So the Trumpistas in Reddit’s The_Donald are trying to figure out just why God Emperor Trump is plunging in the polls even though he continues to draw big crowds of scary and confused white people wherever he goes.
Apparently unable to conceive that Trump’s brand of belligerent narcisissism might be starting to wear thin for many people, many in the subreddit have concluded, as one much-upvoted comment alleges, that evil cuck pollsters “are over representing democrats to discourage Trump supporters.”
One commenter suggests that this eeevil alleged strategy may backfire, thus transforming Trump’s plunging poll numbers into something that’s … GOOD FOR TRUMP.
![o2toauUT 6 points 8 hours ago It will backfire on them unless they're planning on election fraud. If people think Hillary is a shoein they won't even bother to vote because most people who vote for her don't like Hillary, they just don't want Trump. If the news shows her up by 10 they will stay home. permalinkembedsaveparentreportgive goldreply [–]LhtfootUSA 4 points 2 hours ago Wait... So, this could be an example of Trump playing 84 dimensional interstellar Slovakian guerrilla warfare tactics?](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/trumpinterstellar.png?resize=498%2C387&ssl=1)
Yes, that’s right: Trump could be losing in the polls ON PURPOSE. Because he’s THAT SMART.
@occasional reader
I am French (therefore, sorry for my english that may be laking), and I would like to correct you on a thing you said.
Jospin didn’t retire from candidacy in order to avoid a possible victory of Le Pen. He had no choice, because of the way our election work. Only those who came first and second during the first turn are allowed to compete in the second turn, during the frensh presidential election.
If he had been allowed to compete as a third candidate, he would have won, because the right wing vote would have been divided between the two right wing candidate, while all the left wing voter would have voted for him.
Liberalism comes in many flavours. There’s what Americans know as Liberalism, that is, progressive ideas and a general concern for social justice, stuff like that.
Here in Germany, we have a liberal party as well, and while they sometimes favour giving more rights to citizens (like, say, abortion or gay marriage) it’s part of their larger goal of economical liberalism, that is, capitalism and liberty free(er) of government control. That’s why they’re liberals, while still being part of the white, old corporate dudes American liberals stereotypically rail against. As far as I know that is the definition of liberalism that is more common across Europe, and, as far as I know, the older definition.
What Americans call socialism we like to call social democratic.
Another fun fact I remember from university: the Federal in Federal Republic of Germany refers to the fact that Germany is divided into 16 states. The Federalist Papers, and what Americans generally refer to when they use the word “federal” refers to the state and its supervising role.
Bit of trivia that’s O/T but some people might find interesting. (For a certain value of ‘interesting’)
The term “politically correct” originally only had a legalistic technical meaning. It’s first recorded use was in American courts; but it caught on in other common law jurisdictions.
It’s probably easier to give an example than an explanation as to its meaning.
So for instance, the U.S. Supreme Court would often comment that it was politically correct to refer to the Federal Government but politically incorrect to refer to the National Government.
Not sure when or how it’s more modern meaning came about.
ETA: That’s what American law lecturers told me anyway.
@Alan
The current, scare tactic version of the term is usually credited to Dinesh D’Sousa and some other reactionary assholes in the late 80s/early 90s. Basically, this is about the time the ‘moral majority’ (Reagan’s evangelicals) were being convinced that smart people, and the universities that taught them, were evil, heathen elitists. So, of course, when schools started adopting gender neutral/not openly racist phraseology, the shit hit the fan and Bill Maher got a talkshow title
@’ axe
Well you live and learn.
(I’m not smart but I have got evil and heathen pegged. I got forced to watch something called ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ the other night so I’m doing well on elitist too 🙂 )
@Axecalibur :
Maybe unconsciously (after all, Sarkozy is said to be close to Bush Jr), then, but clearly not on purpose. As France is (supposed to be) a Republic, they just wanted something to remind it clearly.
But what had motivated the change of name is mainly because in the UMP (former acronym of the group) there were so many “pans” (“casseroles” in French) attached to it, i.e. many affairs (financial, mainly). (On a side note, as UMP is also the name of an H&K submachine gun, that was kind of awkward for some persons).
