indicated as much many times publicly. The Governor is mistaken if he believes he can now count on my support, and I call on Christie's donors and supporters to reject the Governor and Donald Trump outright. I believe they will. For some of us, principle and country still matter."Meg Whitman was the co-chair for finance of Christie's 2016 presidential campaign.
The problem with the Times piece is that it doesn't take into account two obvious factors that the Republican Party itself resolutely fails to confront: first, that the prion disease that has afflicted the party since Ronald Reagan first fed it the monkeybrains in the 1980s has gotten worse, not better, and second, that the party's three-decade courtship of the wild and the vile in our politics sooner or later was bound to leave the party open to a renegade campaign that was better at energizing that element than the cumbersome party machinery was.This is what decades of conservative media has wrought. The thing is, can the republic survive this self-inflicted wound?
Faced with this terrible situation, the DNC under Debbie Wasserman-Schultz has basically abandoned the 50 state strategy and essentially cut the downticket loose (look at 2014), instead focusing solely on making Hillary Clinton the next president.That really, really wasn't my experience of the 2014 election, in which I was a Democratic Neighborhood Team Leader in Iowa. We had a ton of resources from the national Democrats. We had a really impressive, competent team of paid organizers. We were able to hire canvassers when we couldn't get sufficient volunteers. We had a massive enthusiasm problem on the ground, but we did not have any issues with being insufficiently supported by the national leadership.
Peggy Noonan (!) had an interesting (paywalled) WSJ piece on Trump. She divided the electorate into the "protected" and the "unprotected" with the latter turning to Trump and Sanders. (She then goes on to blame immigration, because Peggy Noonan, but I liked the labels.)I think that doesn't do much to explain the South Carolina results, in which 85% of black voters went for Clinton. Do you think that black people in South Carolina fall into the category of "protected"?
Sessions was U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama. The year before his nomination to federal court, he had unsuccessfully prosecuted three civil rights workers--including Albert Turner, a former aide to Martin Luther King Jr.--on a tenuous case of voter fraud. The three had been working in the "Black Belt" counties of Alabama, which, after years of voting white, had begun to swing toward black candidates as voter registration drives brought in more black voters. Sessions's focus on these counties to the exclusion of others caused an uproar among civil rights leaders, especially after hours of interrogating black absentee voters produced only 14 allegedly tampered ballots out of more than 1.7 million cast in the state in the 1984 election. The activists, known as the Marion Three, were acquitted in four hours and became a cause c?l?bre. Civil rights groups charged that Sessions had been looking for voter fraud in the black community and overlooking the same violations among whites, at least partly to help reelect his friend Senator Denton.posted by zombieflanders at 5:40 PM on February 28, 2016 [5 favorites]
On its own, the case might not have been enough to stain Sessions with the taint of racism, but there was more. Senate Democrats tracked down a career Justice Department employee named J. Gerald Hebert, who testified, albeit reluctantly, that in a conversation between the two men Sessions had labeled the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) "un-American" and "Communist-inspired." Hebert said Sessions had claimed these groups "forced civil rights down the throats of people." In his confirmation hearings, Sessions sealed his own fate by saying such groups could be construed as "un-American" when "they involve themselves in promoting un-American positions" in foreign policy. Hebert testified that the young lawyer tended to "pop off" on such topics regularly, noting that Sessions had called a white civil rights lawyer a "disgrace to his race" for litigating voting rights cases. Sessions acknowledged making many of the statements attributed to him but claimed that most of the time he had been joking, saying he was sometimes "loose with [his] tongue." He further admitted to calling the Voting Rights Act of 1965 a "piece of intrusive legislation," a phrase he stood behind even in his confirmation hearings.
It got worse. Another damaging witness--a black former assistant U.S. Attorney in Alabama named Thomas Figures--testified that, during a 1981 murder investigation involving the Ku Klux Klan, Sessions was heard by several colleagues commenting that he "used to think they [the Klan] were OK" until he found out some of them were "pot smokers." Sessions claimed the comment was clearly said in jest. Figures didn't see it that way. Sessions, he said, had called him "boy" and, after overhearing him chastise a secretary, warned him to "be careful what you say to white folks."
¡°It¡¯s scary,¡± South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who has endorsed Rubio, said on ABC¡¯s ¡°This Week.¡± She added, ¡°I think what he¡¯ll do to the Republican Party is really make us question who we are and what we¡¯re about. And that¡¯s something we don¡¯t want to see happen.¡±Hah! The last thing we want is to actually think about who we are and what we believe!
