.
It could always be worse, we could be on Team Repub. Can’t resist sharing a few tweets left over from Saturday’s South Carolina primary…
Kasich: It's down to 4 candidates
Rubio: It's down to 3 candidates
Cruz: Choice is now between 2 candidates
Trump: I'm the only candidate— Reid J. Epstein (@reidepstein) February 21, 2016
Winning formula for 2016: less immigration/better health coverage/fewer wars. Official GOP offer: more immigration/worse coverage/more wars
— David Frum (@davidfrum) February 21, 2016
Apart from schadenfreude, what’s on the agenda as we start another week?
Man, Fox News is like a wake right now. Pollster just said Clinton would trounce Trump in general election; called it the nightmare scenario
— Molly Knight (@molly_knight) February 21, 2016
Biggest news from #SCPrimary isn't who finishes second – it's that the "Trump leaking support" story was false. He's the guy. #GOP
— Tom Watson (@tomwatson) February 21, 2016
Marco Rubio is going to give a hell of victory speech the night Trump wins the nomination.
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) February 21, 2016
Carson statement for the ages!
he "received as many delegates in South Carolina as all other candidates but the winner"
— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) February 21, 2016
Ppl shocked that Trump leads among SC veterans despite Bush callout: maybe vets dislike being lied into a war more than pundits do.
— Dante Atkins (@DanteAtkins) February 21, 2016
Well, goodbye Supreme Court for a generation. Was nice having you.
— Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) February 21, 2016
Looks like the GOP race comes down to a competition between 2016 versions of Nero, Domitian and Commodus. What could possibly go wrong…
— dengre (@denngree) February 21, 2016
Zinsky
What Democrats should do is focus on the positive. Our message is about inclusion, helping the poor, rebuilding our infrastructure and planning for the future. The Republican message is about exclusion and hate, helping the rich, ignoring our infrastructure and hating on the past. As some pundit so wisely said, “it’s clear the entire Republican agenda for the 21st Century is repealing the 20th Century “.
Amir Khalid
It says something about Kasich’s impact on public awareness that Mike Luckovich can’t even remember what he looks like.
Sherparick1
I do like that reference to three bad Roman Emperors; we do seem living in the decay stage of the American republic. A sad thought: at least 45% of our fellow citizens will vote for Trump & Cruz. And the media & business elite would put a light weight like Rubio in White House in order to get a big tax cut & and a war.
OzarkHillbilly
Ummmm….. David? aren’t the GOP candidates promising to shut down all immigration except to people who look, worship, and talk** just like them?
**these days it sounds like even the whitest of white evangelical swedes who did not speak english with an american accent would be unacceptable.
amk
@OzarkHillbilly:
beat me to it. guess once a liar, always a liar.
OzarkHillbilly
@OzarkHillbilly:
I actually think if it were Trump the # might drop to 42%, maybe even lower, which is not to say it can’t go higher, we are after all talking about the American electorate. (Trump really is the wild card in the deck, and at this point there really is no telling how that will play) Not so with Cruz tho. Cruz is the ultimate asshole that everyone hates within 5 mins of meeting, but most voters will never meet him, so I suspect he will at least get close to the infamous 47%..
ETA actually a reply to Sherparick1
Mustang Bobby
The fact that Jeb Bush is now just another guy standing in line at Einstein’s on Miracle Mile in Coral Gables waiting for his plain with a schmeer is just what I’d hoped for and predicted.
Or as Ken Jennings tweeted: “Oh, so NOW Jeb is willing to pull the plug when someone’s on life support.”
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
David Frum is a Canadian immigrant who constantly whines against immigration.
practice what you preach ass hole and self deport.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@Zinsky:
You and Mike L should drop by BJ on a weekend and read what the message is around here. Apparently Hilary is the antichrist and Bernie is the love child of Hitler and Stalin. And that is from people who supposedly are on our side.
Hal
@OzarkHillbilly: That Frum line confused me too. Maybe he meant less focus on immigration? I thought all the gop candidates were talking less immigration, self deportation, build a wall yada yada yada.
Mustang Bobby
Considering David Frum, Ted Cruz, and Justin Bieber, I think we need to look into Canada dumping their crap in our yard. Or send them the Duck Dynasty crowd and see how well they do in Nunavut.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@Mustang Bobby:
HA! I made that same joke here 2 days ago – maybe I should have gotten on Jeopardy against him!
I assume Coral Gables does not have a large contingent of NYC retirees or the Einsteins would be burnt to the ground for sacrilege of calling the thing they sell a bagel!
gene108
@OzarkHillbilly:
Trump generates a lot of enthusiasm from infrequent voters.
Republicans have been having record turn out in their primaries and caucuses.
This concerns me going into the general election.
I think it will be closer than people think.
The key for Dems is to keep Virginia as a Democratic state and not lose the Rust Belt. Given Republicans strong showing in the Midwest, and the narrow margins Dems have in VA, neither is a lock.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
I saw Lil’ Marco on CNN Sunday morning and he looked like death warmed over. A combination of exhaustion, but mostly deep depression.
