Who Is To Blame For The Rise of Trump? Everyone! | Hit Coffee
Going to create a new Twitter series: "Who's to Blame for the rise of Donald Trump?" …
— Justin Tiehen (@jttiehen) December 12, 2015
1. Angela Merkel? https://t.co/VScxaY6Yc5
— Justin Tiehen (@jttiehen) December 12, 2015
2. The PC Left? https://t.co/5Shy4bcCqY
— Justin Tiehen (@jttiehen) December 12, 2015
3. GOP consultants? https://t.co/Xdk5maYxJ7
— Justin Tiehen (@jttiehen) December 12, 2015
4. Copperhead Dems? https://t.co/9Jr0S5Z6GU
— Justin Tiehen (@jttiehen) December 12, 2015
5. "Both sides" pundits? https://t.co/TBP38eLqGg
— Justin Tiehen (@jttiehen) December 12, 2015
6. DC elites? https://t.co/AQjSnb3Tu7
— Justin Tiehen (@jttiehen) December 12, 2015
7. Obama's inaction in Syria? https://t.co/TjCPTokSYk
— Justin Tiehen (@jttiehen) December 12, 2015
Umm… GOP voters.
They are who I thought they were. The surprising thing is how many in their own party are having trouble accepting that.
Now, I didn’t expect Trump would actually win because I thought the party retained some control. But I’m not at all surprised that a huge percentage of GOP voters want a bloviating know-nothing asshole to be president, purely on the strength of his ability to entertainingly tell of democrats. They are who I thought they were.Report
*snort* Those used to be Democrats, you know.Report
If so–and I can’t think of when it was–I’m damn glad we aren’t that now.Report
All they really expect him to do is kick the bums out. Lotta hurt people out there (I call them fentanyl democrats, and if you get that reference, you can probably hear my acidic tone), clamoring for someone else to hurt — someone powerful.
Put Trump in power, and all of Washington aligns against him. Just another Jimmy Carter.
It’s Clinton you ought to worry about getting into power again. Lotta promises made through the Clinton Foundation — and few of them savory.Report
I expect that she means before the Civil Rights Era, or at least before Reagan completed the process.Report
Nope, not really. Lotta people lost jobs to NAFTA and other trade pacts.Report
Oh… I get it.
You mean the individual voters, not the politicians they support. That I agree with. There has clearly been significant realignment as parties have become more universally ideological (and, among other things, the racists have forgiven the GOP for Lincoln).Report
“Those used to be Democrats, you know.”
Yes, they did. But then the Democratic Party decided to tone down the racism, and the GOP said ‘Racists? We’re the party for you!’.Report
Not even. At least not around here. PA has racists, but they’re somewhere not around here.Report
Um, in English, please? I can’t understand your sentence.Report
He failed to include the national level GOP! Why’d he fail to include the national level GOP?Report
Did you read all 135?Report
Ahh yes, I’ve seen that before. I was actually too quick reading thru it too (didn’t let the computer load). The beauty of that list, of course, is the accompanying linkies to people actually offering those different – all 135 of em – accounts. Which is really quite amazing.Report
Yeah, and that’s pretty much the point of the list. That everybody’s got a theory. Most of them are at least somewhat true, some are very true, some are trivially true, some aren’t true at all.
I would bet in excess of 125 of these ultimately boil down to “Who is to blame? The people I hated before all of this began, and the people I’ve been warning everybody about for years.”Report
Personally, I’ve been more interested in figuring out why Trump voters rejected the GOP as opposed to the more general question of “what caused Trump?” To me, that question points to the abject failure of the GOP to have promoted policies that actually appease the core interests of their base, interests which have been shaped, coddled and extolled for decades, but very prominently since Obama took office.Report
Here’s one way to answer it: the national level GOP establishment (including FOX and punidts, etc) basically told the conservative base that liberals and all their associated policies constitute an existential threat to the American way of life, EVEN WHILE they failed to do anything about it LEADING TO lots of voters taking the two messages to heart: the GOP isn’t the institution to deal with that threat.Report
Not just that, though. Imagine that there was a debate within the American people over X vs. ~X.
And all of the politicians haggled over exactly what kind of X to implement. How broad of X? Should there be different kinds of X based on regions or uniform X across the board?
And you voted for Republicans if you wanted *THIS* flavor of X and Democrats if you wanted *THAT* flavor of X.
