Let me get my hard hat and my Utilikilt.
Well, I’m a consequentialist, anyway, and the hardheaded, rational, utilitarian thing to do for me is to vote for a socialdem, possibly run for a lower office myself, and start dragging the Democratic party away from neoliberalism. But if you think your hypertacticalism is more important to you than the long game, I think you’re looking for shortcuts & cheap thrills. OK, at least you’re having fun.
Ooh, tempting! But no. [That is, yes, he might be, & that’s at least interesting in an apocalyptic way, but no, even that is not enough for me to actively vote for him in the primary. I am otherwise occupied.]
I see it mostly this way. Trump might wreck the government out of ignorance and indifference. Cruz is deliberately trying to destroy everything (but a military [strong enough to punish Iran for taking their own oil fields back from Britain in 1979]), and he weirdly is in line with party doctrine on this, somehow.
That this is party doctrine, just sincere and extreme, does nothing to dissuade me from my speculation that Ted Cruz hates the USA and has been groomed from birth to conquer us Yanquis and destroy us from within.
No! My popcorn! I was gonna et popcorn and vote for Jill Stein if it came down to them!
It was kind of stinky. Clever, I guess. It came down to a cheap shot, though. But I was a Missouri Democrat and played along. I don’t know.
What McCaskill pulled is old hat crap and is going on now with Conservative PACs running ads designed to build support for Sanders. Running ads to goad your opposition into selecting the more extreme and therefore less electable candidate … yes she did it, they did it, they do it now. I don’t admire it but it seems to be an established part of how the game is played. And it is not the same as Operation Chaos. That hits a different level. That’s one.
Two. Rubio is fairly predictably beatable. He is not a strong candidate and there is no reason to fear him. He won’t get nonvoters to vote; he won’t change the dynamic. He might beat an unconventional candidate like Sanders but Clinton? It would be a solid Clinton win.
Three. I suspect that Trump will do horribly but boy, any given Sunday … and what happens with Trump is far less predictable. When you think you are going to win in any case you don’t start choosing the less predictable option. The approach he represents is untrod in modern times. He is revving up non-college educated Whites who are typically reliably non-voters to come out and vote in record numbers. And he has not completely driven college educated Whites away. Will he resonate with some fraction of Black voters? Probably not, but it does not need to be all that many to give him a better chance than Rubio would have with more typical non-college educate White turnout. Play with the 538 app a bit. Get non-college educate White turnout up to the same as college educated White and a just a hair’s breadth more GOP share and you have a GOP win of 285 to 253. Increase that group’s turnout to only as high as Black turnout but a bit more GOP leaning, to 68%R, and you also have a GOP win, 282 to 256. Just decrease Black turnout a fraction and increase the GOP share to 15% and it takes a very modest increase in non-college educate White turnout and share for the GOP to blow it away 315 to 223. Will that happen? Would White college educated moves to the Democratic side offset it if it did? I have no confidence in anyone’s ability to predict such. It is a stupid gamble to choose to take.
Four. A Trump campaign that loses but incites a large subpopulation to greater overt xenophobia, racism, and nativism, that promotes name calling and rudeness, in the process, still produces great harms to our society.
What you propose would be wrong to do, stupid to do, and increase the risk of harms to our society.
“Unpredictable” doesn’t even begin to describe what’s been going on with Trump. He’s been counted out since the moment he announced; every time he says something ridiculous, he’s counted out again; every debate, he’s counted out again.
Yet, here we are, with Trump about to win the nomination of the Republican Party for President.
I sincerely hope that Clinton or Sanders does not view Trump in the same way as the OP. I hope that the Democratic candidate works hard, and that the campaign works hard, and that Democrats work hard, and that none of us take a win over Trump for granted.
Frank, feeling that someone is your weakest opponent doesn’t mean you don’t work hard to defeat them. Claire manipulated the system to get Aiken, but she didn’t then just sit back and drink daiquiris until Election Day. She ran a full court press even though the 15 point win showed ultimately that she didn’t need to. I expect the same from Clinton and the DNC, which is why I predicted a double digit win in the thread I started.
