# Trump's Republican primary campaign **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 3, 2015, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828 "2015-09-03T18:00:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 169
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2016, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3365 "2016-04-09T03:33:07Z")
Trump isn’t the leader of a movement. But there’s probably someone out there now taking note of his success, and this someone, whoever it is, could be very dangerous in a few years. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2016, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3366 "2016-04-09T03:39:55Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > “in reality the article tell us… that a good chunk of people in America (not enough to win the presidency as the polling shows) thinks that he should be the shitty candidate that “shitty America” deserves” > > (the bolded parts in the quote) > > If that’s what you got from Hague’s piece, I think you missed the point he was making. I as referring there to what Hague said; followed to what the rapper did say. **Hank** here is trying to make it sound as if both Hague and the rapper are on the same side, not so; but I can see how my wording there can confuse others. Sorry. In any case, I do know what Hague point was. That Trump is a dangerous man that should never had been considered for higher office. Others like the rapper do think that Trump is the shitty candidate that America deserves. Not a ringing endorsement either, so who knows then where **Hank Beecher** ’s position is. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2016, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3367 "2016-04-09T06:40:35Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > No, that’s **liberal** politics. **Progressive** politics is what Sanders represents, and he has taken a lot of heat for ostensibly ignoring or dismissing racial issues in favor of class issues. OK, that’s a good point, and I was possibly wrong. I do agree that Sanders is more in the mold of the kind of Leftists the Red Scares were trying to weed out, the people who were more concerned with income inequality and standards of living than how one race was doing relative to another. If Sanders were politically more of a true Socialist as opposed to a Social Democrat, and politically arguing from a position of strength, I think he might even denounce BLM for playing into a Bourgeois racial narrative which serves to divide the working class against itself instead of uniting against the property-owning class and yadda yadda yadda piles of skulls yadda yadda yadda seventy-year dictatorship of the oligarchs. My point is, both Sanders and Trump have legitimate appeal to poor whites. The problem Sanders faces are, first, he’s not going to win the primary and, second, he has to tie the legitimacy of his candidacy to the BLM crowd, which is immediately off-putting to poor whites. The problem Trump _presents_ (Trump not being self-aware enough to _face_ any problems) is that all of his solutions are tied up with the racist, violent, misogynistic culture the GOP has cozied up to ever since it inaugurated the Southern Strategy, and thus represents the worst aspects of nationalism, which is to say it’s _ethnic_ nationalism. Ethnic nationalism is a hold-over from the Old World, something which Europe has almost beaten out of itself through a series of bloody wars but which still resurfaces whenever Roma and/or Arabs dare poke their heads up. As terrible as it is in Europe, it’s even worse in the New World, where all of the currently dominant cultures are immigrant cultures, and so can only claim an ethnic nationalist heritage all the way back to Last Thursday, in a broad historical sense. Civic nationalism, the nationalism of shared values without regard for ethnicity or country of origin or anything else, is what American nationalism should be about. It, ideally, entails a deemphasis of any aspect of the culture which would make members of that culture unable to live peacefully in a diverse society; not a melting pot, not homogenization, but no excessively rough edges, either. Trump’s emphasis of racist solutions is a big fucking rough edge to put on a whole class of people. The best lubricant is making sure everyone feels like they have a stable economic basis in society, and that nobody else is getting anything they’re not getting. There’s that word “fair” again, and, once again, Trump whines about “unfairness” because it resonates with his base: Poor whites who feel everyone but them is getting special hand-outs and hand-ups, such as Affirmative Action. As long as they think that, the idea of them making common cause with BLM or anything like it is a pipe dream, and the GOP will be able to race-bait them until the cows come home. Psychological experiments verify that people will screw themselves over to hurt someone who was unfair; this apparently extends to voting for mainstream Republicans. Being able to do it by voting for Trump is just icing on the cake. So I go back to what I’ve been saying for a little while now: Trump is a symptom. The cause is income inequality combined with the race-baiting the GOP has been doing for decades, which has convinced poor whites they’re being left behind while poor blacks and poor everyone-not-white are getting special treatment. When, as is looking increasingly likely, Trump just barely misses winning the Republican nomination, the GOP will be punished severely by that demographic. It might even form a third party, an American version of the BNP, and keep the Republicans out of office until and unless the GOP dumps Norquist and his band of idiots and grows an economic policy somewhat more advanced than reducing the top marginal income tax rate and screeching about U-Haul and Socialism and Bootstraps whenever someone other than the Koch Brothers wants something. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2016, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3368 "2016-04-09T07:08:09Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > The lack of ideological thinking on this thread is stunning. Even after months of political success, people here … still seem to see TRUMP as just a celebrity pseudo-candidate who is but a flavour of the month just like Herman Cain or Rick Perry in 2012 even after months of electoral victories in every region of the country. They fail to see that TRUMP has espoused a coherent vision of “radical centrist” populist nationalism since at least the 1980s and that he is leading an ideological revolution in a major party not seen since Goldwater’s “movement conservative” takeover of the GOP in 1964 and McGovern’s New Left capture of the Democratic Party in 1972. On the one hand, I agree with you that Trump is not just a joke candidate who isn’t serious about running. I agree with you that Trump’s candidacy and campaign is focused on a serious shake up of the Republican party. However, I disagree that there’s any [coherent vision](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Donald_Trump)coming out of Trump, much less one that’s been consistent since the 1980s. For Pete’s sake, he’s changed his position on abortion, he used to support the Clintons, he was in favor of universal health care in 1999, but now wants to repeal Obamacare and replace it with a free market system, except with insurance mandates. In 1990, Trump advocated legalizing drugs because the War on Drugs was “a joke”, but in 2015 he opposed legalizing marijuana. And nothing he espouses is “radical centrist”. He’s a protectionist and isolationist, he wants to make abortion illegal (except possibly rape and incest), he wants to bring back and increase the use of capital punishment, he wants mass arrest of protesters and to loosen defamation laws, thereby weakening the First Amendment protections on free speech. He supports “traditional marriage” and says he would consider appointing Supreme Court justices that would overturn the one that made gay marriage legal. He wants to reinstate the use of waterboarding and even stronger unspecified tactics, i.e. torture. He’s a science idiot, supporting claims that vaccination causes autism and doesn’t believe in climate change. > [@elucidator](#): > > Shakespeare just as bad as TV, like _Macbeth_, too much gratuitous Saxon violence. 😉 > [@GIGObuster](#): > > You really have no clue how the followers of discord think. I have seen Banks and others reporting that what they want to see is someone that will break things so much that the one following Trump will benefit many, as it will be one that will put the pieces together in a better way. (how many will suffer on the way to that is something that the ones that want to see Trump become the shittiest do not want to explain) > [@JRDelirious](#): > > Meanwhile, Banks ISTM is basically saying “yeah, he’s what this shitty country deserves” – she’s sort of the mirror image to Susan Sarandon who implied that absent Bernie, maybe a Trump term would help accelerate the revolution. Of course, what do either of them care about all the people for whom their desired upheaval would mean pain. Both of them think there is already a lot of pain and suffering, so while there would be some pain during the shake up, their hope is that in the rebuilding on the other side, things would be more equitable, and the resulting situation would be a net reduction in pain. > [@Hank\_Beecher](#): > > And neither of them describe Bank’s, who called Trump the only one with the balls to go after big business, and somewhat supports his position on immigration: > > [“Not for any other reason than black Americans still not having been paid reparations for slavery and the influx INTERNATIONAL immigrants (not just Mexicans), are sucking up state aid, and government money, space in schools, quality of life etc??”](http://radio.com/2015/09/08/azealia-banks-donald-trump-immigration-policy/) It’s funny, that link also has her saying: > [@](#): > > “And you ALL MISSED THE POINT. I’m not supporting Trump.” Banks added, “I’m pointing out the fact that the media has been really really instrumental in helping black people forget about things and shine this all American bulls — in people’s faces.” [She also tweeted](http://www.papermag.com/azealia-banks-donald-trump-endorses-1704182693.html) > [@](#): > > Donald trump is SUCH a megalomaniac. This is about HIM. not the banks, not the church, not the people. HIM. [https://twitter.com/MarlowNYC/status/716101266489884673](https://t.co/RWcBLsvRJD) > — AZEALIABANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) April 2, 2016 And thinking Trump is going to bust up big business is just stupid. Trump _is_ big business. He’s a billionaire who earned his money on the backs of the working class. He got rich in real estate and casinos and hotels, then by branding his name and licensing it out to other ventures. Trump’s number one and only care is Trump. > [@Hank\_Beecher](#): > > Hague didn’t endorse Trump. No one here claimed he did. And you are misreading what Banks said. She said for America to keep up with itself we _need_ Trump. She is rejecting the notion that we can or should judge candidates on who is a better _person_, and deciding instead to choose the person likely to be the best _leader_. She said