The nation may survive, but the wound to hope and order will never fully heal - US elections 2016: the october surprises

yeah I'm not sure what he can apologize for

There's a certain horror to the fact that Trump's open racism and misogyny, his advocacy of torture, his insults to the Khans, his nonsensical 'build the wall' position, his barely concealed hypocrisy about religion, his open ignorance about the nuclear triad, his bragging about knowing more than the generals, his endless insults to muslims, his shameless shilling for his own businesses, and much more in a similar vein was not enough to cause his downfall or disqualify him in the eyes of many voters. There is an even deeper horror in the realization that he's still likely to get more than 40% of the votes cast in November, even after all this.

lol wins

spinach dip

He shoed me!

its not like trump didnt fucking say the stuff in the video, they're just arguing about the timing. stupid shit.

xxxxp yeah and I believe this is what Obama was trying to call out yesterday - anyone who unendorsed over this looks worse than the ones who didn't, because if you do then you're implicitly suggesting that you were okay with all the other stuff.

I draw the line at explicit proof!

it's also probably relevant how easily believable the accusations are

Especially since it's EXACTLY what he said he liked to do! The logic is very strained:

1. I was lying when I said I grope women.

2. I'm sorry and that's not who I am.

3. I was telling the truth when I said I don't grope women.

4. But actually all guys talk like that and it's not a big deal.

5. And the women who say I groped them are lying by saying that I did exactly what I said I liked to do (because I was lying when I said that).

He should sue himself for defamation.

I think that the bringing up of Bill is a different chain of badly-formed thoughts. It's not about winning, or changing anyone's mind, I suspect. In his mind he's simply "fighting mud with mud." With that, I think it's just the pure id of the cornered animal. He wants to make sure that even though Hillary is going to win, she should win having been damaged, tainted, dragged down into the mud with him.

The "Hillary is an enabler who attacked Bill's victims" stuff is just excessively-abstract intellectual window dressing that Newt and the Breitbarters insist on.

Finally, all this makes the mouthbreathing base very happy. Finally! Someone who's fighting the left and isn't afraid to fight dirty!

I really hope there's a journalist enterprising enough to see if the passenger manifest for that flight still exists.

He wants to make sure that even though Hillary is going to win, she should win having been damaged, tainted, dragged down into the mud with him.

But even that's failing, because when he brought all the Bill stuff up at the debate, she didn't even acknowledge it. And she hasn't said a word about it since. So the whole story is "look what a dick Trump is for bringing this shit up - how desperate he must be."

I do kinda wonder why he cancelled that thing with Hannity + Bill's accusers cuz I have a hard time attributing it to sound judgment on Trump's part

fell through when the people Hannity actually thought were Bill's accusers turned out to be two frayed bits of string sitting on his desk chair

no one is going to believe this british dude, why would he remember two people across the aisle from him doing nothing 35 years ago? trump wasn't famous then, was he?

He can remember it because he has a very very good memory. Duh.

Cilizza also floating this "what will Trump do after the election: be a force in the GOP or start a media empire" nonsense today. Why do people write this crap. There is nothing in Trump's past that would indicate he has any interest in actually organizing a splinter/3rd party (he isn't even interested in the GOP!) much less doing all the hard work and investing necessary to get some new media venture to compete with Fox off the ground

Okay, someone talk me off a ledge here. Is this how every single election is going to be now from here on out? The same people supporting Trump will have another person to support the next time around, someone just as horrible who nevertheless yells a little less. Like Cruz or Pence. I'm not sure I can take it.

"He's a very weird man. Someone needs to tell this guy that actually, he's a Two." ¡HOLA MADRE!

My secret fantasy is that on nov 9 he decamps to Moscow, grima wormtongue style

Xpost

I just don't see him being able to maintain this high profile after the election - there will be lots of obituaries, but I don't see him having the energy and resources and interest-level necessary to sustain it. He'll be a sore loser and go sulking off somewhere, occasionally lobbing incoherent insult-bombs from friendly media outlets.

Okay, someone talk me off a ledge here. Is this how every single election is going to be now from here on out

Trump is a fairly unique figure and I don't see a lot of other people in the GOP field either willing or able to campaign as he has.

like yeah it may be Cruz or Pence who are indeed horrible but no way would they run a campaign this way

i think his candidacy has had the deleterious side effect of making Fox News and NRO seem reasonable

like yeah it may be Cruz or Pence who are indeed horrible but no way would they run a campaign this way

So you're saying they could be horrible ... and win. I said talk me off the ledge, not make me jump!

Jerk.

EXTREME VETTING

https://twitter.com/JessicaValenti/status/787050002552061956

Dude is the mutant/Mule from the Foundation series that deliberately fucks with the regular order of things and mass violence results

Cruz will never win a national election.

