Despair from the jaws of victory, I tell ya.
I confess I don't see the route from this to Pence being President.
Do the ballot rules even allow the VP candidate to be at the top of the ticket? Any expectation that Trump would step down absent prosecution and impeachment isn't worth taking seriously. But then, this post isn't either.
I was thinking the post assumed prosecution and impeachment. But I'm honestly not sure. Clinton's way ahead in the polls.
For f***'s sake, ogged, Hillary is still going to win this thing.
The official position of the GOP, on recent disclosures of Trump's fundamental skeeviness: We support the subordination of women, sure, but we don't need you to be, like, a total sleaze about it.
Paul Ryan is truly the fucking worst. "Women are to be championed and revered." Omg just sexually harass me, it would be more straightforward.
I found out this morning that my dept chair signed the public "Scholars and Writers for Trump" statement and was too upset to work properly all day. I think this is the first time that someone with pretty direct power over me is a fascist.
Also, a Republican Congress is unlikely to impeach or even investigate Trump, so it's up to the court system + public opinion to get that going.
Isn't this the next iteration of "Oh, is it going to be so obvious Trump will lose in a landslide that he'll drop out?" No, he won't drop out or be pushed out, top Republicans have already shown their cravenness ten times over, the underlying fact is that moving against him would ruin them among the grassroots they're tied to, even if they wanted to which is not exactly clear either.
My mantra when Clinton was down in the polls was regression to the mean, and it served me well. But it cuts both ways.
Also, even if Trump somehow stepped aside, the GOP would be in such a shambles (and so many of the base would be absolutely enraged) I can't see Pence winning in his wake.
Uh, I don't really think this means Mike Pence is going to be president. I thought it was an obvious joke, but you people are so pessimistic that you're pessimistic enough to think it might be serious, making you way more pessimistic than I am!
I am, however, going to find time to despair on election day when we learn just how many millions of people voted for Trump.
going to find time to despair on election day when we learn just how many millions of people voted for Trump.
Dude why wait. He's already the Republic nominee; isn't that enough for a little despair? Or maybe you just meant more despair.
I will not despair until I calculate how the percentage of people voting for Trump compares to that voting for Jackson in any of his elections. I may well despair then, but not before.
Well I'm going to despair right fucking now!
12: Once you've trolled your own blog enough, you can't just say you're not doing it anymore.
On Facebook I saw someone express concern that Trump would drop out of the race and then Pence would win, which does answer my implicit question in 2. I dunno, I thought you might actually have had something (like what I just said) in mind, somehow! You're a clever guy!
I am always already in a state of despair.
Just as the physician might say that there lives perhaps not one single man who is in perfect health, so one might say perhaps that there lives not one single man who after all is not to some extent in despair, in whose inmost parts there does not dwell a disquietude, a perturbation, a discord, an anxious dread of an unknown something, or of a something he does not even dare to make acquaintance with, dread of a possibility of life, or dread of himself, so that, after all, as physicians speak of a man going about with a disease in him, this man is going about and carrying a sickness of the spirit, which only rarely and in glimpses, by and with a dread which to him is inexplicable, gives evidence of its presence within.
Jackson got 56% of the vote in 1828 and 54% in 1832. Easy wins, especially with William "Perot" Wirt siphoning off the anti-Masonic vote in the latter one.
That was only 700,000 people though and the US population was 12 million.
Guessing that if our electorate now was only white male property owners Trump would far surpass that percentage. Of course under 1828 rules Bill Clinton would be running for his sixth reelection.
Really, there must just be a ton to outtakes from his reality show with all kinds of stuff that accurately reflects his personality.
My congressman has closely tied himself to Trump. I guess mansplaining is his only option.
https://denisejuneau.com/denise-juneau-statement-donald-trumps-disgusting-comments-women/
12: Not taking anything for granted this year.
Can we at least predict that no other presidential election is likely to have this much Twitter in it?
I am extremely freaked out by the way Donald Trump has hypnotized the whole country, that's for fucking sure. Even if it ends in a puff of smoke, it is deeply unsettling to see how charisma -- this exceedingly weird version of charisma -- can work. So far though I've avoided seeing him on video or hearing his voice even once, and without all that much effort. This may also be the last presidential election where that is possible (or desirable).
Just one of the million insane things about this election:
The guy who wanted funerals for miscarriages and aborted fetus is deemed serious and Presidential.
Mike Pence could not beat Hillary Clinton in a national election, even if he didn't already have Trumpjuice smeared all over him.
My level of depression and disgust about this election is such that I assume that this latest scandal will hardly affect his numbers at all. Nothing before it has.
On a different note, it's ridiculous that when Clinton articulates what might be her actual positions on things and they are "hacked" and released some Democrats are reduced to suggesting that the Russians must have edited the transcripts.
It's also interesting that we have the equivalent of the Watergate burglaries having worked and one campaign trying to benefit* from the slow drip of selective information release.
*Most likely with no active role in its happening.
29 is one of the things I find the weirdest. That the Russian government is actively trying to influence the election in favor of a particular candidate through an army of hackers seems to be kind of an afterthought instead of the biggest deal ever, when not being cheered on by the moron-left crew. I dunno that I'd have expected that. Also the coverage of the "leak" is horrendously stupid, alleviated only by being drowned out by Trump's monstrosity.
some Democrats are reduced to suggesting that the Russians must have edited the transcripts
Protocols of the Democratic Elders.
29, 30: The other interesting thing about that is that they've got nothing. I mean, there are good open political reasons not to be happy that Clinton's the only viable candidate based on positions she's taken in public. But leaking stolen documents? I haven't been paying close attention, but has anything even a little damaging come out about here?
30 exactly. Ok article here. This part is enlightening:
I reached out to a half-dozen current and former officials responsible for both public diplomacy and cyber security. None of them expressed confidence in which agency should take the lead in responding to a massive effort to leak private correspondence heavily weighted toward one party in an election.And this
Russia's big innovation in information warfare isn't to create traditional propaganda [...] their intent isn't to provide an alternative set of facts but to attack the very idea of facts. You don't have to believe their version of events, but you will question whether there is a version of events.sounds familiar, no?
