Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

We still have time to mess this up!

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

People are complicated. Love is not.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

This really is a full service blog.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

“woke” is the new caravan.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2016 / Open Thread: The Latest GOP Clown-Car Cattle Call – RJC-DC

Open Thread: The Latest GOP Clown-Car Cattle Call – RJC-DC

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Politico swooned last week:

… This year’s gathering at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington is a policy test before an influential and well-versed audience. The terrorist attacks on Paris and heightened tensions with Russia have refocused the GOP presidential field on the RJC’s top concerns — foreign policy and national security — adding uncertainty to an already unpredictable primary that lacks a consensus front-runner.

“It’s a moment in the post-Paris atmosphere for the candidate to deliver something big and major, because people are going to be paying attention,” said Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary and RJC board member who has helped organize the event. “This audience is pretty sophisticated, politically involved and they’ve heard a lot of speeches before…

Ben Jacobs describes the reality, for the Guardian — “Bizarre gaffes abound as Republicans speak at conservative Jewish forum”:

Republican presidential candidates were supposed to be competing for the endorsement of mega-donor Sheldon Adelson on Thursday. Instead, it seemed as if each was vying to give most surreal performance at a forum held by the Republican Jewish Coalition in Washington DC.

In front of the crowd of influential GOP powerbrokers and donors who are members of the RJC, bizarre moments repeatedly popped up as the two frontrunners in the race, Donald Trump and Ben Carson, both demonstrated their lack of knowledge of foreign policy in startling and astonishing ways.

Closely tied to Adelson – the mega-donor and casino magnate who single-handedly kept Newt Gingrich’s 2012 bid for the White House alive – the RJC has long attracted presidential hopefuls. The group focuses on promoting a hawkish foreign policy – it strenuously opposed the nuclear deal with Iran – and most candidates attending typically harp on these themes. Instead, Trump told borderline antisemitic jokes and Carson gave a monotone history lesson on the Middle East…

From the WSJ article:

… The South Carolina senator and long-shot presidential hopeful lit into the Republican Party’s leading candidates Thursday, delivering sharp rebukes to polling leader Donald Trump and the fast-rising Sen. Ted Cruz at the Republican Jewish Coalition forum.

Mr. Graham, polling so low that he didn’t qualify for even the undercard session at the last debate, offered an apocalyptic view of a Republican Party led by Messrs. Trump or Cruz because of their divisive tone on immigration and abortion rights.

After Mr. Cruz spoke first, telling the crowd of 700 Jewish Republican activists that the way a Republican can win a presidential general election is to expand turnout among evangelical Christians, Mr. Graham called the proposal folly…

Mr. Graham accused Mr. Trump of “destroying the Republican Party’s chances to win an election that we can’t afford to lose.” He said Republicans will never attract support from Hispanic citizens as long as its candidates “threaten to deport their mothers.” To the audience of Jewish donors, he asked of Mr. Trump’s deportation proposal: “We’re literally going to round them up, every single one of them including their American children, that’s what the leader of the Republican Party says. That sound familiar?”…

My interpretation: Graham still hopes to be somebody’s VP choice, and he knows damned well that Cruz, Rubio, or Trump aren’t going to offer their undercard to anyone who’ll be described as more experienced than the they are.

And then, the Main Event. Per CBS News:

The front runner for the Republican nomination, Donald Trump, is not used to icy receptions. That’s why – it may have been jarring for the business mogul to be openly booed at the Republican Jewish Coalition Presidential forum on Thursday, where every single GOP candidate appeared, except for Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.

The jeering happened when a moderator, who asked questions after Trump’s speech, asked Trump if he would unequivocally name Jerusalem as the unquestioned capital of Israel…

“Who’s the wise guy?” Trump responded to the jeers. “Do me a favor, just relax, okay? You’ll like me very much, believe me.”

The speech itself had its own issues. Trump openly told the audience that he didn’t think he would get their support.

“You’re not gonna support me because I don’t want your money. You want to control your politicians, that’s fine. Five months ago I was with you,” Trump said. “I do want your support, but I don’t want your money.”…

The eyebrow raising comments kept coming, such as when Trump told the room that he’s a negotiator, “like you folks.”

“Is there anybody that doesn’t renegotiate deals in this room?” Trump said. “This room negotiates them, perhaps more than any other room I’ve ever spoken in.”

Later on Thursday, the Anti-Defamation League said in a statement that it reviewed Trump’s remarks and concluded that — unlike in other cases — Trump was not trying to be offensive.

“In this case he is speaking to a group of Jewish Republicans, a significant portion of whom are business people,” ADL CEO Jonathan A. Greenblatt said in a statement. “We do not believe he intended his comments regarding negotiations and money to relate specifically to their Jewishness, but we understand that they could be interpreted that way. We encourage him to clarify that this was not his intention, and that he rejects the traditional stereotypes about Jews and money.”

