Morning Ed: Politics {2016.02.29.M}
James Pethokoukis argues that Donald Trump is hypnotizing the GOP, while Kevin Drum says that voters have simply gotten tired of reality.
Valerie Lieber thinks that Bernie Sanders needs to be outed as a Jew.
So apparently the Communist Party is not very enthusiastic about the prospects of the 2016 election.
The EPA says that it has cleaned up after the Gold King Mine disaster, but locals aren’t so sure.
This news cycle is apparently tarnishing Fox News’s brand. Fox has become within the GOP what the MSM is between Republicans and Democrats: So obviously biased on the other side. (Trump vs anti-Trump in the GOP, obviously.)
Americans are a little unclear on what single payer means, but they like it until they find out that there are increased taxes or inconveniences.
Rhiannon Lucy Cosslet looks at a YouGov poll on “sleeping with the enemy” (someone of different political persuasion) and explains why she may kiss a Tory but never marry one and Margaret Corvid explains why political dating websites are good.
Sanders: Gee, he’s a jew? WHO KNEW? Like anyone even remotely paying attention. So he’s genetically Jewish. He doesn’t practice. Hell, I know folks like this. They BARELY acknowledge they ARE Jews since they don’t follow any of the religion. Are these people really Jews? I was baptized Episcopalian and never practiced the faith, or any faith. Am I Episcopalian?
EPA: So if the “disaster” was equal to “similar to one day of high spring runoff” was it really a disaster or who’s lying?
Single Payer: Of course. “I like it as long as someone else pays” is the motto of the American.
Dating and Politics: “unless you are capable of superhuman levels of beatific tolerance, dating within your tribe is generally just easier.” Pfft. Where I live, EVERYONE is left of center, even the Republicans, so “dating within your tribe” isn’t really on option. But I’ve never had a problem with it. I’ve only dated one person who would argue with me about politics and it never effected our relationship in any negative way. Why? Because someone’s politics is only a very very small percentage of who they are. Now, would I date someone for who politics consumed their entire life? Nope, but I’d say that about a lot of activities.Report
The outing of Sanders piece seems pretty disjointed and unpersuasive: Republicans will Willy-Horton the secret Jew? To avoid this, the Sanders campaign is supposed to discuss “the history of Jewish activism that has aided civil rights, led the fight for a 40-hour workweek and unionization, and reopened the doors to immigration.” This sounds like it might be directed towards non-white Democrats, not towards facing a Republican in the general election.
Meanwhile, the leading proponent of religious identity in the Republican primaries, consistently refers to this country as being founded on Judeo-Christian values. (There is an article at Forward complaining about Cruz’ partial misappropriation of Jewish identity). I doubt anybody that matters will care about his ethnicity or religious upbringing, but they will care that he is not observant and seemingly valueless. Atheists poll worse than just about anybody for political office, other than socialists.Report
“Americans are a little unclear on what single payer means, but they like it until they find out that there are increased taxes or inconveniences.”
Ah-heh.
“Would you like to buy into Medicare?”
“Sure!”
“What if that meant that EVERY SINGLE THING WOULD REALLY SUCK?”
“Well, gosh, in that case I guess not.”
“Dumbass Americans can’t make up their minds!”
********
From the article:
“It means everyone gives up their Platinum Elite Status Cigna Extra Miles plan that they get at a steep discount from their work.”
(us? prime readers? never happen, we are SERIUS JOURNALIST this are SERIUS ARTICEL)Report
Medicare, like everything else, is a Work In Progress.Report
Holy crap! Thomas broke his silence!Report
Dude! was he just loafing this whole time?
I’m not sure if that makes him better or worse…Report
The hell he does! Listen, Kim, he’s been hearing that crap ever since he was at the EEOC. He’s out there busting his buns every day! Tell your old man to drag Breyer and Ginsburg up and down the court for 80 cases a term.Report
And he’ll do it again next Leap Day.Report
Sanders practically screams Jewish and most people with a lot of contact with Jews will recognize him as one rather than an old white guy.Report
As the Larry David impression demonstrates, he literally screams Jewish.Report
But most Americans even liberal places like San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland, don’t have much contact with Jews. We really are concentrated in a few specific areas.