It turns out that she wanted to get more votes in the primary than Sanders.
I think 33.2 addresses this: it doesn't matter what the content of the leak is, it's just grist for the confusion mill. The Russians could save themselves a lot of money by straight up lying, like Trump is.
I just learned that pack goats exist. On topic because this will keep me from pessimism all day.
38 is awesome. "Two is the minimum recommended number of goats as they need companionship, although they will attach themselves to other species, including you, if they have no other goats around."
Nothing looks as rented as a rented goat.
49 Two rented goats? You know, for companionship.
Having a pack goat get clingy can be a difficult experience.
In other animal news, I remembered that kittens were adorable, but until we got a pair I'd forgotten they were jerks. Salvador spent all night alternately fighting with my hair and trying to tunnel under my neck.
Also, fuck everyone who 1) acts outraged but doesn't rescind an endorsement or 2) didn't rescind an endorsement after any of the previous five hundred horrible things Trump said and did or 3) rescinds their endorsement but say they still won't vote for Clinton. Craven, the lot of them.
41 to 40 obvs. (But we'll see what 49 brings).
Pablo. They're almost perfectly identical gray tabby brothers, about five months old now.
What's the other one's name???
And what's the name of his wooden leg???
I'm going to assume a kitten is like a goat. You can't have them carry more than 20% of their body weight. You'll need more than two to carry your stuff.
Congratulations on the kitties. Good names. I had to stop paying attention to Nextdoor because I think two cats is the right size for our house/family but I can't go through adjusting to a new one now (and because I prefer older cats, inevitable sooner death).
Leaving cat death to the chances of radioactive decay seems too slow?
Some of those isotopes really take their time.
The KKK alone isn't what took down Reconstruction. While the KKK was most violent, the federal government, with Congressional authorization, kept sending troops in. It was the "respectable" whites who sidelined (while also benefiting from) the KKK who took over power.
Wrong thread, but every thread is a Trump or Trump-related thread.
I'm thinking the half-life of trumpium is a lot shorter. Though still too long.
Huh, I guess I underestimated the factor of Republicans opportunistically taking this moment to disavow. No more Hillary endorsements, but calls to drop out from actual sitting electeds (Thune, Heck), and Ayotte says she'll write in Pence.
This feels like the political Singularity. Every day is about twice as crazy as the last.
ISTM voting Clinton in blue states will also help the legitimacy of the outcome by racking up the overall popular vote margin.
Trump has said he will not quit, so I now believe he will. There is an established narrative pattern to these things leading to what I think of as (for those who can remember the early days of Bloom County, back when it was funny) the "Mr America Naked as a Jaybird" moment.
Trump has said he will not quit, so I now believe he will.
Nah. He's got a whole range of parries over this latest thing, several of which he's already deployed. Nobody's perfect. Everyone has a past. This is a distraction (from the issues, I guess). It was locker room talk.
Yet to come, or at least available to him: Have I ever pretended to be politically correct? Beautiful women are just ... beautiful ... amirite? It's no secret that I used to be a playboy. And by the way, build the wall!
In any case, the upcoming debate will be fascinating, in a trainwreck kind of way.
Yeah, but he won't quit over this. He'll be hit with a new one over the weekend and deploy some more excuses; and another; and another; and eventually, suddenly, "I quit!"
Hrm -- I doubt it. Not unless it's something like Ivanka claiming he molested her or something, or a tape of him saying he doesn't mean a damn bit of the policy proposals he's been conveying on the campaign trail.
He just has too many whirly-eyed supporters who are with him no matter what. He eats that shit up.
It's a pretty unstable situation. I don't think he'll quit, but I don't know what will happen.
As Jeet Heer observes, he has a lock on a large part of the GOP base, and no loyalty to the GOP as an organization; similarly, they have no leverage on him. The more elites who go against him (it's now up to 6 sitting senators), the more he can say he was stabbed in the back and retain his dignity even after he loses big.
In complete agreement with Minivet, with the caveat that dignity is subjective. But who knows. "Sui generis" was coined for this year.
I mean, he's already on the ballots.
He's not going to quit. 62.2 is key.
I don't think he'll quit. But it's going to get weird.
No, he won't quit but what a ride, and we're still a full month away. Have a feeling tomorrow's gonna be lit.
More practically, Trump's move now is to shift from "I'm better" to "She's worse." He's already begun this with the focus on Bill Clinton's peccadillos, but he'd be better off hammering away on what passes for the issues with him. Go back to the tried-and-true L-word: Hillary's a tax and spend liberal. She's going to raise your taxes. She's going to give handouts to the lazies (you know who they are). Etc. The number of voters who are convinced by that narrative isn't going to change.
It's not going to win him the election, but it can keep him roughly where he's polling now, so he can lose with protest and dignity all the way to his next thing, Trump Media.
Nice quote from somebody I probably should have heard of at the other place (Danielle Evans?): "I doubt Trump will quit, but Trump being replaced by Pence would be like escaping Brave New World only to end up in The Handmaid's Tale."
63 Shocks me primarily because apparently there is a bridge too far for the RNC. Considering all they've gone along with so far, I didn't think this was so radically different.
The RNC is basically fucked. If Trump steps down, they've alienated their angry white nationalist base. If he doesn't, they've alienated all women and most of the establishment. There is no way Trump stepping down doesn't lead to open civil war in the Republican Party.
63 I think there's been some walkback on that.
apparently there is a bridge too far for the RNC
The bridge too far is just fear of a downticket massacre. It was already becoming clear that he was going to lose. It's now a dead certainty. Coming just one cycle after the legitimate rape election is devastating for their long-term prospects with younger voters.
73: She's the author of a short-story collection called Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self. I got halfway through it before deciding it was too sad, but one of the stories I read was really a gem.
I am making bagels. This feels like a good solution for a day in which the world is completely verklempt.
I only know "verklempt" as in "overcome with emotion" like "reading The Little Prince for the first time made me all verklempt".
Yeah. The Trump campaign isn't running much of a state level ground game itself - it's relying on the RNC to do that for them. Someone said upthread that the RNC didn't have much leverage over Trump, but I don't think that's true*; he needs them to do the very basic level stuff.