Next guy up was bound to suffer by comparison, I guess. Benjy Sarlin, reporting for MSNBC:

… Dr. Ben Carson, facing criticism over his weak foreign policy credentials, listlessly read from a prepared speech that often sounded like a school report on Israeli history. He repeatedly mispronounced “Hamas,” the radical Islamic group that controls the Gaza Strip…

Mr. Top Establishment Choice / Republican Aristocracy Personified, not doing so well either:

One continues to wonder how Senator Cruz manages to make himself so popular with those who know him best…

No idea how the True Conservatives will spin it, but seems to me like this is all Good News for the Democratic Candidates!

Reader Interactions

166Comments

  1. 1.

    Schlemazel

    More and more I really want the Dumpster to be the GOP candidate. As long as the voters have decided to run the ship of the nation into an iceberg to kill us all we might as well have a floor show on the way to the bottom.

  2. 2.

    Baud

    For several years now, there seems to be a lot more interest among journalists in covering GOP gatherings such as this and CPAC and a few others I can’t name right now. Does the right simply have more, better events or is our side being ignored?

  3. 3.

    manyakitty

    I feel like we need emoticons to adequately address the cartoonish nature of the current short bus. I’m torn between the eyes-bugging-out face and the puker. Dear god.

  5. 5.

    kindness

    I get that the press is all over the Republican contingent but the public….I don’t see the attraction. Daddy issues? Just plain haters? Jesus, I can’t figure it out. These folk would have really offended my NE Republican parents. I hate to say it but they had ideas more in line with Hillary than them. Respect used to mean something.

  6. 6.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    Shithead says that we knew immediately that OK City was domestic terrorism. No Joe, the immediate theories was that it was NOT domestic.

    ETA: Shithead is saying not distract us with talking about gun control. Oh and Obama is clueless.

    CLICK!

  7. 7.

    OzarkHillbilly

    For those who don’t come over from the last thread- Man’s hoard of nearly 5,000 guns shows ease of amassing firearms in the US

    Inside, the guns were everywhere: rifles and shotguns piled in the living room, halls and bedrooms; handguns littering tables and countertops. Outside, when they rolled up the door on the pre-fab metal garage, more arms spilled out at their feet.
    “This has completely changed our definition of an ass-load of guns,” said Chesterfield County Sheriff Jay Brooks. Six weeks after the discovery, officers are still cataloging the weapons, many of which have proved stolen, and the final tally is expected to be close to 5,000. “I don’t know if there’s ever been (a seizure) this big anywhere before,” Brooks says.

    ….

    “Everybody knew he’d buy guns; his father bought ‘em, his grandfather bought ‘em,” says Al Padgett, 68, who keeps a booth at a local flea market and says he’s known the family all his life. “He collected ‘em, hoarded ‘em, but I never knew him to sell a gun. Not one. He did everyone a favor keeping ‘em off the street.”
    Brooks sees things differently. Nicholson had piles of allegedly stolen goods, including a zoo’s worth of taxidermy trophies, Brooks says, but his preference was guns and he provided a ready market for burglars who grabbed them from cabins and hunting camps. The sheriff still hasn’t determined precisely how many guns in Nicholson’s cache were stolen, noting that hundreds have had their serial numbers removed so they can’t be traced.
    “Getting him locked up dries up the outlet for this stolen merchandise,” Brooks says.
    Brooks suspects Nicholson may have been selling some of the guns. He had relatively few handguns – maybe a half-dozen large buckets full – and “that makes us believe he had a market for those and was moving them north,” Brooks says, noting that the matter remains under investigation.

    Oh well, only a half dozen buckets full….

    Ultimately, the courts will decide what happens to Nicholson’s guns. Brooks suspects many will be destroyed, particularly those with no serial numbers, because their rightful owners can’t be identified.
    Some locals scratch their heads over that possibility, arguing that it’s a waste of good weaponry. Nicholson may not have known if he was buying weapons that prove to be stolen, some say, and he should be allowed to keep any that do not.
    “It doesn’t make sense,” says Otis Burch, 85, another local who knows the Nicholsons. “He’s a good man – he wasn’t selling those guns.
    “I asked him just about a month ago if he’d sell me a deer rifle,” Burch adds, “and he said he didn’t have any.”

  9. 9.

    Baud

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    This has completely changed our definition of an ass-load of guns,”

    I’d like to think this is officially defined somewhere in the law enforcement handbook.

  10. 10.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: If you had a choice between sitting at a Democratic think tank policy symposium or watching the Keystone cops meet the Marx brothers directed by the Coen brothers live on stage, which would you go to?

  16. 16.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Baud: Especially being that I don’t have a garage.

