Trump then unloaded on McCain, because that’s what bullies do, and made the veteran remarks, and then came the predictions he would pay a political price when a few people chimed in to attack him To which I noted:
Cruz won't denounce Trump because he knows the crazies in the GOP that run the primaries hate John McCain.
— John Cole (@Johngcole) July 18, 2015
Good post by Josh Marshall (because he agrees with me) that Trump will pay no price for his attacks on McCain:
Is Trump a joke? Of course, he is. But if we judge politicians by any other standard than their ability to garner votes and polling support, we’ll soon run out of candidates. If clowns are above your dignity to report on, find another line of work. Especially with this primary field. Trump isn’t a distraction or mere entertainment any more than the rest of the GOP field is. In fact, this version of his candidacy (I can imagine him running more as a Perot-type centrist figure in earlier cycles) is the logical end result of the Tea Party-ization of the GOP since 2009. Trump is running an angry, populist campaign focused on xenophobia and “I don’t care what you think” aggression against ‘the establishment’ and ‘elites’ of all stripes. To think that trash talk against an establishment favorite, who is only marginally relevant to the politics of the moment in any case, will upset that apple cart is to thoroughly misunderstand the politics of the moment. Trump is the Frankenstein’s Hair Monster, finally walking among us, who is the inevitable product of a decades long embrace of clown-show anti-establishmentism and the stoking of xenophobic and racial paranoia.
This is who the GOP is, and they’ve cultivated it by playing footsie with their wingnut base, actively encourage them with Fox News and the web of wingnut websites, and so on. Palin was then released from Pandora’s Box, and we have what we have. The only thing wrong with the old myth that we’ve seen so far was that in the story, Pandora sealed in hope when she rushed to close the box.
Fortunately, that didn’t happen in 2008.
Cacti
If only it were that recent.
The transformation of the GOP into the stupid party began with Reagan, and became ascendant in the Gingrich 1994 wave election.
Trump is just the nadir of 3 decades worth of the Repubs being the stupid party.
dmsilev
You meant “Nixon”. I’d also accept “Goldwater”.
Davebo
@dmsilev:
Bingo!
Felonius Monk
Fuck Grampy Walnuts and his hurt fee-fees. His POW goodwill account is way overdrawn.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
If Trump had stuck to bashing McCain on his Olympic-level gymnastics on immigration, he might have permanently poisoned the AZ GOP for the old fool.
I just heard Alex Wagner say that Joe Scarborough, of all Villagers, pointed out the absurdity of everybody getting the white hot fantods over McCain when Trump has been race-baiting for months. Did anyone see this? That he was Willard’s designated race-baiter a few short years ago, I imagine, was left unsaid?
KG
As I mentioned in one of the earlier threads, Trump is competitive in the 4 early states per recent polling data – he’s also competitive in March 1 Super Tuesday states where we have recent info. Everyone keeps saying it’s too early, but we’ve got less than 8 months to Super Tuesday – maybe it changes after the debates, but with Trump leading in the composite national polls, it’s going to take a monumental implosion – and the traditional definition of implosion may not apply.
Cacti
@dmsilev:
But neither Goldwater nor Nixon were stupid men, and neither intended for the inmates to run the asylum.
Reagan was a genuine dimwit, as was his intellectual heir Dubya. Palin was cut from the same cloth, and Trump is the worst traits of all of them rolled into one
oldster
And it looks like Limbaugh is coming out in Trump’s defense!
nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/07/20/rush-limbaugh-rallies-listeners-to-donald-trumps-defense…
I couldn’t be happier–the GOP establishment was hoping that Trump’s “gaffe” about McCain would lead to Teahadists turning on Trump and expelling him from the process.
Not if Trump as Rushbo’s backing.
Now the chaos can continue–the public exhibition of the GOP’s fundamental ugliness.
Trump has decided that now is not the time to dog-whistle. He’s just spouting the GOP’s racism and ugliness out loud for all to hear. And Limbaugh likes that just fine himself.
Cacti
@KG:
Agree.
Trump speaks to the right wing lizard brain in a way that previous flashes in the pan never did.
He has all the characteristics that the far right cherishes most:
Rich, white, loud, boorish, bigoted, and ostentatious.
ETA: male
chopper
it does seem like mccain in 2008 really broke the seal when it came to mainstreaming the idea that complete idiocy belongs front stage in our political process.
palin is going to end up being the gift that keeps on giving. like herpes.
Mike J
@dmsilev: ’64 is when Strom switched parties, but it had been brewing since ’48.
White Trash Liberal
usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/07/19/donald-trump-republican-party-presidential-candidate-editorial…
I gotta say Il Trump can pivot and still toss red meat with grace. He won’t get damaged by this. He is corraling the GOP, not vice versa.
chopper
@Cacti:
he’s the teabagger id. the frustrated angry subconscious that blames mccain for giving us ‘that one’. the guy that pulls the GOP lever because ‘fuck it, let’s watch the world burn’. that’s why, if he keeps it up, he’ll still be a contender. cause he’s conservative AM radio come to life.
this is a really good opportunity for democrats to ratfuck the shit out of the republican primaries. but of course they won’t use the opportunity because they’re too busy fucking over other liberals.
Felonius Monk
@Cacti:
Sort of the Sarah Palin of 2016 with much more money and no boobs.
Iowa Old Lady
I remember reading someone who said that with W, the country had been conducting an experiment to see if it mattered whether the president was smart. It turned out it did.
Data, people!
Kropadope
@Felonius Monk:
This assumes that Sarah Palin at no point says” Fuck it, I’m in.”
SatanicPanic
@Cacti: Republican party was always evil, but the move to stupid and evil is relatively recent. I’d say it started with Reagan’s gutting of the Fairness Doctrine, got worse during the 90s when the party started allowing outright idiots to run things like the Whitewater investigation, and reached its current peak when McCain, rather than choosing someone evil but not stupid (like GWB with Cheney), chose an outright moron as his VP candidate. Republican voters finally got a candidate that truly represented them and they aren’t going to be happy going back to real politicians.