Trump shows up and says “You know what? Let’s not have X.”
If the X vs. ~X debate was really important to a lot of people, I think we could easily expect to see Trump doing surprisingly well… and by “surprisingly”, I mean among the chattering classes where there is a consensus on how we need to do X, just a debate over whether it be *THIS* flavor or *THAT* flavor.Report
Trump is the fault of the people who didn’t give everyone exactly what they want.Report
How married are we to the “great man of history” theory?
Because, if we’re not, we see Trump as a symptom and Trump as a stand-in for the guy who would have been there had Trump been killed as a baby by a guy with a time machine.Report
There would always be some asshole demagogue that Republicans have no choice but to vote for because liberals called them racists.Report
Obama?Report
“No, we’re not racists, and we’re going to prove it by voting for the best candidate regardless of his ancestry.”
That would be nice.Report
But they didn’t vote for Romney… I are confused.Report
Perhaps calling them racists even louder will get them back in line.Report
If only they were human beings with agency instead of automatons driven only by resentment.Report
You’d think that they’d be grateful.Report
That’s the funny thing Mike: the argument turns on pissing off people who act outa resentment, and the solution isn’t to criticize those people but to criticize the folks who cause them to act in their irrational ways.
Maybe there’s a way to square those circles on a principled level, but I’m not seeing it. Instead, it sounds like a pragmatic argument: pissed off people get pissed, so don’t piss them off!Report
“Wait. This drawing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed has analogs to other groups of people?”Report
Hey I’m happy to go with pragmatics myself, unlike all you Principled folks. 🙂Report
I have some theories, but many of them involve things I believed about the party 18 months ago, which indicates to me that I’m not thinking hard enough.Report
That’s a great line. Probably wasn’t meant to be “a line.” But it’s still a great line.Report
I can’t extrapolate anything useful from:
2000: They nominated the bigger asshole
2004: They nominated the only asshole running
2008: They nominated the least assholish one
2012: They flirted with a lot of giant assholes, but nominated a lesser one
2016: They nominated the biggest assholeReport
I’d suggest a Fourier transform to try to tease out overlapping periodicities.Report
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOR38552MJAReport
(Not that anyone needs to read 135. It’s just that this is one of those cases where it pays to actually follow the link.)Report
Let me please introduce myself.
I’m a man of wealth and taste.Report
To quote Steel Pulse, “Who responsible”.
Every
Single
Voter
who
VotedReport
If we are seriously considering the question in the title, than the obvious and only correct answer is the people who voted for Trump. They and they alone are responsible for him now having the nomination.
Now, if we want to look at the myriad influences and factors that went into those people choosing to vote for Trump, yea, we can probably identify 135+ influences and factors. But, ultimately, the people who voted for Trump (or who didn’t not vote for Trump or “the electorate” or however we want to parse those words) chose to vote for him of their own volition and it is their collective votes that made him a legitimate candidate for the Presidency.Report
I think there are different layers of culpability. I think primary culpability, and primary moral culpability especially, does indeed lie with his supporters. Secondarily, though, I think a lot of people ought to ask themselves how they might have contributed to it without intending to. Especially Republicans, but not exclusively so.Report
Agreed. But I will say that your use of terms like “blame”, “culpability”, and “moral culpability” are interesting because they seem to imply that the rise of Trump is an objectively bad thing. And while I think Trump winning the Presidency would be AWFUL, I do think that the “rise of Trump” is separate from “Trump winning the Presidency” (with possibly very different outcomes arising from each) and many folks who would argue quite differently.Report
Which leads me to an interesting follow up: if the “Rise of Trump” stops short of the Presidency, is it possible that this was all a good thing? I mean, Dems may see it as a good thing if his presents as a weak candidate that ushers in a Democratic Presidency. Even more so if he negative impacts the GOP down ticket. But could this end up being good for the GOP in other ways? Might it offer a course correction? Might a particularly ugly general election spearheaded by Trump encourage all folks to swing back towards decency, mutual respect, and bipartisanship (leaving aside policy specifics)? Is there a chance we look back in 10 or 20 or 50 years and think, “Trump winning would have been terrible but Trump losing was a huge positive”?Report
“But could this end up being good for the GOP in other ways? Might it offer a course correction? Might a particularly ugly general election spearheaded by Trump encourage all folks to swing back towards decency, mutual respect, and bipartisanship (leaving aside policy specifics)?”
