Today’s another big political day here in the US — lots of primaries, including some that look like they’ll be pretty close. So have a thread to talk politics. Feel free to keep discussing Der Trump in the Trump threads, or here, it’s all good. And feel free to discuss non-US politics here as well. But please, no one use the phrase “Feel the Bern.”
I hope the caption on your picture is right. I hate to think of the alternative.
Feel the Sand.
“Beel the Fern.”
https://twitter.com/xstex/status/706951819302477829/video/1
So, I’ve been more inclined to think that Trump is cynically using racial animus than that he is full of racial animus himself.
But when he blamed Bernie for the protesters in Chicago I had to wonder whether he was actually more personally white supremacist than I had thought.
A staple of American Nazi Mythology is that Jews use Black & Brown people as their “muscle” in their war on Whites. So seeing Trump blame the only Jewish candidate for the actions of a largely Black & Brown group of Protesters …. when Hillary is generally winning the Black vote and is much more tied into Chicago politics than Sanders ….. well, now I wonder if that wasn’t a Nazi dogwhistle. I’m not sure that any old regular cynical race-baiter would know that point of Nazi dogma.
Maybe he is a crypto Nazi.
Sanders could win three of the five states voting today and still end up with substantially less delegates. He could eke out small wins in Illinois, Ohio, and Missouri, but get blown out in North Carolina and especially Florida. Sanders supporters will be extra salty if that happens.
… There’s also a chance Hillary Clinton will win all five states and Sanders will drop out at the end of the night. Heck, even if she gets just over 50% of the delegates tonight, Sanders path to victory gets much harder.
Predictions: Clinton wins Florida by more than 20 points, North Carolina by more than 10, Ohio by less than five. Sanders wins Illinois and Missouri, but by less than 10 points combined.
=====================
On the Republican side, there is a slim, slim, SLIM chance that all four remaining candidates could win at least one state. Kasich appears to be the favorite to win Ohio, but it will likely be close. Cruz could win Missouri and / or North Carolina. Meanwhile, Rubio has a shot at winning his home state of Florida, a really, really small shot.
Trump is first or second in all five states, so he could sweep all five and end the race. Voters will go to him, just because he’s the winner and they want to vote for the winner.
Prediction: Trump wins Illinois, North Carolina, and Florida. Cruz wins Missouri. Kasich wins Ohio. Rubio picks up a handful of delegates, but drops out. Most of his supporters go to Kasich, while Cruz gets a solid chunk of the Anyone But Trump crowd.
Question to Americans: To what extent is it permissible to hope that Trump wins the nomination, if one believes that it will hasten the disintegration of the Republican party and thus increase the odds of a blue Congress as well as a blue White House?
@ EJ
On Newsnight last night they had Daniel Frum and Joe Klein discussing that very point.
Meanwhile Breitbart News Network’s fawning over Donald Trump has the website circling the drain. The reporter manhandled by a Trump campaign worker resigned, as did Ben Shapiro. The website refused to offer more than a tepid defense of their reporter after the assault and has basically served as Trump’s unofficial Super PAC. Ironic that #Gamergate supporter Milo Yiannopoulos, who loves to talk about ethics and free speech, works at such an ethically challenged website.
EJ, I’m ready to run the risk that somehow Drumpf will get himself elected, since it is a very small risk and the result of a loss will be as you say. It will be Hillary’s good luck if he’s the nominee. She had bad luck in her last run, going against someone as charismatic as Obama, but there’s a silver lining for US residents — she settled for Secretary of State, which added to already impressive credentials, matured and settled her and made her into one of the best=prepared candidates in US history.
Oh, about the “Drumpf” I saw John Oliver’s comic takedown of Drumpf and at the end he said there was a free app to download that would make every reference to Trump on your computer read “Drumpf”, his family’s original name. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnpO_RTSNmQ I enjoy reading the news now.
Since US politics tend to interrupt my day on daily basis, I’m gonna interrupt US politics for a moment:
I HAVE MY KITTIES NOW!
OMG!
KITTIES!
So if you want to follow my kitties AND their day-to-day activities, hop here: https://twitter.com/DidiCarisma
*ahem* Where were we? Oh, politics, carry on. Right now my brain is hijacked by kitties.
Meanwhile in Canada
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/man-who-got-homophobic-valentine-at-work-gets-new-card-signed-by-justin-trudeau
😀
@EJ:
Trump being the nominee flat-out would be terrifying. Just think of all the anti-Hillary hatred churned up in Republicans (and Democrats, to be honest) over the years. Is the anti-Trump stronger than the anti-Hillary? I don’t know if it is.
I’m hoping for a contested convention myself, and that the RNC finds some way to make someone not Trump win. That’d drive Trump to run as an independent, since he would think that the RNC went back on the “deal” they struck at the beginning of the campaign. Then the vote would split.
I don’t know what effect that would have on other elections though…
What a mess.
