Those two sentences form a bit of a non-sequitur. They’ve never been more popular and yet they’re about to implode?
How about: “We might actually be witnessing the end of the Republican party as we’ve known it.”
As in the name continues on, but now they explicitly represent exactly what Fox has been selling for years: belligerent populist know-nothingness. It certainly seems able to win primaries. Given the reality of so many hard-red and hard-blue congressional constituencies and states they might be even more successful than the traditional R so-called Establishment party has been.
So now the newly homeless group looking for political representation will be the thinking Rs, the country club crowd, & the yacht + private jet set. They’ve always ruled under the “one dollar one vote” approach.
To the degree nobody wants to listen to them anymore perhaps we will return to the days of populist rightists and populist leftists, which were much closer to “one person one vote.” A novel and controversial concept to be sure.
One thing that is not clear to me one way or the other: These numbers are a lot bigger than Republican primary turnouts in 2012, but do these represent a lot of people who usually do not vote at all (e.g., even in the general election) or mainly people who vote in the general but not in the primary? [Here in New York, we have too many layers of govt and way too many elected offices, so that we have elections every year and I have to admit that I don’t always vote in the primaries…at least in the non-Presidential years.]
Yeah…What is surprising is not that the Republican constituency appears to be coming apart but rather that it held together for so long when the extent of Republicans catering their economic policies to the poor and middle class whites who supported them was to brand the wealthy folks who they were actually catering their economic and tax policies to as “job creators” and hoping those other people were dumb enough to believe it.
No, I got it first time. Except for a few issues: Trump is never going to bleed a bunch of votes from among D’s, the third-party R candidate certainly won’t, and the D’s are mobilizing a huge anti-Trump vote. So the net effect is that it will never even come close to going to the House, and any chance of Trump gaining those R votes that are disaffected with him is beyond negligible.
Both parties have done their part in preparing the electorate for a Trump. They’ve spent the last fifteen years pounding out Orwellian up-is-down bullshit such as
Islam is a religion of peace
A person can have a Y chromosome and still be female
An unlimited supply of immigrant labor is good for the country because blue-collar Americans suddenly got lazy and white-collar Americans suddenly can’t do math
Most interracial violence consists of gun-toting redneck cops shooting innocent black bystanders
People have lost their ability to think because of an unrelenting diet of this crap. They’ve tried to reason out how these things could be true, and when they can’t, they figure they must be mentally defective, so they give up and just believe whatever feels right. With a good enough media campaign, you could have people swearing that the sky was green last Friday.
Trump’s genius is that he takes this kind of empty posturing in a direction that makes gut-feel sense to most people. I have said in other threads to get used to candidates like Trump, because this is the country’s future.
fact is that the Clintons won the most votes twice (unlike the Bushes or Carter), and the Perot-myth (that he was a “spoiler”) has been debunked, meaning that Clintonism did work and did win. I will fight that myth when and wherever I see it.
But to the main thread, Trump’s favorability ratings are lower than Clinton, so I think that cancels out. Ditto what someone upthread said about Nixon, who also won and won the second time in a landslide despite widely being seen as crooked. Of course, Trump is probably stronger than McGovern.
The big variable here is does the GOPe suck it up and back Trump when he clinches it, or do they sabotage him? I could see the latter happening; a lot of the power brokers he personally insulted either will still wanna be Prez in the future (Cruz, Rubio, Kasich, maybe even Jeb!), or want to fund a Prez in the future (Adelson, Kochs, etc.).
“… [will vote for him because] Trump is not a politician and his pockets are already lined.”
I’ve heard this line of argument for Trump before, and it’s one of those (many) profoundly confusing statements coming from his supporters. Would you entrust your children into the care of a known kiddie molester and convicted felon because, well, “he’s certainly already had his fill of lecherous, illicit activities”?
Great. My first post and I am already referencing child molestation. This is off to a good start
Republicans have actually spent the last fifteen years pounding out Orwellian up-is-down bullshit such as:
All Muslims want to kill you and you should be very afraid of them.
