no, he won't change anything. he's running on Donald Trump ™, not a specific platform.
and he'll give Clinton (or Sanders, to be fair) a hell of a fight. the media will continue tittering at the novelty of Trump rather than digging into him the way they would with a normal candidate. and the Dem's policy attacks will bounce off him because he's not running on policy.
My sense is that saying "Fuck you" to the GOP establishment is a big part of Trump's appeal for Republican primary voters. I'm not sure what happens when he starts running against the Democratic nominee instead of against the GOP itself.
One thing that nobody has reckoned with is that a Democrat can fight back. Rubio and Cruz can't call Trump a racist troglodyte because they are angling for the racist troglodyte vote.
I think you under estimate Clinton's negatives and Trump's appeal generally. He'll pivot to more centrist issues while keeping his basic message that America is fucked and he can save it. Clinton's message of continuing the Obama administration will not resonate at all with people disaffected about how things are. Benghazi will be a thing, the emails will be a thing, her general trustworthiness will come into question, the Bill issue will get plenty of play, yada yada. The beltway insiders still hate the Clintons and will subtly sabotage her any way they can. I think we'll long for the solemn dignity of swiftboating by the time this election is over with.
The big way Trump could fuck himself is by being more openly misogynist. That will hurt him and help Clinton, and he may not be able to restrain himself from saying something deeply offensive.
I think this article by Nate Silver is a good summary of Trump's strengths and weaknesses. Silver is a skeptic, and he concedes that he's been behind the curve on Trump through the entire cycle, but I find him largely convincing -- if Trump is having a hard time getting more than 35% of Republican voters it's hard to see him being a significant threat in the general election. I do think the election will be close, because the country is fairly polarized, but I would not be scared by Trump against either Sanders or Clinton.
Hopefully I won't regret those words.
5: My worry is that pundits being wrong about Trump has practically become a cottage industry in the last few months.
Dem's policy attacks will bounce off him because he's not running on policy.
He's running on personality, but has the disadvantage of being a horrible person. Democrats can attack him on that. Republicans haven't been able to because horrible people are their base.
I dunno. Trump is taking pluralities of a lily-white GOP primary electorate. I think he is just about certain to underperform Romney's 2012 results.
My worry is that pundits being wrong about Trump has practically become a cottage industry in the last few months.
Pundits are so often wrong about so many things. Pundits being wrong about Trump gets more attention because its about Trump.
The pundits haven't been wrong about Trump; they have been wrong about the nature of the Republican Party. Specifically, refusing to believe that the base is largely composed of racist idiots.
Another take on running against Trump.
5, 6: The really worrying bit is that Silver's 'No don't worry Trump can't possibly make it past september november october december january any of the actual state contests win the nomination win the presidency' arguments have all been based not on polling but on his pretty conventional-pundit-wisdom views about the two parties and the basic decency of a lot of American politics. And he's still having trouble coming to terms with the problems with that view (if he is at all). The idea that Trump has a ceiling tends to be based on the (underlying, not always expressed directly) idea that he's a factional candidate the way, e.g., Carson is: that he represents one specific part of the party's coalition, and since that part is only so big he can only get that much support.
But it's pretty clear that Trump isn't a faction based candidate, or at least not a faction in the normal way people think about the party's coalition*. He draws support across the spectrum - with some variation, sure, but not with the sort of dramatic one you'd see if he had the kind of hard ceiling you get when you're the candidate supported only by the extreme right/evangelical christians/whatever. So whatever ceiling there is there (and there's always one at some point) it's not at all obvious that it's low enough to really hurt him compared to any of the other Republican candidates.
*I think he's the Authoritarian Faction candidate. But that's basically the core of the Republican party, and what binds most of their sizable factions together so it's not very reassuring.
because (1) will alienate half the electorate
But half the the electorate will be alienated by any possible Republican candidate, just as the other half will be alienated by any possible Democratic candidate. And base voters see this as a feature rather than a bug, especially on the R side; the fact that what you're doing infuriates liberals is reason enough to do something, regardless of any other underlying reasons.
Minivet's link tells me a web handler threw an exception, but it doesn't tell me who she threw it at. Was it Trump?
I think Hillary would have trouble against Trump, and that we shouldn't be complacent at all, because her (very strong) establishment ties make her the perfect foil for some of his campaign themes. I don't know how much the refusal to disclose her speeches will hurt her in the primary (probably some but not enough to matter in the end), but boy does that ever work for him in the general election since "I'm not bought I buy" is one of his big lines. It's the source of one of his great moments in the first Republican debate which was the thing that made me think he was a very strong candidate for the nomination.
14: That's what interests me. I've endured my republican friends' claims of serious, sober political views, and claims to abhor racism, etc. I'll be disappointed when they turn on a dime to support Trump in November--right now, they're saying the right things about how repulsive Trump is... but when it comes down to it, voting against Hillary or a card carrying socialist will lure them to the polls.
That's one advantage to the GOP's 20+ year war on the Clintons--you can nominate a joke or a dead man to oppose her, and they'll still turn out for the privilege to vote against her.
I'm not convinced that favorability numbers are as helpful as people think...
The thing in 12 may be the stupidest and most delusional thing I've seen this primary season, and that's saying a lot.
9 and 11 are almost certainly right, but to the extent there's a path to a Trump presidency, in the general it'll come not through a surge in base conservative votes but in swaying extreme low information non-ideological voters from the Democrats. I think there could indeed be some of this but the problem is that most non-white low information voters already know to hate the guy and he certainly starts out as a very weak general election candidate. He'd need to pull huge percentages of white voters in key states in a way that doesn't seem likely in a two person race. It will probably seem obvious in retrospect that the key to Trump's rise was having a crowded field in the primary. Doesn't mean he couldn't win though and the R mainstream clearly prefers him to Cruz and will start to prop him up if Rubio fades.
12 makes a good case for why Hillary is a bad candidate against Trump (a scary good case - its worse than I realized.) But the one thing Hillary has that Trump doesn't is the ability to project human decency. I think that is ultimately her best leverage against him.
Or, I suppose, 18 makes basically the same point.
Silver's 'No don't worry Trump can't possibly make it . . . arguments have all been based not on polling but on his pretty conventional-pundit-wisdom
The linked article it is based on several sets of polling results.
12 is probably the smartest sanest thing I have read this campaign season. We need more links in this thread!
Thomas Frank reviews a Clinton Foundation production Harpers
But it is not her theme alone. Regardless of who leads it, professional-class liberalism seems to be forever traveling on a quest for some place of greater righteousness. It is always engaged in a search for some subject of overwhelming, noncontroversial goodness with which it can identify itself, and under whose umbrella of virtue it can put across its self-interested class program.You can find dozens of examples of this kind of liberal-class virtue quest if you try, but instead of listing them, let me go straight to the point: this is not politics. It's an imitation of politics. It feels political, yes: it's highly moralistic, it sets up an easy melodrama of good versus bad, it allows you to make all kinds of judgments about people you disagree with. But ultimately it's a diversion, a way of putting across a policy program while avoiding any sincere discussion of the policies in question. The virtue quest is an exciting moral crusade that seems to be extremely important but at the conclusion of which you discover you've got little to show for it besides NAFTA, bank deregulation, and a prison-building spree.
Worst candidate ever to follow worst President ever. I will mark my 'D' carelessly, thoughtlessly, ironically, sarcastically, with malice aforethought.
Michael Kazin who wrote the book on populism, on Trump
A lamentation (look it up) of Black Swans will turn day to night ere summer's eve, saith I.
He's running on personality, but has the disadvantage of being a horrible person. Democrats can attack him on that. Republicans haven't been able to because horrible people are their base.
One other thought. I know that Kevin Drum has been arguing that nobody has really attacked Trump. I wonder if that's based on a calculation that getting into a brawl with Trump is a bad idea, because he tends to win or if the Republican party is genuinely scared of his threat to run as a third-party candidate.
