Trump, May 2017: 100 days of [unintelligible]

no one cares if you body slam a reporter if you can put money back into their pocket in some way

this is not how Trump voters think or vote btw. generally they operate in a fact-free environment where they vote for the GOP candidate because it reinforces vague notions/deeply held narratives/matches their media intake, not because of any principles or policy outcomes or personal situations

also they hate the MSM and body-slamming a reporter is totally a good look as far as they are concerned

I agree, they have been programmed to attack the media too Οὖτις,! Remember when the Trump pussytalk came out and everyone thought he was a goner and GOP was like "oh shit get away from him he's toxic now!" but then he just won anyway so they were like "shit! back to trump he won!"

How some money was spent in Montana--

Republican groups have spent almost four times as much targeting their opponent as Democrats have. That's $1.93 million against Quist and $442,450 against Gianforte in the past 20 days.

http://helenair.com/news/politics/republicans-outspending-democrats-in-final-weeks-of-special-election/article_7a1b04d5-5001-5b8b-a5de-9f10f001dd49.html

Problems problems

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/fbi-probing-attempted-hack-trump-organization-officials/story?id=47652150

The FBI is investigating an attempted overseas cyberattack against the Trump Organization, summoning President Donald Trump’s sons, Don Jr. and Eric, for an emergency session with the bureau’s cybersecurity agents and representatives of the CIA, officials tell ABC News.

Law enforcement officials who spoke to ABC News on the condition of anonymity confirmed the attempted hack and said the subsequent meeting took place at the FBI’s New York headquarters on May 8, the day before Trump fired FBI director James Comey. Spokesmen for the FBI, CIA and Secret Service all declined to comment.

Reached by phone, Eric Trump, an executive vice president of the family company, would not confirm or deny that he and his brother had met with the FBI but told ABC News that the company had ultimately not been infiltrated.

“We absolutely weren’t hacked,” Eric Trump said during the brief call. “That’s crazy. We weren’t hacked, I can tell you that.”

this is not how Trump voters think or vote btw. generally they operate in a fact-free environment where they vote for the GOP candidate because it reinforces vague notions/deeply held narratives/matches their media intake, not because of any principles or policy outcomes or personal situations

not saying i disagree but don't you live in a pretty blue area? that's a lot of assumptions to make about people you might not be in daily interaction with (or maybe you are, i don't know)

and indeed the first thing i did after reading your post was visit neera tandem's twitter

😱

I can drive 20 miles and be in Trump country

xp

me too but i live in chicago

and i never see trump supporters, ever

i dunno. i still live in a state of weirded out fear at active trump supporters. i have read all the explanations for why they do what they do, and i still don't get it

they're assholes iirc

I think they resent cultural elitism. No one likes being looked down on, and Fox News et al have stoked that fear into paranoia. However, it's not baseless -- I feel like people I know genuinely hate red state type people.

Anyway, these cultural resentments are more powerful motivating factors for people than pragmatism for some reason.

Larry Appleton thought Republican New Jersey suburbanites were going to abduct him in a pick up truck and kill him or something.

I follow Neera on Twitter.

You gotta.

hating red state people or at least actively vocalizing that hate in tone-deaf ways has been very destructive to the left imo, i mean it's not like the GOP is "better" for them, but they're getting their votes for a lot of reasons beyond racism and sexism and xenophobia (not that those aren't part of it, obv)

Larry Appleton thought Republican New Jersey suburbanites were going to abduct him in a pick up truck and kill him or something.

how do we know for sure this didn't happen? #infowars

hating red state people or at least actively vocalizing that hate in tone-deaf ways has been very destructive to the left imo, i mean it's not like the GOP is "better" for them, but they're getting their votes for a lot of reasons beyond racism and sexism and xenophobia (not that those aren't part of it, obv)

disagree. a lot of these people are just deeply fucking stupid, and honestly you don't even have to be THAT stupid to gravitate towards a party that is going to hold you up as everything that's good and right about America and cater to every single one of your grievances, as opposed to a party that just shuffles you in with a bunch of other disenfranchised groups.

Who is this Claude Taylor Twitter cat?