The reaction of the GOP to losses – Base and Elites alike – has been to increase the lying, nihilism, disloyalty and sheer evil.Report
The two are not the same, but I do believe that the rise of Trump is unambiguously bad. Now we’re just at the point where we’re determining how bad it’s going to be, and how long-lasting the bad will be. But even if Trump loses, unless it’s a level of blowout that seems unlikely to me at this point, it will be a bad thing to some extent or another.
Others do disagree. Around 30-40% of the GOP is pretty happy with him, and another 35-45% are sufficiently okay with him to prefer him over Hillary Clinton. Some number of people outside the party like him, and another group of people on the left view him with some degree of favorability because of what he says about the Republicans or they view Republicans in such a way that Trump is no worse than or perhaps is better than the average one (at least he’s honest, etc).
For my own part, even if Trump goes down, we now have a strong potential for Trumpism as a permanent fixture in our politics. I consider this to be qualitatively different than the GOP that we’ve seen. And worst of all, if the GOP sticks with it, I believe that they will win eventually.
I could be wrong, and I hope I am. Hopefully it does lead to a “course correction.” But I consider the threat itself to be a bad thing, independent of whether Trump wins or loses in November.Report
Personally, I think that the only thing likely to kick the what’s-bubbling-underneath-Trumpism down the road more than a little bit is Trump.
Kick the can down the road may be the wrong metaphor.
Let the steam out?Report
Kick the can down the road may be the wrong metaphor.
That they know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard, and only then rethink their priorities?
I’m beginning to wonder if Trump’s general run isn’t basically dead in the water before the starting gun fires. The revelations from the Trump University case are pretty astounding and not easily spun away. Same with his shenanigans and outright lying about his donation to the vets.
Well, let me rephrase that: he would be dead in the water if he were running against a candidate who lacked comparable baggage and whose team demonstrated any talent in the art of politics…Report
What I see happening with Trump University:
“Why are judges unsealing my court stuff? Judges are actively covering up Hillary’s court stuff!!! The system is corrupt! It’s trying to help Hillary and it’s trying to hurt Trump!”
What I see happening with the vet donations:
“Here’s another story about how Trump didn’t donate a million dollars to vets until we ran our story!”
“So you’re saying that Trump donated a million dollars to vets after you ran your story? Did Hillary donate a million dollars to vets after any stories you wrote?”
Trump will embrace his sauce and then ask whether Hillary got any.
“What’s Hillary’s net worth *REALLY*?”
Expect to see that question. Expect to see journalists explain why they’re not asking it.Report
You pretty much at everything that happens to His Trumpness or that he says is good for him. Nothing is bad for him ever.Report
Would you like me to go back to saying “okay, now *THIS* will destroy his campaign!”?
Sure. Now *THIS* will destroy his campaign.
Surely this time.
This time he’ll go down.
Hillary will win in a landslide.
It’ll be Biblical.Report
Umm okay…i guess …. But that doesn’t actually respond to what i said.Report
greg,
I think you’re mistaken to view JB’s comments about Trump as advocacy or support. What he’s saying is purely descriptive. And hopefully – HOPEFULLY! – there’s a smart dude or chick on Hillary’s team saying the exact same things to HER.
If you know what I mean…Report
Not really sure what you mean. Pols have spinners to spin. Doesn’t’ mean anyone not in the tank has to believe them. Trumpy U. is an obvious problem for him that isn’t’ going to get better. If you need me to say it Hilz e-mail thing is a drag and for that matter so is BENGAZIGATE.Report
greg,
And that’s all Jaybird was getting on about. If she attacks Trump on the Trump U corruption, Trump attacks her on the Benghazi corruption. If she attack Trump on the vet donations, Trump attacks her on not donating anything at all. If she attack him on his net-worth, he attack her not only on hers but also attacks her on how much she made from Wall Street speaking fees.
She’s backed herself into a tight spot. All thru voluntary actions that a prospective Presidential Candidate simply shouldn’t have chosen to engage in.