If the latter, that also gives them Democrats more leeway to go after him.
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When everyone talks about the failures of Vox, it's worth noting that they are succeeding at exactly what they are attempting to do:
https://twitter.com/LHPDK/status/702479454560501760
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If I contribute to this discussion it'll make me insane but this article by Jeb Lund might be helpful to all of you.
one thing Hillary has ... is the ability to project human decency
Do most voters agree with this? Remember that they mostly encounter her through various media filters.
Salon apparently is a place to find young women, esp WoC, who say they will never ever vote for Clinton. There are enough of them.
Rumor has it that the State Department emails show Clinton Foundation fundraising on State's dime.
Shit, now I have to reevaluate my initial reaction to the link in 12.
one thing Hillary has ... is the ability to project human decency
See 25, Frank. Quest for self-righteousness is not human decency. Frank does not mention the "Look Look at us! We are ever so not-racist!" version of the liberal virtue quest. Pharisees.
Salon apparently is a place to find young women, esp WoC, who say they will never ever vote for Clinton.
I tried not to read this as pick-up advice but it's not easy.
This seems to me (from the link in 12) to be the truly dangerous point:
Because the Republican primary will be over, he can come at her from both right and left as he pleases.
Also like 29 I think this is pretty much false (see, if nothing else, her favorability numbers). Trump doesn't exactly come off as a good guy, but he has moments (like the Planned Parenthood bit) where he's practically pretending to be Kasich and pulling it off a bit. If he does that a couple times on the debate stage during the general election I don't know if people are going to see Clinton as a generally good person and Trump as a monster at all.
Eh. I'm a pretty big Sanders fan but I think those pieces are silly. Hillary is enormously popular with the Democratic base. She'll probably lose the white male demographic to Trump, but then so did Obama. And she'll probably pick up a decent amount of the Bloomberg/Brooks Republican set.
Hillary is a corporate centrist compared to Sanders, but she's reasonably to the left compared with other Democrats, and certainly when compared to Republicans. She's also been pushed left in a good way by Sanders. Now she's out speaking against systemic racism and promising to bring back a public option. 95% of Sanders supporters are going to vote for her in the general, and the other 5% were probably going to vote Green anyways. If it's Clinton vs. Trump, Clinton is going to win.
Remember Clinton's response to the little girl scared her parents would get deported? She was lovely and compassionate, and I saw her advocacy for children come through. I hope and expect that she did follow up, because that's been a signature of hers for a while, following up. (My expat friend said that her worldwide reputation as a Secretary of State is that she followed up. If she told a kid she'd look into American college, she'd send that information shortly after (or her staff). She did that flawlessly, said my friend.)
All that said, my own reaction was that I would have been beyond furious if I had been that little girl. In the little girl's place, I'd have thought: "Let me worry for you?!" ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING? I can worry. What I can't do is pull political strings. TELL ME WHAT YOU WILL DO, in detail. Clinton didn't say she'd talk to the judge, she'd look into the case, she'd get her foundation on it. She said she'd worry and handle it. I really think that even as a little girl, I would have wanted hard details.
I suspect that's a bit idiosyncratic and I agree the empathy was lovely. But I would have wanted problem-solving, not empathy, had I finally gotten a powerful person's attention. Anyway, it is properly favorably contrasted with Cruz's answer to the same situation.
Clinton presents a target-rich environment.
Obama worst President ever?
Come February 2017, when Republicans have everything, Obots will spin like tops and ask God:
"Wha-what happen? He was the Best Prez ever!"
Obama destroyed my Party (riding high 2006-2010), possibly forever, and the worst and very predictable part is that mainstream Dems won't understand how it was done.
My sister was asking how one debates Trump, because debating him is like debating a fifth grader. "We are going to win if I am elected. We're going to win so hard that no one has ever won that much. You'll be tired of winning when I get done, because we won all the time. Win."
What do you say to that? If there are people that have been persuaded by that already, what could possibly reach them now?
And Trump will absolutely be capable of shifting the direction of his attacks every four or five days seconds (getting a new burst of publicity each time) in a semi-random way that will make it really hard for her to respond without shooting herself in the foot.
Seriously, have you seen his speeches? He just flits from one resentment/petty pre-occupation to the next. He could launch six mutually exclusive attacks on Clinton in a single ad.
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Where the hell is Moby?
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The idea that Trump's Republican support can't go up is ludicrous. He's the second choice of a lot of Cruz and Rubio voters, for one thing. Most importantly, he will be running against Hillary Clinton, #2 trending to #1 on the Republican hate parade, or a Jewish Socialist. This isn't like running against good ol' boy Bill Clinton or even Obama.
It's very easy to think "all Republicans are racists, and only racists will vote for Trump" and not see the contradiction with "only 35% of Republicans support Trump." He will get almost all Republicans in November. (As full disclosure, I don't think any of those three claims are true.)
Trump is actually running on a fairly coherent populist/center-left ideological platform, which is, in reverse order of importance to him and his supporters: semi-isolationism abroad, disdain for the 1% and apparently no strong issue with higher taxes on the rich, opposition to "unfair" free trade, and opposition to high levels of illegal or legal immigration. (Almost Sanders' platform if he chooses to spin it that way.) He seems mostly okay with the welfare state as it stands; though he is feinting right on that during the primary he can tack left during the general if it suits him.
I think he will be hard to beat.
Last one:
Obama, Recess appoint Pam Karlan NOW!
Let's have some politics round here. If Congress can arbitrarily and disingenuously play with "in session" then the Prez can just decide that he determines what "advise and consent" means. Or let's let a 5-4 court decide.
Appoint Karlan today, you pusillanimous asshole.
Let's keep that broad reading of "consent" in mind when President Trump appoints Tila Tequila to the Court.
I meant appoint Karlan and swear her in, of course. Send her over, let her start writing opinions. Let Congress scream, and Roberts fume.
Trump is actually running on a fairly coherent populist/center-left ideological platform, which is, in reverse order of importance to him and his supporters: semi-isolationism abroad, disdain for the 1% and apparently no strong issue with higher taxes on the rich, opposition to "unfair" free trade, and opposition to high levels of illegal or legal immigration. (Almost Sanders' platform if he chooses to spin it that way.)
It's not centre-left (certainly not if we include social issues). It's basically mercantilism.
"The Senate, in the letter of blah blah, explicitly and openly abrogated its duties and responsibilities under the Constitution, and the DoJ lawyers tell me that with such a legally binding abrogation the powers associated with said responsibilities are also lost."
I don't think this is the actual answer* (though it might play a role in Trump's persistence), but it's hilarious enough that I love it anyway. The suggestion is that the problem with Trump is that analysts kept saying "Oh, his campaign will disintegrate any day now [with the unspoken assumption that the GOP establishment would savage him]" and the GOP establishment was thinking "Oh, there's no need to waste time/resources/whatever on Trump because he'll disintegrate any day now [because after all that's what all the analysts were saying]."
*Obviously I think it's the unfogged-Trump-booster's standard line about Trump's success which is basically "Because that is what the GOP is and what it has been for years."
46
"Mercantilist" doesn't capture it, and maybe "center-left" is an overstatement, but I predict he will tack left by November regardless.
Staten Island/building trades/hard-hat riot Republicanism seems like a fair summary and also ties in to Trump's background. Nationalistic, pro-cop, anti-immigrant, not at all interested in economic libertarianism.* There's definitely a constituency. And he can win easily if he peels off around 5% of people who would otherwise vote Democratic with that pitch. Not impossible but seems very difficult against a mainstream Democratic candidate, because he'd have to do far better than Romney among white people (including white women) in an electorate that's less white than 2012, and he's disliked enough by some Republicans that there's an obvious threat that a mainstream Dem candidate swings 5% of the Republican vote.
