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

I would have liked Hillary to call out Trump on shit like "Obama's regime" and "your president" but I guess she's already called him a racist

fwiw I thought Wallace was terrible, his idea of fairness is to lob an equal number of loaded questions to both candidates. So he throws wikileaks crap at Clinton, and then turns around and calls Trump a liar. Fairness! Also anyone who trots out that nonsense about Social Security/Medicare going bankrupt and the horrors of the nat'l debt is living in some early 80s fantasy where those "issues" haven't yet been thoroughly discredited. Fuck that guy.

neither of those programs is going to go bankrupt and it *does not matter* how big a percentage of GDP the nat'l debt it

is

We should start calling it the "national market capitalization" instead of the "national debt"

what is the hillary's ppl incited violence at trump's rallies thing even based on? What's the cold light of day version of it?

One of the things that has stood out the most in these debates is how clearly uncomfortable Trump is in his own skin, and the extent to which his awkward and insecure body language belies his projected self-image as a hypercompetent bazillionaire amazing winner of everything ever (assuming one couldn't see through the smokescreen of bloviation to the wounded five-year-old at his core). I find it so hard to believe that people are so bad at spotting these tells that he'd actually ever impressed or intimidated anyone in a business context.

O'Keefe video apparently has Hillary campaign people secretly recorded admitting they've arranged for it. I have not watched it.

xp

PROJECT VERITAS

I KNOW A LATIN WORD

She barely went into his Trump Foundation bullshit and could have

I thought what she did do - bring up the painting of himself that he bought, and ask "Who does that?" - was much more powerful. Hammered home the pathetic-narcissistic-clown aspect. I bet that hurt him badly, and led as much as anything else to the "nasty woman" bit at the end.

he's got my vote 👍

Let's remember: very few people watched the debate. "Trump wont accept the result and called Hillary a nasty woman" is the only thing that matters.

not like if they had watched the debate it would've changed. this idea that he was doing fine except for the two gaffes is absurd. he looked and sounded terrible (and terribly dumb) throughout the debate.

I haven't watched the PV stuff either, but I gather it is heavily manipulated footage of things that are more like "get people to wear a Planned Parenthood shirt and stand in the front of the rope line." Maybe shading into "Let's get provocative with those assholes and see what happens." AFAIK it is only in O'Keeffe's deceptive edits and the Breitbrats' fever dreams that this turns into "inciting violence."

Anyway it's not hard to find video that shows how little provocation the Trumplets need to swerve into violence (with an irrefutable racial cast to boot).

FWIW the Nixon campaign's defense about things that now sound quaint - like changing campaign signs and announcing a rally on the wrong day - was that these are things that have been done in campaigns since time immemorial, so nbd.

Not aware of much of anything in the wikistuff that rises to a level beyond aggressive, provocative, savvy, and well-connected campaigning, but I would be willing change my view if given evidence from a source with less of an ax to grind, thx

Trying to think if there's potential mileage in a Clinton campaign video contrasting Trump's present-day comments about and attitude toward Clinton with the gracious praise he heaps upon her in that interview from '08 that's making the rounds. It's as stark a contrast as the dueling positions he's taken on just about every other subject mentioned in his platform.

Looking back at these 3 debates--they were the test case for the right wing fantasy, going back to at least 1992, that if their candidate just got over things like "dignity" and went into a debate with a head full of talk radio or batshitsite zings then the Democrat would shrink and fall gasping to the floor in shock. (Remember that the reason some of these candidates like Newt did okay for a spell was fan-fic about how tough they'd be in the general debates.) So they finally went ahead and nominated the guy who had no problem saying any of this stuff, even if he didn't fully understand it, who would turn to Hillary and threaten her with prison, and it worked out just as well as previous GOP political hacks thought it would.

― duped and used by my worst Miss U (President Keyes), Thursday, October 20, 2016 9:17 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

great post

i was working late and our office internet was out so i kinda caught up after the fact but literally the only things that got traction were "bad hombres", "nasty woman" and refusing to accept the election...i don't know who these idiots who are saying "trump had a great debate until the not accepting the results thing" are but it seeemed like ppl thought it was worse than even the first two

yeah, agree there is some element of closure (for me at least) to the "if we could say what we mean, we would win, and get what we really want."

OTOH, if the drunk dad fringe of the right wing now feels trump is just another fakey beta cuck with no balls, wtf does the next candidate bring?

35 million people watched the debate last night on the network alone. I think that hardly counts as very few people watched it.x post

They don't actually feel that way about Trump, though. The working theory will be that forces conspired against him.

xp

wrong

OTOH, if the drunk dad fringe of the right wing now feels trump is just another fakey beta cuck with no balls, wtf does the next candidate bring?

Walks onstage nude except for Patton's old military helmet and Blackie Lawless's buzzsaw-blade codpiece?

(felt like this thread could use some random Trump interjections)

xp

35 million people watched the debate last night on the network alone. I think that hardly counts as very few people watched it

That's two-thirds less than the first debate, yes?