In my opinion…
Edit: mispoke up there. The Banghazi thing isn’t an action a prospective Presidential candidate shouldn’t have chosen to engage in (I was thinking of the private server bulls*** that’s devolved from the investigation). Which isn’t to say that there aren’t substantive political problems with her advocacy of bombing Libya. In my opinion, there are.Report
So what you are saying is that is going to be one long nasty mud slinging election. Agreed. Both sides are going to attack the other plenty, some of the attacks will even be substantive and non crazy pants territory.
Edited to respond to you edit. I have always thought the server thing was stoopid on her part and thought she was wrong on Libya. But we are still going to hear about Benghazi and it is for dupes to believe that.Report
So what you are saying is that is going to be one long nasty mud slinging election.
No, I’m saying something different: that Trump is an odious, corrupt, bankrupt, erupt(ing) candidate and on the level of retail politics he’s all square with Hillary!Report
Actually based on tax returns released by Clinton, she gave more money to charity than Trump did. He can’t even get her for giving it to the family charity because an even larger percentage of Trump donations went to the Donald Trump Foundation. Based on rumors, the Clintons may have given more on an absolute basis than Trump did despite, supposedly, having a smaller net worth.Report
She oughta play that card, then, yeah?Report
This is something that, seriously, Hillary should be hitting Trump on and hitting him on it *HARD*. (And if she’s keeping her powder dry for after the convention, that’s probably a good decision. But she should definitely use that powder.)
(She should also have her foundation release a check for $1.5 million for some Veteran thing.)Report
The unexamined premise in all this (everywhere) is how much of a scam a whole heck of a lot of veterans organizations are (WWP has finally gotten some much needed sunshine, but that spring cleaning needs to be extended more generally)Report
I’m certain that a whole heck of a lot of vet organizations are crooked. Donate $20 and 18 of those dollars go to “overhead”.
That strikes me as being beside the point. Donating the money allows the candidate to say “Look at how much I support the troops!” and thus stave off the ghosts of Vietnam that still haunt every damned election.
It’s not about helping vets. It’s never been about helping vets. If they wanted to help vets, they’d do something about allowing X and MMJ for PTSD treatments. They’d do something about the suicide rate of returning vets. I’m assuming that nobody really cares about actually changing things.
It’s about what is signaled.
And Donald Trump is one hell of a signaler.Report
Clinton’s other problem with a big vet charity donation is that it would draw attention to the fact that the VA is still an organization with a lot of ruin in it – a problem for someone who is running implicitly (but explicitly not explicitly) for the incumbent’s third term.Report
Oh, and to more specifically answer your question about what I mean…
If Hillary’s people aren’t teasing out the political ramifications of attacking Trump along axis X (of the type Jaybird was describing), then she simply doesn’t have a very good political team.Report
I certainly hope that if someone on Hillary’s team points out something troublesome that the response isn’t “if you love Trump so much, why don’t you marry him?”
But it wouldn’t surprise me overly much if it was.Report
Hillary: “All right. Let’s get to work. We’re all positive, yes? Everyone on board? OK. I’m thinking we attack Trump on the VA donation thing. Something like: It took a reporter to shame him into actually making his contribution and getting the money to veterans.”
Concerned Team Member 1: “Eh, Ms Clinton? I don’t mean to be negative, but I think that might open you up to an attack that it took a reporter for you to admit that you used a private server while you were SoS. Because you didn’t want to carry two devices. And that you personally paid for the security and upkeep of that server. Oh, and that you wiped it with a cloth. So I’m not sure the “it took a reporter” line of attack is going to pay dividends. Just sayin.”
Concerned Team Member Two: “I agree. I think the focus shouldn’t be on reporters exposing Trump, but that he was exposed.”
Hillary: “….???”
Concerned Team Member 1: “I just think it could open you up to a counterattack s’all.”
Hillary: “Get out. GET OUT!!!!”Report
“He only did the right thing after we badgered him into it!” has hidden little positive messages in there including “he did the right thing” and “he can be badgered into doing the right thing”.
How much oxygen is Trump sucking up by reporters breathlessly reporting that Trump gave money to Veterans?Report
Ooh, even better.
You’re fired!Report
It begins…
Report
That didn’t take long…Report
“That they know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard, and only then rethink their priorities?”