The RNC's priorities are to hold the Senate, then the House, then try for the Presidency. Trump fucks up this badly, he's first under the bus in terms of their allocation of resources.
* Of course, he may not think he needs any get-out-the-vote help.
Someone said upthread that the RNC didn't have much leverage over Trump, but I don't think that's true*; he needs them to do the very basic level stuff.
That's assuming he actually cares about winning the election.
79: Yeah, I was trying to come up with a word for the stew of emotions floating around the world today -- disgust, fear, celebration, vindication, revulsion, pessimism, anger, frustration, triumph, betrayal, shame, etcetera etcetera -- and I settled on "verklempt" but that may not have been the right choice.
I didn't know bagels were a thing you could just make. I thought you had to have special tools or something.
It helps to have bread flour, but otherwise it's really simple. Bread flour, water, yeast, salt. Some brown sugar and water to boil them in. Maybe an egg to brush on top of of them when they're baking if you want to get fancy. I like to throw a little coarse salt on top, but again not necessary.
It's also a really fun activity to do with kids. My sobrinos love making bagels.
(Do not believe the stupid NYT and their article about how the only real bagels are made with lye. Bunch of baloney.)
No, not ressentiment, that's only negative emotions. Operatic, maybe. Soap operatic.
Lye is for pretzels, I thought. Maybe baking soda in the water for bagels, but not lye.
"I have that 50 pound bag of lye for, um, making bagels. And the shovel is to sprinkle them with salt."
Pretzels and bagels are basically the same dough. Water, flour, salt, yeast. You don't have to boil pretzels (or bagels, for that matter) but I always do.
MAYBE it's a little racist but I'd prefer to take bagel advice from someone with a stronger grasp of Yiddish idiom.
You don't have to boil pretzels (or bagels, for that matter
It's not the Yiddish, exactly, but I too have stopped listening.
Yeah, it's been fairly clear all along that Trump does not care about maximizing his chances of winning. He wants a fun ride and has extensive enough alternative plans that losing would be just as enjoyable. In fact, possibly more so if he always knew all these tapes were bound to come out sooner or later (he may have accepted the nomination against his better judgment).
In fact, possibly more so if he always knew all these tapes were bound to come out sooner or later
Not even further, recent tapes of Trump discussing these older tapes can convince me that Trump either remembered, or would have cared about if he had remembered, these remarks.
So, I'm just going to keep buying my bagels from the shop down the street because I don't want to commit antisemitism or expend effort.
Now I kind of want to get a bagel from the place down the street from me. I'm sure Witt's bagels are better than theirs, though.
29, 30 it is so weird; like am I hallucinating that Russia is trying to rig U.S. elections? Is... did anyone else see... ? No? Is this not a big deal, are we collectively over Russian espionage now, either way is cool just TELL me so I don't show up in the wrong outfit.
Anyway I know the """"""art"""""" director who did today's Daily News cover. They're mostly sold out but he's holding on to a bunch for me if anyone wants.
He must be having fun lately. Not just this, but the News has been on fire with the covers.
He was at the post before which sucked as much as you'd guess apparently, I think moving really demolished a creative dam and the genius is pouring forth in torrents.
And Trump's supporters begin to push back. This piece is why the institutional GOP is in such an impossible position.
Also why Trump won't step down, and why even if they somehow got him off the ticket unwillingly his replacement would still lose big.
McCain's finally out. Says he'll write in some conservative.
Is there a German word for "alternating feelings of pleasure derived from another's suffering and existential panic"? It seems like there should be.
Also is the "grab them by the pussy" oration exceptionally bad? Have I just been destroyed by my own low expectations? Whatever it takes to amputate this festering limb is ok with me but have there not been... hundreds of "grab them by the pussy" moments in this election?
It also sounds like something a 12 year old who had no idea what a pussy actually was would say. Sure, grab them by it, yup that's a thing.
107 occurred to me too. The whole recording has a very middle-school feel.
Mexicans are rapists, but they don't brag about it on camera. Sad.
108 though actually then his election might bode well for my high school dream of getting the sex act/baseball stuff metrics standardized. Ugh the bases were different at every school it was impossible to figure out who was doing what.
It's also been fun to see what Papers of Record will print "pussy." I should jot down a list somewhere I'll probably want that info again someday.
107: A 12-year-old describing what their favorite Street Fighter II character does.
As a pedant, I'm annoyed by the lack of numerical accord between "them" and "pussy."
110: The impossible dream. Nerd.
As horrible as this all is, I'm glad it happened. We all knew it was there, and it was his standard operating procedure.
110: You should submit that as a question for the debate. I'm sure Trump has a strong opinion on it.
112.3, I thought they could print them on the inside cover of composition notebooks, where they already had charts with metric/inches conversion and stuff like that.
I've always wondered how many troy ounces are at second base.
The bridge too far is just fear of a downticket massacre. It was already becoming clear that he was going to lose. It's now a dead certainty.
Apo is right. They're just being opportunistic.
112.2 maybe it's just a very woke use of they as a nongendered singular pronoun reflecting an understanding of the disjunction between gender and biological sex, hmmm, could be.
The problem has always been that there are more sex acts than bases. If you used football you'd have incredible specifity ("I ran a Wishbone 22 Slam").
All your bases are belong to us.
I think the agreement thing is fine, actually, because it allows for differentiation between statements like "grab them by the arms" meaning grab each of them by both arms and "grab them by the arm" meaning grab each of them by one arm. Maybe you think that one should just say "grab each" rather than "grab them" in such a case anyway, I dunno.
117: Woke Trump is my favorite fantastic character. He commits sexual assault regardless of gender.
118: A running play at third and seven. Shaka, when the walls fell.
There's def an opening for someone to start novelty-tweeting as Woke Trump just saying.
120: Maybe I'm thinking it's different when there's a one-to-one relationship between person and thing (I am making assumptions here that might be insufficiently woke.). No, it's probably just the "grab them" phrasing implying a collective recipient of the action when it's a series of actions with singular recipients. On further reflection I think you're right that it's fine, although it still feels weird to me (over and beyond the creepiness described).