*I don't think this is "center left" but on net I find it more personally appealing (still very very unappealing) than Cruz or Rubio. But who are we kidding, in office Trump would absolutely be a business Republican, it's not like he's gonna repeal NAFTA or impose tarriffs, so the reality of Pres Trump would almost certainly just be standard Republicanism with fig leaves of anti-racism removed and truly spectacularly shitty governance.
I had totally forgotten about Tila Tequila!
Staten Island/building trades/hard-hat riot Republicanism seems like a fair summary of Trump and also ties in to Trump's background. Nationalistic, pro-cop, anti-immigrant, not at all interested in economic libertarianism.* There's definitely an underserved constituency for those politics. And he can win if he peels off around 5% of people who would otherwise vote Democratic with that pitch.
That's not impossible but seems very difficult against a mainstream Democratic candidate, because he'd have to do far better than Romney among white people (including white women) in an electorate that's less white than 2012, and he's disliked enough by some Republicans that there's an obvious threat that a mainstream Dem candidate swings 5% of the Republican vote.
*I don't think this is "center left" but on net I find it more personally appealing (still very very unappealing) than Cruz or Rubio. But who are we kidding, in office Trump would absolutely be a business Republican, it's not like he's gonna repeal NAFTA or impose tarriffs, so the reality of President Trump would almost certainly just be standard Republicanism with fig leaves of anti-racism removed and truly spectacularly shitty governance.
"Because that is what the GOP is and what it has been for years."
It is, after all, the party that made folk heroes of Ted Nugent, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter. They have a large contingent of nihilists who think throwing wrenches in the gears of the federal government is virtuous in its own right. Why wouldn't they send an unserious, non-ideological wrecking ball to run it into the ground? And if I'm an actual conservative, I just count on the Republican Congress to stymie any unpleasant surprises a President Trump might produce.
Trump will probably pile up an insurmountable lead next Tuesday. The good thing about him taking the nomination (aside from the fact that I seriously doubt his ability to win a general election against any nominatable Democrat) is that if a Republican doesn't have to hew to Republican orthodoxy to win that nomination, then maybe Democrats will realize they *certainly* don't have to keep making nods to Republican orthodoxy.
Rumor has it that the State Department emails show Clinton Foundation fundraising on State's dime.
Rumor also has it that Clinton ripped Vince Foster's beating heart from his chest to appease the Elder Gods.
21: to the extent there's a path to a Trump presidency, in the general it'll come not through a surge in base conservative votes but in swaying extreme low information non-ideological voters from the Democrats.
Or through suppressing the black and brown vote.
Obama seems to have nominated a Republican with a bad record on labor?
Er to be considering him. Sandoval of NV.
I guess I see the "Trump can't win" meme as being the same sort of complacency described in the Drezner piece. "Oh, he's a meanie and a racist! He can't possibly win."
54
Trump will certainly mention that in a debate: "My yuge friend, great guy -- the greatest -- Cthulhu told me Hillary did that to suck up to him. Shows how little she knows. Ia! Ia! Cthulhu ftagn!"
Well, yes, though unless he actually swings some Dems the suppression would have to be pretty spectacular given the math on picking up swing voters/suppressing the other side's votes.
56 - for the Supreme Court? That would be bizarre.
Let's keep that broad reading of "consent" in mind when President Trump appoints Tila Tequila to the Court.
Clinton needs to get out in front of this and preempt Trump by announcing now that she'll appoint Tila Tequila to the Supreme Court if elected.
When Trump claims that it was his idea first, he'll just look petty.
The good thing about him taking the nomination ... is that if a Republican doesn't have to hew to Republican orthodoxy to win that nomination, then maybe Democrats will realize they *certainly* don't have to keep making nods to Republican orthodoxy.
Channeling Emerson, we'll be confronted with the fact that Democrats have been making these nods because they want to.
but I predict he will tack left by November regardless.
I already predicted this. But we need to bear in mind that genuine fascists can tack "left" (read gesture populism) when it's convenient. Mussolini remains your go-to.
Wait, did someone just argue that if only we had the black guy running, the Republicans wouldn't be able to attack as effectively?
standard Republicanism with fig leaves of anti-racism removed and truly spectacularly shitty governance.
On the governance shit-o-meter, with GW Bush as a 10 for the worst presidency since Buchanan, I'm thinking Trump is no worse than an 8, and Rubio and Cruz are off the scale.
Buchanan was a terrible President because he took the office at a time when the country was falling apart around him and there was nothing he could/did do about it. Bush was worse because he inherited a prosperous country and turned it to shit.
Tila Tequila. Tell me she's fictional. Please, someone tell me she's fictional, like Boris Johnson.
And then write a slashfic with the two of them.
59: True.
On the OP's 3) WINNING, word is that Trump isn't so great at that*:
Donald Trump is not very good at making friends in his hometown of New York City. He doesn't belong to New York trade groups like the Real Estate Board or the Association for a Better New York. Top ten lists lauding major condominium developers and lists of influencers in the real estate business overlook him. Even Mayor Bill de Blasio says he's never even met Trump.
But Trump's troubles don't end there: The real estate mogul also alienates contractors by refusing to pay them thousands of dollars, The New York Times reports. Then there is the fact that JPMorgan, Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley are not currently loaning to Trump; 15 companies associated with Trump owe banks over $270 million, a debt that could actually be much higher than reported.
Sorry for the long quotation, but I think this sort of news could have an impact on those enamored of the Winner! Winner! narrative.
* This is what counts as actually vetting Trump.
When Trump gets the nomination, the Democrats will trot out a mile long list of people saying things like 71. I'm really not clear why the RNC hasn't done so already.
I think this sort of news could have an impact on those enamored of the Winner! Winner! narrative.
When you get tired of this fantasy, you should hold out hope that evangelicals will abandon him because of his irreligion. Or that hawks will abandon him because of his apostasy regarding Iraq. Or that anti-government voters will abandon him for his support for the federal government bargaining down the prices of drugs.
Trump's constituency is not composed of people who are overly concerned with reality.
Despite the potential angles toward defeating Trump, I am honestly not sure he's the worst choice among the viable candidates: Rubio is very bad policy-wise (much worse than his press coverage thus far lets on), and Cruz is vicious. Trump would be my preferred candidate, were I a Republican: as Apo notes in 53, the idea would be that a Republican Congress would block his excesses.
As far as the preferred candidate from a Democratic perspective? Probably Cruz. ?
Trump is widely understood to have declared bankruptcy four times. So what?
Pardon me for repeating something everybody knows, but for me the Rosetta Stone of modern American politics was given to us by Ron Suskind:
In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.
The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
This is everything you need to know. This is Trump. "... we'll act again, creating other new realities ..."
While I agree with the conclusion about the outcome of the election in the OP, I think this kind of analysis is based on a misunderstanding of Trump's strategy and appeal.
Trump isn't transformative or empowering to anybody. His strategy doesn't particularly depend on being liked, but rather on dragging other people down into the mud with him and beating them through his experience with the terrain.
Trump knows how to be a scumbag and he more or less owns his identity as a scumbag. Look at the way he handles criticism for having gone into bankruptcy or donating to the Clintons, for example; he's nakedly using the rules for his own benefit as a rationally self-interested person and makes basically no apologies for it. He's no better and no worse than anybody else just for doing this, but he uses it to his advantage in two ways. The first is that, when someone points out that he's a corrupt, untrustworthy son of a gun, he basically owns it. The second is that when he turns this kind of attack on other people, they genuinely stumble by trying to explain why they *aren't* corrupt. Then he can double down by implying that, in addition to having no more integrity, personal worth, or competence than he does, they are weak. It's a simple killshot, but it works because he decided long ago that he doesn't care about being liked.