    @Tom Levenson: Ah, a new car.

    @OzarkHillbilly: Even though it’s been parked outside most if it’s life, it still looks pretty good both inside and outside.

    I’ve added a few things in the last few years to ‘update’ it: bluetooth audio, backup camera…

  18. 18.

    Baud

    Before I could switch the channel, I caught the Morning Joe team lamenting the fact that Jeb! is at 3% in the latest polls.

  21. 21.

    Sherparick

    @Baud: I think for a variety of reasons the the 40 to 50 somethings that now manage/edit/produce/write news for the infotainment industrial complex of the Village are more comfortable and linked to the Republican establishment and Washington Movement Conservative poohbahs that they came to D.C and started mutually cultivating as sources and mouthpieces during the Reagan/Bush Administration and the Gingrich Revolution. Think of Ron Fournier and Maureen Dowd and Ruth Marcus as examples.

    Second, the Movement Conservative types are far more tactical in how they organize and locate their events (e.g. they put in D.C., usually at facility near if not in the National Press Club). Liberals and progressives, not so much. Netroots for instance migrates from city to city every year (and thereby creates little mini-circular firing squad shitstorms when they go to places like Arizona that all good “progressives” (liberals, socialists, and far left) should boycott).

    Netroots should be held every year in D.C. (a City with a very progressive Government), and other progressive groups should learn some tricks from our Conservative brothers and sisters to hold conventions and events in D.C. and/or New York and use these events to hit the “press” constantly with 2by4s to get their attention.

  22. 22.

    Skippy-san

    @Schlemazel: That’s a great line-I am taking it! Of course conservatives have no self awareness so they don’t know they are heading for the iceberg. They just want their guns and the ability to fuck over Americans they don’t like. ‘Murica!

  28. 28.

    MomSense

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    He is so condescending and ignorant. I’m watching this morning, too. He went on to contrast this with Reagan’s strength on Iran hostages and winning against Soviets. Oh brother. Reagan talked tough on Iran and then sold them weapons to fund terrorists in Nicaragua. He conveniently didn’t mention the bombing in Beirut and that Reagan’s response was to cut and run. It’s all just partisan spin coming from Joe. Unfortunately there are probably a lot of people too stupid to know what BS it is.

  29. 29.

    NonyNony

    @Baud:

    Does the right simply have more, better events or is our side being ignored?

    Reporters like to write about freakshows. A conference where nothing happens is not worth writing about. A conference where a gaggle of idiots says a bunch of stupid things is only barely worth writing about. A conference where a fistfight might break out among the participants is one worth going to and hoping for injuries.

    It’s a real problem with our dependence on corporate media to inform the public. Corporate media is not good at informing the public – they’re good at providing spectacle to amuse the public. Because that’s what brings the eyeballs.

  30. 30.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    David Brooks, explaining why Trump won’t win:

    A little while ago I went rug shopping. Four rugs were laid out on the floor and among them was one with a pink motif that was dazzlingly beautiful. It was complex and sophisticated. If you had asked me at that moment which rug I wanted, I would have said the pink one.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/opinion/no-donald-trump-wont-win.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region

  32. 32.

    Princess

    The password should have been “TrumpHatesJewsToo.”

    The ADL dropped the ball on this. The real anti-Semitic line in Trump’s speech was not the part about the negotiating. It was when he told them he knew they wouldn’t vote for him “because they wanted their own candidate they could control.” That is Protocols of the Elders of Zion territory.

  33. 33.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @NonyNony: I think the Kinks said it best:

    Well, it’s been said before, the world is a stage
    A different performance with every age
    So open up the history book to any old page
    Bring on the lions and open the cage

    Give the people what they want
    You give the people what they want
    The more they get, the more they need
    And every time they get harder and harder to please

    Well the Roman promoters really did things right
    They needed a show that would clearly excite.
    The attendance was sparse so they put on a fight
    And threw the Christians to the lions, sold out every night

    Give the people what they want
    Give the people what they want
    Blow out your brains and do it right
    Make sure it’s prime time and on a Saturday night

    Give ’em lots of sex, perversion and rape
    Give ’em lots of violence and plenty to hate
    Give the people what they want
    Give the people what they want

    When Oswald shot Kennedy, he was insane
    But still we watch the re-runs again and again
    We all sit glued while the killer takes aim
    Hey Mom, there goes a piece of the President’s brain

    Give the people what they want
    You gotta give the people what they want
    Blow out your brains and do it right
    Make sure it’s prime time and on a Saturday night

    Gotta give the people what they want
    Give the people what they want
    Give the people what they want

  36. 36.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Princess: And in spite of Trump’s clumsy, moronic, patronizing and barely-concealed bigotry, every person in that room will vote for the Idiotic Rich White Loudmouth With The Ferret On His Head if he wins the nomination.