A zillion people have said this already, but I'm pretty sure that this wouldn't have been normal locker room talk in any locker room I've ever been in, even in middle school. I think this drives some of the response -- this is way unacceptable even in deep bro/jock culture. Saying "nice ass" is one thing but "grab her in the pussy" gets a what is WRONG with that dude response basically anywhere. It's just so not-cool. It's insane creepazoid shunned monster behavior.
At my summer camp we did in fact try to get a standard yard line definition (increments of 10) for various acts but it was too much for 12 year old boys to keep in their heads all at once. Also it was a Canadian camp so the American kids refused to go along with their 55 yard line bullshit.
124- Maybe not locker room talk but at said summer camp there were songs that had far worse content. Some of which I found out after the invention of Internet search engines were derived from slave work chants which is totally bizarre since most kids there were upper middle class to wealthy Jews.
I just made the mistake of going to Crooked Timber. What a bunch of fuckheads. Somehow they are more concerned with Hillary's Wall Street speeches than Trump's comments. God I hate our circular firing squad.
It's insane creepazoid shunned monster behavior.
And on that theme, this creepy exchange with Howard Stern also goes way beyond standard issue locker room talk:
In another interview, from September 2004, Stern asks Trump if he can call Ivanka "a piece of ass," to which Trump responds in the affirmative.
"My daughter is beautiful, Ivanka," says Trump.
"By the way, your daughter," says Stern.
"She's beautiful," responds Trump.
"Can I say this? A piece of ass," Stern responds.
"Yeah," says Trump.
124 reminds me of when I taught English in China and there was this 42 yo Aussie loser who was super openly racist and misogynistic, and the American frat boys he lived with complained to the school about his sexist and disgusting behavior. At least those frat boys definitely had a strong bro code in which raping prostitutes and bragging about it was certainly beyond the pale.
124 is certainly true of my (limited) experience in these kinds of all-male spaces, but it's clear from a lot of these anecdotes that there are plenty of other all-male spaces that are much more rape-tolerant, and those are clearly where Trump spends much of his time.
There was a great/creepy exchange that got edited out of the recent dr Oz show, where Ivanka comes on stage and kisses Dr Oz and Trump, and Trump says, "isn't she great? I kiss her as much I can," or something.
If you attach literally no value to women outside of their role as sexual objects, it makes perfect sense. Worries about incest are for beta males.
Somehow they are more concerned with Hillary's Wall Street speeches than Trump's comments.
The Trump tape was some fine timing to get everyone to ignore the Wall Street speeches. Not that anything in the speeches seems particularly bad to me, but, absent the Trump thing, it would have been this weekend's media circus. But the Trump tape has blown that out of the water.
I wonder if Hillary's people had a hand in the timing here. If so, that was incredibly well-executed.
I wonder if Hillary's people had a hand in the timing here. If so, that was incredibly well-executed.
Even if they weren't involved in this particular thing, they seem to be doing a very good job with the campaign overall. Look at how deftly they pulled off the Machado trap, for instance.
134: I thought the timing was the opposite.
I thought it was an obvious joke, but you people are so pessimistic that you're pessimistic enough to think it might be serious, making you way more pessimistic than I am!
Sorry, ogged! I did understand that you were joking, but this election is making me crazy, and overly-earnest.
I'm not actually all that pessimistic about Hillary's odds in the general.
I'm just utterly despondent about what this electoral cycle has revealed about American political culture, and about large swathes of the American population, in 2016. It's maybe not even so much Trump himself, though he is vile and deplorable beyond measure -- he's a trickster and a con artist and a skeevy real estate developer, but: he's not the first of his type, and he certainly won't be the last. It's more the fact that he has vocal and die-hard and passionate supporters, who perhaps comprise some 40 percent of the American voting public.
I can no longer do that reasonable-and-tolerant-and-broad-minded-liberal thing, where we attempt to find some middle ground, to carve out a compromise amongst good-faith actors who happen to disagree on this or that matter of public policy. If you're supporting Trump, you are a bad apple, and a bad actor, and you are not welcome in my home, or in my polity.
Yes. I don't see that the timing was coordinated to help Clinton. My main thought was that whoever did this hates establishment Republicans.
What was the timing exactly? Based on looking at the Wikileaks twitter food, it seems like that story broke at about 4:00 PM on Friday, which is the same time as the Trump story broke. According to something I read on WaPo (but which I'm now paywalled out of) The Trump story was originally supposed to have broken by Access Hollywood/NBC in the Sunday/Monday timeframe, in the wake of the next debate. But, instead, somebody leaked to WaPo early in the day on Friday.
So why was it moved up? Possibilities are A) coincidence, or B) Hillary has moles in the Wikileaks and/or Trump organization and got wind of the email leak in the pipeline, so they decided to move up the timetable on the Trump tape story.
Another thing that strikes me as weird is that both of these stories dropped on a Friday afternoon. It used to be that Friday afternoon was for news you wanted buried.... has that changed?
The Friday afternoon thing was weird, yeah.
In the full article in 129, Trump also discusses his daughter's breast size. But I think even more appalling are his comments about how he can walk backstage and "inspect" pageant contestants when they're getting dressed.
I'm actually mildly impressed 's that Stern's female co-host (Quivers) asks if it's a "conflict of interest" for him to get sexually involved with contestants.
And in this clip, when asked what she and her father have in common, Ivanka says "Real estate and golf."
Trump says blithely, "Well, I was going to say sex," to screams of laughter from the audience, and "That was Hulk Hogan creepy" from the host.
I think it's great and hilarious that Trump has invited/created/incurred such rancid hatred from the press.
I do not have a particularly high opinion of the press, mainstream or otherwise, and I dislike the sort of frienzied avalanches of things going viral and everyone fighting about them on facebook and all the papers having the same content about current events and ESPECIALLY all the reporting on reporting that happens. I'm a brat! Some of my best friends are journos.
But I really do adore that Trump is so narcissistic he thinks it is a plausible idea to win a national election (any national election, but also, of course, this one is the biggest) with the open enmity of all of journalism. Sure, ban the WaPo! Say tons of scathingly dismissive insults about reporters! They're peons! There's no conceivable way they could ever do anything to hurt someone as powerful as Donald!