Pence is just beady-eyed and beetle-browed to maybe do it but idk he is so fucking stupid, I think he could be defeated in a more issues-based campaign

xxp

If stupid was grounds for disqualification ...

Is this how every single election is going to be now from here on out? The same people supporting Trump will have another person to support the next time around

Naw, one of two things will happen:

1. Trump voters will be outnumbered to the point of irrelevance because Shillary is going to give voting rights to millions of illegals and refugees.

2. There may not even BE a next election. Trump voters will all be in their bunkers in Montana with three years' worth of canned food and ammo, waiting for the libs and brown people to succumb to the ravages of the Burning Times. Then the Patriots will emerge, and build a new civilization (based on FREEDOM) on the rubble of the old one.

There will definitely be another white supremacist candidate in 2020, but no way the GOP will allow that one to win the nom as easily as Trump did this one. There will be oppo, there will be smears. Ryan and Cruz will now how dangerous it is.

Is this how every single election is going to be now from here on out?

It partly depends on how badly Trump wets the bed on election day. The worse he is humiliated, the less likely his successor will attempt to sound or act like him. The GOP will retreat back to the 'safe' ground of dog whistles for the racists, groveling before the religious right and bootlicking the wealthy.

if he ran in 2020 Pence would have to answer for so much that he's saying in this campaign.

the dems can run for awhile on the own words of the republicans who gambled on trump this year

the own words? anyway

That's what they said in 2008, when the GOP was soul-searching for five minutes.

The 'center-right' of the GOP (which is still fairly extreme) hoped that Trump was an aberration, or that he could be controlled. If there's another one in four years, they'll fight nail and tooth. And everyone will be so damaged that Hillary easily wins re-election.

https://twitter.com/SopanDeb/status/787059051637137408

Dana Perino: "After 20 years of defending these guys” — she sliced the air with her hand — “done.”

Oh, OK, 20 years. 20 years! 20 years!!!!

Okay, someone talk me off a ledge here. Is this how every single election is going to be now from here on out? The same people supporting Trump will have another person to support the next time around, someone just as horrible who nevertheless yells a little less. Like Cruz or Pence. I'm not sure I can take it.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, October 14, 2016 5:43 PM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think it may help to remember that these people have been voting in every election

This is why I want the oppo to keep coming. Not as punishment but as deterrent.

let's bear in mind that four years from now no one in America will pay any price whatsoever for having supported or abetted Trump.

xp

if he ran in 2020 Pence would have to answer for so much that he's saying in this campaign.

Ha ha, you give journalists so much undeserved credit. There probably won't even be newspapers anymore by 2020.

Trump, reportedly in 1999: "People want me to [run for president] all the time … I don’t like it. Can you imagine how controversial I’d be? You think about [Bill Clinton] and the women. How about me with the women? Can you imagine?"

especially within the GOP, where p much everyone is guilty to varying degrees. They will all act like it never happened, and all the losers who voted for Trump will feel the exact same way.

xp

https://twitter.com/SopanDeb/status/787059051637137408

― GUNSHOW POOPHOLE (Phil D.), Friday, October 14, 2016 11:55 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

last paragraph on this = very "blood runs cold"

i think they may pay a price, even if it's a small one. which might be enough to swing a few races.

i found that photographer's brother's facebook, check out some photos he posted:

https://www.facebook.com/daryl.davidoff?fref=ts

the American electorate is totally amnesiac. Did the GOP pay a price for the deeply unpopular move of shutting down the gov't/nearly defaulting on the nat'l debt in 2013? No they did not - in fact they were rewarded with congressional majorities in both houses less than a year later. GOP will bury Trump like he never happened and move on to trying to sell the same old shit, same as before.

xp

as a different british dude i would say trump was NOT well known in the uk in 1980-81: trump tower was only half built (it broke ground in 79, opened for business in 83) and i certainly didn't hear about him to register till i was reading the voice and spy in the late 80s... someone travelling to new york now and then probably could have come across his photo, but he definitely wasn't a regular name in the uk papers

the westminster sex parties story is still unfolding tbh -- some of it may be true (it's really murky stuff), whether or not gilberthorpe is a fantasist or paid fibber or whatever he is...

(many many x-posts as i was watching luke cage while writing)

GOP will win the midterm elections again in 2018. The crazies are just more fired up. But the problem is the GOP can't both stoke that craziness in midterms, and then ignore it in presidential elections. If they want to win the White House, at some point they'll have to deal with their most crazy voters. Not for the sake of the nation - they don't give a shit about the nation - but for their own careers.

private eye is down at the moment -- too many visitors? -- but there's a old PE story going round twitter abt gilberthorpe as fantastist (announcement in the papers of his marriage to a woman who didn't exist): annoyingly i can't re-find it, i thought charles aaron had retweeted it but apparently not

https://web.archive.org/web/20140812194717/http://www.private-eye.co.uk/sections.php?section_link=street_of_shame