It's always Christ this and Christ that with you Americans.
I like the reporter.
a man who wore a name tag that read "Big Daddy Infidel" and was afraid to give his full name
some masked and one with his mother
Mithras wept.
The phrase "tactical shotgun" implies a strategic shotgun, probably with nuclear buckshot.
See also Trump becoming an unabashed blackshirt leader.
1.2: The only "Yitzhak" in the gun club is going to be nervous.
Step 2 of this is going to be people lobbying to block any new mosque by arguing that the armed protestors will disrupt their neighborhood.
In perspective, there are about a dozen of these nutters. If that represents the percentage of full on ignorant pants wetting crazies in Dallas, then Dallas is doing pretty well as far as I can see. But jesus fucking christ anyway.
It's a small group now, but Texas started lots of trends that spread to the rest of the U.S., like lone gunmen shooting up a college campus or taking land from Mexico or remembering things.
The bad kid in me wants to toss a firecracker into the middle of that demo just to see the synchronized pants-shitting. I realize this is a bad idea for a number of reasons, but a boy can dream, can't he?
10 is pretty much the exact thought I have every time the pant-wetting open carry nutcases start wandering around in groups.
This is exactly what I feared would happen when we legalized open-carry. There are lots of institutions these ass clowns hate. I'm sure mosques are only the beginning.
First mosques, then Islamic courts.
A high school friend is Mormon and did his mission in Texas -- his comment on these credits to their state on Facebook was, "Well, none of the Muslims I met in Texas ever pulled a gun on me."
Muslim is sort of another later saints thing.
Seriously, the parallels are amazing.
On the other hand, Louisiana will soon expand Medicaid.
There's a mosque down the street from my house -- like three blocks away.
When my mother came to visit last month (for the first time in four or five years) we drove by it on the way home from the airport and she nearly bounced out of her seat in outrage. "Is that -- is that -- that's a MOSQUE!!"
"Right," I said, because so what. (I mean, we're Arkansas, racist rednecks abound, my kid gets cracks about being a Jew is school, the guy two houses down recently started flying a Confederate flag, which pisses me off, but seriously, no one has ever, even now, given a shit about this mosque.)
"A MOSQUE!!'
"We've got Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons too, Ma," I said.
I swear to y'all, my ma used to be a Liberal. Fox News is a killer.
my kid gets cracks about being a Jew is school
In case your were wondering when this would start...
At brunch a couple of years ago a friend's Texan mother-in-law asked how I managed living in New York City "with all these Arabs around." I think I, stunned, managed something like "There really aren't very many Arabs on the Upper West Side," rather than the full-throated condemnation that my friend's wide-eyed expression begged me not to serve out.
21: I lived across the street from the giant UES mosque. I could always get a cab! The call to prayer is nice! A++ would mosque again.
As to this Dallas thing, I almost certainly know someone who was there. Some dude I went to high school with who used to be really into Democratic politics (I think he was the youngest delegate [for Gore!] at the '88 convention? Was invited to the Clinton inaugurals etc.), but who told me in '08 "I'd still be a democrat if they were all like Joe Lieberman! The party left me." I watched him devolve on FB to full-bore Gellar birther wackjob. Now he rants about fetuses. Anyway, he lives there and was at the "Draw Muhammad" thing that someone tried to shoot up and it seems the experience left him having to consult his doctor for an erection lasting more than 3 hrs.
It's four hours where you need to see a doctor. Three hours is pretty standard.
It's sad to think that Bush was probably a restraining influence on Republican anti-Arab and anti-Islamic sentiment.
A muslim classmate once informed me that I was OK but America simply had to be destroyed. His family eventually had him committed. He was a pretty sad case. His sister was really cool, though. Not so much with the death to America and much more with the grils just want to have fun.
27: to be honest, I could have done with Bush being a bit less pro-Arab. Pro-Saudi, specifically.
Bush absolutely deserves credit for the speech he made a few days after 9/11 saying that we're not at war with Islam. In the days prior to that, people were attacking folks they thought were Muslim (often actually Sikh) all over the country.
By contrast, Trump is no longer funny, and has become a legit fascist. Nationalism, yay, database for Muslims, sure, protestors need to be "roughed up," why not? The fact that he's a clown might obscure this for a little while longer, but even mainstream outlets are going to have to start using the word soon.
If you're Sikh, and you get attacked in the US because people think you are Muslim, you should be able to execute the American of your choice in recompense.
I agree that Trump isn't funny anymore, but do you think they'll actually use the word "fascist"?
but even mainstream outlets are going to have to start using the word soon.
That's a nice thought.
I was talking to a classic old-school Orange County Republican today who said that he thought Trump was a fascist and needed to be stopped now or else "things will get bad." That seemed heartening.
Why isn't it a no-brainer that if someone feels uncomfortable flying on a plane because they are scared of some particular passenger that the scared person has to skip the flight?
The scariest thing about Trump is if it's true that only Cruz can beat him, and only by joining the wacky nativist stuff with full on right wing economics.
