Donald the hypno-toad
So far, this is the most interesting piece that I have read on the Donald. Not sure I agree or disagree with it, but definitely food for thought.
Aaron David
A fourth generation Californian, befuddled.
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on TrumpedThanks for conceding the point.on Trumped"And when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the power. You can do…
on TrumpedIt's worse than that! Hillary said that her team was going to put them out of work! The argument sho…
on TrumpedYour body my choice is definitely a power grab that you as a father ought to be a tad more concerned…on TrumpedThe vast bulk of people have zero desire to “exit their category”. Says the white straight cis man.…
- on Trumped(I see no legal or ethical way for the federal system to force local jurisdictions to change zoning…
- on TrumpedVery much this.
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The leftwing critical theory types are especially impressed with this one: http://jdeanicite.typepad.com/i_cite/2015/08/trump-candidate-of-truth.htmlReport
And to complete our Higher Level Trump Analysis round-up, more conventional left-of-center types like Chait’s piece in New York Mag today comparing Trump to Buchanan and arguing for his staying power. Have to confess it made me re-consider my rush to dismiss Trump’s significance: http://t.co/V8aTTgI5ELReport
I agree with this entirely. And I love the line, “that’s some clown genius for you.”Report
Terrifying & impressive.
But mostly terrifying.Report
The Trumpening Continues.
All hail our new overlord.Report
I’m very sleepy; and read that as “our new overtoad.”
It works for me.Report
A few scattered thoughts on Trump…
Several other folks on that GOP stage said… alarming… things. None of them are being talked about because we are all talking about Trump and menstrual cycles. This seems to give the other candidates the opportunity to appeal to the base without drawing fire from the other side (which doesn’t mean we don’t still have those comments on tape but still).
From what I understand, Trump holds fairly liberal positions on some major issues (most notably healthcare). Given that un-Obama-ing Obamacare has been the nonstop drumbeat of the right for several years now, what does Trump’s success in spite of him being fairly Obama-y on healthcare mean? Does it possibly mean that the base on the right is more interested in calling Mexicans rapists and women fat pigs than healthcare? If so… eep!Report
Until the general election, that is.Report
@mo
Agreed. But it means they don’t have to start walking back until then. If Rubio was in the crosshairs for implying he doesn’t support a rape exception, he’d either have to double down or backtrack NOW which could torpedo him in both cases. Instead, he can try to continue to gain momentum and hope to fill the eventual Trump vacuum on the GOP side and then deal with the expected backtracking in the general.
It isn’t foolproof but Trumpapalooza does seem to be laying cover fire for the rest of the field.Report
@kazzy He doubled down on CNN the next morning. So at the very least, it’s harder for him to claim it was a heat of the moment thing.Report
Adams analysis works, but he stretches it too far. There’s a difference between a brand that has market share, and a brand that is the market leader. ‘Clinton’ is the brand that’s the market leader.
I need to look up again the RNC’s mechanism for delegate count. The best case scenario I can see for The Donald is to continue to pull about 20-25% against a divided field in the first few primaries and caucuses, giving him the win, then continues with about the same vote% later on, but with a field narrowed down to only two or three not-Trump, giving him a 2nd or 3rd place finish. (In other words not-Trump works the way not-Romney did not). But I don’t know offhand when the switch is from getting proportional delegates to winner take all (or even which one is first)Report
I understand the argument here. But it seems to beg the question, which is, why? Why could’t Trump grow? Why wouldn’t he beat not just two, but say even just one other candidate in a head-to-head?
Otherwise, the logic you use could apply to literally any candidate with a lead of this size at this point. If you just assume he is capped at his current number, yes, eventually consolidation around him kills him off. But that’s dependent on establishing that a cap at or near the current number is real, rather than there being growth potential. You wouldn’t be saying the best you could see for Jeb Bush would be a 2nd or third place finish (which would be a shocking result for Trump anyway) if he were currently polling at ~25%.
And it’s not that I don’t know there are arguments for why the Trump cap is real. But that’s the key to the argument about him, otherwise you just had an argument that literally applies to anyone at that number. So the actual argument for it has to answer the question, why is a cap for Trump at 25% certain, or so much more certain than it would be for Bush or Rubio if one of them were at 25% right now?Report
Main evidence supporting notion of Trump cap is his high negatives, including a very high “would never vote for.” That could conceivably also change, of course. Everything can change. You might say his current lead kind of combs over the bald dislike he has generated beyond his base, which is not the same as the party base.