Being gay is a choice, and gays are created by liberals
Illegal immigrants have taken your manufacturing job (that was sent overseas by the corporation), so you should hate them, rather than the top 1% who now control 20% of the country’s wealth rather than the 10% it was in the 1970’s
Black people are all lazy criminal welfare cheats
At the moment THESE CRAP LIES are what Trump is relying on to get him votes in the GOP primaries. Just look at what he is saying.
I can’t tell you how much I agree with this. So here’s a view from the working-class trenches:
We always voted Democrat. The Democratic party was “the working man’s party,” the pro-labor party, the one that “got” us and cared about where we were and what we needed.
Well! So where are they now? Their party has been taken over by ultra-Left-wing ideologues who care more about state flag styles and gay marriage than our stagnating wages and lost jobs. And we see and hear their thinly veiled (or in some cases naked and undisguised) disdain for us.
So we decided maybe we should vote Republican. After all, they were talking about tax cuts–and we need every cent we can get–and helping businesses–and businesses create the jobs we need.
So where are they now? Their party has been co-opted by ultra-Reactionary demagogues who are more interested in their oil company stock options and controlling abortion than in our stagnating wages and lost jobs. And they don’t show us any respect either.
So along comes Trump. And suddenly we have the opportunity to tell both the Democrats and the Republicans to stuff it. Trump pisses off the Democrats and the Republicans, and who doesn’t love that? And furthermore, how can Trump be any worse for us than either major Party has been? Besides, whether we agree with him or not, the guy says what he thinks and doesn’t let people push him around. It’s not so much about having him actually get elected as being able to vote “No Confidence” to both major parties.
You may not like this assessment, you can beat me over the head if it makes you feel more righteous, but that’s what this machinist sees on the ground outside the white-collar ivory towers.
As a former union leader & current union member I agree completely.
The sadness is that the working class crowd is gonna get tarred with the racist extremist label and/or the unions = communism label. Neither of which are necessarily true.
well said; even tho I’m with Dems on the economic issues and most social issues (like gays [not transvestites] and abortion, you touch on some great points about how Obama has been tone deaf to those outside the arch-left. Had Obama been like Bill Clinton on social issues and done everything else the same, but also took on radical Islamic terror and didn’t hate Israel (given American public opinion), there’d be no Trump, perhaps even no Tea Party, and Obama’s party would be in a stronger position. Obama is too happy to fight culture wars. He’s the typical liberal: puts pet causes of like 2 people (the transvestites, or Muslims in America, for example) over the unity of the country; most Americans don’t want men in girls’ bathrooms nor do they convince themselves that the most common religious extremism isn’t Islamic extremism.
Also, Obama should have done more to at least address many whites’ complaints about blacks’ behavior, instead of just the converse. While blacks did have it hard for a while to oppressive whites, there is still another side to the coin. Obama has never had a Sister Souljah moment. Big mistake.
What bullshit. The Tea Party was forming while Obama was still being sworn in. I for one am grateful Obama actually stood up to people’s prejudices rather than knuckled under to them. That’s what leadership actually looks like, not this populist dick-swinging Trump is engaged in.
Here’s an article from today’s WP, discussing the difficulties male candidates have in dealing with female ones: What Bernie Sanders still doesn’t get about interrupting Hillary Clinton. In this case, Hillary interrupted Bernie, but when he protested to say “Excuse me, I’m talking” this was interpreted as evidence that he doesn’t get it. Apparently, “getting it” involves realizing that women can interupt me but men can’t interupt women (even to protest their interuptions).
I would suggest reading that article again. Because your summary is not accurate.
Sanders does not just interrupt Clinton. He says “Excuse me, I’m talking” and uses a dismissive hand gesture. And he does it multiple times in the debate. That has completely different implications than just interrupting someone. It comes off as condescending and there is a huge minefield in men being condescending towards women. For a guy who says he won’t attack, he should know better.
The article then goes on to discuss better ways that Sanders could have handled the situation. It suggests several ways he could try to get back to what he was talking about. So that disproves your claim that the article says that men cannot interrupt women.
I’d understand if you think that Sanders would be able to be condescending towards men. But then you have the article they linked to deal with. Apparently Clinton has a bunch of rules in how a woman is allowed to act in a debate.