Coming off kind of like a clown obscuring what was really going on was a pretty strong hallmark of fascism in the thirties too, from what I can remember. They were sort of goofy unsophisticated idiots - but useful ones, maybe - and then they very much were not but it was a little late. If 'fascism' had had the connotation then that it did now no one would have used it about them until it was far, far too late (and/or until they were powerful enough that they could enforce rules about not saying it).
I don't think people are going to start using the word fascist much now either. I don't see any evidence that the press is going to do anything, and if Trump carries his support through the primaries and becomes the candidate I'm guessing a lot of them will start talking seriously about his economic populism, and how this represents a change for the Republicans from the old partisan whatever and writing a lot of articles about the tactics of the horse race while carefully ignoring what he's saying. He's certainly close enough to fascism at this point though that the biggest difference seems to me to be fashion sense and the fact that he's stuck with a pretty old demographic as his base.
I admit to worrying about white Europeans who frequent American right-wing blogs. We dodged a bullet when Sullivan turned out not to be a fifth columnist.
I admit to worrying about white Europeans who frequent American right-wing blogs. We dodged a bullet when Sullivan turned out not to be a fifth columnist.
So far the highest profile place I've seen use the word "fascist" is a blog post at US News. It's a start!
The true irony is that the increasingly public actions by these kinds of seriously bigoted nutcases and the (increasing!) support for Trump is making me think that maybe I should buy a gun. Which, I guess, means that their gun activism is having the effect they want? Kind of?
I have guns. People just give them to me.
Me, too, Moby.
Most of them are my relatives.
They're like, we just want you to be *safe*, delagar.
Here, have dangerous weapons to keep in your home.
Trump is a genuinely scary figure, I think, and it's worrying as hell watching from over here.
That said, there's something dark and poisonous at the heart of British politics at the moment, too. Not fascism, or racist populism, but there's no question that a bunch of vicious evil bastards are in charge, and prepared to be ruthless about staying so. The reaction to Corbyn's election as Labour leader has been particularly enlightening in terms of the total disregard the whole British establishment has for any notion of democracy.
My Arkansas friends tell me you can hock that shit; but Dr. Skull won't let me. As a Jew, he says, he doesn't want to put a dangerous weapon out into the world.
WTF, I say to him. There is such a thing as taking ethics too far.
There might be a gun buyback program around you somewhere.
46: Anything interesting that might be worth decent money like older Winchester rifles or Colt revolvers?
44 is what happened to me, except the one I got for my 13th birthday. I asked for that.
Nobody involved is Jewish, so I just put a trigger lock on them and shove them in the closet.
The stupid mace cans are worse. Those expire, aren't as easy to lock, and you can't safely put them out with the trash after you are done with them.
It seems problematic to deny your Jews, closeted or no, trigger locks.
45:
The media's smug condescension towards both Bernie Sanders and the protests on college campuses over here have made the American political establishment's contempt for democracy pretty clear.
I'm optimistic that a candidate like Bernie Sanders can garner even 25% in Democratic polls. I don't think this would have happened before. But I worry it may be too little too late.
42:
I've been having that gun thought lately, especially since I live in Texas. I doubt I'll do it. Instead I've been thinking very seriously about how to get out of the country quickly if we elect a Trump or Cruz.
I've heard unpleasant things about being a refugee.
You know, I hear people say that kind of thing, and have to wonder, what are you fleeing? Personal danger -- are you deportable? Collective responsibility? Where can you go and be less responsible than a sane person voting in Texas? Coming madness? There's nowhere you go beyond the reach of an insane president/public of the US. Can't you tune out every bit as effectively (or ineffective) in Dallas as in Dakar?
I guess I usually read this kind of thing as signaling. Am I missing something? Should I be packing?
I'm with Charley - it just seems odd and frankly I didn't notice a material uptick in US -> Canada emigration post the election or re-election of Bush II.
We did move when our kid was young because we had the option to and couldn't face raising him where we were, but I mean it was a move of like 75 miles or so within the SF Bay Area and again only because we had the option. Also if our kid had been a bit different of a person maybe we would have stayed (I kind of doubt that, but maybe). I've relocated my entire life overseas, and then back, when I was in my early and then mid twenties. Even for someone without any ties/involvements to speak of it was a major undertaking, very far from trivial.
Apparently Democrats urgently need to start contesting local and state elections to build up a cadre of credible, experienced candidates going forward. Why not stay and work on that? If you are really and truly considering uprooting your entire life to emigrate, believe me staying and working with your local and state Democratic party would be a hell of a lot less work.
||
East Coast Brother and his family are visiting my parents for Thanksgiving. She emailed them and asked for any special grocery requests.
Yes, there are:
"Looking forward to seeing you. Here's the shopping list. When I listed a brand name, please try to find the brand - the kids are likely to not eat a substitute.