Curiouser and curiouser!

https://t.co/M1X7YqFzmj pic.twitter.com/P4AoXXf2Jz

— andrew kaczynski 🤔 (@KFILE) May 26, 2017

Also, roffle.

omg https://t.co/dOOLI8LfFX pic.twitter.com/ydub0UM7Zt

— Eric Geller (@ericgeller) May 26, 2017

"Saying he was "not proud" of his behavior, he added, "I should not have responded the way I did, for that I'm sorry. I should not have treated that reporter that way, and for that I'm sorry, Mr. Ben Jacobs."
Members of the supportive crowd shouted, "You're forgiven.""

In the meantime, other members of the crowd shouted, "CELLOCELLOCELLOCELLOCELLOCELLOCELLOCELLO."

are you guys seriously crestfallen that Quist didn't win a District Democrats had basically no chance of winning?

― Οὖτις

yes, yes, I am. not surprised, certainly, but every reminder that there are places where a majority of voting citizens support these shitheads makes me sad and afraid for the future.

I can drive 20 120+ miles and be in Trump country

― Οὖτις, Friday, May 26, 2017 9:34 AM

ftfy
http://i.imgur.com/X9IqN3W.png

lol rushomancy

There are Trump counties/cities/towns w/in some of those blue districts that are <120 miles from SF, Albert (such as Pleasanton, which is 50 and generally Republican)

Xp

Whoops!

Trump adviser Gary Cohn a bit off-message on Air Force One, per pool report: “Coal doesn’t even make that much sense anymore as a feedstock" pic.twitter.com/0QLXZOik6k

— brad plumer (@bradplumer) May 26, 2017

LOL dont tell mcconnell!

There are Trump counties/cities/towns w/in some of those blue districts that are <120 miles from SF, Albert (such as Pleasanton, which is 50 and generally Republican)

― Οὖτις, Friday, May 26, 2017 11:17 AM (seven minutes ago)

According to this dataset:
http://www.sacbee.com/site-services/databases/article130410149.html

Less than 29% of Pleasanton residents are registered Republican and Trump only received 23.5% of that city's votes.

Not trying to argue this point too much, just maintaining that Trump carried no county nor city of any considerable population in California. Colusa County is the closest county to the bay area that voted Trump and that's a desolate stretch of road with sparse agricultural towns.

American middle class is feeling angry at economic disenfranchisement yet they are voting for the very forces that have sent their jobs overseas, reduced their pensions, made them pay more for health care, let wages stagnate, supported reduced corporate taxes.

This is why Bernie was so viable - no one wants the status quo of Democrats OR republicans - no one cares if you body slam a reporter if you can put money back into their pocket in some way

― Violet Jax (Violet Jynx), Friday, May 26, 2017 11:45 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

From what I understand, the uneducated american middle class care a lot about gun rights, safety, abortion, feel absolutely no solidarity towards other disenfranchised peoples. The only economic concept they care about is that they want to pay less taxes. The idea that they would have flocked to a primetime socialist as always been and remain dubious to me.

Rather Sessionsesque

NUNES still has authority over subpoenas in Russia probe, prompting grumbling in the ranks. w/@tomlobianco https://t.co/EAJg94N3E8

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 26, 2017

Weird my former pleasanton city council member coworker is always complaining about the GOP folks on the council, at meetings etc.

Xxp

I distrust Yglesias but this is otm:

Greg Gianforte’s 7 percentage point win in the Montana special election keeps a seat in Republican hands but fundamentally represents bad news for the GOP. The basic issue, as David Wasserman breaks down for the Cook Political Report, is that for prognostication purposes you don’t only want to know who wins or loses a special election — you want to know the margin.

Montana is considerably redder than the average congressional district. According to Wasserman’s calculations, in an election where Democrats got 50 percent of the two-party vote nationwide, you’d expect them to get just 39 percent in Montana. Quist scored 44 percent, and with the Libertarian pulling in 6 percent, his share of the two-party vote is more like 46.

Things aren’t as simple as saying that Rob Quist outperformed the 39 percent benchmark and therefore Democrats are on track to win — geography means Republicans can hold their majority with less than 50 percent of the vote. But the GOP underperformed badly in Montana, after a similar underperformance in the special election for Kansas’s Fourth Congressional District.

There are 120 Republican-held House seats that are more GOP-friendly than Montana’s at-large district. If Republicans are winning in places like Montana by just 7 percentage points, then they are in extreme peril of losing their House majority in November 2018.