So he'll alienate some people that might have otherwise voted for him, sure. But his real modus operandi is making his opponents supporters feel alienated enough that they'll drop their support.
I worry very much that this may be very effective against Hillary. The Clinton/Obama/New Democrat dynasty is already quite good at making people on the left feel alienated. What happens when Trump starts running the ads that Bernie won't (and shouldn't) run? The ones flat-out accuse Hillary Clinton of enabling rape and silencing rape victims on Bill's behalf?* What happens when he brings up the Clinton Foundation? Speaking fees for the banks? And he's going to be a lot rougher with her judgment on Iraq; as I think he made clear when he used it to devastate Jeb. Liberals already approach Hillary with about as much enthusiasm as a trip to the dentist. Trump is going to say the kind of shit, and forcefully, that push voter turnout lower and lower among people who don't feel like they're being offered much by the Clintons -- and that's a lot of people at this point.
*The point here is not that these claims are true; the point is that the basic assumptions that people on the left have accepted with respect to believing alleged victims of rape are going to have to be suspended for the Clintons.
78: People forget that Bill Clinton ended his presidency tremendously popular - after having been roughed up by the Republicans to the point of actually being the second president in US history to be impeached.
It is only a minority of Americans that lack all sense of decency.
The real worry about Trump is that he's savvier than we are - that he'll come up with something we can't even imagine. He understands the American people better than we do, and he's clever and creative. And unlike Hillary, he doesn't in any sense feel constrained by reality.
78: People forget that Bill Clinton ended his presidency tremendously popular - after having been roughed up by the Republicans to the point of actually being the second president in US history to be impeached.
It is only a minority of Americans that lack all sense of decency.
The real worry about Trump is that he's savvier than we are - that he'll come up with something we can't even imagine. He understands the American people better than we do, and he's clever and creative. And unlike Hillary, he doesn't in any sense feel constrained by reality.
The RNC isn't doing it because (a) they thought he would go away through magic and (b) they're afraid that if they chase him away, he'll run an independent campaign or otherwise deflate their nominee. The first was silly, but the second is real.
Obviously, there's nothing here for Dems to be afraid of.
Where the hell is Moby?
I've been wondering about that, too. I haven't seen him in real life, although that would only mean chance encounters and poking my head into MobyBar to see if he's there.
78 is right in a lot of ways: Trump is a heel in the process of making a face turn. And he knows exactly how to play that, and he's playing it very well. (And let's be honest, there's very little that's more fun than that.)
83: His short but honest-to-god-literal professional wrestling career should help there.
I've been tempted to say "Montreal" and that he's busy perfecting a bunch of French puns, but I'm not 100% sure this is what's happening.
78: Liberals already approach Hillary with about as much enthusiasm as a trip to the dentist.
This really isn't true, and I wish people would stop saying it. Clinton has a great deal of support. Okay? Maybe you should get out more.
83: My response to 78 was incomplete. I really only meant to take issue with 78.5. I think 78.3 is dead-on.
86, 87: Not me! I'd love to have a beer with Hillary!
If only she'd dial back the warmongering a bit ...
This really isn't true, and I wish people would stop saying it. Clinton has a great deal of support. Okay? Maybe you should get out more.
Clinton has a great deal of support. She has some enthusiastic support. But she does not have broad enthusiastic support. A Clinton win is contingent on sufficiently high turnout from people who regard showing up to vote for her in much the same way they regard doing their taxes.
Basically, I worry that too many should-be Clinton voters are going to be vulnerable to being turned off from even voting.
Oh, and I definitely should get out more. My evenings consist of Unfogged and programming in the dark at this point.
Basically, I worry that too many should-be Clinton voters are going to be vulnerable to being turned off from even voting.
On the other hand, seeing them as anti-Trump voters might suggest a higher turnout than seeing them as anti-[some senator] voters.
Actually, I rather like doing my taxes.
Except this year as previously mentioned.
88 - I just meant it as a general endorsement, not a particular disagreement.
I do think the Bill Clinton popularity thing is probably a red herring though: people always liked him better because (1) actual charisma and (2) not a woman (I mean, that's bad but...). But more importantly I think that was one of the first times when a lot of people encountered just how insane the Republican party had decided to be, and so there was a bunch of sympathy for him since he was clearly being set upon by loons and drooling imbeciles in the press. If the same thing happened now I doubt you'd see the same effect, because at this point everyone is pretty used to the Republicans (and press) behaving that way.
Also while I don't know if liberals are unenthusiastic about Clinton, I suspect a lot of progressives are. Ones who are old enough to remember the '90s or pretty much any of her career afterwards (which takes a fair bit of paying attention to politics so probably not too many there) aren't likely to be excited by the prospects of more of that. Ones who aren't are probably not especially enthused about the way she's running a campaign on a theme of "let's not do anything too drastic here small incremental stuff is fine when it comes to addressing these [very very serious] problems" (since those are the ones for whom those things are very serious and already have a sense that a lot of people aren't grasping that.)
81
Obviously, there's nothing here for Dems to be afraid of.
There are two main things I worry about related to Trump.
First, he could get the Republican nomination and win the general election. For the record, I don't find it likely, but stranger things have happened. Given an economic downturn, who knows.
And second, he could give the Republican base something to blame for their loss other than their own extremism. There are a number of ways this could happen - if he doesn't get the nomination and runs as a third party, or if he does get the nomination and runs as a centrist too much. And of course, some fraction of them would believe that regardless of what happens. Zombie McCarthy isn't right-wing enough for a lot of Republicans these days. But it matters whether 40 percent of the party believes that being even more of a true and extreme wingnut is the path to victory or 10 percent.
95: This is why Cruz was always the ideal candidate from a Dem POV: likely to utterly decimate Republicans up and down the ticket, and also likely to singlehandedly slay the myth that running a true conservative is always the way to win. Granted, the moment Cruz lost people would try to claim that he was no true conservative, but I don't think there would be even a fig leaf of truth to make it plausible to anyone. And after losing in a historic landslide, conservatives would have a target on their back, with a lot of rats leaving that particular ship.
Or not, but there's a better chance than with any other plausible candidate. Alas, as it turns out, Cruz isn't really a plausible candidate after all.
One thing is clear to me, GOP elites / donors are proving themselves far too timid to make some last-ditch attempt like forcing Trump out by undemocratic means at the convention or running Rubio as an independent.
But who are we kidding, in office Trump would absolutely be a business Republican, it's not like he's gonna repeal NAFTA or impose tarriffs, so the reality of Pres Trump would almost certainly just be standard Republicanism with fig leaves of anti-racism removed and truly spectacularly shitty governance.
Really? I don't know about NAFTA, but unless he does a complete volte face, tariffs would be entirely in line with his campaign. I mean, he's literally said he would impose tariffs on China, and all his "I'll make Apple build their stuff in the USA" talk implies tariffs or the equivalent.
If he's elected, I'd give about 60% chance that Trump governs as a business-friendly center-righter, 30% chance he actually tries to fulfill a lot of his crazy signature stuff like punitive tariffs and deportations (probably bringing a lot of failure, lurching, and staff turnover), 10% chance he starts literal pogroms.
But it doesn't matter: he can't impose tariffs under executive powers, and he won't have a constituency in Congress for anything but business as usual.
This NYT factoid is interesting in its suggestion that Sanders may have more crossover appeal than Trump:
77 percent of those who thought Sanders would be good or great thought Trump would be poor or terrible, and 60 percent of those who thought Trump would be good or great thought Sanders would be poor or terrible.