I’m sick and tired of people who take that vein. I notice that Jaybird didn’t suggest that maybe electing Clinton would get liberalism out of our systesm.Report
The left got liberalism out of its system a long, long time ago. If, indeed, it was ever there in the first place.Report
Interesting, Will. Thanks for sharing your perspective. You are more tuned into politics in general and I think you have your finger on the pulse of a more varied/diverse cross section of the electorate so I trust your analysis over my own.Report
Will,
I hear ya, and agree with what you’ve written. And my worry is the same: that both parties (but especially the GOP) will be incapable of responding to the newly-defined post-Trump political landscape in ways that mitigate its worst aspects from gaining political power.Report
By your estimated figures, 65% to 85% of republicans are willing to support Trump. That suggests he is, indeed, no worse than the median republican. And there is an article up on fivethirtyeight i just read suggesting its more like 85%.
#nevertrump needs to recognise Trump isnt the outsider to the Republican party – they are.
But i agree with you that if the GOP sticks with trumpism they will win in the end. And it is because – and i see on on this site again and again – there is a tendenfy to see dems and repubs as symmetrical, in the way european parties are. And they arentReport
Being willing to vote for Trump over Hillary is not the same as embracing Trumpism. In terms of internal party politics, they’re uncommitted. They’re committed to Hillary losing.
I’m an outsider insofar as I’m voting against Trump, but I’m not an outsider for not being enthusiastic about him.
I lay out the argument more completely in the first half of this post: http://hitcoffee.com/file/12299Report
Whats so awful about Hilary? Shes a machine politician who seeks the centre. She would fit in either the labour or conservative parties in the UK. Seeing Trump as a better choice than her is… either crazy or blind partisanship.Report
The more i think about it, i think she’s basically the same in terms of political positions as David Cameron.Report
“Being willing to vote for Trump over Hillary is not the same as embracing Trumpism. In terms of internal party politics, they’re uncommitted. They’re committed to Hillary losing.”
They are committed to Clinton[1] losing, to the point where they are willing to trash the USA, and much of the world.
Now, this is not news – the GOP has been amazingly disloyal for the past decade or two, but it’s clear by now that they are true nihilists.
[1] Trump’s last name is ‘Trump’; Clinton’s last name is ‘Clinton’.Report
Indeed it is. I was referring to her by her first name, which is “Hillary.”
If there was any confusion.Report
Well, one could refer to the presumptive Republican candidate as “Donald” or as “Trump.” Similarly, one could refer to the presumptive Democratic candidate as “Hillary” or as “Clinton.” You can use a first name, or a last name. The candidates and campaigns themselves vary on which of those forms of identification they use, based on whether they want to emphasize formality versus familiarity.
They are counterparts and to the extent that they fill almost identical roles in the political landscape at the moment, they are equals. But referring to one of them by first name and the other by last name isn’t treating them equally.
I propose we establish a preference (going forward) that if one candidate is referred to by a last name, so too should the other be, at least within that communication. If one is “Trump,” the other should be “Clinton;” similarly, if one is “Hillary,” the other should be “Donald.”
Initials (DJT, HRC) seem somehow very disrespectful of both, although I confess that I’m a bit pressed to articulate a reason why. This next sentence compels me to experience a small amount of revulsion: at some point in the future, one or the other of them will get the honorific title and appellation “the President,” or the use of the title “President” preceding the last name. But we aren’t there yet.Report
I tried to be meticulous about declining to refer to her simply as “Hillary” right up until she definitively embraced it. Then Hillary it was.Report
Is the issue that calling Hillary “Hillary”, Trump “Trump” and Bernie “Bernie” is sexist?Report
I think the issue is that Clinton has adopted “Hillary” in a way that Trump hasn’t adopted “Donald.” Trump does seem okay (I suppose, I actually haven’t paid much attention) with “The Donald,” but that adoption seems less official than Hillary’s self-branding as “Hillary.”Report
Even back in the eighties when he first started playing the media game, I always took the nickname “The Donald” to be an insult, a sneer at his ego.
As I suggested above, I think that Clinton’s embrace of “Hillary” is a calculated move (as are most things with her). It’s intended to make her seem more familiar, informal, and friendly. Trump’s embrace of “Trump” is also intentional — he wants to identify with the branding he’s built for himself over the past three decades, and he wants to underline the formality and respect that reference to a last name conveys. It’s intended to make you take him more seriously.
That both of them make these moves indicate where they both feel a degree of insecurity.