I understand the idea of reducing variance when you have a solid edge. And I think that’s mostly the case with Rubio, but his being Hispanic, and from Florida, don’t make me entirely sanguine on that when I think about him maybe running with Kasich. I’d like Hillary to have a cushion that can allow her to survive even if she gets hit with a scandal, and Trump offers that cushion.
That 538 widget just can’t be adapted to the situation here. I don’t know exactly how high Hispanic turnout will be, or how skewed toward Hillary, but I can guarantee you both will be higher by a long ways than anything we’ve seen before. College educated whites will definitely not look upon Trump the way they did Romney or McCain. And there’s not even the option to play with gender there. Women make up the majority of voters, and they overwhelmingly are repelled by The Donald. That’s not something he can undo with a little nice talk about Planned Parenthood or even six months of “run to the center” moderation (which, BTW, would piss off his personal “base”, don’t forget). He has indelibly seared an impression in women’s minds of a super skeevy slimeball.
Your point four is legit though. OTOH there is some value to digging these people up, being able to point to them and say FUCK YOU very directly, and then showing them in the most literal way possible that they are LOSERS like their hero.
McCaskill engaged in high-risk sharp elbows campaigning. But there was no attempt to get Democrats to vote in the GOP primary, or any other deception: “I’m Claire McCaskill, and I approve this message.” She was indeed hoping that the far-right candidate won the primary, but she was also hoping to get in the mind of independent voters that the likely GOP nominee was wrong for Missouri.
If Akin won, in retrospect, the McCaskill strategy would look a bit selfish on her part. But I don’t think you could say she had subverted democracy the way an Operation Chaos does.
Then there’s the aspect of the presidency being different. The damage of one far-right-wing Senator is not the same as the damage of having a thug as the chief executive of the most powerful country in the history of the world:
Rubio may also have said some terrible things, but he’s mostly doing it to play at being a Trump-lite for campaign reasons. I do think Hillary would be better than Rubio. But, ultimately, a Trump is not something to be risked as part of a too-clever-by-half strategy.
Remember the old “one percent doctrine” that Republicans were throwing around a decade ago? Well, I figure the chances of President Trump causing a major war is above one percent - and that’s too high to take a chance with. Especially when there’s no benefit to justify the risk.
I’m not saying Trump will set out to start a war. I think he’ll blunder into it. Trump is unaware of his limitations and he doesn’t how unqualified he is for the job of being President.
Trump’s a rich boy who’s never had to face the consequences of making a mistake. He’s made major mistakes in his business career but he just declares bankruptcy and walks away from it. Do you think Russia or China or Iran is going to give him a do-over like that? Being President means you get one chance to do it right.
Imagine Trump being President during some crisis: Russia threatening Ukraine; China threatening Taiwan; Iran detonating a nuclear weapon. Do you really see Trump competently handling things in a thoughtful manner? I see him making a snap decision that he needs to act strong and lobbing a cruise missile into the middle of some war zone. And then being overwhelmed when somebody like Putin or Xi or Khamenei doesn’t act like a network executive and makes a counter-threat instead of seeking “a deal”.
You’re not the first person to say how “entertaining” a Trump presidency would be.
Grow up. This is not a reality show. This is real life. A lot of people might actually die because Donald Trump is President. That’s too high a price to pay so you can have a laugh.
Cruz has shown himself as a ratfuck bastard. Forgive me if I don’t think it’s “grown up” to think Cruz is the safer choice over someone who’s mainly just an antagonistic bullshitter.
“If you refuse to vote for Trump because you don’t want him to win, then Trump wins” is not Earth logic. Voting for Trump ironically is no less effective than voting for him with the intent that he wins.
But I am talking about people’s OTT ideas about what would happen if he became president, and his hypnotic sway over mere mortal minds. Like he is Sam Neill in the final Omen movie or something.
No, those of you who refuse to acknowledge an aggressive psychopath who completely lacks any ability to be nice to anyone he doesn’t like will probably start a war are the ones who seem crazy. You ignore reality and come up with excuse after excuse that Trump cannot possibly be as bad as he seems.
By comparison, the worst Cruz and Rubio can do is set us back a ways. They’re conservatives. They cling to the past.
Trump is a guy with an anger disorder. And, as someone who knows what it’s like to be that angry, I know exactly what such a person is capable of.