  38. 38.

    JMG

    Have any people here seen the actual ratings for Morning Joe? It’s more than possible that the commenters here who turn it on to turn it off in rage (what a weird way to start the day) are the only people in the country watching at all.

  39. 39.

    JPL

    Carson will receive some votes because he’s the only anti-hummus candidate. Republicans don’t want foreign food.
    We live in strange times.

  40. 40.

    Keith G

    Speaking of clown cars, I hope someone gets through to Hillary Clinton and convinces her to stop referring to her service to her constituents and New York after 9/11.

  41. 41.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @JMG: Pretty much what I do. I see how long I can watch before shithead(h/t raven) pisses me off. He wasn’t on the first hour today, so I lasted about 1 hour and 5 minutes. I don’t start off my morning with Joe, I end my day(west coast and nocturnal).

  48. 48.

    Mustang Bobby

    Meanwhile on the weather front as of 5:56 a.m. ET:

    The record daily rainfall for Dec. 4th has already been reached at Miami today. So far, 2.31 inches of rain has been recorded at the
    Miami International Airport since midnight. This breaks the record rainfall for December 4th… previously 2.29 inches set in 1997. Additional rainfall will occur today which will only add to this daily total.

    Forget about sea level rising; it’s coming from the other direction.

  51. 51.

    Kay

    @NonyNony:

    I think it’s just access. Netroots has issue panels with (mostly) state level candidates. The bigger names, national people, drop in and out over three days- they’re not there at the same time and they’re not all there. Republican events are basically set up to accommodate national political media. They can do one 6 hour shift and get out.

  59. 59.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Mustang Bobby: Well the car didn’t come standard with a radio, though stereo ready(had the speakers and wiring for a stereo) and the backup camera didn’t involve any alterations in the original body or interior(I ran the camera though the license plate light and ran the display though the radio).

    ETA: I think they put the business cards on all the cars except for the brand new ones.

  62. 62.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    They’re afraid of being labeled as partisan. What’s funny is that as much as the press bends to the GOP’s will, the more they’re called “lamestream.”

  64. 64.

    Mustang Bobby

    @BillinGlendaleCA: You could take it to an Antique Auto Club of America (AACA) show in the Driver Participation Class. No trophies, but some of the best cars (including my Pontiac) are in DPC. They’re not #1 cars in terms of condition, but you can tell the owners love them and treat them with respect.

  65. 65.

    Sherparick

    Vox notes how excited Republicans when the two nuts in California turned out toe Muslim nuts, as opposed to the Christian nut who shot up PP clinic on Friday. The dead or just as dead, but the events on Monday justify revving up the war machine even more to apparently just “bomb the shit” out of them in Syria and Iraq.

  72. 72.

    Keith G

    @Baud: The first instance was head snapping. I certainly hoped that that was not scripted, but was just a silly adlib which would be reconsidered. However, it seems it is, or was, part of the script since there has been a repeat. It needs to be exorcised if it hasn’t been already.

  76. 76.

    debbie

    @MomSense:

    Reagan talked tough on Iran and then sold them weapons to fund terrorists in Nicaragua.

    Don’t leave out the Bible and chocolate cake! The man was totally in touch!

  77. 77.

    Baud

    @Keith G:

    Doesn’t offend me. But I doubt it’ll be a big part of the campaign. Hardly worthy of the “clown show” moniker IMHO.

  78. 78.

    David Koch

    Graham still hopes to be somebody’s VP choice

    Don’t think the Party of Hate will nominate a “confirmed bachelor”.

  81. 81.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @debbie: Don’t know, but I really don’t have a problem with it. I mean, whens the last time somebody held up a bank with a moose head? ;-)

  84. 84.

    Amir Khalid

    Was there any before-and-after presidential polling at the RJC event? I’m curious to know what Republican Jewish voters thought of the 2016 Klown Kar.

  86. 86.

    Baud

    @David Koch:

    I’m telling you. Slapstick is the way to go. What better way to visualize the effect that Graham’s foreign policy ideas would have on the United States.

  88. 88.

    David Koch

    Donald Trump booed at Republican Jewish Coalition event

    He kept saying the Jews are good with money.

    The eyebrow raising comments kept coming, such as when Trump told the room that he’s a negotiator, “like you folks.

    “Is there anybody that doesn’t renegotiate deals in this room?” Trump said. “This room negotiates them, perhaps more than any other room I’ve ever spoken in.”

    “You’re not gonna support me because I don’t want your money.”

    Here’s the best part —-►

    Some audience members found Trump’s speech offensive. During the speech, attendees could be seen shaking their heads in disbelief and with faces buried in their hands.

    Heh!

  89. 89.