Pepperidge farm 7 grain light loaf of bread
lenders plain bagels
2 bags frozen broccoli
Reese's Puffs cereal
light swiss cheese sliced (X likes Sargento)
Tyson chicken nuggets frozen (not fun dinosaur shapes)
chips ahoy reduced fat
Deli ham low sodium (Boar's head if available)
frozen edamame shelled
eggs
4 bananas
2 red apples
2 pears
2 pkgs strawberries
Hebrew national reduced fat hot dogs
strawberry jelly
jif or skippy crunchy peanut butter, reduced fat if available
Marie's reduced fat blue cheese dressing (in produce aisle)
3 half gallons skim organic milk
2 boxes barilla plus angle hair or spaghetti pasta
Hidden Valley Light Ranch dressing
2 boxesArmour frozen turkey sausage or light sausage
1 bagSnyders pretzel snaps
1 boxReduced fat cheezits
1 pringles reduced fat ( NOT fat free)
celery
3 cucumbers
romaine lettuce 2 heads
yoplait strawberry yogurt 3 cups
cashews roasted unsalted
Stonyfiled Vanilla yogurt large tub low fat"
This is making me laugh really hard, but maybe it doesn't translate well to a comment box.
|>
Sounds like a good strategy to never be asked about special requests, or Thanksgiving visits, again.
Wow. Is this the same relation-by-marriage that tends to be so difficult about everything? Or does that not narrow it down?
58: agghhhhghgghghh
Can you meet a stranger on a train who also has a horrifying in-law?
Lenders? Did you let them know they were demoted to Goy, Second Class?
I wish I could let myself ignore the elections until next year at the earliest, but man I'm worked up over Trump. I'm starting to think we need some Europe-style Anti-Fascist Rallies.
Are there non-frozen Lenders bagels? It's been years since I had them, but I remember thawed, warmed Lenders bagels as some of the worst bread-like objects I've ever eaten.
I used to eat them, when there were no bagel places near me. Back in the 80s, it was still exotic.
The reply writes itself: So sorry I couldn't find any of these! Copying blood relative. Done!
I would actually search the house high and low to eliminate every single one of these food units!
"Ancient grains? I said 7-grain! WORST THANKSGIVING EVER, MOM."
Hebrew National makes the best pigs in a blanket, but i think they call them something else.
58 is incredible. What's extra funny is that it's so persnickety yet 90% of it is complete shit that no one should eat.
what are you fleeing?
Here are three non-crazy answers:
1) You don't want to be confronted with things every day. You want to open the local paper and see regular big-city or small-town issues, and not whether we should be putting people in internment camps.
2) You don't want to feel complicit. You can make the argument that leaving is worse on complicity grounds, but psychologically, it's going to depend on the person whether they feel better staying or getting far away.
3) You don't want to be the hated outsider. Would I blame any Muslim for moving to Canada if we elect president Trump? Hell no.
I really love the "no fun dinosaur shapes". Would un-fun dinosaur shapes be okay? What about fun non-dinosaur shapes? WHY DO YOU HATE FUN AND PALEONTOLOGY?
56:
I know what you mean, and I usually read this sort of thing that way, too, so I feel weird bringing it up. Trump seems different, but I'm sure people said the same about Bush. The thing is, though, that it _is_ my personal safety that I fear for, which I don't think has been the case before. Open carry in Texas, this kind of state-sanctioned intimidation of unpopular groups by threat of force -- that's changed things for me. Trump has taken it a step further by practically encouraging his supporters to get violent with dissenters at his rallies. Greg Abbott hasn't been too far behind Trump, either, when it comes to inciting people to intimidate groups they don't like.
I could probably just leave Texas, but with the way gerrymandering has gone in the rest of the country and the way republicans use Texas as a model for governance, well, I'm not sure where to go.
You're right, though, that if America turns wildly belligerent against the rest of the world that I'm likely not to feel better about that in Denmark. And I'll be away from my family, too.
70) "You don't want to feel complicit."
Not exactly the same, but reminds me how after gaining citizenship (in the early 2000s), it's now *my* government that's doing shit.
58 is awesome.
Just "eggs" not jumbo, organic brown? Or "extra large, free range, white"? Do they even know "eggs"?
The Trump thing is scary from over here. I find myself dreading and delaying this week's Skype session with the folks largely because of him (they've expressed support for him in the past and met him at some golf club the other year).
not jumbo, organic brown? Or "extra large, free range, white"?
Totally different class markers.
"extra large, free range, white"
Laydeez.
58: That's the last time Van Halen gets invited to Thanksgiving.
Dear Van Halen: if you're "Thanksgving homeless," please come over for a meal at my house. Sincerely, R. Tigre.
What baffles me about 58 is that one of their non-negotiable demands is for frozen broccoli. What sort of insanely picky child insists on eating broccoli?
Each insanely picky child is insanely picky in their own way.
On the OP, is that the same as these guys?
http://www.unfogged.com/archives/week_2015_09_27.html#014919
How is it the Freedom Fries people are suddenly All Parisians Now?
What baffles me about 58 is that one of their non-negotiable demands is for frozen broccoli. What sort of insanely picky child insists on eating broccoli?
And, in doing so, frozen broccoli.
What sort of insanely picky child insists on eating broccoli?
Pixar had to remake the scenes where Riley is grossed out by broccoli and replace it with green pepper in the Japanese version of Inside Out, because for most Japanese kids it's one of their favourite vegetables.
85 demonstrates conclusively that Japanese children are superior to American ones. Green peppers are ok in things, at least when cooked to the point where they're barely there, but broccoli is amazing.