With all that said, it’s up to us how we refer to them. And I think the meticulous evenhandedness @will-truman describes above is the right way to go.Report
Hillary is “Hillary!” not because of any latent/overt sexism but because there’s another politician named “Clinton” that comes to mind. If she were “Hillary Rodham” then people would generally be talking about Rodham and Trump.Report
Oh noes. Has she embraced the risible exclamation point branding, á là Rudy! Giuliani and Jeb! Bush?
Please tell me she’s not about to transform from “Hillary” to “Hillary!”. Please.
This campaign is soul-crushing enough as it is.Report
A quick perusal of the bumper stickers for sale on her site demonstrates only one with an exclamation point, and it comes after the word “y’all” and not “Hillary.”Report
You should mention the “Hillary is on fleek!” bumpersticker.Report
Sorry, I ad-libbed that bit — didn’t mean to instill panic and dread.Report
To clarify: unless americans wake up to how extreme the republicsn party is, and instead see them as a legitimate alternative to the democrats, they will win from the usual pendulum swing.
I understand (and share) the desire for a reasonable conservative party, but the republicans are not it, and are nowhere near it, and pretending they are is distorting the debate.Report
unless americans wake up to how extreme the republicsn party is, and instead see them as a legitimate alternative to the democrats, they will win from the usual pendulum swing.
“In Birmingham they love the gubna. We all did what we could do…”
I’m not sure what it means to say American’s aren’t aware of what Trump represents. More that there’s strenuous disagreement about whether it’s good or bad. As well as whether the alternative is better or worse.
Sorry Brit. It’s the best we can do.Report
@stillwater Is that from the aforelinked Hit Coffee item, or do our minds sometimes work with such synchronicity?Report
Hah. No I hadn’t read that post until just now, and you lay out the conflicting tensions much better than I did. But apparently our minds gelled around the recognition that there’s only so much any of us can do.
I mean, I didn’t vote for the guy…Report
Clinton’s a far worse threat than Trump.
Clinton’s made many, many more promises — and she’s rigged the system to her own benefit.
Besides, it’s not like ANY of the powers that be like Trump.Report
Now, I think this is error: Clinton is corrupt, I presume, but within established parameters. If she is exactly as corrupt as her husband was, well, the country got through eight years of that pretty well.
But, wasn’t it you, @kim, who just the other day was explaining how the “powers that be” have shockingly effective access to forcibly demonstrate their power and explain how things are going to be to a sitting President, lest his children face dire consequences? Trump has children; it’s a good bet that like any other father, he loves them. He’d not be immune to that sort of pressure. So if you’re right, why should we assume Trump versus Clinton matters at all? The powers that be will get their way no matter what.Report
Clinton’s Global “Charity” is a system by which they have created piles of obligations for themselves — with people worldwide. I’m not saying it’s outlandish (though running Democratic fundraising in general through it makes it harder to dismantle…), but it is significant, and following the money will provide significant guidance as to what Clinton will do.
If we take at face the idea that Clinton as president gives us a 1 in 5 chance of world war three (I could explain a bit more on this, but please bear in mind that both China and Russia are increasingly unstable, and that authoritarians tend to externalize issues by invoking the patriotism of warfare)… Well, I say this much — it is in the power of the Chief Executive to be the commander in chief, and that is something the legislature has historically been unwilling to control.
Trump’s come up with some extremely awful ideas — but he reads like another Jimmy Carter — with everyone’s powerbase (Democrat and republican) ready to push back against him.
Yeah, some sort of coalition will hijack Trump and convince him to do stuff…
But Trump will far more likely lead to institutional gridlock than Clinton.
Besides, if the powers that be don’t really care about Clinton bombing places (so long as she stays away from the Important Places)… How much are they going to care about Trump doing stupid shit like starting a trade war with china?
The answer to that lies in which coalition adopts Trump. Clinton has both the neoliberals and neocons backing her. That’s what we call a realignment.Report
Vote for the Crooked. It’s important.Report
Yes. but important for whom?Report
I’ve now read your article, thank you for linking it.
I think we are actually in broad agreenent, although i suspect you disagree with me on giving up on the republican party. I certainly agree with what you say in that article.Report
An Important PSA:
https://medium.com/@SaraJBenincasa/im-voting-for-the-democrat-in-november-because-i-m-not-a-human-tire-fire-4a3f48dff372#.g747zzlpqReport
Thanks, Saul – that was good.Report
Remember abstinence-only education? Of course you do; it’s how you had your first child. And your second. They’re so cute now! Hooray!