    D58826

    latest cnn national poll has the Donald at 36% of registered GOP/leaning GOP independents. Cruz 16%% Carson 14% Rubio 12% and everyone else less than 5% Bush is down points to 3%. For the GOP establishment that was in panic mode it might be time to considering going into slit their wrists mode.

  90. 90.

    WereBear

    I’ve been rooting for Trump since he cracked 27%. If he becomes the Republican nominee, perhaps it will become more “bleedin’ obvious” what the Republican party has become.

    We STILL have whiners who are horrified and flustered and defensive. And still vote R.

    Let them choke on who they are and what the party has become. Trump!

  91. 91.

    debbie

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Clearly, the quantity of guns wins the creepy prize, but stealing a zoo’s worth of trophies (as opposed to bagging them himself) seems a little Silence of the Lambs to me. On the other hand, I do like a sheriff who feels free enough to use the term “ass-load.”

  92. 92.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: That column was staggeringly inane even by Brooks’ subterranean standards. “Nothing to see here, folks — just a brief attraction to a garish rug.”

  94. 94.

    D58826

    OT but it seems that the economy under the job-destroying socialist Nazi Kenyan added 211k jobs last month.

  95. 95.

    Lurking Canadian

    I still entertain this mild whimsical hope that Trump’s putting it on, and that his plan, after winning the nomination, is to stand up at the convention and say “What the fuck is wrong with you people? I just kept saying the most offensive, racist, violent shit I could think of and you lapped it all up! Have you no shame?”

    I know it’s unlikely, but he just seems to keep pushing.

  96. 96.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @WereBear: I do worry abit(I’m a Democrat, it’s what we do) about tRump’s celebrity effect(see Reagan and Schwarzenegger in CA).

  100. 100.

    Germy

    NYMag headline:

    George Zimmerman Kicked Off Twitter After Posting Intimate Photos of ‘Ex-Girlfriend’

    George Zimmerman, the Florida man who shot black teenager Trayvon Martin to death in 2012 and was subsequently acquitted of all criminal charges, had his Twitter account suspended on Thursday after he used it to post semi-nude photographs of a woman he identified as his ex-girlfriend.

    The photos appeared on Zimmerman’s account along with her name, phone number, and e-mail address. He accused the woman of cheating on him with a “dirty Muslim.” His tweets violated Twitter’s policy against posting personal contact information or intimate photos without consent, so his account was shut down in short order.

  102. 102.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Baud: I’m not that worried about just CA, I’m worried about the same effect nationwide. Sanders would have more of a problem combating this than Hillary. Everyone, for good or bad, knows Hillary and Bill.

  104. 104.

    Baud

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    Sanders’ biggest problem against Trump is that the media would falsly portray them as equally unserious, in which case why not just go with the most entertaing clown?

  108. 108.

    OzarkHillbilly

    via MoJo:

    Donald Trump has been grumbling that CNN should pay him for being in their debate a couple of weeks from now. He says he’s been talking with CNN about this, but today he caved:

    “When you’re leading in the polls, I think it’s too big of a risk to not do the debate,” Trump said in an interview with The Washington Post at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va. “I don’t think I have the kind of leverage I’d like to have in a deal and I don’t want to take the chance of hurting my campaign. So I’ll do the debate.”

    Our master bater at work.

  110. 110.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @debbie: On the first hour of Morning Joe, Steve Rattner had a chart(he always brings some charts) of gun ownership and deaths, pretty strong correlation.

  113. 113.

    MattF

    @Betty Cracker: I’d almost root for Trump, just to observe the contortions that Brooks would have to perform in order to support him. Which, I’m ready to bet, he would.

  114. 114.

    rikyrah

    Latest New Hampshire Polling from PPP

    1. Donald Trump: 27% (was 28% in a PPP poll six weeks ago)

    2. Ted Cruz: 13% (8% last month)

    3. Marco Rubio: 11% (12% last month)

    4. Chris Christie: 10% (3% last month)

    5. Ben Carson: 9% (11% last month)

    6. John Kasich: 8% (10% last month)

    7. Carly Fiorina: 6% (7% last month)

    8. Jeb Bush: 5% (9% last month)

  116. 116.

    Mike E

    @David Koch: The candidates’ speeches were terrible… and such small portions!

    Pittypat should’ve known better! If you go Godwin, you won’t win God.

  117. 117.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    I’m on a lawyer committee with the GOP county chair and he thinks Trump supporters aren’t “Republicans”, in the sense of “people he knows”. He’s really frustrated by the whole thing. I think there might be some truth to that, that they’re sort of loosely attached voters- the people Democrats call “sporadic” voters who only pay attention to Presidential races. If so Trump better hire an army to get them out for a primary.

  119. 119.

    WereBear

    @Kay: We have plenty of such around here. They see themselves as sensible, conservative, fiscally prudent folks… yet they keep voting for the party of racist, woman-hating, economy-destroying, and foreign relations idiocy policies.