Cacti
@chopper:
The only Dem candidate I’ve seen call out the hypocrisy of the R’s distancing themselves from Trump criticizing McCain’s military service is Hillary.
They all need to be shouting from the housetops that there’s a thimble’s worth of difference between The Donald and the rest of the Repubs.
Donald just says the unfiltered version of what the rest of them think.
Felonius Monk
@Kropadope: Palin and Trump have a lot in common. It would be fun to see them both competing and each trying to out crazy the other. Not so good for the political process, but it would be great entertainment.
chopper
@Felonius Monk:
we haven’t seen him shirtless so that one’s still up in the air. shudder.
the Conster
The entire Republican party is now the same group of disgusting pig people who wore the purple heart bandaids. No one’s kidding anyone anymore, especially the media or the Frank Luntz coached pols running. Frank Luntz looked absolutely stunned yesterday about Trump not having any incentive to play by the rules. McCain has been Trumpboated and the pig people love it. Trump has that Palin mean streak, but won’t be leashed. He truly is their Frankenstein monster.
Mike J
@SatanicPanic:
I always found it puzzling that so many people want amateur politicians but very few want amateur surgeons.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Scarborough, really? It’s true, though — Trump’s broadsides against McCain are among the least offensive things that have dribbled out of his pie-hole as far as I’m concerned.
chopper
@Cacti:
exactly. trump is just saying what all these fuckers are thinking.
he really, really needs to stay in the race.
FlipYrWhig
@SatanicPanic: It just moved from moneyed, paternalistic evil to racist, ignorant evil.
Iowa Old Lady
Speaking of crazies, how long do we think Ted Cruz will last? I see he wants the leaders of Planned Parenthood to be prosecuted.
I’m stunned that any woman would ever vote for these cretins. And yet they do. Sometimes it’s embarrassing to be an old white person.
chopper
@Mike J:
are you kidding? amateur surgeons are the only ones that will accept chickens as payment.
Cacti
@Mike J:
Or would want their house built by an amateur contractor.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@the Conster: e truly is their Frankenstein monster.
Here’s hoping he keeps on rampaging through the countryside.
If I were not a very serious person, I would make some juvenile comment about just realizing that Trump, Luntz and their respective ‘dos were on stage at the same time, and wonder how Jim Webb and Rand Paul weren’t somehow drawn to that tribble convention.
ETA: speaking of surgeons, I’ve been wondering today if some pressure isn’t being put on Ben Carson to withdraw so that the Establishment candidate’s numbers don’t look so weak, or if all those “values voters” would go to Li’l Ricky
SatanicPanic
@FlipYrWhig: I wonder how much lower it can go
catclub
@Cacti: I agree, somewhat. I suspect that saying nothing and letting them tear each other apart is sufficient.
Cacti
I think Trump has a very good chance of being the 2016 Barry Goldwater.
He hits all the right notes with the crazies.
Redshift
@KG:
Yes, it is too early. Trump is leading in the polls in a field of nearly twenty candidates. I’m not saying it’s certain he won’t go all the way, just that it won’t require a “major implosion” for him not to. All it will require is for him not to gain a lot of new supporters as candidates drop out. It’s possible he will. But it’s also easy to argue that only Cruz’ supporters, and possibly Christie’s, are likely to go to Trump if they’re not already there.
Mike G
Trump will pay no price just as the Repukes never pay any price for the damage they cause, because the Repuke base are nihilistic vandals. They pay no political price for destroying public schools, launching disastrous aggressive wars, decimating America’s soft power and credibility in the world, watching our infrastructure crumble, making us a torturing nation, wrecking financial markets or anything else, because the base either cheers on these things or are stupid enough to be manipulated into blaming them on Dems/Messicans/the blahs/the poor.
But their base are stupid, easy to manipulate, authoritarian-obedient to money and power though they will posture and preen as ‘rebels’ for a short while; and have the attention span of a gnat. Trump will be a forgotten footnote by the time of the convention.
Waldo
@Felonius Monk:
In other words: Less chest, more war chest.
Kropadope
@chopper: What happens when the surgeon has more chickens than (s)he needs?
catclub
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I saw fundraising numbers that say nobody except Jindal and Santorum need to drop out. Carson has raised huge amounts of money on the web. Kasich had raised a surprisingly large amount. Fiorina can self fund for a while. No Walker numbers since he had not declared by the June 30 reporting deadline.
chopper
@Kropadope:
ah, you’re talking about chicken inflation. the bane of all economies.
Cacti
@Redshift:
The sheer volume of GOP candidates means that a guy like Trump could win or show well in all of the early states with less than 20% of the vote. And early state momentum is huge for any primary candidate.
JPL
@oldster: Maybe Rush should run for President. He has the mouth for it.
Eric U.
I have two teahadi facebook friends, and they think Trump is a liberal plant
Kropadope
@chopper:
…prior to 1000 BCE.
catclub
@Betty Cracker:
yes, it is funny that those comments were too much for the media and his opponents, but the vile things he said about mexico were harmless by comparison. I bet Univision sees this more as you and I do.
sigaba
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Right, the instant I started hearing Republican consultants writing Trump’s obituary, I’ll I really thought was: You can call a Mexican a rapist until the cows come home and it’s merely embarrassing, but snarking on McCain’s military service suddenly makes things serious. Now it’s okay for everyone to start attacking him, because before, everyone was afraid of alienating his base, you see.
dmsilev
@Iowa Old Lady: Cruz is probably hoping that Trump implodes and that he can vacuum up that chunk of the GOP base.
Roger Moore
@Cacti:
Speaks in fog horn, not in dog whistle.
Chris
@chopper:
Exactly. I think this is both his strength and his weakness. His strength, because really, why should the Republicans take him any less seriously than anyone else in the freak show that is their political faction? He’s everything they’ve been demanding for decades. His weakness, because on the other hand, what does he bring to the table that several dozen more halfwits in the upper ranks of their party don’t? He’s got to maintain high polls for another year and a half, and a ton of other people with his exact same message will be competing, so how does he avoid being tossed aside after the public wearies of him like all the Not-Romneys did in 2011/2012?
catclub
@dmsilev: There was a Plum Line or Paul Waldman item to that effect last week.