I suppose it's entirely possible that a Trump presidency would cause a critical mass of traditional Republicans to stand up to him exactly as much as they stood up to the Tea Party, which is to say not at all. Who knows? But I think it would be a mistake to conflate his appeal (nativist, authoritarian, etc; standard GOP, but on steroids, as people used to say) and his unique skills. I doubt there's anyone else who could win on his platform, because so much of his electoral appeal has to do with A. decades of publicity, B. outsider, and C. a unique and really impressive skillset that includes reading/playing crowds and identifying the mot juste in the moment. JMM focused on the "New York values" moment, when he just utterly destroyed Cruz (to the point where Cruz ended up applauding his own disembowelment), and it was clear it was not a prepared line. That's not something you can fake, but it's something you need if you're not running on anything substantive.
Come to think of it, has any fascist regime ever transferred power? I think they're fundamentally cults of personality.
Although it also says only 4% identify Trump and Sanders as both either "good" or "great", so most of that 60/77 gap must be people who like one and label the other "average", the other option.
Pogroms for poor people are poor pogroms.
Which are the states Donald Trump flips?
http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/president
The options are probably
CO, NV, NM, VA, OH, PA, FL
He could flip FL, VA, and OH (the closest states that went Dem in 2012) and still not win.
A lot of the swing states have sizable increases in Hispanic voters since 2012 as well.
105. The Perons in Argentina? Admittedly there was a delay. One can slide down the slippery slope of "no true fascist" arguments easily here.
Come to think of it, has any fascist regime ever transferred power? I think they're fundamentally cults of personality.
Depends on the degree to which you think Hirohito was in charge. Not that Showa had that much personality, but then Konoe and Tojo weren't so charismatic either.
105: the Nazis managed a peaceful transfer of power from Hitler to Doenitz. (Google "Mitchell Webb Doenitz" for details. )
112: That skit is the only reason I know that anyone replaced Hitler before surrender.
Thanks for 12. 53-2 is a great insight.
identifying the mot juste in the moment
Who would think to deride a rival as "low-energy"? And yet, as soon as it was out of his mouth, it was perfect.
I watched him and Rubio, back-to-back, on the Today Show this morning, and Rubio was pathetic. Sounded like he was reading a speech.
That's my main impression, that The Kids These Days are pretty deeply different from how I remember young people my age.
108 -- his only hope is actually swinging a significant number of white D voters to R, without turning any Rs into Ds, and with enhancing turnout from Rs who are NOT conservative ideologues (but may be racist white people). I don't think any of that is particularly likely, but if (a) the Democrats for some reason ran someone who actually could cause significant numbers of the 2012 white Democratic vote to vote for Trump (like, 5%), (b) he can keep most of the R base on his side, and (c) he can turn out low-information people who aren't particularly ideological, he has a path to a win even if there's increased turnout on the other side to vote against Trump.
Even with heavy anti-Trump Latino turnout in the West and FL sufficient to prevent Trump wins there, Trump could win if he kept all the Romney states, and flipped PA, OH, WI, IA, NH, and VA. If he could flip FL it gets easier still -- he could lose VA and WI and still win.
I don't think that's particularly likely. I think Trump is a very weak R general election candidate and that his high negatives will kill him. I think with a Clinton or mainstream Democratic candidate he's more likely to swing net Rs to Ds than the reverse, which will leave him absolutely dead. But a win is not impossible. If he's actually able to turn a decent chunk of net white D voters into R voters, while maintaining the R vote pretty much intact, he's got a path. He's a scarier candidate than Cruz.
And, in addition, there's a wild card: his increased turnout might come from the low-information, low-concern middle, instead of from ideologues. That helps because non-ideologues are less likely to vote. Ideologues (whether they are very conservative or very liberal) already tend to vote heavily so there's very little room for boosting turnout by moving hard left or hard right. But there might be room for boosting turnout from low-information white non-ideologues. Again, not at all likely, certainly not against a Hillary campaign, but not impossible.
I'm not at all sure what the causal forces are behind it, but it looks like the general leftward tilt of young adults right now isn't just persisting but actually increasing a bit. Or at least I'm pretty sure if you did that survey ten years ago you still would have gotten a left-of-US-median result, but probably not one as far to the left* as that survey had. I wonder how long it will be till Alex P. Keaton comes back.
Also it's fun to watch Frank Luntz freak out about lnearly every poll/survey/focus group he puts together these days. Massive numbers of Republicans are completely insane for Trump! The youths are all Bolsheviks! Aaaahh!
*I mean, they aren't exactly calling out for propaganda of the deed or anything but still...
Also what's with "The Snapchat Generation" - isn't he just talking about the younger half (roughly) of the Millennial generation? It is about time for another generation to show up in colleges, but 26 years would mostly have been born in '89/'90 so there's no sense in drawing a generational line there. Is he just showing that he's still groovy and loves selfying his instagrams all over snapchat?
And, in addition, there's a wild card: his increased turnout might come from the low-information, low-concern middle, instead of from ideologues.
Off the top of my head, I wonder the opposite -- if his path to a general election victory would be a very low-turnout election by making the campaign look like such a clown show that nobody is too excited about either candidate -- if he can make the turnout look more like an off-year election for example.
In that regard the fight over a Supreme Court nominee might be helpful to the Democrats -- it should increase turnout.
118:
his only hope is actually swinging a significant number of white D voters to R,
These are white people who voted for a black, liberal-minded, cosmopolitan, trade-promoting, elite-educated, pro-deportation-relief President. I don't know how large a pool of those are now going to find Trump attractive.
pro-deportation-relief President**
**For a limited population of people. Obviously, he's been deporting people around the border like crazy.
122 -- I agree! It's not very likely. But that's what he'd have to do. The only way I can see it is if a Dem candidate absolutely alienates a significant portion of the electorate into voting for Trump -- either because Sanders is way way too left for around 5% of white Obama voters who settle with Trump, or because Hillary somehow alienates white working class voters (mostly women) who voted for Obama in significant numbers so that they pull the lever for Trump. He's a shitty general election candidate for them.
I don't think it will be a low turnout election regardless, mostly just because it's a Presidential election, but also whatever happens it's not going to be an election where people don't think there's anything at stake.
121: People are going to turn out for/against Trump. Goo-goo types like to extol the virtues of high turnout, but you know when turnout is really high? When people are angry and/or scared shitless.
Anyhow, you can play around with stuff here">http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-swing-the-election/">here. I found that flipping about 5% of the white Obama 2012 vote (college and non-college educated alike) and keeping everyone but Latino turnout the same, while increasing Latino turnout and the Latino D percentage is enough to get an R to a win on a number of scenarios, often avoiding victory in FL. I think that'd be Trump's (not very promising) path to victory.
119
Ten years of crappy job prospects will do that to you. Be thankful they haven't decided the solution is to join the Trump Youth. (Yute?)
122: Never underestimate the American capacity for making no sense...
So a canvasser goes to a woman's door in Washington, Pennsylvania. Knocks. Woman answers. Knocker asks who she's planning to vote for. She isn't sure, has to ask her husband who she's voting for. Husband is off in another room watching some game. Canvasser hears him yell back, "We're votin' for the n***er!"
Woman turns back to canvasser, and says brightly and matter of factly: "We're voting for the n***er."
People don't generally think about voting in the same way that people who actually follow politics or take the time to puzzle out different political philosophies and policies do. It's not hard for me to imagine a decent sized proportion of the US population who would happily vote for either Trump or Sanders but would be uncomfortable with Clinton or Rubio.
I suspect Trump's best bet would be the white working class vote shifting Trumpwards and coming out in slightly bigger numbers, combined with a drop off in the younger/independent groups that are currently interested in the race and probably a drop in the black vote as well (even if it's a relatively small one).
127: That's got to be part of it, sure. But there's no way that's all of it - especially since the survey is mostly talking about people who couldn't have faced ten years of crappy prospects (since the oldest people were 26).