If you are interested, here the list of the names/acronyms the group had since the beginning : from an article in Le Monde
To note : not only the name has changed, the political lines too. It goes from DeGaulle who wanted a strong State/administration, clear financial and commercial regulation, and did not enter NATO, to Sarkozy who is an ultra-liberal, who despises administration employees (? is it the good term ? “Fonctionnaires” seems to have a lot of translations possible, sorry) and who made France enter NATO. And yet claiming he is from DeGaulle and Jaures (left) heritage.
Not sure, but yeah, luring Dems into tranquility, especially already-pissed off Bernie-kids might be viable. So many of the liberal, mainstream, almost-Democrat Republicans are tearing their hair (Think:Ryan, Bush, McConnell, Rubio), some of whom are about to lose THEIR gigs. Candidates have “led from behind” and won big, Bill Clinton being a case in point.
I’m sure Hillary is quite happy to sleep on a big lead, especially the Swing-States. 10 and 12 and 15 percent is outside error-margins for most pollsters, bad as they are. We never know their modeling, who they poll and so on, we only get their numbers. They can certainly poll to a desired result, too. Would they, for scare factor? Who knows?
At this point, Hillary people are voting for Hillary, Trumpers voting Trump. The battle lines are drawn, a greater contrast between the two candidates for President have never been presented to us. But there are no crossovers to be had, there are only those that sit home vs. those who go vote for their gal or guy.
Each side sees this one as existential for their platform. Remember, it’s THIS ugly between the two and there are over THREE months to go. As old Mick from Rockey said, these candidates are “gonna eat lightning and their gonna crrrrap THUNDAH!”. Healthy? Probably not, but these have not been healthy weeks and months. Can’t remember such incivility since the late-60-t-72 era.
It’s a war, but strangely, not against wars.
Anyway, nice reading here, thought I’d look around. Doubt yall’d have me around for long, Ha! Peace!
Ooh, are we in for another Ghostbusters thing?
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/aug/05/rebel-wilson-gender-swapped-dirty-rotten-scoundrels-remake
It’ll be interesting if there are the usual comments about changing films to push a ‘feminist agenda’ bearing in mind….
*Spoiler*
….the original film is about a woman outsmarting two men.
Just found this good one 🙂
http://15130-presscdn-0-89.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Voting-Republican.jpg
Oh good!!! Back when Ron Paul was running for president, his supporters said exactly the same thing about his flagging numbers: there was vote fraud, the media was shutting him out, people were over-representing other candidates, etc. etc. This is a good sign that Trump is losing hard. I was out last evening with my fantastic wife and our friend, and I remember glancing over at a TV set and seeing “Clinton: 48%, Trump: 33%” and literally whooping for joy. : )
Trump’s candidacy is an indication that we’ve arrived at a dangerous phase in late-stage democracy. He’s tapped into a large segment of the population that distrusts elites, distrusts mainstream media, and refuses to kowtow to experts. Left and right have become mutually uncomprehending, with their own narratives and accepted facts.
And now Trump’s further driving a stake through the heart of democracy by insisting that the election is rigged (but only if he loses, of course). His supporters will never accept Clinton as legitimate. There’s an increasing perception that whichever party wins, trickery and corruption are involved. It started with Bush/Gore, and intensified with Obama and all the birther conspiracy theories, and shows no signs of letting up. Gore was at least gracious enough to concede in order to preserve the republic, even though he had legitimate grounds to contest the Florida results. I don’t expect anything of the sort from Trump. Trump is only out for himself and doesn’t give a flip if the country (and the rest of the world) goes down in flames.
Yesterday, when he spoke in my home city, protesters pulled out copies of the Constitution and were forcibly removed from the rally. So Trump has kicked out not only babies, but the Constitution. I expect he’ll denounce puppies and apple pie next.
Occasional reader:
Bureaucrat, maybe? Civil servant?
> Pie
Civil servant was also proposed by google trad, indeed, so i guess it may be ok.
Bureaucrat is only a part of civil servants, as there are many who do not work behind a desk, i think.
Thank you for the answers, in all cases.