nothing about the “best leader”. She said she wants the most transparent evil piece of shit, because at least we know he’s a piece of shit, whereas all the other politicians we seem to think aren’t pieces of shit, but they are, too, so why not get the biggest piece of shit there is. She doesn’t want a leader, she wants a mess. > [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I have little doubt she knows exactly what she’s doing. Sort of a hip-hop version of Miley Cyrus. More like Justin Beiber. > [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > If anything, TRUMP is the most consistently conservative candidate in this race in as much as his ideology tends to put the national interest before the free market whereas mainstream Republican politics is generally free-market liberalism with certain culturally conservative tendencies on wedge issues. Many of his stated positions do sound like he puts national interest first. His wall is to stop illegal immigration. His ban on Muslims is to prevent importing terrorists. But his idea of fixing Obamacare is a free market insurance, except with mandates and possibly with a catastrophic care plan for the poor, but citizens only. Poor illegals can suck ass. He wants to loosen defamation laws so he can sue reporters who say bad things about him that he claims are lies. He wants to shut down protests by having mass arrests. He says he’s for campaign finance reform, but hasn’t given any specifics on how that would work. He wants a higher ethanol mandate - that means more ethanol in gasoline, which will tear up older cars. He called for a boycott on Apple because they wouldn’t help the FBI hack the iPhone used by the San Bernadino terrorists. He opposes increasing the minimum wage. > [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > So let me get this straight…are you seriously claiming that you believe _anyone_ can pay off $19T in debt (plus interest) in 8 years? Well, see, the first thing you do is you take out a small $19T loan. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2016, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3369 "2016-04-09T12:57:36Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > On the one hand, I agree with you that Trump is not just a joke candidate who isn’t serious about running. I agree with you that Trump’s candidacy and campaign is focused on a serious shake up of the Republican party. > > However, I disagree that there’s any [coherent vision](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Donald_Trump)coming out of Trump, much less one that’s been consistent since the 1980s. For Pete’s sake, he’s changed his position on abortion, he used to support the Clintons, he was in favor of universal health care in 1999, but now wants to repeal Obamacare and replace it with a free market system, except with insurance mandates. In 1990, Trump advocated legalizing drugs because the War on Drugs was “a joke”, but in 2015 he opposed legalizing marijuana. This is it, in a nutshell. To see coherency in Trump’s position, vision, or even \*speech \*from day to day, for God’s sake, requires more naked projection than a peep show booth. On one end of the spectrum, you have Mr. and Mrs. Angry Voter who can’t quite articulate exactly what they think Trump is going to do to fix what ails us, but have a pretty good feeling that he’s the man, and that’s good enough. At the distant other end, someone like **Qin** , who has (when most others his age are focused on Xbox, beer, getting laid and maybe a march or two to protest something-or-other if it’s convenient) spent untold hours constructing an elaborate fantasy-prophecy of an avenging Overman, a messianic political figure who’s going to roll in and turn the nation on its ear, and then take an unapologetic leak in the other ear. And whattaya know? Along comes Trump, just as it was foretold. Hallelujah. Okay, so he doesn’t _quite_ fit, but… the time is nigh, so he’ll have to do. People see in Trump exactly what they want to see. It’s _Being There_, if Chance had a hideous comb-over and logorrhea. > [@Irishman](#): > > She said nothing about the “best leader”. She said she wants the most transparent evil piece of shit, because at least we know he’s a piece of shit, whereas all the other politicians we seem to think aren’t pieces of shit, but they are, too, so why not get the biggest piece of shit there is. She doesn’t want a leader, she wants a mess. I’m not sure where you got the idea that Ms. Banks doesn’t have the USA’s best interest at heart. > [@Azealia Banks](#): > > I hate everything about this country. Like, I hate fat white Americans. All the people who are crunched into the middle of America, the real fat and meat of America, are these racist conservative white people who live on their farms. Those little teenage girls who work at Kmart and have a racist grandma—that’s really America. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2016, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3370 "2016-04-09T13:43:47Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Trump isn’t the leader of a movement. But there’s probably someone out there now taking note of his success, and this someone, whoever it is, could be very dangerous in a few years. I don’t see it. Following a Trump loss, a guy who tries to duplicate his act will be called out on it; it’ll be _obvious_, and he’ll get hit with quick and easy comparisons to the laughingstock he’s clearly trying to follow in the footsteps of – the difference being, _nobody’s_ going to make the mistake they made this time, of underestimating a ‘Trump’ type early on; that worked once, so I can’t imagine it working again “in a few years”. They’re going to come after him hard and fast from Day One; from _before_ Day One. They’ll spend much of their efforts taking down whoever comes closest to bearing a passing _resemblance_ to Trump – and spending much of what’s left trying to paint themselves as the anti-Trump, to avoid being the Trump-esque target. Trump won’t be a model; he’ll be a cautionary tale, a boogeyman: something you try to prove you’re _not,_ after someone strikes a low blow by comparing you to him. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2016, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3371 "2016-04-09T14:09:18Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > OK, that’s a good point, > … > When, as is looking increasingly likely, Trump just barely misses winning the Republican nomination, the GOP will be punished severely by that demographic. It might even form a third party, an American version of the BNP, and keep the Republicans out of office until and unless the GOP dumps Norquist and his band of idiots and grows an economic policy somewhat more advanced than reducing the top marginal income tax rate and screeching about U-Haul and Socialism and Bootstraps whenever someone other than the Koch Brothers wants something. Truly a beautiful post from end to end. My thoughts on Trump exactly. The “good” news about Trump is that as reprehensible as he is, as an individual he seems less coldly bloodthirsty than most would-be authoritarians. The next guy to take up Trumpism’s mantle may be (will probably be) much more of a professional authoritarian in the model of a Chavez or a Fujimori. Or, heaven forfend, a Putin. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2016, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3372 "2016-04-09T17:47:22Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > OK, that’s a good point, and I was possibly wrong. I do agree that Sanders is more in the mold of the kind of Leftists the Red Scares were trying to weed out, the people who were more concerned with income inequality and standards of living than how one race was doing relative to another. > > If Sanders were politically more of a true Socialist as opposed to a Social Democrat, and politically arguing from a position of strength, I think he might even denounce BLM for playing into a Bourgeois racial narrative which serves to divide the working class against itself instead of uniting against the property-owning class and yadda yadda yadda piles of skulls yadda yadda yadda seventy-year dictatorship of the oligarchs. > > My point is, both Sanders and Trump have legitimate appeal to poor whites. The problem Sanders faces are, first, he’s not going to win the primary and, second, he has to tie the legitimacy of his candidacy to the BLM crowd, which is immediately off-putting to poor whites. The problem Trump _presents_ (Trump not being self-aware enough to _face_ any problems) is that all of his solutions are tied up with the racist, violent, misogynistic culture the GOP has cozied up to ever since it inaugurated the Southern Strategy, and thus represents the worst aspects of nationalism, which is to say it’s _ethnic_ nationalism. > > Ethnic nationalism is a hold-over from the Old World, something which Europe has almost beaten out of itself through a series of bloody wars but which still resurfaces whenever Roma and/or Arabs dare poke their heads up. As terrible as it is in Europe, it’s even worse in the New World, where all of the currently dominant cultures are immigrant cultures, and so can only claim an ethnic nationalist heritage all the way back to Last Thursday, in a broad historical sense. Civic nationalism, the nationalism of shared values without regard for ethnicity or country of origin or anything else, is what American nationalism should be about. It, ideally, entails a deemphasis of any aspect of the culture which would make members of that culture unable to live peacefully in a diverse society; not a melting pot, not homogenization, but no excessively rough edges, either. Trump’s emphasis of racist solutions is a big fucking rough edge to put on a whole class of people. > > The best lubricant is making sure everyone feels like they have a stable economic basis in society, and that nobody else is getting anything they’re not getting. There’s that word “fair” again, and, once again, Trump whines about “unfairness” because it resonates with his base: Poor whites who feel everyone but them is getting special hand-outs and hand-ups, such as Affirmative Action. As long as they think that, the idea of them making common cause with BLM or anything like it is a pipe dream, and the GOP will be able to race-bait them until the cows come home. Psychological experiments verify that people will screw themselves over to hurt someone who was unfair; this apparently extends to voting for mainstream Republicans. Being able to do it by voting for Trump is just icing on the cake. > > So I go back to what I’ve been saying for a little while now: Trump is a symptom. The cause is income inequality combined with the race-baiting the GOP has been doing for decades, which has convinced poor whites they’re being left behind while poor blacks and poor everyone-not-white are getting special treatment. When, as is looking increasingly likely, Trump just barely misses winning the Republican nomination, the GOP will be punished severely by that demographic. It might even form a third party, an American version of the BNP, and keep the Republicans out of office until and unless the GOP dumps Norquist and his band of idiots and grows an economic policy somewhat more advanced than reducing the top marginal income tax rate and screeching about U-Haul and Socialism and Bootstraps whenever someone other than the Koch Brothers wants something. You have to be joking about that Red Scare thing. They were trying to weed out the social justice types?? Are you talking about the red scare of the 50s? Distinctions were not on the agenda. Race? You think they cared? ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2016, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3373 "2016-04-09T18:55:36Z")