My guess is that it's partly that, partly that the speed at which gay rights views have shifted have made a lot of traditionally conservative influences completely toxic to large chunks of young people, and all of it combined with the fact that traditional media sources have lost a huge amount of their ability to influence people's views as a result of the internet. For all that television news is a wasteland it's also broadcasting to a shrinking and pretty old audience, after all. And normal tribalism (that we used to see) just doesn't work as well when large parts of your social life happen in ways totally divorced from physical locations - for plenty of people I know large parts of their social interactions on a daily basis are with people who are the equivalent of pen pals. (I think that last bit is a large part of the explanation for why we've also seen religious affiliations drop off among younger people: you just don't need a physical space for a community and that's a lot of what Churches used to provide for people.)
. It's not hard for me to imagine a decent sized proportion of the US population who would happily vote for either Trump or Sanders but would be uncomfortable with Clinton or Rubio.
That's not a crazy thing to think in the abstract, and you're starting to hear it a lot, but it turns out that it is not actually true, at all.
McInturff examined recent NBC/Wall Street Journal surveys to find how many of the voters said they could support both Trump and Sanders.
Six percent of all voters said they would consider voting for both men. This is hardly encouraging for those who would like to use the 2016 primaries as the basis for a hybrid populist movement. A quarter of all surveyed voters -- Democrat, Republican and independent -- would consider voting for Trump but not Sanders, 33 percent would consider voting for Sanders but not Trump, and the rest were undecided.
At McInturff's suggestion, I asked pollsters at the Pew Research Center what they had found. Jocelyn Kiley, associate director of research, provided data reinforcing McInturff's analysis that a left-right populist alliance faced insurmountable difficulties. "In our January survey," Kiley wrote, "we asked if people thought each of the candidates would make a great, good, average, poor, or terrible president. Among all voters, just 4 percent said both Trump and Sanders would be either great or good. If you expand that to include average, just 15 percent said both would be at least average."
Kiley made the point that another revealing way of interpreting the data is that 77 percent of those who thought Sanders would be good or great thought Trump would be poor or terrible, and 60 percent of those who thought Trump would be good or great thought Sanders would be poor or terrible.
Scott Keeter, senior survey adviser at the Pew Research Center, added that research conducted in recent years showed that both parties have potential class cleavages in them that a candidate with the right mix of policies could exploit. Trump's support has shown that not all of the G.O.P. electorate shares the party's orthodox views about limited government, and his views on trade could have appeal to some Democrats. But it's hard to find data to suggest that a large coalition could be formed that would unite the harder core supporters of Trump and Sanders, given the many things they disagree on.
CO, NV, NM, VA, OH, PA, FL
He's claiming he'll flip NY and MI.
NY, I don't think so.
MI, maybe? As the whole Flint-poisoning episode has revealed, maybe there really are enough horrible people there who would support him?
Old crank remembers the 70s, Howard Jarvis and gasoline lines, and Reagan in 1980 wasn't that great a shock cause Carter, the neoliberal hawk challenged by Edward K and was generally disliked like Clinton and Ronnie had been round a while but what made everybody scream and cry and pray for death...
...were the coattails in 1980. Omigod.
You think you can predict elections the people vote last and wave elections are always unpredicted and after Trump wins big and gets a 62 seat Republican Senate than y'all will get your humility on in a big way.
I was thinking more about the extent to which a decent chunk of voters will vote based more on the sense of the candidate's personality, or the message they feel like voting for them sends, or just plain how cool or charismatic they find the candidate.* And that's something that you'd have trouble measuring outside of a general election itself: until you put Sanders/Trump/Clinton/Rubio/Etc. all up on a stage together or see people talking about the differences between them you're not really going to see that kind of effect showing up. (Barring an interesting change to how primary debates work - and one that actually might be a really nice one - we aren't going to get to see that actually show up in polling.)
*Ron Paul for President!! He really was kind of a proto-Sanders for people who were youngish at the time but aren't anymore, now that I think about it. I'm not certainly entirely what sits behind it but for a while now there's been a recognizable excitement among younger people for old people with a lot of personality to them. Bernie Sanders, Betty White, George Takei, and Ron Paul all feel like they're exemplifying a particular way of being cool that I'm not sure existed to the same extent before the 2000's or so.
Also bob is clearly wrong in 132. With President Trump we'll be WINNING so much we won't have TIME for humility!
133 -- huh? Basically no one who now says they would consider voting for Sanders would consider voting for Trump and vice versa. Why would you think that would change in a general election when (a) people have more information and (b) they are running against each other. Even if you think that there are people who vote solely on personality, when exposed to the personality of these two there are very few people who would vote for both (and fewer still who would vote for both but not for other candidates).
I think I have already said it before maybe above, and I suppose I could form it more cohesively but yeah this one is looking a lot like 1980. In many ways.
Read about it. Think about it.
That first bit in the passage you quoted says that something like 36% of the people were undecided*, which covers a lot of space.
But mostly I think that those numbers suffer from the same problem that the ones 'showing' that Sanders would beat Rubio (or whatever) in the general election do, namely that they're waaaay out in front of the general election and even in a primary this public and exciting a whole lot of people aren't paying attention. And even for the ones who are people start changing their minds based on what happens in the race or when they get to see the candidates standing next to each other, or when someone gets nominated and tribalism kicks in. (I really doubt all of the Republicans who say they can't see voting for Trump will still be saying that in November if he's the nominee.)
*6% either one; 25% Trump not Sanders; 33% Sanders not Trump; and the rest undecided means "undecided" is the the largest group.
Right, but as in every election those are the "undecideds" who inevitably then split between one party or another (there aren't ever anything like 36% genuine undecideds approaching an election, or else every election would be determined entirely by them and real swing voters).
There's no reason whatsoever other than totally unsupported speculation to think that any meaningful portion of that 36% would happily pick either Trump or Sanders but not another candidate. And almost anyone who's willing to say that they are ready to pick a candidate would vote for one but not the other, which is a pretty good guide to how other people will break once they start making their decision.
There's just no evidence at all that anything more than a trivial number of "Trump or Sanders, but no one else" people are out there.
I don't think that's particularly likely. I think Trump is a very weak R general election candidate and that his high negatives will kill him. I think with a Clinton or mainstream Democratic candidate he's more likely to swing net Rs to Ds than the reverse, which will leave him absolutely dead. But a win is not impossible. If he's actually able to turn a decent chunk of net white D voters into R voters, while maintaining the R vote pretty much intact, he's got a path. He's a scarier candidate than Cruz.
I think this is basically correct. With that said, I've been thinking it over, and I have a far-too-long theory.
First, my priors. I think that this is precisely wrong:
You think you can predict elections the people vote last and wave elections are always unpredicted
I think that, overall, fundamentals matter more than campaigns; that very few people change their mind over the course of the campaign, but that campaigns do affect turnout. In other words, that campaigns have more power (when run well) to get voters who are inclined to support the candidate to show up and vote than they do to get voters who are not inclined to support a candidate to do so.
My second thought is that it may make sense to think about elections in terms of how much ideology is a salient variable. That there are high ideology-salience elections and low, and in the latter this is more true:
I was thinking more about the extent to which a decent chunk of voters will vote based more on the sense of the candidate's personality, or the message they feel like voting for them sends, or just plain how cool or charismatic they find the candidate.*
Consider the 2000 vs 2008 elections. In 2000 I think Bush did a good job of running for a low ideology election. He ran the "compassionate conservative" line well enough to minimize the number of people who liked him (or disliked Gore) but felt like they had to vote for Gore because they were committed to having a Democrat in the White House (and note, one advantage that Bush had, he didn't have to cater to the right wing during the general election -- both because they were fed up with 8 years of Clinton and because he had deep ties to the evangelical community).