The Buchanan base also was quite willing to entertain policies that Republican orthodoxy held blasphemous – in those days it was protectionism. For this segment of the party the question might be less how powerful or efficient or big the state is, but whose state it is or how the spoils are to be divided. To put things non-comboverly, if it’s a state for them rather than against them (however we wish to describe and qualify that identity),then they might be willing to talk about a lot of things. .Report
As I said, I’m aware there are the arguments. I’m just establishing what the arguments are that actually have to be made/assessed. 25% < 51% (= 12% + 10% + 8% + 7% + 6% + 5% + 3%) is true no matter who has the 25%.Report
Isn’t the recent polling particularly scary because it refutes the “support will coalesce on a ‘real’ candidate” story? Trump+Carson+Fiorina are closing in on 50% support, which makes it harder to say that once others pick between Jeb!, Walker, Cruz, etc and pretend their choice isn’t also a lunatic, that person will have a commanding vote share.Report
Rubber hits the road on winner-take-alls after Super Tuesday 2016 – which has been nicknamed “the SEC primary,” since it should maximize Southern influence.
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/southern-gop-super-tuesday-could-be-2016-game-changer
http://uspolitics.about.com/od/Election-2016/fl/2016-Republican-Primaries-How-Delegates-Will-be-Awarded.htmReport
The rational part of your brain thinks this guy is an obnoxious, exaggerating braggart. But the subconscious parts of your brain (the parts that make most of your decisions) only remember that something about that guy was fabulous, amazing and great.
Adams has a really gullible subconscious.Report
Yeah Adams is clearly gullible, but he speaks eloquently for Gullible-Americans who are a significant part of the populace.Report
Here is some really interesting stuff about His Trumpness. It’s from Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic. He solicited opinions from Trumpy supporters about why they like him. Lots of interesting responses. Some thoughtful, some jerky. There is a real sense of desperation. What i found interesting was, at from my pov, is some of the descriptions of fear and desperation seem media fueled and ginned up. Some of the “we need to make America great again” is without evidence of why we are so beaten down now. I can understand lots of individuals who feel screwed but the belief that America is a giant pile of rubble seems inchoate and hard to figure.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/08/donald-trump-voters/401408/Report
Darn it, temp. Internet outage lost a big post.
But to recap –
Trump can win the nomination. Finish top 3 in Iowa, win New Hampshire, pass over South Carolina, bear Jeb in Florida, and go from there.
Important who he’s facing near the end – Rubio, Bush, and Walker good – Bush and Cruz bad, just Cruz really bad (but awesome for Team Blue).Report
Well, full polls are in — between Trump, Carson, and Cruz — that’s 50%+ of the GOP primary voters. Half the party is in bed with one form of crazy or another.Report
You do all realise there is a more than a year before the election, right? In New Zealand, there would be a whole year before the election campaign even began.
Just because politicians are doing things, doesn’t mean there’s any reason to pay attention to them, it only encourages them you know. Sure, Trump is leading now and the probability of him winning the Presidency is high enough to be disturbing, but it is still very low in an absolute sense. He is the leader in a pack of 10+ candidates, any of whom could have some moment of greatness that catapults them into the spotlight. For that matter there are any number of ways Trump could flame out horribly.
Even if Trump gets the nomination, he still has to defeat Clinton as a final boss. Assuming that some charismatic up-and-comer doesn’t displace Clinton, like last time.
All these dissections of Trump are way, way premature.Report
Forget it James, it’s OT-town. These horserace nuts have been SO BORED the last couple years, you don’t even know. Presidential elections around here are like Christmas: they start earlier every time.Report
It’s offical, War On
ChristmasHorserace!Report“Horse races! I’m sick of them. What have horse races ever done for us?”
“There is the Aqueduct.”Report
It’s August James, everyone is bored and Trump and his Trumpkins are tonic water for boredom.
And as a Democratic Partisan I’m just enjoying the free popcorn.Report
Here’s some popcorn.
Horse race and betting markets and all.Report
Hanley was the first to make the very good point that with a parliamentary system where elections are called in regular intervals rather than scheduled, you get to avoid this madness altogether.Report
@will-truman
We largely do, yes. The other thing that helps is that our primaries are small, party-run and are generally much less democratic than yours. By contrast, you guys basically run your elections twice.Report