a clown car full of millionaires: the 2016 presidential primary thread

Exposing this contagion is fine if it's cured, but that ain't happening either. The racists aren't numerous enough to affect national elections but local legislatures, however...

i kind of thought it would be a purgative experience to have all the racey-race shit on the right (and not even on the right, fuck) leech to the surface... in 2008. now i'm not really so sure frankly

shakes I am ambiguously ethnic w/ an very foreign name, I have gotten plenty of 'where are you from? no I mean..'s in my life.

w/a not w/an

also speak poor english

Ok my bad

But the point stands, people are indulging their innerworst racist thoughts without consequence, i.e. what goole sez.

Not just without consequence but also with the implicit approval of a presidential candidate who's leading in the polls.

the consequence is the gop doesn't get to pretend it's just a bunch of srs business dudes who want '4% growth', loses major elections that it could otherwise win and slowly falls apart as a national party. that's already happening. mitt romney and john mccain both had to crazyify themselves to win the nomination and sacrificed a lot of their general appeal in the process. someone who's trying to win the trump vote is going to have to go even further.

Feel like some of you guys are writing off Trump's appeal too easily; watched some the press conference last night. It's totally easy to see how he could break through to the electorate through charisma alone, "Make America Great Again", being a "bold" "decisive" leader who will "beat" China and Iran, etc. A lot of voters simply don't care that he's a sexist and racist shithead, and his oratory/pandering skills are A+. He's MUCH better at this than Bush, McCain or Romney, and miles ahead of all the other Republicans. And HRC.

I mean part of his shtick last night was he was blatantly saying he knows some really evil, despicable business people, but he'll put to them to work FOR US to those crafty leaders from China and Mexico and WE'll BEAT THEM. It's all sound business principles, of course. It's laughable that this is totally uncontroversial!

Real talk if it's Trump vs. Hillary I think he could win. Because? America

There has been this race to be most otm on the internet about "what's really 'problematic' about... etc." in a flood of think pieces. Everyone wants to be the first to have the most eye opening commentary on society, to the point that it is now a hugely popular conversation. Which is good, though comedians are having their satire picked apart and others in the media are having their comments picked apart "AHA but don't you see the joke perpetuates sexism even though it is parodying sexists" "AHA but don't you see you're empowering problematic sexist people by blurring the line between actual sexist comments and satirical ones, thereby complicating the conversation as we're unable to distinguish different levels of blah blah blah", which makes shitty people feel persecuted by "PC culture". So when Trump comes along and says all sorts of shit without catering to political correctness at all, the racists and sexists that felt persecuted look to Trump to liberate them. Even though he won't win he's stirring all those people up, and they're going to start overcompensating via dangerous, overt racism that's passed off as "passion".

Guys the odds of trump winning are zero

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, August 26, 2015 11:08 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I never thought Bush was going to win, either, but he did.

When you've got a guy standing on the same stage with governors and senators of a major party, rattling off racist diatribes and sexist comments, that behavior gets recognized as legitimate political talk. That's but one reason why Trump's candidacy is no good.

There are major structural reasons why trump cant win - latino vote, demographics of battleground states, will mobilize dem opposition etc

it is legitimate political talk insofar that it accurately reflects the political views of a large subset of the party. I don't think the country benefits from have it hidden within the gop, one level away from the public face.

loses major elections that it could otherwise win and slowly falls apart as a national party.

this is the worst kind of wishful thinking. here is the reality:

the republican party currently controls the House of Representatives by a margin of 246 seats to 188, controls the U.S. Senate by a margin of 54 to 46, holds 31 governorships, and controls 30 state legislatures outright, with another 8 legislatures splitting control between republicans and democrats.

a party is, in the end, a private actor, and can do what it wants

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_28700919/colorado-republicans-cancel-2016-presidential-caucus-vote

xpost -

perhaps, but I just recall watching debates between Gore and Bush in which it seemed obvious to me at the level of ideas that Bush was the loser, but public reaction kept regarding Bush as victorious- the language trotted out to explain these (to me) mystifying "victories" was the old canard of likability- who would you rather have a beer with? whoever that person is, that's who "wins"- because it's about captivating people.