Mandalay
@Mike G:
I don’t see why he should pay a price for his remarks about McCain. He only parroted what Al Franken said about McCain 15 years ago:
Anything that directly confronts the silly notion that those with a military background are automatically deserving of our respect and admiration is fine by me. Oliver North and David Petraeus are worthless chunks of shit as far as I’m concerned, and McCain isn’t much better.
Chris
@SatanicPanic:
Quoth myself from back when the teabaggers originally rose: Republicans have gotten rid of Lex Luthor and hired the Joker instead. (Though maybe that’s just “crazy” rather than “stupid.”)
SatanicPanic
@Chris: He says crazier and crazier stuff. It’s worked for Limbaugh. I don’t think Trump will go all the way, but he does have an advantage in that he’ll probably never have to face voters again, so he can pop off with whatever dumb things he wants to say.
Roger Moore
@SatanicPanic:
I’m pretty sure there are some floorboards under the bottom of the barrel.
catclub
@Chris:
He has more money ( if he is willing to spend it) than all the not-Romney’s combined. Romney simply rotated the turret of money to point at the not-Romney of he week. He typically then outspent same by a factor of 6 or 7 in the media. If Bush is this year’s Romney, money-wise, those odd s will not be the same if Trump actually spends his own money. I doubt Trump will, but he could.
SatanicPanic
@Mandalay: dude
except for that being tortured part
catclub
@Mandalay: This. If McCain had been flying for the North Vietnamese, downing 5 US planes makes him an Ace.
Roger Moore
@dmsilev:
Cacti
@Roger Moore:
Yep.
He’s destroying plausible deniability for the rest of them.
Lee Atwater would be ashamed.
OTOH, the ghost of Joseph Goebbels must be shedding tears of pride.
Kropadope
@catclub: Also consider that the additional public scrutiny that came with being sudden front runner generally turned up something awful that helped sink their campaign. Trump has been a very public figure for a long time, I don’t easily foresee any reveal that could hurt him so much. Hell, the biggest, most awful reveal of his campaign so far, his xenophobia, was the thing that catapulted him to the top.
dmsilev
@Roger Moore: I trust you mean this fog horn.
catclub
@Iowa Old Lady:
I think a VERY long time. He has bags of money, and leads in Texas with 20%.
dmsilev
@Roger Moore: The legendary Senate comity in action! It’s truly impressive to see the level of disgust Cruz’s colleagues have for him.
KG
@Redshift: about 20% of Republicans polled are undecided. Most of them will go for a front runner, that’s typically what happens with undecideds – that means Jeb or Trump (the only two in double digits in the national averages) or Walker (who is at 9% or so in the averages). Maybe Paul, Rubio, or Carson finds a way to sneak in, but I doubt it. But for all the talk of 20 candidates, most of them can be taken as seriously as Kucinich and Sharpton in 2004 or Forbes and Bauer in 2000. Jeb, Trump, Walker, Carson, and either Rubio or Paul will be the field by January.
Mike in NC
Hopefully this will inspire Trump to make the hate radio circuit — Limbaugh, Savage, Hewitt and the rest — where he can bellow into the microphone uninterrupted for a couple of hours. The 27%ers will eat that up.
FlipYrWhig
@sigaba:
John McCain’s base is the media. And that’s who’s most upset. But what if you declare a gaffe and no one else particularly reacts?
Kropadope
@FlipYrWhig: Fortunately for the media, their public esteem can barely go lower.
Betty Cracker
@Cacti: I don’t see Trump going that far, not because of the crazy shit he says now that should be disqualifying but rather for the relatively sane things he’s said in the past. He’s going to get hammered on that stuff in the debates.
Maybe he can admit he was wrong back then on Obama, guns, abortion, taxes, etc., but my guess is many of his current wingnut fans don’t know about it and will be shocked at his relatively recent heresy when Trump’s opponents point it out.
bemused
Tea party crazy republicans feel betrayed and enraged. They want the GOP to lay waste to government, no deals, no negotiations, no prisoners, their way or the highway. They’re fed up with not getting what they want and those republicans like Boehner standing in their way.
They love the outrageous racist, tough-guy talk just pouring out of Trump’s big mouth. How scared are Jeb, the other candidates and the GOP of Trump and what he represents to the crazies? They should be scared. They aren’t in charge of this mob.
I just heard some Republican on msnbc say that Trump has to go now but who can make him go until and unless Trump wants to. I just hope Trump continues. The longer he is in, the more chaos he can create in the Republican party.
Myiq2xu
“Snowball Snookie?”
Still spreading the misogyny, John? It was easy in 2008 because you just transferred your sexism from Hillary to Palin.
It won’t be so easy this time with Hillary as your nominee.
raven
@Mike in NC: Hermmmmannn Caiinnnnn!!!!
Keith G
@Cacti: @dmsilev:
Yes, and….(to borrow from inprov)
Nixon faithful are still around pushing some the the same buttons of evil that call to the platoons of the stupid. Reagan was able to “happy talk” what was in reality economic oppression based largeLY on the dislike of the “non all-American” other.
But the real coup de gras breaking the recognized Republican establishment was the flood of all this political money (Thanks John Roberts in an ironic twist of fate).
Excessive political cash can act in the same way a tab of Ecstasy hits a 22 yr old party boy – unfocused energy, an uncontrolled id, and a propelling impulse toward the next shiny thing. Since Trump is self-funding, his id can experience maximum freedom and he was supplied with a new shiny thing when a man who was illegally in the US fatally shot a woman.
FlipYrWhig
@KG: Scott Walker had better hope that Trump doesn’t pick a fight with him. Because there’s no way he’ll be able to handle it. He’s slow-witted and low-energy.
I have a hunch that Rand Paul is plotting a comeback that smacks Trump and gets him into the one not-Jeb position.
SatanicPanic
@Betty Cracker: If he were smart he could pull off a conversion story. Republicans love a good conversion story. But he’s not that smart.
