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

Voting literally isn't a moral act, I find myself wanting to yell yet again

oh man i was figuring trump would just end up devoting the debate to ramblings and insinuations about the GOP local headquarters attack in a vain attempt to get that to stick to clinton, but i underestimated his tactical instincts. indeed who could have imagined he would reach out to the president's half-brother, mourning his close personal dictator. that's it, clinton's done, it's over. although you'd think if trump was so opposed to people revealing their strategic choices ahead of time, he would have kept his surprise audience member an...actual surprise. "Each more surprising than the last!"

also, i suspect in trump's mind, being aligned with a kenyan proves birtherism isn't racist.

Black Lives Matter emphasizes intersectionality, which is the idea that one’s social identities are inseparable and all significant when considering how marginalized groups are oppressed. I see Clinton as a person who does not have an intersectional mindset. How can she say she supports the black community in our country but then continue to support Israel as it violently occupies Gaza, where black Palestinians live? She lacks the globally progressive view that I want in a candidate.

black Palestinians?

i'd rather these kids bozo it up for stein than stay home, even though in electoral terms there's no difference whatsoever. the kids voting stein this year, most of them, will be solid democrats eight years from now, and the kids staying home, most of them, will probably never vote. this election will be a learning experience for them.

I suppose I can understand the logic of supporting Trump for people who are already befriending bona fide dictators. You're not doing worse at that point.

which vote do i look best in?

He should leave Obama's half bro behind and instead take along a melted steel beam from the World Trade Center, Vince McMahon and Gallagher. I mean, people in the first few rows should already be covered by plastic sheets as it is.

http://3snpdc2ba9m5uwuk62n8cs84.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/trump1.jpg

Scottie Nell Hughes Agonistes

https://www.gq.com/story/desperate-gamble-of-scottie-nell-hughes-trump-surrogate

Also, this story is a treasure -- Indiana Trump campaign officials realizing how fucked they are:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/10/vigo-county-indiana-trump-women-214368

Just minutes before the Trump team had arrived at Pizza City, the day after Pearman registered, they had stopped by the courthouse to greet early voters. At times, it was downright awkward to watch them interact with voters.

“Did you vote for Trump?” Samuel asked a man and his wife, who looked to be in their 50s or early 60s, as they walked out of the courthouse, fresh from the voting booth.

“No, we’re not that crazy,” the man said, chortling.

“I shouldn’t have asked,” Samuels said under his breath, as a reporter and camera crew from France 2 made a beeline to the couple, trying, unsuccessfully, to interview them.

Thirty minutes later, inside Pizza City, as Team Trump for Indiana met with about a dozen members of the local Pachyderm Club—a group of Republicans and Trump supporters—the mood was downright funereal. It had the feeling of a group of battle-weary survivors huddling around a campfire to count their losses while bracing for what the next day might bring. While the official purpose of the meeting was to get out the vote early, it quickly turned into a Trump supporter group therapy session.

I can't harsh too much on the kids voting for independent candidates (I didn't know jack shit about the world either when I wasted my first vote on Perot). But it really only takes the most cursory observation to recognize that Stein and Johnson are like a notch or two above Trump in intelligence and competence.

xp i hope they're fucked but it looks like he'll win indiana?

All these professional dickheads on Team Trump, I hope they are never allowed to live their mistake down.

Well nobody was necessarily thinking he'd lose Indiana, right? I think any gloominess on their part is attributed to his chances overall.

i don't know, i kind of think this election, specifically, is a moral choice. my opposition to trump isn't just because i think his so-called "policies" are hot garbage- it's because i think that on a basic human level, trump is morally and unethically fit to hold the office. supporting trump is a basic moral failure, and i have no personal respect for anybody who does.

and, you know, there are people, a lot of people, who feel about clinton the same way i feel about trump. i disagree with the judgment they have made, but i'm not going to pretend that there is no reason for them to feel that way, that their distaste for clinton is built _entirely_ on lies. and while the third party candidates may be _professionally_ unqualified for the office, there simply isn't as strong an argument that they are _morally_ unqualified.

rick perlstein interview
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogation/2016/10/rick_perlstein_on_how_the_republican_party_will_recover_from_trump.html

On a basic human level, Trump is morally and ethically unfit to exist outside of a cell or cage of some sort. Maybe a back yard with a high fence but only if his leash were securely staked down.

from that interview

What about in terms of her agenda? If she wins with Republican support, do you worry her progressive agenda will be weakened?

I’m not worried about it in terms of her agenda. The other day I allowed myself the fantasy of what a Clinton presidency is going to look like, and of course the big tactical question for every new president is which of their bills they introduce first, because that’s the one they have the most political capital to get across. I was like, well, it could be her paid family leave bill, it could be her bill for free college for everyone making under $125,000 and the debt relief for everyone. It could be her new tax credits for the very poor, who Peter Edelman—who resigned from the first Clinton administration over welfare reform—has said is the best poverty program he’s seen in a long time. I was like, wow, there really isn’t anything on her plate that isn’t a pretty strong, progressive, populist intervention. I’m pretty certain that there’s very little room for her to abandon that. She’s laid down some pretty strong markers. This is the Hillary Clinton who in her first major speech after the Democratic convention went to Planned Parenthood and gave perhaps the most unflagging, straight ahead, pro-choice message of any Democratic presidential candidate.