Trump does that, not because his supporters "relate" in the sense that they think they are like him- he captivates because he's a cartoon: the Boss Daddy, the cruel castrating father who says "you're fired!" and makes others wince and crawl- he taps into a free floating sadism with which everyone in a precarious capitalist world understands intuitively- everyone for himself, me first, fuck you. But the key is not the economy but the family- Trump works because he holds a position that we don't occupy (and can't occupy- it's a placeholder for the paternal enjoyment small children project onto our no-doubt-in-reality miserable and flawed parents) - it's a position that is deeply rooted in childhood powerlessness and the consoling fantasies of tyranny that it generates. So in supporting Trump one isn't saying "I like Trump" or, even less likely, "I'm *like* Trump"- one is saying "Trump's cruelty excites me". How could anyone with actual substantive policies or an alternative message of compassion possibly hope to upstage or compete with such toxic excitement? it's undemocratic at its core, but Trump's surge proves that bullying works, if the job is simply to get and hold attention.

^ david graeber just wrote a great piece on the meaning of bullying that is right up this alley

That is not the job.

Xp

a significant number of people (anecdotally) have responded that they support trump not because they like him in toto or even believe he'll win but because they are enjoying the chaos he's causing to the GOP. a lot of the extremist types seem to share this thinking.

Collective psychoanalysis is fun and all but yr overlooking how hated trump is by critical portions of the electorate.

Xp

it also has won the popular vote in a presidential election once in the last 24 years. the republican party falling apart nationally doesn't mean it can't continue to win regionally and it's something that's going to happen over an extended period of time. that 246 to 188 seat majority was the result of winning only 52% of the vote in a midterm election.

the american voting system is pretty poorly structured, and the republicans have some pretty huge structural advantages in congress that aren't going anywhere, but in the long-term having that extra isolation from democracy isn't even a great thing for them.

xps

if it means that real governance has to be increasingly done by the executive by fiat w/o congressional cooperation, that's... really bad! we can't have everything done by exception for very long.

a revanchist party that can't be removed from control of one branch of government, and has no shot at winning the other, is a recipe for constitutional breakdown.

i would never discourage anyone from believing the worst about this country's citizens, but people might just get exhausted with Trump after six months of relentless exposure. Also, he seems to be a viable prez to somewhere between 1/8 and 1/3 of our populace ("WE NEED A BUSINESSMAN"), whereas W had.... just under 50%?

there is precisely one and only one national office in the USA, which is the presidency (the vp is so attenuated it counts only as a shadow office). If your definition of a national party is just 'wins the presidential election', whereas controlling the Congress is just some regional shit, then you are deluding yourself.

also regardless of who they donate money to srs money'd people and srs institutions don't actually care that much about whether clinton or bush or whoever really wins the election. they mostly just want stability, so 'not a total loose cannon' is pretty much all that matters, and trump doesn't pass that test. we would immediately see what it looks like when all these groups would turn on a candidate at once if he won the nomination, and we'll probably see it long before that.

xp under 50% of those who voted - the voting percentage may drop this year (or possibly not for Historic reasons)

"Control" of the House has been p lol worthy fwiw

laughing just to keep from crying, imo

They havent passed a damn thing. Boehner's accomplishments as speaker = 0

see goole's most recent posts, above. that state can't continue long before the government becomes a hollow shell operating purely on whatever impetus is preserved from the past, back when it functioned. and the presidency will become imperial out of pure necessity

trump, sensing that jeb is shifting his xenophobia toward asia, and sends a clear message that he cannot be outdone:

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump used broken English to imitate Asian negotiators during a campaign speech on Tuesday in Iowa.

During his campaign, Trump has repeatedly said that the United States is too closely tied to China's economy.

On Tuesday, the former reality TV star played out a conversation he imagined he would have with negotiators from Asian nations.

"Negotiating with Japan, negotiating with China, when these people walk into the room, they don't say, 'Oh hello, how's the weather, so beautiful outside, isn't it lovely? How are the Yankees doing? Oh they are doing wonderful, great,' " Trump said in his speech. "They say, 'We want deal."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/donald-trump-asian-imitation-video

OK, Jeb! Time to unleash Chang!

i had not heard of that before.
that is bizarre.
jeb! is weird.
FL is weird.

