That just shows how low the party has fallen, like how Sparta’s reputation was such that even Alexander the Great didn’t even try to challenge them, and then a few decades later some guy whose name I’d have to look up online marched in and conquered the place.
Actually I misspoke. I was really thinking of Republican strategists not power brokers; the guys who have to figure out how to get the Republican candidate they’ve been landed with into office.
I feel you can’t overlook the role that having totally crap opposition played in Trump winning the nomination. I’m no Republican and maybe I’m no judge of these things but none of the other candidates seemed like solid centre right guys who you could have a beer with. They seemed like extreme right religious (or similar) wackos who would make average Joe’s skin crawl if he had to have a beer with them.
I feel like Trump started out none too serious but then realised much to his surprise that the other candidates were so hopeless he might actually have a shot, and so he ran with it.
To the extent that there are any “solid centre right guys” left in the Republican Party…
Several less wingnut candidates were in the primaries – Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and John Kasich come to mind. Both Bush and Rubio were seen as the anointed ones by party leadership at one point or other, but none of them could get any traction, especially once Trump started sucking the oxygen out of the room.
Kasich was the most moderate of the final crop. He could not win against Trump probably because he has the charisma of an accountant.
This sounds plausible to me. Trump doesn’t care about the details of government policy. He wants to get off Air Force One, meet with world leaders, and make “big deals.” He just wants to be the most powerful person in the world and have the prestige that comes with it.
So we could end up with Pence, a homophobe with a worldview out of the 1950s, effectively running the country.
Hey, it worked for Cheney!
The belief that Hillary Clinton will be indicted, tried, convicted and incarcerated comes pretty darned close to meeting the criteria for a “shared delusion” It marks them as extremist at best, nutcases at worst . American voters usually don’t go for folks from those categories.
And corrupt, and unabashedly fraudulent, and single-mindedly self-aggrandizing, self-centered, and power-grabbing, and completely lacking any knowledge of let alone respect for the truth, and woefully ignorant. Yes, we should all be that way. We wouldn’t have to worry about such silly little things as democracy or personal responsibility or wisdom. Matter of fact, we wouldn’t have to worry about being a superpower, because we wouldn’t be.
Kasich is no moderate, except in tone.
It comes down to magical thinking. Facts, experts and plans are for losers, we just have to believe in our guy and he’ll make America Great Again!
This article is from the American Conservative, but it makes a good point that the actual machinery of politics is so far removed from people’s reality that it may as well be magic.
Kasich is the most moderate compared to the other knuckle dragging, God-bothering subhumans who were running.
On an absolute scale, he’s still a right-wing ideological nutcase.
Kasich is a conservative ideologically, but he is also a good man who is not on board with the hate-and-fear club that has taken over the Republican Party. Kasich vs Clinton would have been a fascinating election, one Kasich would probably have won. But that’s not what today’s Republicans want. Fox News and the Becks and Hannity’s of the world have convinced them we need a Trump.
If they have “taken over” the Republican Party, then they are the Republican Party.
Which brings up, yet again, the question: if the Republican Party splits between the moderate “business” party and the batshit baboons, who gets the “brand name”, Republican?
i was wondering this as well. the past few elections have had people who have lived in more than one state. one could add d.c., as the clintons have also lived there for quite some years.
There, there. Please kiss and make up. It’s easy to confuse the dictions of lawyers and comics: many legalisms do seem like mumbo-jumbo or snark.
**[Off-topic example] ** Yesterday in a Thread Games thread, we learned that in 1985 the Supreme Court forced the Federal government to cede control of Block Island Sound to Rhode Island because Long Island is not an island. :eek: (Nevermind where the “vs Maine” in the case name comes from.)
Long Island isn’t an island because the East River had to be dredged to be navigable at low tide. This dredging, from the 1700’s and earlier, somehow affected the 1985 legal status of Block Island Sound, which is more than 100 miles away from the East River. :smack:
So, although the Board’s Esquires may disagree, I have no problem with the conflation of legal jargon with comical snark.
Jeff Flake took some time out from mowing his lawnto say the GOP had “jumped the shark” on that meme.
So, two days down and we’ve already had rampant plagiarism, outright laziness, poor planning, a floor fight, primal anger and hatred, demands that the opposition candidate be jailed without a trial (if not outright killed), and naked fascism on parade.
What’s next? Forced reeducation for gays? Putting Muslims in internment camps? Trump demanding that the delegates pay him for his expenses flying to NYC and back every night?
I wouldn’t be surprised if someone calls for the Purge to be legalized.
Of course. The minute he gets sworn in he’d all of a sudden realize that the stock market is at an all-time high, unemployment is low, and the dollar is strong. See, America’s great again!
(I’m neglecting the fact that if the idiot did get elected the Dow would plunge.)
So do we expect any “convention bounce” out of this farce?
Stolen speech update: Speechwriter takes the fall, says Melania read her the words over the phone but it was her responsibility to check to make sure they were original. WTF?
I’m sorry, but if the Trumpette is the one giving the quotes, then it’s the Trumpette’s responsibility, isn’t it?