I can't help but suspect that the long list in 58 has as much to do with the parents as the children. At least I hope that it does and that somewhere along the line there's a minor meltdown because Grandma always had the good cereal that mom wouldn't buy and it isn't there now.
Also Re:Trump: We were stabbed! Stabbed in the back World Trade Centers!
60: does not narrow it down!
Also, I don't know if the kids are picky eaters, because I've never seen them offered any food that is not on this list. They are all elementary school aged.
I really love the "no fun dinosaur shapes". Would un-fun dinosaur shapes be okay? What about fun non-dinosaur shapes? WHY DO YOU HATE FUN AND PALEONTOLOGY?
AAAAARRRRGHHH MOOOOOM THIS TURKEY IS DINOSAUR SHAPED
Pixar had to remake the scenes where Riley is grossed out by broccoli and replace it with green pepper in the Japanese version of Inside Out, because for most Japanese kids it's one of their favourite vegetables.
I loved broccoli as a kid (still do), unlike my brother.
I hope you can reconcile. My brother has been an important and irreplaceable part of my life.
In Urdu, Arabic and Swahili, the word "brother-in-law" is a serious insult. (Insight gained from Montague's "Anatomy of Swearing").
For some reason I opened a stupid forward email about how to detect a stroke, and this paragraph is cracking me up:
Jane's husband called later telling everyone that his wife had been taken to the hospital - (at 6:00 PM Jane passed away.) She had suffered a stroke at the BBQ. Had they known how to identify the signs of a stroke, perhaps Jane would be with us today. Some don't die. They end up in a helpless, hopeless condition instead.
If only Jane hadn't died, she could have had the opportunity to end up in a helpless hopeless condition instead.
East Coast Brother and his family are visiting my parents for Thanksgiving. She emailed them and asked for any special grocery requests.
Wowwwwww. That definitely leaves the special grocery requests I've fielded this week in the dust.
(Though none of ours are even allegedly for the sake of children.)
88: CNN actually called him out on that, which was nice.
Some don't die. They end up in a helpless, hopeless condition instead.
AKA "life".
Holy Moly, Ladybird. Your relatives eat a fuckton of salad dressing. And are insane.
It looks like Trump is going all-out for the bigot vote.
I'm guessing CNN calling him out on that won't do a damn thing - those the Librul PC liars at CNN are denying the reality of black violence and how dangerous those thugs are, or whatever his supporters end up going with. Like a bunch of his stuff the media talking about it (even if they're claiming it's not true) will just spread it further around his supporters who have already been trained not to trust them - and especially about things like this.
He's been straight for the bigot/white supremacist/fascist/authoritarian vote from the beginning - that's why I thought he had legs, and wasn't just a joke candidate who would disappear when people "got serious", back in summer. He does seem to have moved on a bit from Mexicans to Muslims though, which is probably why his support has been rising again.
The long-term future of the Republican Party depends on getting Mexican bigots to vote for them.
On the OP, is that the same as these guys?
I thought the article said yes, and they were re-using some of the materials from the earlier "protest."
Ah, missed that. Thanks. So did any of the other earlier protests happen as planned? Or is this the first one?
As for Trump, I periodically wonder if I'm living in too much of a left-wing bubble. It's not intentional, I just happen to have practically no one "right of center" in my life. My mother's cousins probably voted for Bush in 2004 (genuinely don't know what to think about 2008 or 2012, and they aren't nuts about guns or religion, FWIW), and I haven't seen them in person for over a year, just because our schedules haven't lined up. A couple co-workers send out Heritage or AEI stuff around the office two or three times a year, and that's not the only reason I dislike them. All my other connections to people who could plausibly like Trump, Cruz, Rubio, etc. are even farther. I mostly think of myself as lucky for this but occasionally wonder if I'm missing out on the occasional good idea that side has. Or maybe I'll just be underprepared for when the brown shirts actually come out.
As for how bad the next Republican president would actually be, I'm tempted to say they couldn't be worse than Bush. If nothing else, what are the odds? Historians were calling him the worst ever during his term; how could we get someone as openly fascistic as Trump is acting so soon after that?
But then, it's not like quality of presidents is independent and random. Yes, things can get worse.
But then, it's not like quality of presidents is independent and random.
It really isn't - eight of the ten worst presidents ever ruled in the period 1840-1880. (The other two are Hoover and Bush II).
http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/02/american-presidents-washington-lincoln.html
When judging presidents, one has to take into account what sorts of challenges they were faced with, in addition to what they did/didn't accomplish.
That's what makes Bush II hard to beat in the worst president sweepstakes. He inherited a budget surplus, a healthy economy, no ongoing wars and a world in which the USA's status as the only superpower was still unquestioned. And he managed to squander all of it.
102: But those people don't matter. If they're already a majority, then it's game over, man, game over. It's the squishy middle who matter. Did you watch the 2000 Republican National Convention? The whole thing was a long ad on how inclusive the Republican Party was. They wouldn't have done it if they didn't think being too racist would cost them votes.
did any of the other earlier protests happen as planned?