not because they like him in toto or even believe he'll win but because they are enjoying the chaos he's causing to the GOP
this sentiment v prevalent in online comments sections. but my guess is many of the conservatives enjoying this are not going to actually vote for trump, no matter how angry they are at establishment. imo his schtick will wear out (but who knows; trump’s popularity v weird to me though intellectually i get some of what’s going on)

also, reportedly, some significant portion of trump supporters are atypical primary voters— he’s attracting people who’ve been disaffected from politics, haven’t voted in recent elections, etc
not sure how that will shake out when primary process gets beyond just media-circus stage to actual voting

also regardless of who they donate money to srs money'd people and srs institutions don't actually care that much about whether clinton or bush or whoever really wins the election. they mostly just want stability, so 'not a total loose cannon' is pretty much all that matters, and trump doesn't pass that test.
otm

it's kind of pitiful when "our mega-wealthy overlords who control the world will step in and save us from The Donald" is taken as a comforting thought. it's the perfect complement to the radical right wingers who are gleeful at the thought that Trump is causing those same overlords indigestion and are cheering him on.

I'm starting to wonder how long it'll be before Trump drops his first full-on racial epithet. It really is almost more a question of when than if at this point.

I wouldn't go too far down the road of speculation about failed parties and resulting radical shifts etc. I wouldn't rule them out entirely but it seems like jumping to conclusions to me - plenty of other ways this kind of thing could play out. Party leaders or party insurgents could run the numbers and determine that they can't win national elections with or without the wackadoo wing, and aggressively reject the wacakdoo policies as being more trouble than they're worth. The lunatic fringe supporters could form a rump third party, or they could just go back to grumbling or maybe join the vast swaths of the non-voting. The Republicans meanwhile could be crafting a new platform and testing new stump lines that appeal to the people the wackadoos drove away. In the grand scheme of things, these kinds of recalibrations happen all the time within the course of a given two-party system.

I suppose it's possible that we're somewhere in chapter 2 of the 12-chapter narrative of how the current party system; as I'm finding out, people that care about such things aren't even sure whether we're still in the "Fifth Party System" (the one beginning from the New Deal, with the south /and/ the black vote firmly incorporated into the Democratic party) or a "Sixth Party System" (beginning some time between Civil Rights and the 1980s, with the Sunbelt and Reagan Democrats turning Republican).

As people have started writing recently, the 2020 census, particularly if aligned with a strong election or two for Democrats, could help undo some of the particularly heinous redistricting that's given the Republicans a Congressional presence so disproportionate to their electoral performance (56.8% of seats versus 51.2% of the popular vote in the last midterm, 53.8% of seats versus 47.65 of the popular vote in 2012 - that is bonkers). This, too, could dial us back down to a comparatively more functional and representative government without precipitating a constitutional crisis.

It's also possible, though I don't really see signs of it at present, that we could be heading towards one of the really infrequent moments where something actually shifts constitutionally by popular demand; a charismatic leader brandishing a movement for some political-process amendments, for example. Quashing Citizens United probably has the most people talking about it, but in terms of really getting out of deadlock and do-nothing-ism, i still think it'd be interesting to see a real national conversation around instant-runoff voting, or finally doing something about the composition of the Senate. The movement that led to the direct election of Senators was moribund until the 1880s or so, IIRC, then very quickly started getting adopted by individual states and high-profile politicians, specifically mobilized by a sense that the Senate was a bunch of corrupt do-nothings and that the process was broken. (See also: referendums, recalls, all that stuff.) Again, right now I'm not even seeing the first stirrings of that kind of development but it's not without precedent. Hell, maybe D.C. statehood will happen and then suddenly the Republicans will be leading the charge to end the two-senators-per-state arrangement... ha.

But yeah, Trump... I mean, Trump has a plurality of the polling in an extremely large primary field. He's scary and he can do a lot of harm as discussed above but we really do not have to talk seriously about him winning anything, even if one believes that's what he's trying to do. The absolute best he could possibly perform electorally, if everything goes perfectly for him and if he wants to do it, is to run as an independent and lose, with some subset of his current polling fans still turning out to vote for him. Even in this scenario I don't see him beating Ross Perot's 1996 performance but I guess something between that and Perot '92 isn't impossible.

http://noticias.univision.com/article/2441344/2015-08-24/impresiones/jorge-ramos-opina-trumplandia

Article (en español) written by Jorge Ramos, detailing what Trump's immigration proposals would look like if actually carried out. Now of course you may think it's a waste of time to actually look at how this crazy idea would actually play out, but I find it kind of interesting.