Roger Moore
@Kropadope:
Yeah, because Romney’s opposition research team had nothing to do with that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker: it’s probably too much to hope for, but I could see Trump making a half-assed indie run just to spite Jeb Bush and the Republican Party, and to be able to say for X years that he put Hillary Clinton in the White House. A question of if he gets mad enough to spend the money and effort. I wouldn’t exactly say he strikes me as lazy (that’s Palin), but my sense is he’s only really interested in media attention. No cameras for the kind of paperwork that would put him on ballots.
Betty Cracker
Hillary Clinton was asked about the Netroots controversy today and handled it pretty deftly.
KG
@FlipYrWhig: an earlier version of my comment said that I don’t think Walker is ready for prime time and I could see him getting caught in a bad spot a la Perry’s “oops” moment (though I haven’t seen enough of Walker to know if something like that would happen for sure).
Part of me kinda wants to register as a Republican again just for this primary, but I’m in California and there’s no way the nomination will come down to the last primary.
lol
@catclub:
The amount of cash Rmoney and his SuperPACs spent to win the nomination in 2012 actually isn’t very much to Trump. It’s a cool $125 million.
chopper
@Betty Cracker:
Clinton got burned a bit back by saying “all lives matter” in a speech. It appears she’s learning.
Cacti
@Betty Cracker:
Meh.
If intellectual or philosophical consistency mattered, Mitt Romney never would have won the nomination.
Roger Moore
@dmsilev:
I say, I say son, that is not the foghorn I had in mind. I’ve been in San Francisco often enough to hear the real thing, and they make that one look quiet.
KG
@Betty Cracker: i do kinda wonder, as the article does, how Clinton would have handled it in real time.
The Other Chuck
@Myiq2xu: How is comparing Palin to a Jersey Shore character automatically sexist?
Meh, judging by your phrasing, you probably don’t even care about an answer.
Cacti
@chopper:
Yeah, she stepped in it on that occasion.
Saying “all lives matter” to BLM is a bit like telling funeral mourners that other people have felt loss too. True, but irrelevant and insensitive.
KG
@Cacti: just remember Orrin Hatch’s response when asked why he supported a law in the 90s that was substantially similar to the ACA but opposed the ACA:
It was constitutional when I voted for it.
Myiq2xu
@Betty Cracker: Remember when you guys said that Hillary ran a racist campaign?
Did she “evolve” or were you just wrong?
Cacti
@KG:
I suspect she’ll get her chance sooner or later.
MCA1
@Redshift: This. He’s got to be close to his ceiling right now. He won’t actually lose many of the people currently supporting him over the McCain comments, but he’s not going to convince many of the remaining 80% of the GOP coalition to jump on board, either. As the other no chance candidates drop, Walker, Rubio, Bush et. al. are going to pick up a lot more of their supporters than Trump will. I think. Happy to be wrong, of course. The question is whether he can hold his current level through to Iowa, etc. and actually gain some delegates. That’s when the establishment pant-wetting would begin in earnest.
Alternatively, I’m sure Democrats would be more than happy to see him just pack up his 18% and start his third party run. Would that hurt Republicans in congressional races somehow, or would they be better off with that happening than they would be with a battered nominee who had to fight off Trump and doesn’t carry any coattails? Obviously, they’d be set up for a landslide loss in the POTUS race with Trump running a Nader on them, but might they be better off just conceding the White House?
Myiq2xu
@The Other Chuck: Remember when comparing Obama to Jesse Jackson was racist? Remember when comparing Obama to Paris Hilton was racist too?
I didn’t make the rules.
Brachiator
@Mike in NC:
I don’t know whether Trump cares about playing to any of these guys. And I can’t see a GOP lap dog like Hewitt giving Trump any air time.
@FlipYrWhig
A very good point. It will be interesting to see how this affects Trumps’ ranking in the next round of polls.
Mandalay
@SatanicPanic:
You are buying in to conventional wisdom: we can’t speak ill of John McCain’s service because he was tortured! Being tortured certainly makes McCain a victim, but it does not automatically make him a hero. Many have argued that McCain’s military service was a net liability to the nation.
Keith G
@Betty Cracker:
How often do we see this song get played?
It is insanely difficult for someone to stay in contention for their party’s nomination, much less win it, and much less win the presidency. Remember the “Rick Perry will be tough to beat” chorus? Since Trump’s support seem to be based of the grievances of alleged oppression, the GOP main should just ignore him as much as possible, except with the occasional, “There you go again” stolen from Reagan’s play book.
Starve the schmuck of the the source of some of his energy. Let who he is and what he says be the story, not the attacks on him.
But that is the GOP’s problem. It’s fun to watch.
jibeaux
Couple of weeks ago saw it quipped that Trump is as if a youtube comments section somehow gained sentience.
Baud
@Mandalay:
True, but the quote at issue was about him “sitting out the war.”
SatanicPanic
@Mandalay: I’m not saying it makes him a hero. I’m saying it’s terrible to be like “he just sat out the war” without mentioning where he was sitting. Kind of important fact.
Brachiator
@Myiq2xu:
Interesting to see that you have climbed out of whatever slime hole you normally inhabit. You haven’t changed your act, though.
catclub
@MCA1:
Of course, those no chance candidates actually have no supporters to pick up. Jindal, Pataki, Gilmore, Graham, Fiorina and Santorum drop out and you get three percent available new voters.
Cacti
@SatanicPanic:
I agree that the term hero gets applied way too easily to anyone who served in the armed forces anymore. But I found Trump’s attack on prisoners of war especially distasteful for the following reason.
My great uncle was a WWII vet who was captured at the Battle of the Bulge. He was also a two time Bronze Star and Purple Heart winner for his service in the European theatre, and had nightmares about his POW experience until his dying day.
He was a hero to his family, community, and country, by any definition of the word, and Donald Trump isn’t fit to have shined his shoes.
I doubt I’m the only one with a story like the above.
Eric U.