Lots of people just don’t know how to pick up on Jewishness which is a blessing and a curse.Report
I bet for some folks, Sanders confirms all sorts of Jewish stereotypes. And for others, he completely defies them.
Vaguely related: my hometown (Teaneck, NJ) had a fairly large Orthodox Jewish population. One of my friend’s college roommates from South Jersey visited and while we were driving around on Friday evening, we encountered several large groups of Orthodox Jews walking to temple, wearing the fairly traditional garb. Her response: “OMG… they’re so cute. They look like Amish people! Is that really what Jews are like?” Forehead slap.Report
Lots of people just don’t know how to pick up on Jewishness which is a blessing and a curse.
Rather than motivate people to not care about people’s ethinicity/religion, we need to train everybody up on how to identify a Jew, then re-train them to not care one way or the other about that person’s Jewishness.Report
For what it’s worth, it wouldn’t occur to me that Sanders is Jewish if I were low-information.Report
CNN’s latest poll has Trump at 49% nationally. Which means we can put to bed any further speculation about who won the
debateschoolyard brawl last week.ReportStick a fork in ’em.Report
{{The GOP has no one to blame but themselves.}}
{{Well, except Democrats of course.}}Report
Why the hell did Koz have to leave? This is the election for which I want to hear from him about. “Mitt Romney is America’s only hope” was positively boring compared to this.Report
Yeah, he was endlessly entertaining last cycle. His head must be exploding over what’s happening right now. TVD was entertaining too. (“Romney’s got plenty of ammo loaded in the chamber, just waiting for the right time to fire. You’ll see. Big Guns! Just wait. You’ll see…”)
Man, I miss em both.Report
Koz was wrong for, like, two strait presidential elections, and not just a little wrong either. He also started out around here trying to defend the fiscal conservative bona fides of the GOP in the dusk of the Bush W. era. He probably got tired as hell.
If he was here, however, I’m:
-95% certain he’d not be a Trumpkin.
-75% certain he’d blame the left/democrats for Trump.
-50% certain he’d expect Trump to win if he makes it to the general.
-100% certain he’d mention folk Marxism.Report
Oh, I’m sure he’s not a “Trumpkin” now, but come the general, he’d be dealing with some major dissonance I suspect, and that is what I want to see, which is why I brought it up in reference to a poll suggesting that Trump’s winning going away.
I assume TvD is anti-Trump (probably pro-Rubio), and blaming liberals/the media for Trump endlessly.Report
And still using that icon with those awesome sunglasses. *sigh* Good times.Report
You are correct about TVD’s candidate preferences. Started out with Kasich, but landed on Rubio a while back.Report
I assume TvD is anti-Trump (probably pro-Rubio), and blaming liberals/the media for Trump endlessly.
https://twitter.com/DykeVanTomReport
Damn your oily hide Patrick! Stop giving me reasons to pay attention to twitter!!Report
Incidentally, that Twitter account will confirm every opinion you ever held about TVD.Report
Mr. van Dyke has quite a bit of rent free space in your heads.Report
Personally, I blame the trolls.
But, hell, who wouldn’t want to rake in the dough by working on three different Presidential Campaigns, and giving free PR to a fourth?Report
That Kevin Drum piece makes a good point, unfortunately Drum has inverterted the point. Think about the basic claim that informs his position here: that the world of polical candidates and policy wonks and partisan pundits is the real world and that the world that most people inhabit is unreal.
There is a point to be made about how much the average person knows about the effica y of any given set of policy proposals, but that same point holds for the inside the beltway crowd as well.Report
PS – those last two links do a pretty good job of relaying the unreality of the political world.Report
jr,
The beltway crowd, at least, gets to see when people are dying because of the purported efficacy of the current policy proposals.Report