Why are so many people so scared of Drumpf winning. He won’t. His supporters sure make themselves look like they are more important than they are. But they’re not the ”silent majority”. They’re the ”loud minority”. There’s plenty of those and they all have an inflated sense of self-worth. I realize i might be downplaying how bad it is, but, personally, i’m more afraid of Drumpf’s followers than i am of him. Do we really have a reason to be afraid of *him*? But maybe i’m misjudging this situation. I’d like to know what you guys think.
Take my opinion with a grain of salt there, as a Canadian my endorsement to an American candidate is not very weighty:
I find Sanders’ popularity encouraging, if America can grow out of its fear of socialism, it’ll have a lot more room for the kind of policies it needs to get out of reaganomics and other absurdities. Even if he doesn’t ultimately win, he’s reintroduced the left in socially acceptable discourse and that’ll make it easier for the next attempts.
I’m not with Clinton because she’s a Conservative. But I strongly disagree with the notion that she’s the worst possible candidate, and with the crazy conspiracy theories around her. She’s the candidate who won’t change more things than strictly needed, and while I think America could do better than that, it’s far from the worst that could happen. Certainly better than any Republican. She gets support not because of “pussy pass” as so many say or some even less likely conspiracy, but because there is a Democratic conservative faction, a rather large one too. The Conservatives should have a candidate, and she is, at the moment, the only sensible one.
It might not be too late for at least my state to nominate #IceBearForPresident
…okay, I just wanted to talk about We Bare Bears, which is now one of my new favorite cartoons besides Steven Universe.
Personally, I’d vote for Sanders before anyone, but I’d have no problem voting for Hillary if she wins the nomination. Well, I’d have SOME hang ups (I don’t like her very much, basically because she’s a moderate conservative) but I’d take her over anyone the republicans are fielding.
@Makroth
Because everyone laughed when Trump announced his candidacy. They thought it’d be over in a month, but he surged o the top of the polls. So people laughed and said he’d never win any primaries. And lo and behold, he’s got more votes than the next two candidates combined. Underestimating a man who speaks the most base urges of the right wing is a very bad idea. Especially in a country as right wing as America.
@Dodom I agree with you mostly, but I’ll have a hard time voting if Hillary gets the nomination. I don’t know if I have it in me to support a candidate who was a party to so much murder abroad, or who helped overthrow a democratically elected leader.
@EJ you can hope anything you want. It’s one of your prerogatives as a non-superbeing who can’t control reality with your mind (apologies if you’re a superbeing who can control reality with your mind.)
Seriously, though. I don’t think he’s any worse than the others from a policy perspective, he’s just scarier and more ridiculous. It’s pretty gratifying to see the Republican establishment falling victim to the irrationality it has been carefully breeding for decades. On the other hand, never underestimate what angry, misguided men with lots of weapons and a narcissistic rage junky leader can do. Be consoled that whether he wins or has the nomination stolen in a contested watchamacallit, the Republican party loses.
Hillary isn’t a particulary outstanding candidate, but I feel she suffer from mysogyny a lot more than Obama have suffered from being black. I have the persistent feeling that most of what is reproached to her would be a lot better accepted from a man. Where a man would be seen as a leader she is seen as hysterical, and her problems are seen as much worse than for other candidates. At least it’s what seem to appear from critical articles on her.
@Makroth:
If you had said this earlier in the election cycle, more people would have believed you. As it stands, Trump is currently the leading candidate by delegates. And he’s the clear favorite to win in this latest batch of primaries.
It’s not a question of if someone else will get the 50% needed to secure the nomination, but if Trump can be prevented from getting 50% so that things can go to a contested convention.
We have no idea what he would actually do if he were to be elected. Personally, I don’t think he knowingly lies. So when he says he’s going to try to change the law around torture so he can torture our enemies, build a wall and threaten war with Mexico to get them to pay for it, try to ban all Muslims from entering the US, take down the ACA and replace it with… something…, institute a terrible tax plan, and take away freedom of speech for his critics, I believe him.
It doesn’t matter if he is able to do all of this or not. Maybe he’s threatening extreme stuff so that the less extreme stuff will be more palatable. It’s still super dangerous for someone like him to be in charge. Maybe all we can hope for, if he were elected, would be that he is impeached fast enough to avoid too much damage.
And if there is anyone in modern politics that that would take advantage of their followers’ offer to form a personal militia, Trump would be that person.
@Josh Yes, but he only surged to the top of the republican polls. Makes sense. He’s perfect for them. But i think that anyone who isn’t a republican vastly outnumbers the ones that are and they see that party as the massive joke that it is. But do you really think he can win the majority of the votes, even if by tiny fraction? I’m not underestimating his ability to stir people up and whip them into a frenzy. In that regard he is dangerous and should be kept an eye on. I just don’t think he’ll become president.
Makroth – while he has surged to the top only of the Republican polls, there is a very real risk – Hillary wins the nomination, and Bernie supporters stay home. There is at least a contingent of Bernie voters who are unwilling to consider casting a vote for Hillary (who is, yes, a flawed candidate – so are they all, including Bernie, who is good, but not perfect). Democratic apathy has thrown elections the other way in the past. Trump will have to be terrible enough to persuade those voters to overlook their extreme distaste for Hillary. (Will Hillary voters vote if Bernie gets the nod? Most of the ones I’ve talked to say yes, but I haven’t talked to everyone).