Good question. I was following their Facebook pages for a while and then they mostly disappeared or something like this got posted. So, maybe? But nothing I saw that got much attention.
106 -- You're not missing any good ideas.
I think the Republican Party may be shifting from an inclusion strategy to a create new racists strategy.
109 - Yeah, they were pushing "we're totally not a bunch of racists!" as a line for most of 2000 and (partly at least) 2004 because their strategists could look at a series of numbers and tell whether they were getting larger or smaller. But it didn't work, and all that happened was that their base got angrier about them doing it. And after the Obama presidency, Black Lives Matter stuff, and so on I think it's pretty clear that even the mushy fox-news-is-the-only-reliable-one have been pretty aggressively sold on the nationalist racist stuff. And the last few elections have, I think, made it clear that "competing for the centrists! by which we mean the people the media think they themselves are!" isn't actually a viable strategy compared to "get people already on board(ish) to the polls".
I mean, sure there are some awkward feeling but mostly sensible people trying to work with a "well they don't really mean that it's just rhetoric" and "the media is just exaggerating things" view of what is pretty mainstream Republican talk right now, but there are less and less each month and that doesn't mean they're jumping ship to the Democrats either.* As far as the Republican base goes - the serious ones, I mean, not just "oh I'll read about the election on November 3rd" ones - then yeah I'm confident that they're majority racism-is-a-priority people.
*The most to hope for, I think, is that a large majority (as opposed to "reasonable number" or "a few") are just going "politics is gross I'm not interested anymore" and tuning out entirely.
I'm enough of a vulgar Marxist to believe that the fact that the main financial muscle of the contemporary Republican party is in the oil and gas sector means that there will be very strict limits to the success of anti-Arab racism; ditto small manufacturing operations, meat processing plants and the like and Mexicans.
(though, interestingly, the need for Mexican labor is declining as our economy sucks it more; this is the first year since maybe 1940 (haven't checked) that migration from the US to Mexico is greater than migration from Mexico to the US. Ironically less demand for Mexican labor may increase party elites' tolerance for racial demagoguery, though the even semi-aware ones realize that's a long-term disaster for them).
I'm enough of a vulgar Marxist to believe that the fact that the main financial muscle of the contemporary Republican party is in the oil and gas sector means that there will be very strict limits to the success of anti-Arab racism; ditto small manufacturing operations, meat processing plants and the like and Mexicans.
(though, interestingly, the need for Mexican labor is declining as our economy sucks it more; this is the first year since maybe 1940 (haven't checked) that migration from the US to Mexico is greater than migration from Mexico to the US. Ironically less demand for Mexican labor may increase party elites' tolerance for racial demagoguery, though the even semi-aware ones realize that's a long-term disaster for them).
I'm enough of a vulgar Marxist to believe that the fact that the main financial muscle of the contemporary Republican party is in the oil and gas sector means that there will be very strict limits to the success of anti-Arab racism; ditto small manufacturing operations, meat processing plants and the like and Mexicans.
(though, interestingly, the need for Mexican labor is declining as our economy sucks it more; this is the first year since maybe 1940 (haven't checked) that migration from the US to Mexico is greater than migration from Mexico to the US. Ironically less demand for Mexican labor may increase party elites' tolerance for racial demagoguery, though the even semi-aware ones realize that's a long-term disaster for them).
I am a vulgar Marxist! Anyhow, I still expect Trumpism to collapse quite rapidly.
113: It did work. They won (or close enough) in 2000. In 2008 and 2012 they flirted with racism, and lost.
"Flirted"!?
Also I'm pretty sure that very few of them took the lesson of "we need to be less terrifying brownshirt racists" from those losses, or at least the voters didn't. A Trump backlash is totally a possibility (and god I hope so), but if it happens I strongly doubt it'll happen in the Republican primary and it's totally possible that it won't happen in the general. If I were a member of Daesh, or whatever it is this week, I would already be making plans for the month of October.
No really. Economic determinism only works up until a social upheaval. The Republican base is now quite solidly fascist, and no longer well controlled by the elites.
You saw a lot less direct eliminativism, sure, but I don't think the voters got much worse, they just didn't have anyone standing up yelling about it publicly enough. I mean, the difference between Birthers and Trump's current stuff seems to me to mainly be a matter of targeting different groups and abandoning even the slightest pretense of dog whistles. They didn't really get worse, just more frustrated and more angry about how PC versions of what they thought weren't getting any real traction and now there's someone out there saying it like it is and boy are they excited.
Wait holy shit. How did I not see that before?
64: Oddly, my mother who claims to be a bagel-purist like frozen Lenders bagels. She toast them until they are about as hard as they are when frozen solid. These hard small things are true bagels to her, not the huge "abominations" that are baked fresh in bagel emporiums.
128" "likes" not "like". Also "toasts" not "toast". Maybe the "s" was sticking on my keyboard.
58: The very best I could do with that would be ignore it.
Trumpism can collapse if the rest of the Republicans get their act together (or hell, even draw straws) and agree to all drop out except for one. My hunch is that Trump isn't many peoples' second choice. He doesn't have anything close to a majority of the polls, so if every non-Trump candidate dropped out except for Ben Carson and one of Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio, I expect that Trump would no longer be the leader. Any of those three might be worse than Trump, though.