    They proclaim they are not like that, yet that is what they support. A weird disconnect.

  120. 120.

    ruemara

    @Kay: what’s his proof of that? This is exactly the Republican base, with no filters, no buffering, just the pure dreck that they come from. If he doesn’t recognize his party in that, he hasn’t been paying attention.

  122. 122.

    MomSense

    @ruemara:

    Trump’s actual policy positions are not different from those of Jeb? or any of the others. It is purely that Trump says racist and offensive things without just dog whistling them like the other Republicans.

  123. 123.

    Keith G

    @ruemara: Proof?

    He is the proof. It’s his testimony of what he has witnessed around him. Do you want him to bring lists of names and pictures?

    I only bring this up because I think in some ways both you and he are correct. The dreck of which you type are not the type of partisans that an establishment Republican would have much association with. Ironically, I bet many of those folks are the infamous Reagan Democrats.

    Anyway, one of the issues that seem to be plaguing both parties is how disconnected some of the inside operators are from the people who become their grassroots.

  124. 124.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    Trump supporters may not be the stuff of the GOP chair’s ideological purist dreams, but they sure are the people he (and his cronies) created by fomenting all kinds of anger since November 2008. You reap what you sow, baby.

  125. 125.

    Kay

    This is why education won’t cure poverty and wage stagnation:

    The United States has made great strides over the past few decades in increasing the educational attainment of its populations. Millennials are the best-educated generation in American history and the baby boomers were themselves much better-educated than the “greatest generation.” This means that the share of high school dropouts has greatly declined and the share of college graduates in the population has sharply increased.
    One consequence of this is that we have massively improved the educational credentials of people living below the poverty line, as shown by this great chart from Matt Bruenig of the progressive think tank Demos:

    Democrats should stop saying that education cures all economic ills. It doesn’t. What’s more, people know it doesn’t because they’re living it. They have to move off “the opportunity agenda”. Number one they sound exactly like Republicans and number two it isn’t true.

  127. 127.

    FlipYrWhig

    @rikyrah: Seems like some NH Republicans are working to make Christie the “establishment” guy now, after an earlier flirtation with Kasich.

  128. 128.

    Betty Cracker

    @Keith G: I suspect Kay’s committee colleague and Ruemara are both right too. Trump’s bigotry and bombast appeal to the portion of the base that is tired of holding their noses and voting for mealy mouthed suits like Romney. Anecdotally, I know Trump supporters and Trump-curious voters who aren’t consistent Republicans but just hate the state of US politics so much they want to lob a bomb at it, and they see Trump as that bomb.

  130. 130.

    Shalimar

    Trump: “Whenever there’s a tragedy, everything goes up,”

    So he admits that seeing other people suffer makes their dicks hard?

  131. 131.

    Applejinx

    @The Thin Black Duke: I don’t know about that.

    Makes me wonder how many of the people in that room would vote for the Hitler meme in action talking like they’re Elders of Zion, and how many of them would jump ship and vote for a guy from Brooklyn named Bernie. He’s about as Jewish as Lincoln and Jefferson were Christian, but still…

  132. 132.

    Peale

    @debbie: 1) Most states are “red states”. 2) Unfortunately, no the RWNJ aren’t shooting one another. They might become discouraged and their numbers might diminish somewhat if they did. No, instead the gun nuts appear to be on a mission to kill as many of us non-gun nuts as possible, taking their guns to places where they don’t belong and then blaming us for not having guns. Think of an office party as a kind of church. A fairly mainstream church. The nut jobs have decided that those mainstream churches are full of heretics and plan to kill as many of us as possible unless we join their little cult. Those of us who don’t own a gun or who even if we did wouldn’t take it with us to the office are the problem for them. That’s why they keep showing up. Outside of gun battles with police, when’s the last time we actually saw the gun nuts use their weapons on other gun nuts? Never. Because there’s a code and that code says that guns are to be used for suicide, to kill family members, or unarmed people.

  133. 133.

    Sherparick

    It has already been noted that Lindsay Graham and his views are attracting less then 1% of American voters. The best of the news of the day is the employment report. You can tell that since all the plutocrat ass lickers on the Business News channels and Joe Scarborugh got frowny faces that the U.S. economy continues to hum along under Obama despite (because?) of Affordable Care Act, banking regulation, and environmental regulation. Also, if pay and jobs keep going up for another 12 months, a lot of people are going to start feeling a bit more happy, and bit less angry, and think maybe the Black guy in the White House was not so bad after all. Let’s try the White Chick over the nut jobs!

  137. 137.