Now, here¡¯s what happened in Nevada. The Latino community in the United States¡ªand especially the nearly 70 percent of that population that is Mexican or Mexican-American¡ªis highly aspirational. They don¡¯t settle. They want better lives for themselves and their children. They want success. They don¡¯t hate Trump. They want to be Trump.posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:15 PM on February 28, 2016
He, TrumpAlso, for those still mulling demographics, check out this FiveThirtyEight tool that lets you plug in turnout and partisanship rates for various groups and get instant electoral college projections.
Vulgar talking yam
The Libidinous Visitor
Rubio, long loath to take on Trump, has recently decided to go on the attack. At an event tonight he joked that Trump is a tall man but has the small hands befitting someone who is 5¡¯2¡±. ¡°You know what they say about a man with small hands,¡± Rubio quipped. ¡°You can¡¯t trust them.¡±The GOP race enters strange territory as Rubio jokes about Trump¡¯s small penis.
8. If Donald Trump won the Republican Party¡¯s nomination for the presidency, would you definitely support him in the general election in November, probably support him, probably NOT support him, or definitely NOT support him in the general election in November? Feb. 24-27 2016 Definitely support him 25% Probably support him 27% Probably not support him 13% Definitely not support him 35% No opinion 1%
According to the original version of Polybius¡¯s theory of Anacyclosis, society begins as tribal monarchy, develops into royal monarchy, then degenerates into tyranny. This in turn is overthrown by aristocracy, gets corrupted by oligarchy, and is later succeeded by democracy, which itself is perverted into ochlocracy (mob-rule) ¡ª finally opening the door (once again) to the chaos that makes autocratic rule palatable, thereby restarting the cycle...-The declining labor force participation rate for middle-aged males
Despite its pedigree, however, Polybius¡¯s original version of Anacyclosis didn¡¯t account for everything. It failed, for example, to register foreign interference in internal revolution, international integration, or even geopolitical conflict... We now have the benefit of an additional twenty-two centuries of human political experience which Polybius did not have when he first laid out the template of Anacyclosis. This advantage allows us to supplement Polybius¡¯ original model and more fully abstract general rules of evolutionary causality.
The greatest defect in Polybius¡¯s original model of Anacyclosis may have been its failure to clearly link the development of stable democracy with the emergence of a strong middle class, or the ephemerality of democracy with a weak middle class, as Aristotle did. Man¡¯s preoccupation with improving status fuels economic progress, but also animates political struggle. When the middle class is ascendant, you approach freedom and independence, aspire to equal justice under law, and promote moderation, which together channel human ambitions into creative and productive enterprises. A declining middle class is consequently the harbinger of revolution, for the diffusion (and concentration) of wealth tends to precede the diffusion (and concentration) of political power.
When productive, unsubsidised wealth is more broadly and equitably diffused among a population, which is relatively rare, political power tends to be more broadly diffused. This is why a middle economic stratum precedes the first appearances of democracy... Conversely, the re-concentration of wealth, particularly after democratic institutions have been entrenched, tends to produce a re-concentration of political power leading to antipathy among the middle classes...
As wealth becomes re-concentrated among a small elite, society becomes increasingly stratified between the opulent and the dependent. (Or, to use Aristotle¡¯s terms, masters and slaves, comprising ¡°one class envious and another contemptuous of their fellows¡±.) The institutions of democracy do not retreat as quickly as the middle class declines, however, hence the rise of the ¡°populist menace¡±.
The dependence of the masses on the wealthy and the state will lead to an orgy of pandering by politicians, with the eventual transformation of democracy not into ochlocracy, but rather, by virtue of patronage, into ¡°demagarchy¡±. This rule by demagogues ¡ª the people¡¯s champions ¡ª will echo the rise of Pompey, Julius Caesar and Octavian in ancient Rome. As was the case then, however, it stands to initiate a tournament of demagogues which, like any other tournament, can ultimately only have one champion. When that champion comes to the fore, the circle will be complete because the transition into and out of ochlocracy represents the seventh and final phase.