Trump is comedy gold. The rest of the world seems to think so, too. [http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160408-how-comics-around-the-world-view-trump](http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160408-how-comics-around-the-world-view-trump) I especially liked Clisare’s take. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2016, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3374 "2016-04-09T23:41:32Z")
Trump surrogate Roger Stone [incites mob violence against delegates](http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trumps-convention-strategy-the-fix-is-in) who flip against Trump on the second ballot. > [@](#): > > “We will disclose the hotels and the room numbers of those delegates who are directly involved in the steal,” Stone said Monday, on Freedomain Radio. “If you’re from Pennsylvania, we’ll tell you who the culprits are. We urge you to visit their hotel and find them." ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3375 "2016-04-10T01:06:33Z")
A look into a future - who knew the Globe has a sense of humor 😃 (PDF) [https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2797782/Ideas-Trump-front-page.pdf](https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2797782/Ideas-Trump-front-page.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3376 "2016-04-10T01:40:53Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Trump isn’t the leader of a movement. But there’s probably someone out there now taking note of his success, and this someone, whoever it is, could be very dangerous in a few years. > [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Trump won’t be a model; he’ll be a cautionary tale, a boogeyman: something you try to prove you’re _not,_ after someone strikes a low blow by comparing you to him. We have two starkly different predictions here. It would be foolish to be sure of either. I lean towards The Other Waldo Pepper, partly because US demographics are healthier (which to me means closer to replacement fertility) than most other westernized countries. More babies, more optimism about the future. Also, the US system of government structurally favors the two party system, so it is harder to have a strong US equivalent of UKIP or BNP. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3377 "2016-04-10T01:51:03Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > You have to be joking about that Red Scare thing. They were trying to weed out the social justice types?? Are you talking about the red scare of the 50s? Distinctions were not on the agenda. Race? You think they cared? OK, I have to thank you now. I’m watching the _wonderful_ snarky review of _Lady in the Water_ by The Nostalgia Critic ([YouTube link to Part 1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j13OAJzdtqg&nohtml5=False)) and this post just made me laugh more than Paul Giamatti screaming his way past a swimming pool and a steroidal Chia Pet. You’re asking if the politically-active section of the American populace cared about race in the 1950s. I, briefly dazed by the question, _almost_ attempted a straight answer to that. I almost missed how you completely misread a good fraction of my post, but the fact you leveraged that fundamental misunderstanding into revealing an even deeper ignorance of one of the major political movements of the past century or so makes your post a thing of beauty. Against such magnificence, the Gods contend in vain. If _anyone else_ has a problem with my post, I’ll explain it further. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3378 "2016-04-10T02:00:53Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > I don’t see it. > > Following a Trump loss, a guy who tries to duplicate his act will be called out on it; it’ll be _obvious_, and he’ll get hit with quick and easy comparisons to the laughingstock he’s clearly trying to follow in the footsteps of – the difference being, _nobody’s_ going to make the mistake they made this time, of underestimating a ‘Trump’ type early on; that worked once, so I can’t imagine it working again “in a few years”. > > They’re going to come after him hard and fast from Day One; from _before_ Day One. They’ll spend much of their efforts taking down whoever comes closest to bearing a passing _resemblance_ to Trump – and spending much of what’s left trying to paint themselves as the anti-Trump, to avoid being the Trump-esque target. > > Trump won’t be a model; he’ll be a cautionary tale, a boogeyman: something you try to prove you’re _not,_ after someone strikes a low blow by comparing you to him. Nobody will try to emulate Trump’s buffoonery. But there’s a toxic brand of populism that’s waiting to be co-opted and nuanced by an opportunistic center-right nationalist. Trump was destined to fail because he was never truly serious about running a serious political campaign in the first place. Trump doesn’t care and probably doesn’t really want to be president. But someone out who does is watching this and taking note of Trump’s successes. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3379 "2016-04-10T02:01:18Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > We have two starkly different predictions here. It would be foolish to be sure of either. > > I lean towards The Other Waldo Pepper, partly because US demographics are healthier (which to me means closer to replacement fertility) than most other westernized countries. More babies, more optimism about the future. Also, the US system of government structurally favors the two party system, so it is harder to have a strong US equivalent of UKIP or BNP. I agree with you, with an expansion and a caveat: The expansion is that the US is taking on a substantial number of Hispanics, who will alter the calculus for any future politician who hopes to mount a race-centric campaign in the future. This is close to the demographic now-or-never time for the old-fashioned angry white guy party to win at the national level. The caveat is that the US has had some fairly successful regional third parties. Minnesota is famous for this, with the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party and the Independence Party of Minnesota (the Reform Party of Minnesota when I lived there) winning fair numbers of elections, including governorships and House and Senate seats. The Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party is still fairly successful, by which I mean wildly successful when compared to other American third parties. An American BNP or UKIP equivalent could well infest some states for a while after it becomes demographically impossible for a white-centric party to succeed at the national level. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3380 "2016-04-10T02:14:53Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Nobody will try to emulate Trump’s buffoonery. But there’s a toxic brand of populism that’s waiting to be co-opted and nuanced by an opportunistic center-right nationalist. Trump was destined to fail because he was never truly serious about running a serious political campaign in the first place. Trump doesn’t care and probably doesn’t really want to be president. But someone out who does is watching this and taking note of Trump’s successes. Keyword there is nuanced. It’ll have to be someone much more experienced in politics than Trump, and who has some substantial (i.e. nonimaginary) policies and plans, again, unlike Trump. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3381 "2016-04-10T02:32:33Z")
Only one of Trump’s voting age children is registered to vote for him in the upcoming New York primary. [http://www.addictinginfo.org/2016/04/09/trumps-own-children-wont-be-voting-for-him-heres-why/](http://www.addictinginfo.org/2016/04/09/trumps-own-children-wont-be-voting-for-him-heres-why/) ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3382 "2016-04-10T02:37:19Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > Only one of Trump’s voting age children is registered to vote for him in the upcoming New York primary. > > [http://www.addictinginfo.org/2016/04/09/trumps-own-children-wont-be-voting-for-him-heres-why/](http://www.addictinginfo.org/2016/04/09/trumps-own-children-wont-be-voting-for-him-heres-why/) Hahaha that’s funny. One wonders if they’d want to anyway. Here’s something interesting about the CO delegate fight. Could we be looking at an upcoming Trump-Kasich ticket? [http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/09/politics/michigan-republican-delegates-ted-cruz-donald-trump-john-kasich/index.html](http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/09/politics/michigan-republican-delegates-ted-cruz-donald-trump-john-kasich/index.html) ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3383 "2016-04-10T02:39:29Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > … > An American BNP or UKIP equivalent could well infest some states for a while after it becomes demographically impossible for a white-centric party to succeed at the national level. Agree. We see evidence of this every time we see the national presidential vote coming out 51/49 but at the same time there are hard red counties in hard red states electing hard red congressmen and hard red state legislators and in many places hard red complete legislatures and governors. IMO it’s a virtual certainty that we’ll see hard red splinter parties appear in the bastions. In another thread our own dear **adaher** pointed out a similar idea and IIRC included links to some regional demographics showing we’re 50+ years from seeing the end of some of the \*all white all the time \* areas. Right now the rising water is at their knees. When it gets to their chest they’re gonna be \*real \*interested in fighting a rear guard action to hold onto the heritage as long as possible. Heck, the Confederacy fell 150 years ago and it’s still darn popular in many such circles despite all the cultural dilution they suffered not only in the immediate aftermath, but also in the rest of the intervening 150 years. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2016, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828/3384 "2016-04-10T04:32:21Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > Hahaha that’s funny. One wonders if they’d want to anyway. > > Here’s something interesting about the CO delegate fight. Could we be looking at an upcoming Trump-Kasich ticket? > > [http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/09/politics/michigan-republican-delegates-ted-cruz-donald-trump-john-kasich/index.html](http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/09/politics/michigan-republican-delegates-ted-cruz-donald-trump-john-kasich/index.html) Brainfart…it’s the MI delegate fight. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828.md?page=168) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-republican-primary-campaign/729828.md?page=170)