As for Trump being scary – yes. But as far as presidents go, Cruz seems to me to be much, much worse. He doesn’t sound as bad because he doesn’t sink to the vulgar the way Trump does. But his ideas are horrifying, and he has demonstrated his ability to cause trouble. It was partially his temper tantrum over the budget that closed down the government, causing our credit rating to drop. He hates the government, and wants to kill it off – except, of course, for the military. Oh, and prayer in schools – enforced prayer. Bring Jesus back to government. Make us a Christian nation – one with a government obsessed with the biggest bombs money can buy.
The key is, Donald will never get the Mexicans to pay for a wall. It’s doubtful he can get Americans to pay for the kind of wall he wants. But Cruz can probably get many of the things he wants, including the massive military build up, the tax cuts (so the military may be the only thing we can afford), and the end of Social Security. He could also remake the Supreme Court in his image, which could lead to some—novel—-interpretations of the First Amendment rights to religious liberty. Religious liberty for Christians; the rest of us get the scraps they allow, and nothing more.
My feeling is that the worst of the Dems is better than the best of the Republicans (who probably dropped out before the race got started when he/she looked at the field of clowns and said no way).
Before the rallies started hinging on violence, I was actually kinda-sorta in this camp, myself. And that may still be the one bright lining to a Trump nomination, especially since the rank and file GOP candidates down-ticket are too timid to make any sort of ethical stand, even in the face of electoral disaster.
But recent events have made it clear that, the longer Trump is even seen as remotely viable, the more people will be getting hurt. And I’m not quite desperate enough for a Democratic Party Congressional takeover to start talking about ‘acceptable collateral damage’.
Makroth:
I’m not worried about the possibility of a President Trump. I agree, even if he gets the nomination, it’s not going to happen, and would likely tank most of the remotely contested down-ticket races as well. (Trump is poling at 30-40% of Republican voters; this puts him at 15-20% of Americans, which is more people comfortable with his brand of fascism than I’d like, but I can be reasonably certain they aren’t coming to power on a national scale anytime soon.) But as you noted, his followers are being worked into a frenzy that is scary, and he refuses to take any steps to moderate that.
I agree with others who’ve suggested the best-case scenario at this point runs along these lines:
1: Trump gets the plurality, but not the majority, of delegates.
2: He pitches a fit, running third-party.
3: This splits the vote, possibly even down-ticket as he backs a bunch of Tea Party candidates in any race where the GOP candidate is more moderate.
******
An aside: I read a rather persuasive analysis of Trump supporters. Outside the outright racists and other reactionaries, there’s one other group that seems to be drawn to him: conservative seniors and near-seniors. There’s a reason for this (not a good reason, but a comprehensible bad one, at least).
This group wants generally socially conservative policies; even if not actively racist or homophobic, they’d just as soon not have further social change in their lifetime. So they are a bedrock part of the GOP. But over the last few elections, it’s become more and more common for the Republicans to talk about ending or at least slashing Social Security and Medicare. This, of course, is anathema to this same group, since so many of them rely on these programs to maintain their standard of living.
Trump is the only candidate this year to make the ‘right’ noises about Social Security and Medicare–they believe he’ll keep the programs that help out the ‘deserving poor’, as the odious phrase goes. Meanwhile, he’ll cut programs like Medicaid and the ACA, thereby reducing their own tax burden. It’s horribly selfish and short-sighted, of course, but it’s at least, as I said, comprehensible.
Well, look, maybe this will help clear up some confusion. Here’s the first rule of American politics:
1. No candidate is allowed to run for president who has not been previously vetted by the owners of the two parties.
It should be noted that the owners of the two parties allowed to run candidates are more-or-less the same people. Anyroad, that’s the way it’s been since 1968. No candidate running now, if elected, is going to do more than tinker around the edges of US policy. And that incudes Trump, Bernie, Hillary, Cruz and all the rest.
All else is media circus ratings fodder. Honestly, you’d have more influence over who becomes the next US president by writing Game of Thrones fanfic than you would by voting. It’s a thoroughly rigged and purchased system.
@iknklast the best of the Republicans was probably Ron Paul. I remember watching the debates and thinking (at least part of the time), “listen to how reasonable he’s being. Why can’t the rest of you be reasonable like Ron Paul?”
The fact that the others can make Ron Paul look reasonable shows how bad the field is.
I don’t suppose there’s any point in telling the “Clinton is a conservative” people that she’s in favor of clean energy, disability rights, gun control, health care reform, unions, gay rights, racial justice, Medicare, Social Security, voting rights, abortion, family leave, a path to citizenship, closing the pay gap, raising the minimum wage, and a boatload of other positions that American conservatives define themselves by their opposition to.
Or that, if Clinton is a conservative, Sanders must be at least 93% of a conservative.
Because if you’re looking for a way to thread the needle to make Clinton a categorically unacceptable candidate, you’ll find a way to redefine your terms until that’s true, even if they become meaningless in the process.