@Mandalay: even the liberal New Republic used to note that a gaffe was a politician saying something that was true. In the Trump/McCain’s kerfuffle, however, I think it’s better to stay away. Did you know he was a POW? He doesn’t like to talk about it.
SteveKnNKY
I told my wife for a couple weeks Trump is the last grasp of the tea baggers. I won’t give odds on making it until Feb 1, 2016 but he has a very, very, good shot.
The GOP primary voter is old, white, ill informed and nuts. He speaks directly to them by hammering McCain. McCain “LET” PBO win in 2008 because he shushed that old lady up who questioned PBO’s Muslim-ness. McCain instantly became hated and a RINO in the bases’ eyes.
Romney, sticking up for McCain, is equally hated. He allowed PBO to win re-election in 2012 because all of us know the polls showed Romney winning until he didn’t. A true RINO. Conceding defeat to the President before the election took place.
There are just over six months until the primaries start and it will be interesting.
catclub
@Cacti: Yes, but suppose a Navy pilot loses 4 planes due to crashes and other mishaps he was involved in, and then disobeys orders and is shot down in the 5th plane over N. Vietnam. Is he a hero?
Mandalay
@SatanicPanic:
@Baud:
OK, my bad. I see your point.
sigaba
@Eric U.:
That’s a particular species of gaffe, the Kinsley Gaffe.
Baud
@Mandalay:
What’s wrong with you? This is the Internet. You’re supposed to double down.
Are you feeling ok?
Jeffro
@the Conster: Seconded, every word. Karma’s a real you-know-what, ain’t it?
Some guy
Look at the big brains on MyLannyDavis2xu.
So fuzzy wuzzy,these shit for brain PUMA trolls
Jeffro
@dmsilev:
Oh, absolutely: he’s Trump plus a few claims towards electability.
Jeffro
@Iowa Old Lady:
Cruz is 3rd or perhaps 4th in terms of GOP fundraising, and he’s easily the one towards whom all of Trump’s supporters would gravitate to once he either implodes or quits. We’ll still seem him come next March.
Jeffro
@catclub: Good point. The really interesting stuff happens when it’s down to Bush, Rubio, Walker, and Cruz.
Brachiator
@Cacti:
Yes, this is it. It wasn’t just the insult to McCain. Heck,you can remove McCain’s name from the entire incident and Trump still ends up being a huge jerk.
The glib dismissal of anyone who was a POW was astoundingly obtuse and foul. What did he say, “I like the guys who didn’t get captured.” Even if I were a stone cold pacifist, I would find this insane. Trump seems to want to reduce combat to some kind of game or winner take all business deal.
What, does he expect soldiers to fight to the death to avoid capture? Or does he think America will always win every war we get involved in with no casualties or captured forces?
Trump’s candidacy is a fantasy, but try to imagine him as president, in the past, considering what to do about a potential POW release. What would he say, “Fuck ’em, they should not have been captured in the first place, so we won’t try to get them back?”
Or, Trump really cannot imagine himself being president, and just enjoys the limelight and attention.
Here, there is not much difference between Trump and a 12 year old playing a video game. Check that. The 12 year old probably is more mature.
Chris
@Brachiator:
You know what Trump’s line immediately reminded me of? All the stories I’ve heard from Vietnam era veterans, about the number of assholes at the American Legion and VFW who shit and piss on their service because “hey, we won OUR war, YOU guys are just a bunch of losers.”
mdblanche
@Cacti: Got it in one.
Another Holocene Human
@SatanicPanic: Hey, Dan Quayle was no slouch in the dope dep’t.
He came from too much money to be so obvious and crass about the griftering, though.
Another Holocene Human
@Iowa Old Lady: White women vote for them. I guess their abortions are different.
Another Holocene Human
@Cacti:
People keep happily voting for ALEC babies who are eliminating licensure for building trades, so clearly premise not proven, my friend.
Roger Moore
@efgoldman:
If he performed it on some of his fellow Republican presidential candidates, it might even improve the country.
Ken
@KG: she handled it perfectly: she didn’t go. She knew something like this would happen.
Cacti
@Brachiator:
That it came from Donald Trump makes it all the more distasteful, considering:
1. Trump received 5 draft deferments from military service in the Vietnam era, the last of which was a medical deferment that was possibly fraudulent
2. Trump has lied previously about the above, stating in the past that he drew a high draft number that was never called.
Tree With Water
@Brachiator: I enjoy watching the GOP string unravel, and so felt absolutely no indignation whatsoever on McCain’s behalf upon hearing Trump’s slander. Fuck ’em ALL…
Another Holocene Human
@bemused: They’re unhappy because the GOP did what they wanted, they took an axe to state government, but it didn’t make them feel any better. If only, if only, if only.
Kropadope
@Roger Moore:
I’m trying to figure out whether this is excessive faith in Walker’s skill as a brain surgeon or a wish for serial negligent homicide.
Another Holocene Human
@The Other Chuck: It’s unfair to Snookie.
Mandalay
@Jeffro:
It’s not looking good for Rubio in Florida. Jeb! is beating him handily, even for the Cuban vote.
I know there is a long way to go, but if Rubio can’t even win his home state it’s hard to see how he can get the nomination.
srv
So close, yet so far from 27%
Another Holocene Human
@Mandalay: Ssh, I want a Dem in his Senate seat.
raven
@Mandalay: Bullshit, he could have gotten out and he chose to stay. I’m don’t like him one damn bit but that was a heroic thing to do.
Baud
@raven:
I forgot about that. Good point.
Mandalay
@Brachiator:
You are right of course, but ironically, you are paraphrasing McCain’s position after he found out the terms to secure Bowe Bergdahl”s release.
I’m not remotely defending Trump’s mindless attack on our prisoners of war, but McCain isn’t exactly squeaky clean either.
Brachiator
@Chris:
I’ve never heard a veteran of some other war piss on Vietnam POWs. Maybe I’ve run with a different crowd. And I’ve rarely heard people who actually served in combat look down on another soldier, especially over supposedly for losing a war.
We didn’t win the Korean War. And American troops have been sent to areas for reasons which have made any thinking soldier want to throw up.