The Democrats are now running against having children?Report
That tone and attitude demonstrate one of the various reasons why I’d never vote Democratic. (Don’t get me started on the Republican side)
“You’re goddamn right I’m condescending to you. You deserve this.
Get with the fucking program.”
Thanks. I need to be told what to do by a condescending tool.Report
heh, rhetorically that seems like a trainwreck to me… if the intended target are Bernie supporters, does that really hit the mark? I’m not fully calibrated on the Bernista scale, so maybe its right on point. But hey, all that honey vs. vinegar stuff is all just hillbilly folklore anyway.Report
Purely coincidence, but Connor Fridersdorf prints this from a Bernie supporter who is being driven to Trump by the Democratic establishment:
I wonder if Benincasa’s approach will win him back?Report
Right now, all of the serious people on Twitter are pointing out that Hillary’s speech is a Rubio speech that is more upbeat on the Iran Deal and cares about Global Warming.
So, hey, you people who really liked Rubio: you have more in common with Hillary than you do with Trump!Report
Stop trying to get me to like Hillary Clinton it’s not going to work.Report
If the Bernie Bros are a lost cause because they believe too many things, we need people who actually know things to vote for Hillary.
Or will you, through inaction, vote for Trump?Report
{{She can be all things to all people, Will. … all things… … all things….}}Report
Another something to make you like Hillary…
Report
Here’s John Podhoretz’ take on the speech:
Look, I wrote an entire book attacking Hillary. Look it up. But the tone in which she’s delivering this speech is perfect.
If Hillary could maintain this exact tone between now and November she will create exactly the contrast with Trump she needs.
Take out the Iran deal stuff and it’s a Rubio speech.
So far I’ve only caught 2 [lies], which for a politician isn’t so terrible. {{{WTF!!!}}}
Something strange is happening here.Report
The Republicans for Hillary ads in the fall are going to be brutalReport
For both of us.Report
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I hate how this is making me feel.
You’ll feel a little dirty at first, and then just get used to it.Report
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We’re about to witness some sort of seismic shift.
Keep your eyes open for California’s primary.Report
The Hillary Democratic coalition: minorities, Blue Dogs, neoliberals, neocons, Big Business, military interventionists.
The Trump Republican coalition: working whites, anti-establishmentarianists (heh), evangelicals, racists and xenophobes, neoreactionaries, radical leftists.Report
Which brings us back to the question:
Which one of these two is the accelerationist candidate?Report
Main concern I’ve got is the party of 70% of the white vote versus the party of 85% of the minority vote.Report
Over the Memorial Day weekend, one of my lefty friends told me that he couldn’t believe some of the protests he had been seeing. People waving Mexican flags and such.
He told me that he suspected that Donald Trump was setting this up.
I need to ask him about the violence today…Report
Take out the Iran deal stuff and it’s a Rubio speech.
Which Podhoretz somehow thinks is a recommendation. It’s that kind of perception that allowed him to work his way up from poor black child to Editor-In-Chief of Commentary.Report
Which Podhoretz somehow thinks is a recommendation.
To the folks who liked Rubio’s foreign policy it IS a recommendation, no?Report
I think Bill Kristol* and Robert Kagan have already declared for Hillary, so not sure who’s left on the Rubio porch?
*Unless the rumors are true about David French.Report
The white working class votes for Trump because that’s who they aspire to be: rich, surrounded by beautiful woman, totally irresponsible, and able to do whatever they want without answering to anybody. Who’s responsible for this situation? Everyone who made that the American ideal.Report
This. So, so much this.Report
Hell, I’m not working class and I’d love to have that too.
EVERYONE wants money, sex, and consequences free action.Report
Phase 2 of the Assumption of Trumpism has begun:
Alberto Gonzalez: I am not judging whether Curiel is actually biased against Trump. … The test is whether there is an “appearance of impropriety” under the facts as they reasonably appear to a litigant in Trump’s position.
Mark Halperin: “[Trump calling Curiel a Mexican] is not racial. … Mexico isn’t a race.”
Of course, it’s also false, since Curiel was born in America. (Which makes Halperin’s argument even more bizzarre.)
Taking the two together, Trump’s argument that Curiel recuse himself is that Curiel appears to be a Mexican.Report