138 was in reference to this not coming out until October, not the Friday release. I think if Clinton did the timing, it would have dropped on Monday.
Anyway I assume the timing of this, and any other thing that hurts Trump or favors Clinton, is that people who work in the news industry hate Trump and will go out of their way to do things to harm him. I didn't interpret it as a Clinton mole, I interpreted as there being thousands of anti-Trump salts embedded throughout every newspaper and website and magazine everywhere.
Isn't there a thing of waiting to spring big scoops about an election until October? Like, especially the surprising ones?
Yes. It's called a "Post-September Surprise."
I didn't interpret it as a Clinton mole, I interpreted as there being thousands of anti-Trump salts embedded throughout every newspaper and website and magazine everywhere.
Sure, although I think some of the people who hate Trump the most are probably people inside his organization that know him best, and deeply understand how bad he would be for the country. Which makes the mole idea seem very plausible to me.
Like, who leaked his tax returns?
Anyway, I think this would have come out during the primary, when another Republican could have been selected, if somebody wanted to minimize the chances of Clinton winning.
Do you think really it would have hurt him in the primaries?
Like, would the people who voted for Trump in the primaries not have voted for him because of this tape? That does not match my impression of the people who voted for Trump in the primaries.
It might have convinced some of the other candidates to drop out so one of them could have consolidated the non-Trump vote.
143: that's a very normal question for Robin and that show. They're gross and crass, but they're also interesting.
155: Either what 156 said or that additional voters would have turned out.
It might have convinced some of the other candidates to drop out so one of them could have consolidated the non-Trump vote.
That does not match my impression of the other candidates.
Rosie O'Donnell's recent poem about her encounter with Ivanka Trump, who was "absurdly kind," gives me all of the feels.
i have been sleeping a lot
depression clings to me
Yo Rosie!
I think Ivanka might actually be a decent and kind human being, by the way, with an abusive fuckwit for a father.
I just made the mistake of going to Crooked Timber. What a bunch of fuckheads. Somehow they are more concerned with Hillary's Wall Street speeches than Trump's comments. God I hate our circular firing squad.
And, if Hillary is elected, there is nothing she could do which would make them think that their suspicion was misguided because the standard they want to set for (left) politicians is, "will they work for a political transformation of the country." It makes me think that Yglesias may have their number.
At both the 1992 and 2008 conventions, Bill and Obama both proudly claimed the mantle of political outsiders and promised to clean up the mess in Washington. Fundamentally, that's what voters want to hear. ...
Amidst all the other remarkable aspects of the 2016 campaign, this is a thread that tends to get lost but Clinton is asking the American people to do something they almost never do -- admit that the American political system fundamentally is what it is, and so you might as well elect someone who's good at operating it in rather dream of someone who's going to show up and clean up the mess in Washington. Fundamentally, the only message of the secret speeches is that Clinton is exactly who we thought she was -- someone who's been around a long time, someone who knows a lot of stuff, someone who's cozy with the established players, and someone who doesn't really embrace good government pieties.
You can make of this what you will -- I personally find it kind of charming but most Americans seem not to -- but like it or not it's worth admitting to yourself that peeling back further layers of the onion and delving into deeper realms of secrecy isn't going to teach us much of anything new about her.
Another thing that strikes me as weird is that both of these stories dropped on a Friday afternoon. It used to be that Friday afternoon was for news you wanted buried.... has that changed?
I saw something recently speculating that is has changed. That Friday used to be the day to dump stories because the traditional media wouldn't cover it until Monday (and there would be other things to cover). But, in this era of social media, if you don't need traditional media coverage to break a story, releasing something on a Friday afternoon means that it doesn't have competition from other news and can dominate social media over the weekend.
I don't know if that's true in general, but it would apply to either of these stories.
"It's the second time in as many weeks that a candy company has denounced the Trump campaign."
This news cycle just keeps getting more and more surreal. A year ago I said: "I really hope it actually was the Clintons' idea to send him careening madly through the primaries because it would be such genius. You couldn't pick a better wrecking ball."
Holy cow, was I underestimating that ball.
"It's the second time in as many weeks that a candy company has denounced the Trump campaign."
Thanks for the link, that is striking.
Rosie O'Donnell's recent poem about her encounter with Ivanka Trump
Thanks for that as well. Well written, interesting, and slightly surreal. What a strange campaign.
162: Aw, don't beat yourself up! You COULDN'T pick a better wrecking ball! It's not your fault that the wrecking ball had undreamt-of powers of wreckage. Back in those days, we thought a Post-September Surprise was just like a DUI or something.
159: Mine either. I'm not saying it's the likeliest way it would have gone.
Rosie O'Donnell does have some, er, issues. But she is shockingly smart and funny; and here she is on Trump, in 2006. She had his number, back in the day, and from the very get-go.
If Trump resigns doesn't control of the campaign war chest go to someone else? I have a hard time seeing him do that no matter how many people denounce him and demand his resignation.
I certainly hope he never resigns. I want the rest of the Republicans to be forever linked to Trump.
Question: If Trump starts hemorrhaging support, some large proportion of which flows to Gary Johnson, such that Johnson starts polling above 15% or whatever the line is, does Gary Johnson get a podium at the third debate? Or are the debates lineups already set in stone?
It might get awkward note that Johnson's running mate has endorsed Clinton.
161- This: the standard they want to set for (left) politicians is, "will they work for a political transformation of the country." is well put.
It may seem like an unreasonable standard, but then again maybe nothing less will keep the country a going concern.
I don't quite agree with this: http://www.ianwelsh.net/obamas-department-of-justices-prime-job-is-to-immunize-rich-wrongdoers/
I think Obama believes rightly that he would have been destroyed if he had tried to bring the malefactors of great wealth to heel.
The conditions that lead >40% of the country to support the closest substitute for Hitler they could find are going to continue to get worse.
I have to admit I'm finding the whole process more entertaining than I would have expected.