@Tree With Water
That;s kinda why I encourage people to remove McCain from the equation, because it’s not just about him. I am enjoying watching the GOP unravel as much as you, but the crap that Trump is spewing doesn’t so much match a new low, it’s about on par as the worst of the most vile and idiotic comments you find on the Internets these days. Maybe Trump is some kind of anti-prophet.
And yeah, that Trump weaseled his way out of military service adds to the putrid stench of his comments. What a loser.
Keith G
@catclub:
Yep.
Look, wartime heroes are fucking complicated. They are killing men, women children, puppies and kittens in the most atrocious ways possible- and they are doing it because “we” expect them to (and in the high-minded method we prefer)
I think John McCain is an asshole deluxe. His behavior during his service was problem-prone, but the man showed up. Wrong or right, cocky or not, I am not going to judge him on that.
ruemara
@Myiq2xu: No, she lost and fired her advisors. See how easy that is? She was not opposed to a little Southern strategy lite. She just didn’t win.
raven
@Keith G: Find me a fighter pilot that isn’t cocky.
Mandalay
@raven:
In your opinion, but not mine. What was his alternative? To slink back home early and leave others behind solely because of his connections? He had no choice but to remain. What would everyone have thought of him if he had left?
Staying was the right thing to do, but that still doesn’t make him a hero.
Myiq2xu
@Some guy: Lanny is one of Hillary’s BFF’s.
Summer
@SatanicPanic: A quick read of the House Un-American Activities records from the 1930s shows that Reagan drew on a well-established tradition.
Myiq2xu
@Some guy: I wasn’t called a troll until I started defending Hillary Clinton.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@raven: Luke Skywalker?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Myiq2xu: I bet you weren’t called an asshole till you started talking.
Brachiator
@Mandalay:
Sorry, I haven’t really been defending McCain. But I will happily do so in one regard. I have a level of sympathy for anyone who has been a prisoner of war, especially for anyone who was tortured. War is obscene, and it often brings out the worst in people, especially the sadists who are given the freedom to inflict pain and cloak their savagery in patriotism or necessity.
I don’t quite see a clean equivalence here, but I take your point. But as I say, I am not that interested in McCain alone on this point. Trump used McCain to deride all POWs.
raven
@Mandalay: Whatever.
FlipYrWhig
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That never happened to Pablo Picasso. #jonathanrichman
Myiq2xu
@ruemara: Actually, she got more votes and more pledged delegates than Obama despite spending far less money. She won all the big states except Illinois (often by double digits) and all the swing states. Obama won the small states, caucus states and red states (some were all three) and won the Superdelegates.
Despite his early lead in delegates Hillary caught and passed him, He needed the media and the Democratic establishment to drag him across the finish line.
They didn’t even want to let Hillary be on the convention nominating ballot. Then they relented and let her on but then rigged the roll call vote.
Hillary won California by 10 points, but didn’t get a single delegate at the convention.
Myiq2xu
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Wow, name calling! How mature.
This place hasn’t changed a bit.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Myiq2xu: I laugh at your stale rage, little one. I drink your bitter tears.
@Myiq2xu: asshole!
Mandalay
@Another Holocene Human:
That may or may not happen, but either way Rubio will not be running for the Senate again. Someone here had pointed out that under Florida law you can’t have your name on the ballot twice, so once Rubio said he was running for president he became ineligble to run for the Senate.
Brachiator
@Myiq2xu:
A self-serving lie. You know who else told self-serving lies?
Kropadope
@Myiq2xu:
Umm…didn’t the convention decide to nominate him by popular acclaim in a motion put forth to the convention by…Hillary Clinton?
Only if you count FL and MI, two states where no one campaigned and one (I think MI) only had HRC and Kucinich on the ballot?
gnomedad
I just don’t see the GOP establishment giving the nom to a literal amateur. Even Palin was an actual governor.
Baud
@gnomedad: Probably won’t happen, but it’s fun to dream. Like thinking about what you’d do if you won the lottery.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
laugh, laugh, I thought I’d die
I know, one poll, six months from the first ballot, money-bombing hasn’t started yet, but I bet Jebbie dropped a “dash it all” when he saw it.
Cacti
@Brachiator:
That’s the long and short of it for me.
If he had confined his insults to McCain, rather than extending it to anyone captured on a battlefield, his statements would have been a lot less problematic.
The Imperial Japanese forces mistreated POW’s because they considered it dishonorable to be captured alive.
Not every POW is necessarily a hero, but anyone who survived the Bataan Death March is a hero in my book.
raven
@Cacti: That must just really thrill them.
Mandalay
@Myiq2xu:
Defenders of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign are on very thin ice when they accuse Barack Obama of trying to rig votes. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
Tree With Water
@raven: Amen to that. I once had a neighbor that was an ex-naval pilot (not a fighter jock, though), and he was as friendly as he was cocky. He was also ex-CIA, and the only time I impressed was when I mentioned it had been a rainy night in Georgia, that night when the Gone With The Wind author (Mitchell?) was struck and killed by a car. He had not only grown up with her as a neighbor, but his parents and Mitchell were very close. Somewhere along the line I had read about her death occurring on a rainy night, and dropped it into the conversation after he told me about her being a family friend. But the ex-spook’s eyes narrowed with suspicion when I did, and I could see he was genuinely baffled how I knew that. It almost seem to disturb him. Until I explained it was commonly known, he had momentarily and before my very eyes turned into Robert DeNiro’s character in Meet The Fokkers, and it was very amusing. I remember the moment well and fondly even after all these years.
Calouste
@Mandalay:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_the_United_States_Fighting_Force
If McCain would have accepted release, he would have violated the above and he would have known that or have been told about it by his commanding officer.
He’s a disgrace for claiming that he did something honorable by not accepting release, where it was what was expected from him, specially as an officer, and could have had serious consequences for him if he had done so (daddy McCain had retired by that point, so couldn’t bail him out as easily).
Jim, Foolish Literalist
ON topic!