But seriously, what are Bush, Kasich, and Christie even doing in the race? They must know that they can't win and that they're only keeping votes away from a viable challenger to the Donald.
So here's a question that I've been thinking about, what with the recent "RNC Official Unveils Secret New Plan To Destroy Tru..Oh Shit We Screwed That Up" news. How, in the current situation, can the GOP take down Trump conclusively enough that he doesn't (1) become the nominee, (2) make a strong enough showing that he screws up the nomination procedure, or (3) get really mad and attack the GOP and/or run as a third party, before Trump burns "Republicans Are Racists And Nazis" into the public consciousness enough that it affects the 20168* election?
Big ad buys run by a person incompetent enough to be fired from the Walker campaign doesn't seem like a great strategy to pursue, obviously. But they're dealing with an electorate conditioned, molded, etc. to only believe the most hateful thing that someone on television has said most recently, and Trump is giving it to them uncut, right in the vein. And he's got great showmanship and is, in a lot of ways, the Obama of the right when it comes to campaigning (by which I mean he has a mastery of a huge media with a faster turnaround and direct contact with the public that no one running against him knows how to use well don't freak out). I mean, within minutes to hours of any announcement like this, or ads showing up, or whatever he's got a response right there on twitter for people to read (and which the press will feel the need to bring up/talk about) and there's little to no time for any negative messages to marinate or filter through the various press outlets before he gets the chance to punch back. What would work, though?
*On reflection I think 2016 might be gone at this point, unless they can do it within a month or two. People forget really, really fast in America, and especially people in the press. But we're verging on the point where I think people might remember, and not in a "whew, we dodged a bullet for a second there I thought politics would have an impact on people and that the Republicans were dangerous" way.
131 - I don't think even that would work at this point. Trump is already hitting or clearly 1/3 of the (republican) people polled, and that's only as a first choice. If you take out a bunch of other people support will go up for a lot of the remaining ones, but Trump will catch a bunch of it. Also it's not clear how to get people to do that, either. Future favors might work, but you're working with a limited number of people for whom that's appealing anyway, and you'd want them to mount a suicidal attack on Trump on the way out to boot.
I'm pretty sure Carson supporters are mostly dividing themselves between Rubio (because they're following whatever the media trend is and he seems like such a nice young man) and Trump (because, hey, at least he's also insane? who knows).
Nate Silver isn't too worried.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/dear-media-stop-freaking-out-about-donald-trumps-polls/
But I have a more immediate concern with Trump -- how big a traffic jam is he going to cause? https://www.eventbrite.com/e/donald-j-trump-in-columbus-oh-tickets-19610046176
Nate Silver has been doing a pretty aggressive version of that for a while now, but he's been looking sketchier and sketchier (e.g., talking about Trump's low favorability ratings and then quietly in a footnote admitting that that's among adults nationwide and not among registered Republican voters where they're a lot stronger), and he's had to keep updating his arguments why Trump will disappear before he matters. His main argument seems to be that once people start paying attention they'll all suddenly not like Trump and will coalesce around another candidate - which is possible!
But he needs a better reason for why that would be true, and the extent to which a lot of the Republican candidates are falling away and/or turning out to be really bad at campaigning* makes it a tricky point to sell, especially since his argument in that article is basically "no one is really paying attention to what has been on the front page of half the newspapers about a very well known figure for six months now". I mean, I can absolutely believe that in November 2011 people really weren't too up on the Republican presidential primary (I wasn't even that up on it and I have lots of opinions! lots of them!). But that's not what we're seeing happen now.
*GeorgeBushIAmLookingAtYou.
130: Ignore it, and then when they ask if you got it all on the day you arrive, reply, "Oh, wait, you were serious?"
132: What are they doing? Several possibilities.
(1) I don't think Bush has given up yet. Bush is still polling in the top half.
(2) Christie still should stay in it as long as he can and look as serious as he can if he's at all interested in 2020. Same for Bush if he has given up. Kasich, I have no idea.
(3) You presume they care about having a viable challenger to The Donald. But isn't an "if I can't have it, no one will" approach the Republican, nay, the American way? Bush would rather see Trump win and go down in flames than see Rubio lose the general election by 2 percent. It's not like any harm caused by President Trump would affect the Bush family personally anyway.
I'm not worried that Trump is going to win the Republican nomination. I don't give a shit who wins the Republican nomination--they're all vile, and I have no read whatsoever on who is likely to be either least worst or most worst, though it's certainly not obvious to me that Trump would be the most worst of the lot. So, no, I'm not worried that Trump will win the nomination. My worry is that the mainstream media is never going to start labeling Trump and his supporters as fascists.
I'll give 5-1 odds on a $20 Trump wins the nomination bet, for up to five takers. Anyone in?