In 2008, McCain looks like a great candidate for a low-ideology election -- he's a "maverick" and the media loves him. But that year ideology is very important to the voters (and note, what finally kills his campaign is the financial crash which makes it clear that ideology matters -- because Conservatives just don't have a plausible solution to the crisis.). Note as well that, even though it's a high-ideology election Obama has the liberty to run as a bipartisan candidate -- because liberals are sick and tired of 8 years of Bush and because, being Black gives him a strong tie to core Democratic constituencies.
I think Sanders has been succeeding in the primaries by making ideology more important, and convincing people that, given the choice, they want the more ideological candidate (note, he has not been succeeding in the primaries by increasing turnout, which has consistently been 30% below 2008). For that reason I think he does well against somebody like Cruz who is also a "heighten-the-contradictions" candidate. I think Sanders wins against Trump but the scenario that would scare me is the one in which centrist Democrats (can we call them the left wing of "Bloomberg voters?") aren't motivated and don't turn out strongly and centrist Republicans are motivated and aren't won over by Sanders, and so the question for me is less can Trump pivot to "the left" than can Trump pivot to a position of, "who cares about ideology." I have no idea how plausible that is. My gut reaction is that Rubio would scare me more, in that scenario than Trump, but I'm on record above as a Trump skeptic so I don't trust my instincts about Trump.
I think Clinton's path to defeat is that she turns people off by just being a poor candidate; being tone-deaf and not having a clear message. I think she'll do fine in the general election running as a successor to Obama on a conventional Democratic platform, but I do think that's a risk.
That said, I'm not sure that I buy the claim in the article linked in 12 that Trump would be well positioned to attack her for her scandels. Because that isn't what Trump has been doing in the primaries. Other than the "low-energy" line, I don't know that he's been attacking the other candidates, but I do think he's done a great job of managing to starve them of oxygen and get attention away from his opponents and onto himself -- note how the "Cruz is Canadian" thing may have somewhat hurt Cruz but mostly it just put Trump back in the spotlight as the person setting the tone and agenda of the debate.
I think he'll have a harder time doing that against either Clinton or Sanders in the general -- if for no other reason than the fact that it will be a one-on-one race rather than a scrum. But, again, I'm not sure my instincts about Trump are correct.
Isn't who Sanders might beat in the general sort of alternate history at this point?
They're tied nearly tied in voter-determined delegates (though Hillary is about to trounce him in NC), so Sanders is still very much capable of winning at this point.
40: I'm fine. Just gave up reading the comments on the internet for Lent.
My main question surrounding 116.link and others like it is, how are the young people these days even learning about socialism? The only common source I can think of is propaganda in high school textbooks and Hollywood.
Sanders was always going to get beat in Nevada and trounced in SC. I don't see why that's suddenly cause to declare it over before Super Tuesday.
144: There's this new-fangled thing all the kids are using called the Interwebs or something.
Internet, university classes, professors who have gotten less worried about being red-baited, and general poverty.
But the internet is huge. Makes it easy to talk to people from other countries. It also now takes maybe five minutes to dig up data showing that the percentage of a public college degree funded by the maximum federal Pell grant in 1980 was over twice what it is today.
I really only ever visit one reddit subthread r/anime because I have enough to read but here is the very top
Somewhere round there I'll bet you can find a demographic poll, they all do them. r/anime skews very heavily 15-25
And of course, for a starter, wiki is, jesus counting offsite links, more than adequate. And hell sometimes I fall into the anarchist net hundreds of sites.
Web's a hell of a lot bigger than TPM, Vox, and Jezebel.
Basically no one who now says they would consider voting for Sanders would consider voting for Trump and vice versa.
not exactly "no one"
So Matt Taibbi just did his level best to make me a Trump voter. Weird huh? http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-america-made-donald-trump-unstoppable-20160224?page=13
144: The internet is part of it, but I'm guessing the Republican obsession trying to smear people they like with the term "socialist" has given them a motive to go digging around to see what's out there too. And at this point people looking for examples of socialism in practice are as likely as not to run across Nordic model stuff which does seem to work pretty well for the people living there so it's not hard to see why they'd start to find the idea appealing.
It's boomers being boomers Norway looked a lot less attractive when they grew up 40 years ago in comparison to now
3: I was wondering about what Cruz and Rubio were having their Univision sidebar about.
Overal i'm impressed by Trump as a campaigner; Trump taking on Jeb! on Iraq in SC after Bush43 joined the campaign showed Trump's instinct to attack strengths in a loud and clear manner, devoid of Clintonian nuance.
I wonder if the visibility of Occupy contributed to the youths looking up websites like marxists.org or whatever they're doing these days.
There's just no evidence at all that anything more than a trivial number of "Trump or Sanders, but no one else" people are out there.
Right. However, such people (and they are very misguided and foolish people, imho) are a highly vocal, if statistically over-represented, minority on social media. I mean, I dunno, I keep coming across examples in my FB feed ('Hillary is so evil and corrupt and greedy, I think I might have to vote for Trump, #feelthebern'), though much of my FB feed is my Canadian aunts posting inspirational dog rescue stories.
You think you can predict elections the people vote last and wave elections are always unpredicted and after Trump wins big and gets a 62 seat Republican Senate than y'all will get your humility on in a big way.
Yeah, bob, overawe us with your uncannily accurate electoral predictions. I haven't seen a drachm of humility from you about the whole "Obama will engineer a double-dip recession and run as a Republican in 2012" thing.
62 seats, eh? The Republicans are on 54 at the moment, and there are only 10 Democratic seats up for election this autumn, and 24 Republicans. (Did you even know that?)
You reckon the Republicans will hold every Senate seat they have now, and take another eight away from the Democrats? 2016 is the year they take a Senate seat in Vermont, is it bob? Or California? Or Connecticut? Or Oregon?
Just to be clear, I'm not ragging on you for making wrong predictions - that's just part of the human condition. It's being so unbearably superior and condescending about it that gets me. The whole "how can you fools not see how right I am" thing is obnoxious even when it comes from someone who is (as you are not) right.
bob is trolling. bob is always trolling.
FB is suggesting Rubio is about to be hit with a sex scandal. Don't necessarily believe it, but I hadn't heard it before.
If Trump were actually elected, would he run for a second term, or would he decide that presidenting is boring and underpaid and go and fuck up something else?
I believe after Trumps first term, we will have won everything , and so there will be no more worlds to conquer. Presumably he ascends to Valhalla at that point.
143 So I guess we're all giving up puns for Lent then.
I believe after Trumps first term, we will have won everything , and so there will be no more worlds to conquer. Presumably he ascends to Valhalla at that point.
YOU HAVE SCORED
4%
HISTORY WILL FOREVER REMEMBER YOU AS
TRUMP THE WEAK
After 4 years of Trump, we will all be so busy fending off radioactive mutants there will be no thought of even holding elections.
I think it's safe to say Trump won't be going for a cultural victory.
He might be tempted by the thought of a colony on Alpha Centauri, though. He could get the Centaurum to pay for it. It would be amazingly classy. (The Centauri Empire overall definitely has Trump-friendly elements. Look at their architecture and the way they dress. Look at their hair, for heaven's sake.)
+1 bonus to clearing fungus for golf courses.
"I could probably nerve staple an employee and it wouldn't affect my poll numbers".
He won't be satisfied until he's slapped his name all over the damn place. Trump National Park, Mt. Trump, Mt. Trumpmore, Trump, D.C., Trump State and New Trump State, The United States of Trump. Trumpity Trump Trump Trump. Chump.
159: For a long time there's been a rumor that Rubio has a second family.
FB is suggesting Rubio is about to be hit with a sex scandal. Don't necessarily believe it, but I hadn't heard it before.
The Bush campaign was clearly pushing rumors that there was something there in his past* (gaaaayyy) and it's not like making up smears and then quietly spreading them around as under-the-table chatter would be new for the Bush family. If it does turn out to be true, though, and shows up around now I think that would be hilarious. Sorry RNC - you spent years gay-baiting and now your only hope for not-catastrophe got burned. So sad!