ETA: Fun to think about how Palin and McCain seethe with reciprocal hatred. I hope they’re on a stage together soon.
Mandalay
@Calouste: Thanks for the info – I didn’t know that.
TBF, I didn’t know that he ever had. Do you have a link to support that?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Holy Christ, Tweety has been driven back into Archie Bunker mode over Trump and McCain, screaming about angry, hardworking guys who worry about patriotism and the border down at the American Legion hall
raven
@Calouste: @Calouste: You’re a fucking moron.
Tree With Water
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I say again, after decades in preparation Trump has finally attained the rank of a world class shit disturber. I applaud his malignant efforts for the havoc it is wreaking on the GOP, and wish him continued success.
JPL
@raven: There are some, who still think he gave information to the enemy.
Kropadope
@JPL: He says himself that he did so. False information. He says that’s why he knows torture doesn’t work unless he’s running for the Republican nomination.
ruemara
@Myiq2xu: she lost. And she played footsie with racism. It’s over, even she has moved on. I suggest you stop rewriting history and do the same.
Kay
@Myiq2xu:
Show me something where she got more pledged delegates, if you don’t mind.
Also, how did they “rig” the roll call vote?
Roger Moore
@Kay:
DNFTMFT.
raven
@JPL: So the fuck what “some” think. Ever hear of Ted Sampley?
The attacks on John McCain can be traced largely to the work of one man, Ted Sampley, of Kinston, NC. The following is a direct quote of the entire chapter about Sampley from Ms. Keating’s book; she titled the chapter “The Merry Prankster.” Below is the first page of the chapter in jpeg format — I want readers to see that I really do have the book. The remainder of the chapter is in text format; I did this because the chapter is thirteen pages long and I did not want to put thirteen jpeg files on my web server.
Tom Q
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: This is something I think is going utterly unremarked upon by a media consumed with the Trump thing. Bush is the only one seriously in the mix who can pass for moderate/electable (not saying he IS, but the press is desperately selling him that way), and all he can seem to manage is mid-teens, peaking around 20. Assuming other candidates collapse, whose votes is he going absorb? Christie/Kasich/Fiorina don’t get to high single-digits in a bunch. Maybe Rubio, but that’s not all that big a pile, either.
There’ll always be some fluky voters (my grandmother was crushed Wallace getting shot in ’72 meant she couldn’t vote for him, and she went with McGovern instead — a true outlier). But, by and large, voters are going to coalesce by ideology, and Trump/Walker/Carson/Cruz right now get over 40% polling aggregate; I don’t see many of them gong to Jeb, and they could easily unite behind one far-right name. Yet, to hear the press, it’s all just a matter of waiting till everybody flocks to Bush. Truly journalistic tunnel vision.
Kay
@Roger Moore:
I don’t know what that means :)
I’m just asking! I can handle this, I SWEAR :)
Mike J
@Kay:
Since they had a paper ballot along with the roll call, it would be doubly difficult. Obama won ~3000 to ~1000.
bemused
@Another Holocene Human:
They wanted immigrants, the poors, non-whites to get a lot more asskicking and liberals tarred and feathered out of town too. A teaparty kingdom.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Tom Q: I was dismissive of Walker for a long time, but as Jamelle Bouie put, his boring accountant affect makes him that much more dangerous. He shouldn’t be able to get within stealing range, but neither should the guy who said George W Bush was a great president and has Paul Wolfowitz listed as a foreign policy advisor. And Terri Schiavo and the scarlet letter bill and….
dmsilev
@Kay: Obama had more pledged delegates (and more delegates, period).
See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries,_2008
Obama had about 100 more pledged delegates than Clinton (~1830 vs ~1730), and a lead of about 300 in total delegates.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: I’m guessing Do Not Feed The Malarkey Flinging Troll
ETA: Good lord, Tweety, in re Iran deal: “Chuck Schumer, who I always look to to see which way this country is going”
Kay
How is Huckabee beating Rubio in this polling? My God, I would vote for Rubio over Huckabee and I can’t bear either of them.
Huckabee isn’t even a politician anymore for God’s sake. Are there NO standards?
JPL
@raven: Decades ago, I heard some disgruntled fighter pilots talking. It’s been around forever. I agree that it’s ridiculous, but I was just stating a fact.
It was shortly after all the pow’s were released.
Kropadope
@Kay: I took a poll on who my preferred candidates would be, Huckabee was the only Republican to break 30%. Apparently we agree to some extent on environmental issues (who woulda thunk) and he occasionally feints the right way on criminal justice too.
Come to think of it, he was the only one to break 17%.
Kay
@dmsilev:
I thought so. I was an Obama delegate. As far as I can tell they “rigged” the roll call vote only in the sense that they made it very dramatic and timed it for tv. You vote ahead of time, earlier in the day and it’s paper. That’s the real vote.
Kay
@Kropadope:
I think he has really mean eyes. I sometimes watch debates with the sound off. He’s the best debater on their side but watch his face. I would bet 50 bucks he’s mean as a snake in real life.
Baud
@Kay:
Dems are so sneaky.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: I sometimes watch debates with the sound off. He’s the best debater on their side
Huh. That almost makes me curious to watch, but the silly demagoguery about ISIS and “turning this country around”…
…seems to me that’s a half written ad for HRC: “They want to go back?” then headlines of unemployment and crashing markets with Bush looking frightened and confused.
Kay
@Kropadope:
I remember a friend of mine took one of those for the Democrats one year where you rate your issues and then they pick your candidate and she was just baffled. “Chris Dodd? I don’t even know who that is”.
Kropadope
@Kay: Hahaha. I take one every election season and while I don’t use it as a basis for decision-making, it generally captures my outlook pretty well. I was pretty gratified to see Ted Cruz on bottom at 7%
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
He really is good. Very quick. He’s smart, but as I said, probably horribly mean. I’m afraid of him the same way I was afraid of religious men who I thought were judging me when I was little. “I’ll just AVOID this scary old man! THAT’S not ending well for me!” He has that vibe to me, like he’d turn on you in a heartbeat. Yuck.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
Cleek’s Law. If a liberal would take Rubio over Huckabee, the conservatives will do just the opposite. Or maybe it’s just that the numbers are small enough that the error bars are bigger than the difference.
gnomedad
Trump doesn’t ask God for forgiveness, but he does like the “little cracker”.