Claiming underdog status even when it's patently untrue for motivational purposes is common as dirt, welcome to politics-as-sport.

xps lol br4d was my college roommate

From what I understand, the uneducated american middle class care a lot about gun rights, safety, abortion, feel absolutely no solidarity towards other disenfranchised peoples. The only economic concept they care about is that they want to pay less taxes. The idea that they would have flocked to a primetime socialist as always been and remain dubious to me.

Ah, yes, that ever-expanding demo, the middle class.

trump people are kinda weird because they don't seem to be trad conservatives, tea party people, OR libertarian type republicans. it seems like they want the government to help and protect them a lot. they are afraid of all outside forces and they want the president to provide for them in some way. i just wonder what's going to happen when they don't get what they want.

Have fun with that:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/tariniparti/this-republican-senator-is-trumps-public-critic-and-private

Corker has been walking a tightrope for months: He was an early Trump supporter and on the short-list to serve as secretary of state, but as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he has had to deal with frequent concerned calls from foreign leaders and occasionally had to distance himself from the president.

During the last two weeks’ seemingly endless stream of news reports and leaks from the administration that could have major foreign policy implications, Corker has found himself repeatedly dragged to the center of the chaos.

Part of his role, he admits, has become comforting foreign leaders. “Yes, no doubt, things end up getting said and yes, I mean I do find myself providing nuance to other foreign leaders. No question. That's a role that I have.”

trump people are kinda weird because they don't seem to be trad conservatives, tea party people, OR libertarian type republicans. it seems like they want the government to help and protect them a lot. they are afraid of all outside forces and they want the president to provide for them in some way. i just wonder what's going to happen when they don't get what they want.

This is the key.

And not unrelated:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/rural-america-is-the-new-inner-city-1495817008

Today, however, a Wall Street Journal analysis shows that by many key measures of socioeconomic well-being, those charts have flipped. In terms of poverty, college attainment, teenage births, divorce, death rates from heart disease and cancer, reliance on federal disability insurance and male labor-force participation, rural counties now rank the worst among the four major U.S. population groupings (the others are big cities, suburbs and medium or small metro areas).

In fact, the total rural population—accounting for births, deaths and migration—has declined for five straight years.

“The gap is opening up and will continue to open up,” said Enrico Moretti, a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, who has studied the new urban-rural divide.

Just two decades ago, the onset of new technologies, in particular the internet, promised to boost the fortunes of rural areas by allowing more people to work from anywhere and freeing companies to expand and invest outside metropolitan areas. Those gains never materialized.

well, people don't stick around rural areas anymore if they have any hope or brains. there's nothing for them there. and you are left with the elderly and people who don't feel like they can leave for various reasons. gonna be a lot of ghost towns out there in the coming years.

and then we will invent the spindizzy and all the cities will fly away. #blishforpresident

cool, turn them all into wild space

xp

freeing companies to expand and invest outside metropolitan areas. Those gains never materialized.

huh gee I wonder why that would be, maybe the wsj has some insights

xxxps

Not trying to argue this point too much, just maintaining that Trump carried no county nor city of any considerable population in California.

FWIW, Bakersfield voted Trump.

Final numbers/visualization
http://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/sov/2016-general/ssov/pres-by-political-districts.pdf
http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-pol-ca-california-neighborhood-election-results/

Bakersfield is rural as fuck. Also a former oil boom town (milkshakes were drunk there). Also has a large basque minority for some reason.

the GOP House Majority leader also reps Bako

From what I understand, the uneducated american middle class care a lot about gun rights

I'm not so sure about the "middle class", but the gun rights issue is powerful and intractable everywhere in rural America. It's a combination of things. Guns having always been more common in rural households, and there is a strong association of guns with security. Both in terms of the sheriff might be 50 miles away and guns put food on the table due to hunting game.

But I think there is also a deep-seated feeling in rural areas that they are embattled, fighting and losing a war for economic viability. Rural people don't know exactly who to blame for this (except immigrants) or how to fix it, but they feel better if they have a gun (five guns more likely), because they are damn sure they have enemies and someday they may need to shoot them.

Because it is interwoven with so much fear and anger, you just aren't going to have much success arguing people out of their position on guns. The only message that's going to resonate is to mirror back their feelings, which doesn't get us closer to curbing gun violence. But until conditions change, preaching gun control just amps up the (mostly rural - see electoral map for details) resistance and empowers republicans, who are more than happy to win those votes, turn them into tax cuts for the rich, and screw over those rural voters worse than the democrats ever would.