136: NYT reporter had it as "Wikileaks tweeted out the Podesta hack less than 30 minutes after WaPo and then NBC posted on the Trump video." So possibility that it was an attempt to distract. Would only work if they have stuff ready to go, which they may. Also fits their seemingly delusional sense of the importance of what they have. And I also do think the Friday thing fro bad news is not so much a thing anymore, especially during a national election when folks are paying attention all the time. Winning Sunday morning...
168: The criteria are apparently reapplied before each debate, so yes, Johnson does have a shot at getting into the third one if Trump's support collapses and enough goes to him.
I wouldn't bet on that actually happening, though.
Winning Sunday morning...
Speaking of shitbag subrectal humanoids, Mark "Petulant Asswipe" Halperin after retweeting a few "Bill Clinton, rapist" tweets has this to say on recent developments in the campaign.
I feel like I'm this close to squelching my need to try to flush hand towels down toilets. But not all the way there quite yet.
...what? He feels a need to clog up the plumbing?
Get ready for a big dose of that from Guiliani et al (not to mention Trump himself--but not sure if at the debate itself). Curious what the media will do (I think they will go half in -- cretins like Halperin and Cillizza want to be all in, and the cables will take the bait, but I think it will not be a complete conflagration like it was in the 90s*.)
* Almost had to laugh when the Mercers (big funders sticking by The Donald) claimed: "The same media that resolutely looked away when the most powerful man in the world, a sitting U.S. president with multiple violent sexual assaults to his credit, snared an impressionable young intern in his web and ruined her life, now expects us to gasp with revulsion at Mr. Trump's irreverent comments).
Unsure of the source, but re: NBC not immediately releasing the tape, a Rolling Stone writer tweeted this excerpt
NBC News was aware of video footage of Donald Trump making lewd and disparaging remarks about women for nearly four days, a network executive said Saturday, but delayed reporting about the story out of concern that Trump would sue the network.
It's good to have JP back as our media watchdog.
And incidentally, the "lewd and disparaging" is of course a bad summarization of his remarks.
I'm actually impressed by how many GOP politicians have been straight up calling him out on bragging about sexual assault. McCain most notably, but there are others. And less surprisingly, the Dems are all over this too.
I personally find it kind of charming
Fuck you, Yglesias.
And I think Ezra has this right: What we are seeing is how Trump and GOP's needs diverge. GOP needs to limit damage. Trump will take on unlimited risk for a chance to win.
The Bill CLinton stuff is a high-risk Hail Mary hoping to bring it all down into the gutter. Trump campaign realizes his is probably topped out in the low 40s so need to go all in on attempts at nuclear destruction even if likely to boomerang or be ineffective.
It's pretty much only Bannon (Breitbart guy), Guiliani, Hannity, Gingrich, his kids, lackey spokespeople*, crazy superwealthy donors, and the 40 million economically anxious fucktards of America left on his side at this point so no one left who does not think it is a good idea.
*KellyAnne Conway giving way to Guiliani on Meet the Press (I think ) tomorrow, but she scoffed at a reporter who suggested she was on the way out. (And she was right there with the sex-crazed loons** in the 90s so...)
**Who could have imagined that Ken Starr would end up as a rape-apologist at a place like Baylor...
The guy I really want to get splooge all over himself with regard to this is that slimy motherfucker Pence. Holy shit, what a punchable Republican ghoul (of the traditional strain).
99 is true, and should really be talked about. Also from the thing I linked earlier:
The revelation that the government of Russia is trying to influence a U.S. election by attacking candidates and disrupting media coverage should be a big deal, but it hasn't yet sparked much urgency in the general public. This is not mere red baiting; a hostile government attempting to manipulate a presidential election is a crisis-level event.
You don't know it was the Russians. It might be some guy on a bed that weights 400 pounds.
I bet lots of Russians weigh 400 pounds.
This is not mere red baiting;
How could it even be red-baiting in the first place? Russia is not a Communist nation.
186 "Should be talked about" aside what I'm all ??? about is when/how got to the point where we don't talk about it. It's not even one of those "ok this is important I know but ughhh it's about the IMF or redistricting or something else dry-sounding," it's totally sexy! Russian spies! Doesn't anyone watch The Americans?
Like my problem is not that people are wrong about what's important it's that they're wrong about what's exciting.
Maybe we're all looking at this wrong. Maybe the real story is Russia's decline.
It's been kind of funny watching Glenn Greenwald argue (on twitter) that since Dems mocked Romney for naming Russia America's biggest enemy in 2012, it's completely risible for them to be concerned about Russia in 2016. Even though that argument has several obvious problems!
193 did that happen, I opted out of consciousness for most of 2012.
I guess so? I think it was "threat" not "enemy" actually and naming Russia (over China) as the biggest threat was a sign that Romney was out of touch/living in the 80s or something.
But even granting that, it's not like that means Russia is a nonentity, especially in the face of evidence that, like, they are actually doing shit.
Of course it's Russia's decline. The country is literally dying, they have no prospects, and the ruling class has no idea what to do except double down and try to go back to 1945 or 1900 or something. They think American spooks are coming to overthrow them so they're throwing all these desperate moves, in the process essentially committing acts of war against the US. If it weren't for the Trump circus we'd be in Cold War Armageddon standoff right now.
Because of multiplayer online games, the Russian stereotype has devolved from "sinister manipulator of world events" to "CHEEKI BREEKI GOPNIK STRONK".
I'd say they are the biggest threat right now. They're in a corner, they're quite literally fascist (as in, POC are advised by the police to stay home on Hitler's birthday), and they still have thousands of nukes lying around.
The Russian mortality rate has actually pretty much recovered. It was only ever the males dying prodigiously anyway.
My Russian friends are scary AF I'd completely give them the whole country if they asked even a little bit severely.
What are the odds that Greenwald is literally on the Russian payroll, old-school Klaus Fuchs style? It's at least 50/50, maybe more. I wonder if we'll ever really know.
The only Russian guy I know is a Chechnyan, and he's pretty much a sleaze, but by no means scary. Actually, I have an acquaintance who is a Siberian native, but no Russian Russians.
Or maybe a Russian just asked him severely.
199: Links? As I read the wiki, mortality aside, they still have extremely low fertility in a poor country.