Some highlights: the military, police, and immigration agents would have to mount a huge operation, going into homes, work places, schools etc. rounding up millions of men, women and children in large public spaces such as sports stadiums to await being put on buses to Mexico and planes to all other parts of the world. The court system would be paralyzed. There would be wide-scale human rights abuses. This would cost around $12,500 per individual, or $137,000,000,000.

Repealing the 14th Amendment would be mean over 4 million children of the already expelled undocumented would now be stateless people. They would eventually have to be sent to their country of "origin", but where to send a kid born in America with a father from Mexico and a mother from Honduras?

The wall across the border would cost at least $20,000,000,000. 40% of undocumented people in the United States arrive by airplane and overstay their visas.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/08/donald-trump-is-going-to-lose-because-hes-crazy.html

But politics does not work like business. You can get rich being loved by a quarter of the country and hated by the rest, but you can’t get elected president that way. Trump has a brilliant strategy for winning the loyalty of a quarter of the primary electorate, or perhaps a third. He has no strategy for winning a majority, which is what you need to get the nomination. Indeed, the things Trump has done to elevate his profile have pushed that majority further from his reach. If the campaign gets to the point where there is one candidate left standing against Trump, that candidate will enjoy the unified support of the party's financial, media, and organizational strength. Trump has the power to destroy, but not to conquer.

Which brings us back to the question of what it is Trump is after. His presidential campaign seems to have come at enormous financial cost. His undisguised (or less-disguised) racism has made him an economic pariah. He has lost sponsorship agreements from a long list of corporations that want to sell things to people who aren’t white. He’s traded his lucrative brand for Pat Buchanan’s brand.

This immunity from consequence gives Trump the power to wreak apparently limitless havoc upon what is currently his party. The consequences Republicans impose for Trump's offenses have no effect on him. You cannot threaten a man if you don’t even know what he cares about. Is Trump running to spite the reporters who mocked him as a bluffer? As an expensive lark, like the time he got piano lessons from Elton John? To use his political fame to trade up for his next wife? Does Trump actually believe he can become president of the United States?

In answer to that last question, I believe the answer is no. And I still don't believe he has any actual desire to become president, either.

As people have started writing recently, the 2020 census, particularly if aligned with a strong election or two for Democrats, could help undo some of the particularly heinous redistricting that's given the Republicans a Congressional presence so disproportionate to their electoral performance (56.8% of seats versus 51.2% of the popular vote in the last midterm, 53.8% of seats versus 47.65 of the popular vote in 2012 - that is bonkers). This, too, could dial us back down to a comparatively more functional and representative government without precipitating a constitutional crisis.

slightly off topic but this is the perfect time to pass legislation that would delegate the 2020 redistricting process to a non-partisan 3rd party. 2020 is still far enough away, and the outcome uncertain enough, that it could be done now without being perceived as a "giveaway" for either democrats or republicans.

/naivebutmostlytrue

To Shakey upthread - yes but for the knee-jerkily anti-government voter, NOT passing things is more feature than bug.

Trump doesn't seem to care about the money lost as long as he's still rich, so maybe he just thinks it would be fun to become a Fox News host for a few years on the back of his run?

lol that would be a funny turnabout for Ailes (not putting it past him tbh)

I find it funny (scary?) that anyone would believe that making "America great again" is as simple as a declaration, outside of some dystopian North Korean propaganda-fed society.

"Mr. Trump, Mr. Trump ... how do you plan to make America great again?"

"Well, it's simple. I'm rich, very rich. I made that money, and that is what makes me great."

"So exactly how would you make America great again?"

"Easy, just make us the richest country on earth."

"But we already are?"

"Don't be a loser. China owns us. We're worth nothing."

"So how would you make us great again?"

"We should build a Great Wall of America to keep out the Chinese, the Mexicans, the Canadians, and keep America for the Americans!"

"OK. Who would build this wall?"

"Americans, hard working Americans. For America, by Americans! And no one will be allowed in or out, or to exchange currency, or to say anything bad about me. And once the wall is done, we will go straight to building more monuments. Remember when America built monuments? Monuments are what made all the great civilizations great. Rome, Greece, Egypt, Easter Island. There will be an enormous monument in every state, the biggest! And they can have hotels, and casinos. And they will be great! And every nation on earth will wish they were us."

"we want deal" is amazing in its dumbfuckery

Can't blame him, really.

http://s3-ak.buzzfeed.com/static/campaign_images/webdr05/2013/6/14/11/kim-deal-fired-the-pixies-1-25808-1371222823-0_big.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56W16EMxi54