Thus Spake Buttercup Q. ZaraSkullpants:
Aye, we’re living in an era of postfactual politics. Neoconservatives have spent 30 years crafting a right-wing media bubble and pre-emptively inoculating listeners against inconvenient data. Now anything can be dismissed as biased, or mere opinion, or the work of some vaguely-defined conspiracy.
Six months ago I would have described this disease as something that affects almost exclusively the right wing, but with the BoB crowd embracing the exact same counterfactual bollocks as the Tea Partiers (“Benghazi! Vince Foster!! There’s no difference between Republicans and Democrats!!!“) it’s clearly something that can affect both sides of the aisle. The rise of right-wing talk radio and Fox News may have created the trend, but thanks to Facebook and Twitter, leftists are now just as capable of maintaining their own media bubbles.
This may be a failure state for democratic republics. How can we elect leaders to represent our interests when we can’t even agree on the naked, unambiguous facts?
Honestly, Trump reminds me of some of the darlings of the IT world, whose “disruptive” behavior is lauded as a virtue that excuses all sins. If Trump ate a kitten on live television, a significant fraction of his audience would cheer; to them, belligerent defiance of social norms simply proves Trump is the big boss monkey leader guy their primate brains crave.
First comment from a lurker.
I am terrified.
Not that Trump will win, but of his whispers about election-rigging. He hates losing, so it rationalises a defeat to himself. But what of his disgruntled, angry, frightened, bigoted supporters, convinced a political establishment they resent has cheated them? What is he unleashing when he loses? Right-wing nuts are already being given air-time to propagate this dangerous nonsense, complete with unsubtle threats of ‘constitutional crises’ and ‘resistance’.
Why aren’t more big red deafening alarm bells ringing everywhere? I see it covered as ‘another d̶a̶y̶ hour, another gaffe by Trump’, but I think we need shouted warnings from the rooftops, every day, at the top of every newspaper and web page: this man plans to hold the political system and country hostage with the genie he has let out of the bottle.
It bodes nothing good.
As Restoftheworlder, I’ll be watching from behind my sofa in November.
Before I re-lurk: many thanks to all regulars here, whose insights, wit and sarcasm always educate and entertain me.
In the U.S., that set of positions is usually part of small-l libertarianism. Ostensibly, this is the ideology of the large-L Libertarian Party, but amazingly, whenever their members actually get into office, they immediately forget about the social-liberal stuff, and focus entirely on bringing back a laissez-faire approach to corporate regulation. Furthermore, even among the small-l libertarians, there’s a large subset, whom I dub “glibertarians”, who really have no idea what they’re talking about and just go around shouting “FREEDOM” at the top of their internet lungs.
The latter two types of libertarian have, in turn, formed the basis of the Tea Party revolution in the Republican Party, taking it over from within, thereby showing the Greens how they SHOULD be operating.
Can we dump the orange lump into a vehicle trunk then shove it off a cliff into water deep enough to make sure it’s completely sunk?*
*Obviously that would be murder and this is not a 100% serious question…maybe 25%…errr ok ok no murder.
@Weatherwax
Bernie Sanders ran a campaign based mainly off of small donations. So have others like Senator Elizabeth Warren. It is possible to buck the system. Sanders did it. Just because the system we have is crooked , doesn’t mean we should accept it.
@DaniDeRossi
1)Bernie lost the primary, so using him as an example doesn’t quite work
2)Warren ran for Senate (in blue stronghold Massachusetts), not President. And she took plenty of money from unions, MA universities, and law firms (they usually back Dems). Nobody’s clean, nor needs to be
3)There’s more to being ‘establishment’ than just having money. She has Obama and Bill behind her. She has the DNC, the State Dept, the powers that be in NY, etc. Bernie didn’t take as much ‘big money’, cos it wasn’t being offered. Hillary would hafta turn down hundreds of millions in order to ‘buck the system’. And when Cinnamon Hitler is your opponent, it’s not worth the risk. So yeah, I accept it. For right now at least…
<3 Pallas, welcome and feel free to re-lurk or just keep commenting. Have a welcome package, as I'm sure you know!