As of 2015, Russian TFR of 1.777 children per woman [...] Still, this rate is far below the replacement rate of 2.1 - 2.14.
So, ok, the country is literally not being born at replacement level fertility. Still looking grim.
205: I don't have a link in front of me, but what I meant was that some time in the last few years Russians stopped dying faster than they were being born,which had been the case for many years. That fertility rate is not unusual for a European country,btw.
207: Ok, that's my read of the wiki too. But still long term shrinkage. And the European countries with birthrates like that are rich, or getting rich, where Russia isn't.
Link. Check out Natural Growth rate under Main Trends.
So, ok, the country is literally not being born at replacement level fertility. Still looking grim.
I think the United States is almost the only first world country that is being born at replacement levels. Others are either dying out or relying on immigration. The British government just decided it would prefer to die out, but it hasn't asked anybody else their opinion.
I'm not sure that Russia fully counts as first world, but it's not third, and I never understood what the second world was.
Per google gdp/capita about 1/3 of Germany's so I guess middle-income rather than poor, at least in absolute wealth.
My Russian friends are scary AF
I've seen some scary prison tats on Russians in my part of Astoria back when I lived there. Far scarier, to me at least, than any MS-13 tats I've seen.
this is way unacceptable even in deep bro/jock culture.
I think this is naive.
I'm not sure that Russia fully counts as first world, but it's not third, and I never understood what the second world was.
Back when they made up the first/second/third world distinction, the second world was literally Russia and its Communist satellites. The first world being the rich economies of the west + Japan and the third world being what they now call "developing" countries.
I was told that "third world" was the leftovers after old world and new world and first and second were retconned by idiots like "begs the question," but I did a bit of research and Spike is right. I still prefer my original incorrect explanation, but it's wrong.
Getting more official now. More worrying:
Election data systems in at least two states were also breached
The Columbus Dispatch just endorsed Clinton, the first Democrat they've supported in over a century. If only Ohioans could read.
One wonders who buys all those Dispatches.
People buy it for the lingerie ads from Lazarus.
France has consistently had at or near replacement birth rates for many years, although the PS under hollande has been doing their best to destroy state support for families. It isn't rocket science - women want to be able to remain in the workforce after becoming mothers so need state regulation of leave policies, families raising children need financial support irrespective of family "type" ie married, un- or reconstituted, and widely available childcare of decent quality added to the mix will generally get you there. Why France has been able to muster the political support for these policies and other EU countries not so much is a more interesting question.
218:
When John Wolfe died a few months ago, and I read the obituaries, I was struck by how that family had evolved over time. Stories I learned about his father's generation, how privileged, wild and dissipated they'd been when young in the twenties, left me expecting something else.
The Dispatch's reluctant endorsement of Hillary doesn't really surprise me, then.
The debate tonight is going to be so horrible. Trump is going to produce ninety minutes of word salad about Bill Clinton being a rapist and Hillary Clinton being an enabler of rape.
221: Doesn't French support for childbearing go back pretty far, to 30s natalist panic policies?
Archeologists have found evidence of French people caring for children as far back as the stone age.
224:
Farther, to the aftermath of Franco/Prussian
I don't mean the policies, I mean the natalism that underlies them.
Updates from Columbus
1) Lazarus ia no longer -- all Macys now.
2) Wolfe family sold the Dispatch about a year agi.
Hate posting from my phone, but I had actual knowledge.
Hate posting from my phone, but I had actual knowledge.
Yes and state anxiety about population/belief in demographic strength as the ultimate bulwark against aggression and support for french dominance goes back even further than franco Prussian war. Interestingly it is so deeply rooted in political life that pétain's wrapping vichy in the natalist flag to an extreme extreme wasn't enough to sour post war France on the whole thing.
Contraception and disseminating literature about contraception were illegal in France from 1920 to 1967.
223, 226: Not so sure. Might only be using it as 'threat", and will save it for the surrogates/rallies. Story out that debate mods will lead with the tape as the first question(s). Pretty sure they should not; and zero confidence they will not come up with a very stupid question.
I actually knew about both of those developments, but thought that there'd be institutional momentum re: Dispatch.
Aren't the Lazaruses interests in Federated and its offshoots like ToysRUs and Money Store still quite going concerns, regardless of the flaghip store?
OT: one of my kids stayed the night at a friend's house last night. Mom asked me to pick him up at 11. When I showed up at 11, she answered the door wearing nothing but a very short bathrobe. Then she casually mentioned that her husband wasn't home and the kids were playing in the basement. My question is: was she possibly coming on to me, or definitely coming on to me? (Or am I out of my mind and that's totally normal?)
OT: our kids had a friend over last night, and I asked the friend's father to pick him up at 11. When he showed up at the door, he wasn't wearing pants. He asked whether my husband was home and if the kids were busy. My question: does he want me to take him pants shopping, or is this totally normal?
Also, I'm not sure, but I think he ate one of our potted plants while I wasn't looking.
I vote no. Because this is the pessimism thread.
239 Neb posted the perfect pair for urple the other day.
I know we've had a thread on this already but the outright naked anti-Semitism Trump has unleashed into American public life is frightening. It's like some bizarro universe and I still find myself boggling at it.
237 I'm not even gonna say it. I'm in enough hot water as it is.
242.2. I feel you. Brexit hasn't (yet) provided any anti-semitic spectaculars, though I've no doubt it will, but a string of attacks on immigrants and a 140% increase in homophobic attacks since the vote.
237 is common locker room behavior.
I think my visceral revulsion at Trump is going to prevent me from watching any debates this year. Also, the deadline I've missed for writing something for work.
For some reason, I don't feel revulsion for Trump in the way that I did for W. I wonder how much I (and maybe others) just don't slot him into our "politician" mental category, and therefore interpret him differently.
248 Yeah, I feel far more revulsion for Trump's supporters than I actually do for him. W, on the other hand.
So what did Urple do anyway?
A) Say "Uhhh... how long are they going to be down there? I mean how long is he going to be not home? I mean both things"
B) Say "Madam! Cover yourself!"