Kay
@Kropadope:
The 2004 election was really insanely angry and heated here and my son had a high school teacher who was a Bush supporter- in the newspaper, etc. He gave the kids this ideological test (he was a government teacher) and my son told me about it. I asked the teacher about it and it’s legit- it’s just a scale “conservative to liberal” on one axis and “libertarian to authoritarian” on the other. Anyway, I felt bad for thinking he was indoctrinating them. It’s called COMPASS or something and it’s from the UK.
Kay
@Roger Moore:
Kasich is really gearing up so we may have to worry about him. I still think Clinton would win the state, I thnk she’s stronger than a lot of people do, but Kasich’s chief of staff moved to his national campaign Friday. That same day her husband had to resign in disgrace from the charter school section of the OH DOE, so that wasn’t a good sign, but he is gearing up.
He tells potential donors he won 25% of the AA vote in Ohio but I think it’s invalid because the Democratic candidate didn’t even have a driver’s license and was probably cheating on his wife.
mclaren
Well, there’s another reason the GOP candidates won’t attack Trump for what he said about McCain — Trump is telling the truth about McCain.
John McCain was a spoiled-brat incompetent admiral’s son who flunked his carrier landing test and was given special permission to try again until he barely passed. John McCain was an incompetent pilot who never should’ve been allowed to fly a jet. Naturally McCain got shot down over Vietnam, he couldn’t fly worth spit.
The only thing John McCain ever accomplished in the military as to trash his plane and get captured and tortured. That doesn’t make him a “hero.” That makes John McCain an incompetent and smugly entitled jerk.
Long past time someone pointed it out.
Tree With Water
@Tom Q: If and when you ever write a book, you’d be hard pressed to find a better opening than: “my grandmother was crushed [by] Wallace getting shot in ’72, [which] meant she couldn’t vote for him, and she went with McGovern instead — a true outlier”. Fiction or non-fiction, it wouldn’t even matter.
dave
@Mandalay
Franken was being sarcastic when he said that. McCain was on his show and Franken said it directly to McCain as a joke.
startribune.com/sen-al-franken-i-was-joking-about-sen-john-mccain/317645351/
boatboy_srq
@Mike J: They don’t want amateur surgeons in the operating room. However, as we’ve seen when it comes to providing the means to pay for healthcare, surgeons who work for chicken
feeds are perfectly acceptable.different-church-lady
One of the most insightful thing you’ve ever said. That was the moment the Frankenstein Monster escaped from the lab.
boatboy_srq
@Betty Cracker: Key difference: this latest bit of scumspittle is all over the Reichwing’s rockribbed darling. The other stuff was about Those People in Those Places. What’s perfectly acceptable to say when talking about Them is totally inappropriate when it’s directed at One Of Us™. This actually works in our favor because heretofore Reagan’s 11th Commandment was fairly universally observed. Trump doesn’t give a damn about that, and the base loves him for it: all we need to do is sit back and watch the party implode.
Matt McIrvin
@Brachiator:
We can examine the governorship of Paul LePage for guidance.
Myiq2xu
@dmsilev: That was AFTER the RBC ruling on May 31, 2008 – a backroom decision that spawned PUMA
boatboy_srq
@different-church-lady: I had always thought that moment came with Potatoe-Head Quayle back in ’92. But Quayle was just illiterate and thick-headed; Palin is – well, not exactly evil per se but greedy, self-serving and malicious as well as illiterate, so I suppose it makes no difference.
different-church-lady
@boatboy_srq: Quayle was stupid but earnest. Palin was a scorched-earth move. It wasn’t her dumbness that let the monster out of the lab, it was her sneering. She laid the GOP id bare and told it to run free.
I honestly think when McCain took the mic back from that woman who said Obama was a Muslim he was thinking, “My god, what the fuck have I done?”
boatboy_srq
@Cacti: I have to agree here. We’ve all seen what a remarkably short memory the GOTea has: Trumpmentum is very close to the level that only “dead girl / live boy” scandal can arrest. Presuming that the base will pay any attention to things Trump said more than two years ago questions all the earlier observations – and we have electoral proofs that those earlier judgments were at least reasonably accurate. Rmoney proved it, and McCain before him. It’s even possible that dredging up the garbage could actually make Trump stronger because it’ll be the Liebrul Media doing the muckraking.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Mandalay:
Well Al actually gives a shit about the troops. He’s been on several USO tours, and has actually visited war zones.
MikeBoyScout
1) The Republican electorate gives not one fk about John “Straight Talk Express” McCain.
2) The Republican electorate gives not one fk about character assassination of politicians they care not one fk about.
3) As a reality tee vee personality, teh Donald knows and has unparalleled experience compared to the other 20 clowns in the car to play the process to appeal to the Fox News misundereducated base.
Pay a price? Cripes! He’s going to smother and suffocate with the pile of sh_t the GOP has been stockpiling for the past 6 batsh_t crazy years.
Go Trump go!
Chris
@Kay:
Political compass! politicalcompass.org/ I love that one. I discovered it my first semester in college (ten years ago) and have taken it every few years since; steadily drifting further and further into left/libertarian territory as I go. The basic answers to my question haven’t even changed that much – it’s just that I tend to answer a lot more questions with “strongly support” or “strongly oppose” as opposed to “support” or “oppose” now than then. I get more radical as I age.
There are probably much more sophisticated political tests out there, but that a pretty good basic, elementary test. IMHO.
dww44
@different-church-lady:
Late to this thread but stopped by to tell JC how prescient he and, obviously, you are. Jon Stewart made the same analogy, albeit quite humorously, tonight. If you didn’t catch it, it’s be rebroadcast a couple of times tomorrow;at least that’s SOP on my cable system. Stewart was very much on his game this evening so that 2 or 3 weeks off reinvigorated him and Trump provided lots of material.