On a basic human level, Trump is morally and ethically unfit to exist outside of a cell or cage of some sort. Maybe a back yard with a high fence but only if his leash were securely staked down.

― Alito Shuffle

ouch. come on, let's not send him to gitmo here.

How is Trump so in character all the time? Like even the stupidest or rudest people I've met/seen are still more human in certain settings. I guess we're not ever seeing those moments where he's flipping through channels on the couch at night or quietly drinking a cup of coffee while scrolling through news in the morning etc, but when people are analyzing you so thoroughly for so long you're bound to have actual character development along the way either via being made aware of those exaggerated portrayals of yourself or the relentless magnifying glass just inevitably reveals some semblance of dimension. But with Trump, it just seems that he is so impossibly cliche cartoony Trump all the time no matter how hard you look and there is something extremely inhuman about that. Even Hitler enjoyed painting innocent, pretty little scenes when he had time to himself.

From the Perlstein inteview:

[i]On the question of Trump’s uniqueness, how do you compare him to George Wallace, who you have written about?

Wallace was a competent administrator. [Laughs.]

OK, so zero for one.

He really was able to keep the trains running on time and manage a complex governmental unit in the form of the State of Alabama. Points to George Wallace there. But his ability and willingness to spur his audiences and constituency to whatever rage it took to empower himself is quite similar. Also, Wallace had so much more to work with. Compare the riots in Baltimore over Freddie Gray in which one CVS went up in flames to the riots in Chicago in 1968, where literally two straight miles of Madison Street, the main street through the black South Side, was rubble. A lot of this stuff Trump has to kind of, I wouldn’t say invent, because he certainly believes it’s true, but when he says that American cities are more dangerous than Afghanistan, it’s just nonsense. George Wallace could say that violent crime had quadrupled since he was a kid and he’d be right.

it's not a character xp

it's not a character!

it's a tumor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaTO8_KNcuo

Trump is wholly reactive. He's possibly more personable in a private setting among, like, his family or something. But when he's in public and surrounded by people baying for blood and thunder, that's what he delivers

xxxposts Fascists tend to stoke fantasies of fascist comeuppance in me. It's a personal failing, admittedly, but it's all ultimately just a lampoon. I don't honestly want Trump to be kept in a medium sized cardboard box and poked by a stick but it's a fun visual to conjure up.

How is Trump so in character all the time? Like even the stupidest or rudest people I've met/seen are still more human in certain settings.

Yeah, some other dude from history was an animal lover, too, iirc.

I wasn't implying that he is "pretending" in any way, just amazed that before Trump it seemed no matter how anyone presents themselves publicly, you could imagine they'd have some relatively relatable human moments when not in the spotlight. Pretty hard to imagine him not completely at peak Trump even during the most mundane moments.

Another man there was, made the walls build on time

Yeah, some other dude from history was an animal lover, too, iirc.

― Alito Shuffle (Old Lunch)

you're talking about francis of assisi, right?

I wonder if Trump even orders sandwiches in Trump-speak.

He's a very against-pickles sub eater.

We're gonna have the best lettuce, believe me, simply amazing

has stunt casting the debate audience been a thing in the past?

no--but didn't Reagan have newsworthy people in the audience during his state of the unions?

that still happens but it tends to be more uplifting in intent. the theatricality of planting theoretically upsetting people in the debate audience is so schlocky, like a TV lawyer trick

It's pretty much on the same level as what guests are invited to the State of the Union address.

Reagan started the practice of inviting honored guests

Ah, honor.

Meantime, Wilson dropped another hint last night:

https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/788598825476849664

huh. I guess I haven't paid enough attention to the trolling-ness of those SOU choices

Wow, how did I already forget Michael Cohen's hyperhatable face?

but still, do members of Congress get to invite honored guests to the SOU who are there to explicitly throw the president off their game? anyway, not that debates are sacred or something, it just seems like a pretty embarrassing practice to become normalized

but still, do members of Congress get to invite honored guests to the SOU who are there to explicitly throw the president off their game?

Yup. This is how you get one of the Duck Dynasty dudes at an Obama SOU.

ok lol I definitely missed that

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/state-of-the-union-guests-duck-dynasty-willie-robertson-102725

Anyway, Mr. Pareene:

http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/the-election-is-done-by-the-way-1787947551

Le Tigre reunites for a one-off Hillary song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLGFyxAP0QE

That latest Rick Wilson tease-tweet, the "aren't even women he'd be attracted to" as the premise of the story he is linking...

Maybe it's that Trump had a fling with a dude?