I would also support President Trump in deciding to gold plate the white house and maybe give it some kind of enormous marquee or lettering on the front with "TRUMP!" written on it. Or putting up lots of statues of himself everywhere, or renaming stuff after him or whatever. Come on America - you're a massively wealthy imperial power! Live a little! Also it would get the "let's name every fucking thing after a Republican president" thing over with more quickly than with Reagan.
The reason why Trump can't win is that it's a little too on-the-nose. A reality star who's a blowhard conman being elected President of the United States? It's so clearly what we deserve that it's implausible. God usually tries to hide His interventions better.
161: I gave up checking the debris trap in the dryer for Lent.
173- That would work better if Ash Wednesday were after Lent.
173: Lint fetish? I thought I was the only one!
So have we worked out whether Trump is the reincarnation of Frederick Barbarossa yet? (Or not so much reincarnation as the same man, put into a thousand-year sleep by fairies?)
The most enjoyable Lent penance I've ever done was back in my devout evangelical days, when a sharp-tongued flatmate and I gave up being rude to each other. Casually dropping comments that absolutely required a sarcastic response and watching his agonized squirms as he tried to be good and bite his tongue was pure pleasure.
I'm thinking you weren't quite clear on the concept there.
152 Know what really looked bad in Boomer youth and young adulthood?
Don't ascribe to malice that which is better explained by PTSD.
From 180:
The elder Cruz told theWhenever I think these people can't get any worse something like this comes along.
congregation that God would
anoint Christian "kings" to
preside over an "end-time
transfer of wealth" from the
wicked to the righteous. After
this sermon, Larry Huch, the
pastor of New Beginnings,
claimed Cruz's recent election to
the U.S. Senate was a sign that
he was one of these kings.
"I plan to live forever, of course, but barring that I'd settle for a couple thousand years. Even five hundred would be pretty yuge."
-CEO Donald J. Trump, Trumplink 3D-Vision Interview
181: "end-time transfer of wealth"!!!!
Cruz is communist????
From each according to his vice, to each according to his virtue.
179: What was amazing about 1984 is that in 1982 the economy was terrible -- it held the title for the worst recession since the Great Depression until 2007. And yet two years later Mondale got killed.
185 was me. Die, motherfucking Name box, die!
181 is really something. I almost wish I was still a Christian so I could legitimately go to these people's churches and anathematize them. Also I'm sure I could put together a pretty good jeremiad if need be.
185: But the economy bounced back quickly, so Reagan could ride a rising tide, right?
187: I figure that lot are so far beyond the pale anyone can anathematize them.
Also, anathematize is a word that deserves a comeback.
185: I think that's actually perfect timing for an incumbent -- the economy hit bottom one year in to his term, and was well into recovery by the time of the election. What got me about that election (my first time voting) was how badly Reagan did in the debates -- after each debate I knew there was no way he was going to be reelected.
Trump National Park
You think you are joking but you are not.
159.2
IIRC, Trump's mother was Scottish. It shouldn't be too hard for him to get UK citizenship and run for office over there.
191: Yes, he's eligible, but he'd have to come and live in the UK first, and then satisfy the authorities that he was of good character: "To be of good character you should show respect for the rights and freedoms of the United Kingdom, observed its laws and fulfilled your duties and obligations as a resident of the United Kingdom. Checks will be carried out to ensure that the information you give is correct."
"To be of good character you should show respect for the rights and freedoms of the United Kingdom, observed its laws and fulfilled your duties and obligations as a resident of the United Kingdom. Checks will be carried out to ensure that the information you give is correct."
So Cameron's screwed then.
190 Didn't he say he was going to call the yuge wall he's going to build on the Mexican border the "Great Wall of Trump"?
Oh good. I can't wait.
That does sound depressing. But, in theory, at least it could be possible to have some fun with this (though I know that's not what to expect):
In any event, he said, the broad theme of those attacks will be that "the Republican Party has gone insane."
Does anyone know offhand how Reagan's 1984 coalition would do corrected for today's demographics? Trump's appeal to old, angry white people could potentially be comparable, at least as a crude estimate of his maximum draw.
198: Reagan won 61% of the 18-24 group in 1984 according to this http://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls/us-elections/how-groups-voted/how-groups-voted-1984/
Young conservatives creep me out. How's Trump polling with the enthusiastic youth? Please tell me horribly.
I know, I know, LMGTFY.
200: Young people are idealists and more zealous about it than the jaded. Presumably they're supporting Carson, Rubio, or Carson by now, if they haven't just decided to sit out this election and wait until Roand Paul is on a ballot again. Trump's support is mostly bigots and the right-wing flavor people who are opposed to politics as usual. Young people might find politics as usual boring but haven't lived with it long enough to burn it all down.
198: Reagan won 61% of the 18-24 group in 1984
That's the 50-56 cohort in 2016.
Don't people generally progress from "Burn it down" to weary acceptance of the inevitability of evil?
Young people might find politics as usual boring but haven't lived with it long enough to burn it all down
Have you ever been young? Or ever listened to any punk rock? One day in high school can seem like plenty enough time to decide it time to burn it all down.
Now Ian Welsh has gotten in on the act. Why is everyone trying to convince me to vote for Trump? http://www.ianwelsh.net/trumponomics-how-the-trump-economic-plan-will-wor/
Lulz?
Trump might as well be using 'For The LULZ!' as his slogan at this point as far as I can tell.
Interesting - per the CNN exit poll, 18-29-year-olds were the only GOP age group Trump didn't win in South Carolina. They went 28% Cruz, 26% Trump, 22% Rubio. But that age group made up only 10% of the total.
But in New Hampshire, Trump won most age groups about the same, the most support (within MOE) being from 18-29 and the least being from 65+.
This is interesting. To the extent the youth (18-29) vote is now strongly Democratic, as opposed to evenly split, it's because the youth vote is very heavily (45%! look out whiteys!) non-white.
The white youth vote is evenly split R/D (that's of course better for the Ds than their performance with older white people, but there are a lot of young white Republicans). So there's certainly a core group of young white people with potential for becoming the Trump Youth. But thank God the country is getting less white and there are a lot of young people who are not white.
By contrast, in 1995 71% of the 18-29 vote was white. (And that percentage was presumably much higher still in 1984 when young Peep cast his first ballot.)
That's a pretty incredible shift in 20 years. The one thing that Sanders people have been saying that's absolutely 100% accurate is that it's stupid to look at McGovern 72 or Mondale 84 as precedent because the national electorate is just totally different.
204
Or ever listened to any punk rock?
No, I haven't. I was born when the genre was already eight years old. Punk is a Baby Boomer thing.
I'm kidding, I know that Green Day counts as punk, and their breakout hit was 22 years ago, when I was getting close to high school. But seriously, I would say that (a) punk-rock-style burn-shit-down isn't relevant when discussing young conservatives because barring some very weird examples punk rock fans aren't conservatives, and (b) there is a certain kind of burn-shit-down that's more common and popular among the olds and that's a big part of Trump support.
For whatever it's worth, someone actually researched what Trump's base is. This should surprise no one here, but at least there's some kind of data to it.
Presumably they're the youth that would read this magazine. They also appear to be the sort of people who would shiv you in the country club bathroom and then carve a swastika on your chest as you lay bleeding out.
211:
I really can't bring myself to click that link.
212: Oh, you should, if only for this article by one of the magazine's backers.
Oh man. I really want to sign everyone I know up for subscriptions to that one, the way I did a few years ago when Yachting Magazine had a free subscriptions deal available.
Upthread I was inclined to believe that Democrats would be able to attack Trump more effectively than the Republicans have. It never occurred to me, however, that the Republicans are just incompetent: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/02/republicans-have-totally-lost-their-mojo