Trying to think if there's potential mileage in a Clinton campaign video contrasting Trump's present-day comments about and attitude toward Clinton with the gracious praise he heaps upon her in that interview from '08 that's making the rounds. It's as stark a contrast as the dueling positions he's taken on just about every other subject mentioned in his platform.

― I Can Thrill You More Than Elliott Gould Would Ever Dare Try (Old Lunch), Thursday, October 20, 2016 11:46 AM (twelve minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Again for me the most fascinating thing about that video is how relatively coherently he speaks; how well spoken and reasonable he sounds (comparably) regardless of the content. I really feel like his focus has deteriorated over the years. Relentless campaigning probably doesn't help either.

he did a lot less sniffing this time around, for some reason

http://6dollarshirts.com/image/cache//data/designs/mouth_breather/mouthbreather/Mouthbreather-tnsq-300x300.jpg

supply ran out

if the drunk dad fringe of the right wing now feels trump is just another fakey beta cuck with no balls, wtf does the next candidate bring?

You rang?

http://www.toptenz.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Idiocracy-President-570x267.png

Clickhole's debate stuff was killing it, btw

http://www.clickhole.com/article/punching-back-hillary-clinton-invited-access-holly-5023

http://www.clickhole.com/article/keeping-it-civil-chris-wallace-has-gun-his-head-an-5045

xposts The AV guys finally wised up and put sniffscreens on the mics.

35 million people watched the debate last night on the network alone. I think that hardly counts as very few people watched it
That's two-thirds less than the first debate, yes?

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, October 20, 2016 11:00 AM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'd imagine that's pretty normal? (in terms of attrition of viewership and just people's voting decisions except for the ken bone dipshits of the world are more baked in by time the third debate rolls around)

Indeed so.

I don't know if they have totals yet, but that 35 million number I saw was up from the last debate, and only includes viewership on the 4 networks. Not cable, not internet, not bars, not overseas, etc. Which is to say, minimum 35 million watched, but likely over 20 million more than that. So between 50-60 million.

http://variety.com/2016/tv/news/tv-ratings-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-final-debate-1201895174/

did you guys post the Cracked thing already? i know, Cracked.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about/

It's been making the rounds. Not that different from the JD Vance interview from earlier this year.

feel like this is an important corrective to the cracked sentiments:
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/10/15/13286498/donald-trump-voters-race-economic-anxiety

yeah the Cracked thing is okay but it elides solid facts like this:

There is absolutely no evidence that Trump’s supporters, either in the primary or the general election, are disproportionately poor or working class. Exit polling from the primaries found that Trump voters made about as much as Ted Cruz voters, and significantly more than supporters of either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. Trump voters, FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver found, had a median household income of $72,000, a fair bit higher than the $62,000 median household income for non-Hispanic whites in America.

A major study from Gallup's Jonathan Rothwell confirmed this. Trump support was correlated with higher, not lower, income, both among the population as a whole and among white people. Trump supporters were less likely to be unemployed or to have dropped out of the labor force. Areas with more manufacturing, or higher exposure to imports from China, were less likely to think favorably of Trump.

... for some less reliable armchair sociologizing

https://twitter.com/TheFix/status/789090575249125376

This GIF pretty much says it all.

― GUNSHOW POOPHOLE (Phil D.), Thursday, October 20, 2016 10:07 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This reminds me of Mark Harris's tweets the other day about how femmy Trump is:

‏@MarkHarrisNYC
Yeah, he's alpha, but the flying hands, the faces he pulls, the pursed lips, the head-wag and smirk after a one-liner: Very Paul Lynde.

yeah that vox piece is really good & important

Hey relax...it's all been settled.

https://twitter.com/AP/status/789144348222955521

Very Paul Lynde.

lol yes. The Bob Odenkirk/Don Pratt comparison also v apt

xpost Likewise, I very generously agree with everyone who thinks I'm right.

I'm glad you say that, Old Lunch, because I know you agree with me on all things.

Is Dicks Out for Bad Hombre a meme/tshirt yet?

― (rocketcat) 🚀🐱 👑🐟 (kingfish), Wednesday, October 19, 2016 11:10 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Jeremy

Absolutely, Ned. As long as we're on the same page, we're in total agreement.

Bad ombre:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-epBXPUXhu4U/T43D7udvCrI/AAAAAAAAEZU/0Q5rnrDEBAM/s1600/20120415140744.jpg

Strange sanity from LePage, of all people

https://twitter.com/alivitali/status/789142150319603713

https://twitter.com/katyperry/status/788909027539365888

lmao

Re: that cracked piece, I grew up in "red" rural Illinois just like the author, and I must say this section

But what I can say, from personal experience, is that the racism of my youth was always one step removed. I never saw a family member, friend, or classmate be mean to the actual black people we had in town. We worked with them, played video games with them, waved to them when they passed.

is just not accurate and totally tone-deaf. I mean, I'm sure the writer wasn't engaging in hate crime as a kid, but there was tons of racism where I grew up and it's laughable to suggest otherwise.