Drawing on yet more historical parallels, it¡¯s probably no coincidence that Polybius was contemporary to the Gracchi, reformers who tried to rehabilitate the Roman yeoman farmers, the pre-imperial Roman middle class. This class had long been the backbone of the Republic, but by various causes was exhausted, its wealth concentrated into the plutocracy... even in antiquity, the Gracchi resorted to arguably socialistic measures in an effort to restore this middle class. Yet the process of social stratification and territorial integration had advanced so far, and the intractability of the plutocracy was so complete, that there was little choice but to encroach upon the ancient constitution or else watch it evolve out of existence.
Can anyone break the wheel?
As it turned out, the Gracchi could not stop Anacyclosis. Had the Gracchi succeeded in restoring the Roman hoi mesoi, they probably would have forestalled the contest of demagogues that dragged Rome from plutocracy to monarchy. But they were murdered by the plutocracy, and within a century Rome was ruled by an emperor. From the monarchy of kings to the monarchy of emperors, the wheel of history completed one revolution.
It¡¯s worth noting that land reform in postwar Japan and South Korea proved far more successful, although fears of Communist revolution and the presence of America¡¯s occupation forces probably helped concentrate minds in ways unavailable to the Gracchi. But, as we see now, what happens in antiquity doesn¡¯t necessarily stay in antiquity. The forces of Anacyclosis are arguably turning again, and this time on an unprecedented global level.
How could he pull it off? The demography is stacked against him. As a rule of thumb, Democrats are assured of victory if they take 80 per cent of the non-white vote and 40 per cent of the white vote. The first part ought to be easy. Hispanics, African-Americans, Muslims and others will come out in droves to vote against Mr Trump.also btw...
It is the white vote ¡ª and particularly white males ¡ª that ought to worry Mrs Clinton. Blue collar whites are America¡¯s angriest people. They feel belittled, trod upon and discarded. The future belongs neither to them nor their children. Mrs Clinton personifies an establishment that has taken everything for itself while talking down to those it has left behind. Mr Trump is their revenge.
More people watched the season one finale of ¡°The Apprentice¡± than participated in the 2012 Republican primariesThat's not as reassuring as they presumably think.
I saw the memo that you wrote spelling out the issues that you could use against Trump¡ªfrom his support for partial-birth abortion or his use of illegal immigrants to build his hotels. One thing that wasn't on there is criticism of his bigotry or his racism. How come that's not an issue that you want to raise?Stay classy GOP.
At the time that we were doing research, that wasn't the strongest silver-bullet message for us. How do I word this? The people that are drawn to him because of those things aren't going to be peeled away from him for that. There is an element that likes him because he's a racist, so emphasizing the fact that he's a racist wasn't going to pull those people away.
ArbitraryAndCapricious: “I don't think this is an entirely new strain of American right-wing populist politics.”Robert Altemyer. The Authoritarians. 2006.
I've found people remarkably open to Sanders here, but the big cultural wedge issue here is gun rights - I'm not sure how well it translates in areas where the wedge is abortion or immigration or religion.Gun rights was a big cultural wedge issue where I grew up, too, but in the other direction. Bernie's support of guns makes him palatable where you live, but in other places it contributes to a perception that he is out of touch with or disinterested in people's safety and survival. So it's not just that he can't win people over in places where abortion or immigration or religion are wedge issues. It's that the very thing that makes him ok with rural white voters where you live is going to cause him problems with constituencies that have to turn out if Democrats are going to have a prayer at winning.
Obama won more total votes than Clinton in the contests where they both appeared on the ballot. Clinton won the popular vote only if you count votes from Michigan, where Obama¡¯s name did not appear on the ballot. Any way you cut it, the candidates¡¯ vote totals are within less than 1 percent of each other. Both candidates got roughly 18 million votes, but since four states don¡¯t list official counts, the precise totals can¡¯t be known.Factcheck.org
VALDOSTA, Ga. ¡ª About 30 black students who were standing silently at the top of the bleachers at Donald Trump¡¯s rally here Monday night were escorted out by Secret Service agents who said the presidential candidate had requested their removal before he began speaking.posted by mmoncur at 1:55 AM on March 1, 2016 [3 favorites]
« Older No vestige of a beginning,¨Cno prospect of an end. | ¡°When asked my name, I struggled between ¡®Kenneth... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
Bring it on. Trump's got a chance of shattering this party. That'd be great. Let's see it.
posted by Miko at 10:41 PM on February 27, 2016 [7 favorites]