    Sherparick

    I played with the 538 Red State Blue State shifter. The one thing I dislike about their breakout is that they don’t do a a breakout of white people by region. Not that we Yankees are perfect, but we are quite triggered into the tribal affinity zone as readily as our southern sisters and brothers. I do hope Hilary can pick off more white females then she loses white males and black males.

    David Brooks was hysterical today. He reminds of the headlines in the “Le Moniteur” that ran during Napoleon’s 100 days of 1815. Right now Trump is where Napoleon was at Grenoble. http://izquotes.com/quote/240992

  138. 138.

    Peale

    @OzarkHillbilly: Yard sale!!!!!! Maybe the cops could make money selling the people back the weapons that were stolen from them. You’re getting your gun back for less than the price you originally paid for it. It’s a bargain.

  140. 140.

    Betty Cracker

    @schrodinger’s cat: You guessed correctly! And they justify supporting a candidate who routinely spouts fascist nonsense on the grounds that he doesn’t really mean it / wouldn’t be able to do it / isn’t really any worse than the other clowns. Did a lot of face-palming over the holidays, I did.

  143. 143.

    Sherparick

    @Kay: Well, the people he “knows” and who have traditionally run local Republican parties are businessmen, car dealers, local contractors, local bankers, developers, etc. E.g. what some called the “Country Club” set. They generally hate taxes, go to church every Sunday, and aren’t to careful about looking into the citizenship status of the folks doing the yard work and cleaning up the office. They are not the white working class southern version (includes northerners with southern sensibilities) who listen to right-wing talk radio. These people are the Trumpistas.

  144. 144.

    catclub

    WaMonthly has another political geology ( 1972 versus 2016) article up. Highly interesting.

    Interesting parallels. Predictive? Maybe.

  145. 145.

    catclub

    @Sherparick:

    who listen to right-wing talk radio. These people are the Trumpistas.

    So is Rush Limbaugh all in for Trump? I also read that Trump may have quietly funded either drudge
    or Breitbart – and gets friendly coverage there.

    I am fairly sure Glenn Beck does not like Trump, but going to look at his site would be asking too much.

  146. 146.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    @Keith G:

    She was one of the US Senators from New York on 9/11/01. She can’t ignore questions about 9/11 because she represented the state that the attacks took place in when they took place. You may not like her current response, but she needs to have some kind of response. It’s like saying that Chris Christie should ignore questions about Hurricane Sandy.

  148. 148.

    Jeffro

    @MattF: Brooks would sound a lot like that recent RNC (or RSCC?) campaign memo about, “If Trump continues and ends up being the nominee, try and sound a lot like him without owning or defending any of his daily dumb comments” (good luck with that btw Republicans)

    Brooks would start talking about how there’s so much more at stake, we focus too much on the presidency, there’s all those Congressional seats and state races and blah blah blah

  149. 149.

    J R in WV

    @Mustang Bobby:

    I have my Dad’s 1990 Chrysler roadster. I inherited it, and he had titled it in both our names. About 30K miles so far, I don’t treat it like a daily driver. It’s nice inside, a 2 seater convertible – it’s supposed to be a sports car, but doesn’t really handle like one. Maybe it needs sportier shocks and struts. I’ve been told there’s a larger throttle-body that would give it more power, it has a Mitsubishi V-6 and a 4-speed auto.

    I keep stabil in the fuel, seems to be working so far. I guess it’s an antique technically now, but not yet a real classic. I hope I can still drive by the time it’s eligible for classic events!

  150. 150.

    Betty Cracker

    @WereBear: One of my uncles who is Trump-curious claims that Trump’s extreme rhetoric is a negotiator’s opening gambit. I’m not sure exactly what that means. He’ll only round up 50% of undocumented immigrants? Make Mexico build 1/2 of a wall?

    Basically, this uncle is enraged at the long-term decline of the middle class and the plutocratic takeover of national wealth that he believes both parties are complicit in, and he’s considering a vote for Trump to send a message. He wouldn’t attend a Trump rally, but he might vote for Trump in the primary (and he always votes) and even in the general since he loathes Hillary.

    @catclub: I don’t know about Limbaugh (I’d rather jab chopsticks through my own ear drums than listen to that gasbag’s irritating voice for more than 20 seconds), but Breitbart’s House of Unemployable Illiterates is all in for Trump.

  152. 152.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Betty Cracker: Some of those same bhakt relatives of huscat’s
    are forwarding Brietbart videos on scary Syrian refugees. It got my usually apolitical husband kitteh so mad that he replied with a long rant calling them on their bigotry. Their response, stony silence.

    ETA: Bhakt = Devotee

  153. 153.

    RaflW

    It’s a moment in the post-Paris atmosphere for the candidate to deliver something big and major

    Ari Fleischer is a useless twat. That is all.

  154. 154.

    Calouste

    an already unpredictable primary that lacks a consensus front-runner.