Some of you are confusing Trump’s crafted public image with the actual man. Something similar happened with Dubya. He wasn’t a dumb cowboy. He was a Yale educated blueblood.
“The point is that if you are a little different, or a little outrageous, or if you do things that are bold or controversial, the press is going to write about you.”
"“I play to people’s fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That’s why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular.”
Trump’s The Art of the Deal
I prefer honest corruption to true believing zealots. Mammon, not Gog and Magog.
OK, dad. I guess “you can laugh or cry” doesn’t have much appeal to you. Nor "the world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.”
Maybe more your style, I think it was Chalmers Johnson who said a lot of the German intelligentsia laughed at Hitler and thought him a buffoon, but they ended up laughing themselves right into the grave. Time to start making hidey holes under the floorboards to hide Mexicans.
You can say those insulated from the effects of politics enjoy a great deal of privilege. That’s true. But Trump isn’t the pro-people dying in the streets, destroy government benefits, eat the poor candidate.
It’s a guarantee. Presidents kill tens, hundreds of thousands of people.
Trump has said dovish things and hawkish things. You can read whatever you want into him because he talks out of both sides of his mouth. Given these more extreme views are quite recent and his past political opinions aren’t a secret, I tend to think it’s craven political pandering to the crazy right. It’s possible he went radical conservative in his old age, though. Maybe we’ll get to find out.
Are you right? Maybe. I lean no. I think Trump really will order torture worse than waterboarding, and fire any US attorney who gets in the way, or at least grant the perps immediate pardons.
What about when Cruz said he would carpet bomb ISIS? Now, that’s something that was probably, and fortunately, antagonistic BS:
For the most part, it’s way over the top to compare Trump and Hitler. History doesn’t repeat itself all that closely, and www.donaldjtrump.com just doesn’t read like the Hitler platform. But one thing I recall (can’t find a link) is a point of comparison. Hitler voters, in 1932, were telling people like me that the soup is cooler served than when cooked (i.e. you shouldn’t think Hitler will govern based on his most extreme statements). That seems to me to be what your “antagonistic bullshitter” statement amounts to. But what I think is this: The US Presidency is an extraordinarily frustrating job because you can’t accomplish such without securing the voluntary cooperation of others, whether congresspersons, generals, bureaucrats or foreign leaders. When everything starts going wrong, a Cruz will be stubborn, for sure, but will also hit walls where he sees he has to back down. In the same situations, a Trump will physically attack his enemies, and not just abroad. Hopefully I’m wrong. I’m pretty sure we won’t find out in the case of Cruz, and hope we don’t find out whether or not the realDonaldTrump is all talk.
Trump is running for President on that crafted public image, one of a vulgarian ignorant blowhard. Why shouldn’t I take him at his word? I’m getting a bit tired of people saying, “That’s not really who he is!” In my opinion, that makes him worse, not better.
My thinking: The Republicans in the Senate are against Cruz because he disrupts the nature of the Senate and because he’s a nasty little weasel. They are not against Cruz because he’s conservative. Cruz would get the support of the Republican party as a whole. Trump? Maybe not. Because they don’t dislike Trump for his personality; they dislike him for the things he says that are not Republican/conservative.
Trump really is, at least in some areas, a RINO. Cruz is an absolute conservative Republican. Cruz has natural allies who will support him when it no longer hurts them day-to-day. They will support his message even if they despise the man.
If you want to be safer from what the person in the office of the president might do, you pick the person no one agrees with rather than the person they just think is a nasty little weasel.
Another aspect of this Slacker - I understand your fear of a Rubio-Kasich ticket. But.
Assume that gives the GOP both FL and OH, a big assumption, they still don’t have enough. Assume further it gives them a modestly bigger Hispanic share (improbable), it still does not move any other states. They do not bring new voters into the mix. And if somehow Trump loses the nomination at this point, which would almost have to be by way of a contested convention despite his having a plurality, it seems pretty likely that a good chunk of his backers will be pissed and stay home, further depressing turnout of non-college educated Whites and keeping even some of his college-educated Whites home. A Rubio-Kasich ticket battered by a bitter primary battle with Trump, is different than one in isolation; it will go down in flames, predictably and reliably.