I agree entirely about how terrifying the long-term repercussions of this election might be. This said, the accusations of election fraud are, well. Pretty common. It bubbles up as a topic during most elections. So don't feel too uneasy over it!
re: Liberal vs Socialist, Left vs Right
I wrote a few paragraphs about how you can't separate words from their contexts, then deleted them. Too windy. I'll just give you the short-shorts. An American Liberal isn't the same thing as a European Liberal; the vocabulary of politics is context sensitive. Importantly, there is no overarching left-right spectrum to which politicians from each country can be mapped. There may in theory exist such a thing, and political scientists might map individuals to it, and discuss the relationships they find, but they’re all shadows on the cave wall. The map doesn’t exist. Qualitative analytics are messy.
On another level, can we kill this whole “left-right spectrum” metaphor, please? It’s infuriating. Progressive on one side, Conservative on the other. Where’s liberal? What’s liberal, in this context? Socialist – same thing? It’s a narrow tool applied widely. We need to start acknowledging that politics is about belief, and belief is complicated. Boiling it down to left-vs-right does nothing more than draw battle lines. They’re banners to carry to the stadium, they’re Green vs Blue. It’s deeply, deeply frustrating to me that this blinkered measuring stick is the only tool in common use to measure a political statement, it’s worse than useless.
arglebhargle, etc. There you have it. Have a lovely day all :3
EDIT: @SFHC: I will send you all my rays of sunshine. We have a lot up here in the North, and I would frankly be quite happy to borrow a cup of cold in exchange!
1) he was still able to outraise Clinton for much of the primary
3)
Yes. The thing is people are sick of this system and sick of the establishment, which is why Sanders and Trump were so successful at fundraising. Why can’t she buck the system and fundraise with small donations? All that corporate money didn’t help her campaign against Trump. In fact Trump was catching up to her until he self immolated after the RNC.
You’re acting like Clinton taking this money is consequence free. I doubt we’ll ever see economic reforms until we stop electing politicians who are beholden to wall Street and their corporate donors.
Is there a point to arguing over who should’ve won the nomination? It’s done. It’s over. The Sanders campaign was not able to make the donations he got translate into actual votes. Hint: you need a multi-state infrastructure and a ground game to win most of the time. Trump doesn’t really have one, but he’s kind of a fluke and I can guarantee that lack of ground game will really hurt in the general.
@Dani
But he lost. The question was whether a politician could be a “realistic candidate” (ie realistically win) and be antiestablishment. Bad analogy, find another
Sanders yes, Trump not really. He’s had money problems since day 1. It didn’t phase him tho, cos of all the free publicity
Cos there’s no reason for her to give that up. The guy who based his campaign on small donations lost. Her way works
Now you (I hope) and I both know that’s not why he lost. He lost cos his appeal (young, white, middle class, Western and Midwestern ‘liberals’) is limited. Latinxes, blacks, the poor and rich, older people (who actually tend to vote), etc didn’t go for him. And before anyone says anything, #notall. Money or not, he had no chance in retrospect. But why risk it? If either explanation for his failure makes sense, and they both do, why would she give up that advantage?
It will. She has infrastructure. He doesn’t really. Besides, she’s not just fundraising for her. The DNC and DCCC get a piece of the action, ya know? Super important
When? I implied that the consequences, so long as their no worse than a fascist White House and a retrograde court, are worth it. Not the same as “consequence free”
A literal lobbyist for the cable industry was brought on as head of the FCC. He guaranteed net neutrality. There are no rules. Beyond that, we likely weren’t gonna get those reforms anyway. The House is quite red, and, even if the Dems win the Senate, it won’t be filibuster proof. That’s what’s stopping progress
Secret Agent Axecalibur: Middle Name Danger* sent this encrypted communique:
Yes. Yes. This is the point I harp on to every progressive I know: We will not get all the change we want and need until we start voting in local, state, and off-year elections. (Apologies for the bold and italic, but believe me, if I could make those letters ten feet tall and on fire, I would.) Don’t whine that politicians don’t represent you when you’re sitting out 80% of the elections in which you’re eligible to vote.
Want better representation of women and minorities? Want corporate money out of politics? Want viable third parties? Want universal health care? Want comprehensive economic reform? Good. So do I. Now get out there and vote, in every single election, even if it’s for the county dog catcher.
* I’d totally see that movie, by the way.
@Pocket
ETA: and everything you said is absolutely correct 🙂