    Of the last 6 polls on Pollster, 5 have Trump leading by 19% or more, with none of his rivals topping 17%.

    Politico is rejecting the reality and substituting its own.

  155. 155.

    GoBlue72

    @Kay: Agreed. What changes economic class position is bargaining power – the ability to negotiate – that is, to force – employers to pay higher wages. Which comes through collective action.

    Now only if we had an institutionalized system for what that is…

  156. 156.

    RaflW

    “Who’s the wiseguy?” Trump responded to the jeers. “Do me a favor, just relax, okay? You’ll like me very much, believe me.”

    The Donald, showing his big soft underbelly. He’s just a pol like all the rest — wanting to be liked more than anything. Go after that.

  157. 157.

    JustRuss

    @Princess: To be fair to Trump (I can’t believe I just wrote that), part of his schtick has always been that he’s too rich to be bought. If he only said it to this group I could see the Protocols of Zion connection, but he’s been saying it to everybody from day one.

  158. 158.

    RaflW

    @Sherparick: “I think for a variety of reasons the the 40 to 50 somethings that now manage/edit/produce/write news for the infotainment industrial complex of the Village are more comfortable and linked to the Republican establishment and Washington Movement Conservative poohbahs that they came to D.C and started mutually cultivating as sources and mouthpieces during the Reagan/Bush Administration and the Gingrich Revolution. Think of Ron Fournier and Maureen Dowd and Ruth Marcus as examples.”

    I’m turning 50 in 3 days. My sense, from my RTVF days in college, is that a significant number of Alex P. Keaton types were attracted to the vanity and vacuity of TeeVee journalism, and they are in their prime years now. The “liberal media” (and the quotes should scare you) are the print journalists.

  159. 159.

    Archon

    @Betty Cracker:

    If we assume Trump isn’t insane or isn’t running as an inside joke then I think there is a lot of truth to that statement about Trump’s strategy. That kind of maximalist negotiation strategy has a certain appeal and it’s pretty much how the GOP has operated in the Obama era. As we have seen though that strategy has it’s drawbacks against someone like Obama whose strategy was to unilaterally open with a compromised position and either have the opponent accept or go the maximalist route (from Obama’s already compromised position) which pushes your position out of the mainstream and into the fringe.

    Now I think Obama has had some real political successes with that strategy but it’s been a mitigated success because it turns out a whole bunch of people in this country (especially those that identify as conservative) don’t actually care about policy, at least when it comes to defeating and humiliating Obama.

  160. 160.

    Jay C

    @Kay:

    I think there might be some truth to that, that they’re sort of loosely attached voters- the people Democrats call “sporadic” voters who only pay attention to Presidential races. If so Trump better hire an army to get them out for a primary

    Actually, I think the opposite is true, AFAICT: the most avid Trump supporters seem only too happy to turn themselves out for the primary* (and probably will for the general) it’s supporters of the other candidates who seem to be in need of press-gangs to get the voters to the polls.

    * “seem” and “probably” are needed as qualifiers here: no one has actually voted for anybody yet.

  161. 161.

    sm*t cl*de

    @David Koch:

    “Is there anybody that doesn’t renegotiate deals in this room?”

    The ‘re’ is the key part there. Trump reminds everyone that he reneges on deals, takes your money and offers half of what he originally promised, or puts his businesses into bankruptcy and leaves his creditors to decide whether they get 10% or 15% of what they’re owed.

    Then he accuses everyone in his audience of being just as corrupt.

  162. 162.

    Juju

    @BillinGlendaleCA: when I graduated from high school, my graduation present was a 1969 VW Bug convertible. That was in 1979. I still have that car, and it still runs, though no longer my primary car. It is undergoing a major tuneup right now. I want to be buried in that car.

  163. 163.

    JustRuss

    This. He’s literally saying don’t count on him to keep his word if he doesn’t feel like it. Why anyone would choose to do business with this guy, let alone vote for him, is beyond me.

  164. 164.

    sm*t cl*de

    @JustRuss:

    Why anyone would choose to do business with this guy

    Has anyone done business with Trump for a while? He switched to “playing the role of a businessman on reality-TV”.

  165. 165.

    Mike G

    I’m so glad my local newspaper has become basically a reprint of foxnews.com articles, so I can read a front page “news” article describing the San Bernardino shooters as “jihadists armed to the teeth and hellbent on slaughtering innocent Americans.”

    I wonder how long it took the “journalist” to type that sentence with one hand.

  166. 166.

    frosty

    @J R in WV: My 1990 (bought in July 1989, dealer’s third shipment) Miata got totaled just before it hit 25 years, and 13,000 miles short of a Moon Unit (238,000, distance from Earth to Moon). No injuries to any party but I was really sorry to see it go. Longest I’ve ever owned a single car. Especially as the original owner!

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