C) Move on her like a bitch
For some reason, I don't feel revulsion for Trump in the way that I did for W. I wonder how much I (and maybe others) just don't slot him into our "politician" mental category, and therefore interpret him differently.
Trump, Jon Peters, Jerry Bruckheimer, Brian Grazer, we all know all these guys act that way
I had the same reaction to W after a while.
237: If you know for certain she was wearing nothing but a very short bathrobe, she was definitely coming on to you.
Politico has a poll where GOP/Trump supporters are mostly, eh, we'll still vote for the guy.
248 - That reason is pretty obvious. The lenient view of Trump is 100% based on him not having actual power and being close to losing. Also Ogged is a sexist monster.
Just saw a NRA pro-Trump ad in the Dodgers/Nationals game, which has got to be being viewed 95% by people either in LA or DC/almost as safe for Dems northern VA. Nice to see them wasting their money.
248-9: Really? I feel much more revulsion for Trump. Bush, I was disgusted by on account of what he represented in American politics as much as by the man himself. If he'd stayed home clearing brush he would have been largely harmless. Trump, on the other hand, is just a loathsome human being who has been an evil piece of shit his whole life.
Might that broadcast be carried on cable/satellite, or possibly help turnout in outlying areas and help a GOP congressman? Who's the closest?
Isn't tonight a town hall forum? Are the questions vetted? "Mr. Trump, you said you moved on her like a bitch, and you also said that you moved on her very heavily. Can you compare and contrast these modes of movement, and perhaps, backing up for a moment, explain whether you were moving as if she were a bitch, or you yourself were moving in the manner of a bitch? Thank you."
I was curious about 259.last myself.
Can you compare and contrast these modes of movement, and perhaps, backing up for a moment, explain whether you were moving...
You may be overestimating the verbal fluency of these undecided voters!
W vs Trump is an interesting comparison. I think I hate W more, but it's just such very different kinds of hate. Hate is such a varied landscape.
I wouldn't hate a W. who never got elected to anything more, certainly.
zero confidence they will not come up with a very stupid question.
Mr Trump, given the importance of cats to the infrastructure of the Internet, how do you justify using language so insulting to feline-Americans?
"Mr. Trump, we are seeing clown panics sweep across the country. As a creepy clown yourself, do you think we should worry?"
I really, really want someone to ask the candidates about the clown attacks.
Bad news for Trump on the clown front.
257- This: "Trump, on the other hand, is just a loathsome human being who has been an evil piece of shit his whole life." is true, but the scale of the evil matters too.
Bush was a traitor who murdered a million plus people as a campaign commercial as part of an effort to steal the social security trust fund.
I'm not saying Trump wouldn't be worse, but until he has murdered a million people he's not playing in the same league.
250: D: said "uhhh, great, I'll just run down and grab my kid."
Oddly, I don't have the visceral disgust for Trump, no idea why. I'm not compelled to turn off audio the way I and so many were with GWB.
urple, I'm sure you've probably already thought of this, but if the woman's kids go to the same school as your kids, just check the sign-up genius for the next PTA event. If there's like six dads signed up for working with her, she does this lots.
North/South component in viscerality? Remember how people, even here remembered reacting to John Kerry?
272: That could be part of it, but it would have to be a more nuanced distinction than "North/South"; Trump's very Northern, in that he's very New York in a way that a lot of people in other parts of the country, including much of the North, have a visceral distaste for. (I think this is a big part of the reason he's polling so poorly in Alaska, for instance. His shtick really does not play well here.)
272: Actually, I don't. What direction was it? At this point in my memory he might as well have been a few cartons of Velveeta in a suit.
I've gone back and forth like 6 times on my opinion re. bathrobe lady. I'm settling on she wanted the satisfaction of knowing you had noticed her in a short bathrobe, but nothing more.
He probably has a card to hand out in that circumstance.
"This is to certify that urple has admired your legs, including most of the thigh, and been suitably impressed."
276: "including most of / a goodly portion of / tantalizing glimpses of [STRIKE THOSE THAT DO NOT APPLY]"
Remember when Theresa Heinz Kerry told someone to shove it? The nerve!
These days, now that yoga pants seem to be a common substitute for actual pants, a short robe doesn't seem all that provocative.
280 seems totally wrong but given that the number of clearer "my wife is out of town" comments I've heard isn't zero I'm wondering if there are some weird local norms around here.
"While you're here, let me slip into something that makes you more uncomfortable."
For the record, I don't even OWN a short robe!
Wow so you have to answer the door in your unmentionables? Bold.
Why would I answer the door? Then you have to talk to people! That's nonsense.
Actually this is reminding me of the bit from The Best Christmas Pageant Ever where the kids cast as shepherds in the Nativity play are told to bring in their dads' bathrobes for their costumes and one complains that his dad doesn't have a bathrobe (this is a period piece; obviously now it would be that he doesn't have a dad) and oh no what does he wear to hang around the house? HIS UNDERWEAR! And eight-year-old me was totally scandalized but also amused. The end.
Anyhow, the sad true story is that being a foster parent generally means you have to make more conservative choices about bedwear and housewear than you might otherwise, and if you go on to become a transracial adoptive family under heightened scrutiny, at some point you might just give up and admit you're totally going to sleep in this tank top and jeans tonight, alas.
Someone totally needs to knock on Thorn's door just to see what she wears to answer. I'd do it but it's a bit far.
I'm seriously not lying about the tank top and jeans. Anything else would take too much work.
Oddly, I don't have the visceral disgust for Trump, no idea why. I'm not compelled to turn off audio the way I and so many were with GWB
Isn't this because he doesn't yet have presidential power? If he were spewing anti-Muslim shit as president, it might be equally nauseating.
283 is great.
Ok, now to what has surely become the debate thread.
I've shamed myself into putting on an unflattering shapeless knee-length nightgown, so I hope you're all happy. I certainly am because I'm in bed.
That's pretty revealing. Knees are only three or four inches long.
John Scalzi (who's political writing this campaign season has been quite good) just posted a rant about Trump which manages quite neatly to combine the messages, "Trump is uniquely bad" and "Trump's badness is an expression of the badness of the Republican party."