I mean, I certainly nod my head in agreement when liberal friends complain that they're getting tired of hearing Trump poison the national debate with his outrageous, false and offensive statements, but I feel exactly that same way about all the Republican candidates.
it's certainly not obvious to me that Trump would be the most worst
Me either. The GOP and Fox News have been stirring up this sort of shit for a long time now. Trump is a trailing indicator, not a leading one. He just uses less euphemistic language. What I don't understand is the hand-wringing lamentations that "the country needs a sane Republican Party." That ship sailed already, people. What the country needs is to recognize that the GOP is not now, and will not be for the foreseeable future, a sane party. If it takes a Trump nomination for that to sink in, then that's what it takes.
If Trump maintains his lead up to the actual primaries, there has to be a decent chance that either the party commits fraud to favor one of their own, or Trump's GOTV efforts are horrible and his votes don't match his polls, giving the appearance of fraud, right? I'd be delighted with either possibility, as the base would completely abandon the party.
141: so, wait, if he wins I give you $20 and if he loses you give me $100? Because I'd take that. Or the other way round?
139 ...Bush is still polling in the top half.
Polling in the top half means polling better than Chris Christie and Rand Paul. I'm not sure how much that gets you...
What's important though isn't that he's polling there it's what put him there, which is a relentless campaign of needling him and his inability to come off as a strong person in response to it. I mean, look at JEB! in the debates or in speeches or something. If there's one thing Republican voters want it's Alpha Male, and JEB! just isn't giving it to them, not at all. He looks like Rubio could walk all over him.
144 seems right to me, though. I don't like "let's lance the boil"/"heighten the contradictions"/etc. arguments because, well, the bottom of the barrel is usually a lot farther away than people are willing to give it credit. But Trump right now absolutely is the Republican party boiled down to its essence and a really, really large part of the country have successfully managed to keep from knowing this for way too long.
He's giving odds, so you'd get the $100.
In many ways I'd actually prefer to have Trump be the nominee, because he can't win and his saying the quiet part loud thing will, I think, make Republicans less electable everywhere for the next 20 years. But there's just enough wiggle room in that "can't win" to make it wrong to hope he wins the nomination, and he's not going to be the nominee anyway. Unfortunately the net result of 2015 Trumpism will most likely be making the eventual establishment nominee look like a sane champion of sanity -- when of course the underlying policies will be (almost) as insane as what Trump has on offer.
But, at least, if you all take my bet I'll have $100 when he's not the nominee.
145 - I don't think they would really need to go that far, even. Normal election shenanigans could probably work if they were shameless enough about them. ("Following the surprising results of Super Tuesday, the Republican party in [statename] has announced that they will be sending unbound delegates to the Republican National Convention...") The problem for them is that if he is still as popular and angry (and good at getting attention and narcissistic) as he is now that could really cause trouble. Imagine trying to explain the mechanics of caucuses sending unbound delegates and the specific scoring process and so on to a bunch of Trump voters who saw Trump leading in polls the day before the state vote and now are told he's lost.
If he's not the nominee, you pay me $20, if he is the nominee I pay you $100.
149: oh, you don't think he'll win? ok, neither do I. no bet, sorry.
I knew if that were really a $100 bill on the sidewalk someone would have picked it up by now.
If he's not the nominee, you pay me $20, if he is the nominee I pay you $100.
I'd take the bet. I don't think Trump will be the nominee, but 5-1 odds are too good to pass up.
Winnings donated to charity (and, hopefully, we can agree on a reasonable charity ahead of time)? My charity the last time this came up was Nurse-Family Partnership but I wonder if I should be supporting National Advocates for Pregnant Women instead (they look more explicitly political), so I'd chose them for this bet.
Perfect! Note that my record of winning these bets is not good. Urple fucked me over particularly hard by making me give to the Southern Poverty Law Center which means that I get literally 100000000000 messages per day from Morris Dees and will do so for the rest of my life. We can check in at or near the convention and I'll name the charity then.
If someone makes RT send $100 to the Trump campaign I think that would be amazing. It's not going to be me though. An anonymous prankster recently signed a friend up for his mailing list (no money involved, even!) and apparently it is unrelenting.
I get literally 100000000000 messages per day from Morris Dees and will do so for the rest of my life.
That is my concern. I reserve the right to donate anonymously depending on who you choose.
There's a non-negligible chance that neither Carson nor Trump can be shaken out of the race, and that the non-Trump/Carson voters fail to coalesce around a single candidate so that two (or more) politician candidates also remain viable past the early contests. In that scenario, it isn't difficult to imagine arriving at the convention with no clear winner, but with a set of camps that very much don't like one another. I doubt Trump comes out of that scenario with a nomination, but I also doubt that whoever does emerge comes out with a party united behind them.
This has been a pretty fascinating campaign so far.
155, 157: I donated an excessive amount to John Kerry in 2004 and have been paying for it ever since. Fuck off, Democratic Senate Campaign Committee. I knew I should have given that money to the Heifer Project.
I think Carson might be on his way out already. I was caught a bit by surprise by his initial rise, but I think the one-two punch of looking really defensive and whiny when the lies in his autobiography came up and the Paris attacks scaring people could really keep him on the downward trajectory he's on right now. I don't know who would replace him, though - it might not actually change the dynamic with the rest of the players in the race.
The reason I asked about Trump, though, was that I see plenty of analysis that (months after the initial identical predictions) say that Trump will probably "flame out" or something. But I don't really see much explanation of how this would work. Clearly the assumption earlier on was that he would say something extreme and/or boneheaded and his supporters would shake their heads and go "Holy shit I nearly voted for combover-Mussolini!" and it would all fall apart. And that was clearly at best a misunderstanding of what his supporters are. But what is it supposed to be now?
IOTM I sent a nasty note to SPLC about their junk mail a year or two ago and I don't remember the last time I got anything from them.
This has been a pretty fascinating campaign so far.
Could not be enjoying it more if they designed it as a play for my sole enjoyment.
I'm having trouble getting upset about Trump's continued domination for the same reason as everyone else here has mentioned, even though I feel a bit guilty about it. I remember in 2004 or so a reasonably mainstream conservative think tank was actually advocating for internment camps for Muslims, and no one really blinked an eye. The Republican party has been Fascist for a while (at least since the Bush II years), and having a buffoon broadcast as loud as possible seems better than the alternative, which is the NRO types advocating for slowly but systematically stripping civil liberties from everyone who isn't like them.* That is, the more Donald Trump makes American Fascism resemble Nazism/Italian Fascism, the more likely Americans are going to wake up to what's happening.**
*The sooner the "it's not racial, it's cultural" fig leaf dies, the better.
**The alternative, that Americans look at warmed-over Nazism 2.0 and enthusiastically embrace it is not a zero possibility, and one pretty bleak to contemplate. Also, what appears to be an uptick in hate crimes is also awful.***
***My problem with the "Fuck yeah we're the heroes" narrative that Americans get wrt WW2 vs. the "holy shit war is terrible and humans are capable of awful things" narrative that many Europeans get is that it's been far too easy for far too long to downplay levels of Fascism that would get the double red Hitler alert in Europe.****
****Oh, you have secret torture camps for people you've decided are "existential enemies" undeserving of life? That doesn't sound Fascist at all!
On the Thanksgiving list, if I had the time and money, I would probably be passive aggressive enough to get the slightly wrong version of everything on the list. Also, what's up with three half gallons? Why not say 1.5 gallons of milk? Does it have to be in three half gallon containers or it doesn't count?
Stuff like this makes me think there was a lot of value to Spartan boarding schools for the upper classes.
Also, this. I really marvel at the patience and tolerance of POCs in the US to not round up white people and shoot us all.
Does milk come in 1.5 gallon containers?
164 fn3: Europe isn't exactly devoid of Fascists even so. There are national leaders getting re-elected in Europe who are considerably more fascist than any U.S. president is likely to be.And actual fascist mass murderers (like Breivik). The U.S. doesn't have those; protests like the one in the OP hardly compare.
It is not as though, historically, being exposed to the full horrors of industrial war serves as a particularly effective vaccine against fascism. It didn't last time. Quite the reverse.
167
Not that I know of, but it does come in gallon containers. I would get one 1 gallon container and 1 half gallon container if someone told me they needed 1.5 gallons. Specifying three .5 gallon containers seems weird.
168.1
Europe has Fascists, and we recognize them as such. America has Fascists, and we deny the very possibility of their existence, because AMERICA, FUCK YEAH!!! we all feel good when we watch Saving Private Ryan.
Breivik is a good example of our disparate treatment of American vs. European Fascists, because he basically cribbed his manifesto from American Fascists like McVeigh. Despite 1) also committing acts of terrorism and 2) writing word for word the same thing, I don't recall McVeigh et al. ever getting compared to Nazism in the US or in intl. media.
After you open the container, the milk goes bad more quickly that if it were still sealed.
170
Yeah, ok, but if not drinking it quick enough is an issue then it would make even more sense to buy milk a half gallon at a time instead of three at a time.
169: I seem to recall reading more than a few things about McVeigh's and Nichols' associations with ugly organizations like Christian Identity and other Swastika White Jesus types, if that counts.
169. 2: Europe has fascists, we recognise them as fascists, and we still vote for them. Not seeing the superiority here. This is a continent where having the surname Mussolini is actually an electoral advantage, remember?
Asking for a fresh half-gallon carton of milk every other day might sound picky.
Are you content with just any brand of milk? If so, not picky.
I insist on organic milk from the front, right teat only.
Taking a few seconds to Google "McVeigh nazi" is a good way to find out things like whether he was ever compared to the Nazis, by the way. Spoiler: yes.
Googling "milk Nazi" on image search is worth your time.
I have requested, in the past, that people buy me multiple half-gallons instead of any full gallons, because it is harder to lift and control full gallons (if you are weak/injured/etc.)
I would never request that someone refrain from buying fun dinosaur shapes, though. That's just madness.
3 kids right? SO each kid gets their own half-gallon container?
Meanwhile, on the sane end of I-35, the protest at the 4th Precinct police station in response to the killing of Jamar Clark continues. Lots of good vibes reported, lots of people applying lessons from recent major protest/occupation campaigns. And all in the middle of a cold, rainy Minnesota November.
3 kids right? SO each kid gets their own half-gallon container?
They carry it around at all times in a little backpack. When the milk's finished they have to go home.