He spent $12,000,000 million dollars in SC (he really did) and lost to a buffoon wearing an orange wig. He can read the writing on the wall.
I’m hearing the Establishment’s last gasp plan to stop Trump is hoping Lil Marco and Rafael can win their home states and keeping Kasich on life support so he can win his home state and hope Trump can’t accumulate enough delegates to win the nomination, so they can nominate someone else at an open convention. It’s far fetched, but like I said desperate.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): You are incorrect, Hillary is not the Antichrist, she is the lovechild of the Antichrist and Satan.
Mustang Bobby
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): Coral Gables used to be upper-crust W.A.S.P. territory and still is in parts, but it also has a fair share of upper crust Cubans, so Einstein’s could sell their toast crumbs and they’d think it’s from Kossar’s Bialys.
I get my bagels from New York Deli on Miami Beach. They know from bagels.
magurakurin
It’s more or less a done deal, barring some really unexpected event: Hillary and Donald in the steel cage. First one to walk out the door is the WWE champion of the world.
gonna be a weird one, for sure.
Bill E Pilgrim
Chad & Freud, worst singing duo ever.
The guy with the glasses was okay, but the guy with the beard always seemed grumpy.
Mustang Bobby
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: The Krugster this morning:
I watched Marquito deliver his “victory” speech Saturday night. Scary little twerp, that one.
qwerty42
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor):
Well, to be fair, that is usually said about one or the other. Not both. And then we get pet pix.
Kay
Why do Democrats do this?
#1 in Ted Strickland’s “middle class economic plan”:
Portman will immediately trump him on which candidate will promise more tax cuts. If you’re voting on whether your federal income tax should be lower, you’re voting for Portman.
Bill E Pilgrim
@qwerty42: Thanks, that had confused me. I was trying to figure out who the cited commenters were for, but it must be a composite.
cokane
House could be up for grabs with a Trump nomination. When the Dems held it in 2008 (from 2006) the Prez vote was only 53-46. That’s very do-able Clinton v Trump. Winning isn’t everything. Running up the score is.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@BillinGlendaleCA: No, Hillary is the Devil?
There was a tie in one Nevada precinct. To break the tie, instead of flipping a coin, they drew cards from a p0ker deck. The high card wins. Sanders drew a 6 card. Hillary drew a freaking Ace! An Ace!♣️
So Hillary won 6 out of 6 coin tosses in Iowa and pulled an Ace out of the deck to break a tie in Nevada.
Even Scully and Mulder couldn’t explain that “luck”.
Plus an eye witness in Vegas said, “This woman had an intense presence.”
Just One More Canuck
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Forget it – you broke him, you bought him.
OzarkHillbilly
@gene108: Well, like I said, I think it could be lower. I also think it could be higher. It is just so hard to tell at this point in time. He certainly does “generate a lot of enthusiasm from infrequent voters.” but who knows what in the hell that means on election day? Infrequent voters vote infrequently because they usually have something better to do, like sleep in late, or just skip it and go to the corner tavern “because my vote don’t count”, or hell, “Register? You mean I have to register to vote?” and on and on ad infinitum. If I were a gambling man**, and I’m not, I would bet that come election day only 20-25% of those “infrequent voters” show up. On the other side of that coin are the legions of long time Republicans who swear they could never vote for Trump. For certain sure a significant # of them will hold their noses and pull the lever for him, and none of them will ever vote Dem, but how many will just skip that part of their ballot?
I am pretty certain that H (or her Super Pac) already has people working on ads that shows Trumps supports Planned Parenthood, was against the Iraq war, blames Bush for 9/11, and the infinite # of other heresies he has espoused over the years, and that Bernie at least has people thinking about it, all to the point of decreasing GOP voter turn out.
**I am a betting man, but I never gamble.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Anti immigration isn’t what Trump is appealing to, it’s naked racism.
No one on the right ever complains about Canadians immigrating (Frum or Wayne Gretzky) or Aussies immigrating (Rupert Murdoch or Crocodile Dudnee). Never. They complain about those people. I mean, Trump’s own mother was a Scottish and two of his wives have been foreign born immigrants. it’s the Browns they hate, and I don’t mean Cleveland.
OzarkHillbilly
@BillinGlendaleCA: Wait a minute, I thought we baby boomers were.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Thank you for that correction, I am nothing if not precise so I hate to misrepresent comments here.
@Mustang Bobby:
We used to have a couple of decent places here then Einstein and Brugers moved in and they died. Brugers is the low end of passable but I miss the real ones we no longer have. The good old German, Scandinavian and Hmong of Minnesota apparently don’t know a bagel from raw bread dough sadly.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Speaking of Canadians, did anyone see the US Women’s soccer team play Canada last night?
Those badasses were knocking each other around like a hockey game (clip)
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@qwerty42:
Yeah, I don’t think anyone is saying that about both just one or the other. The goal, as far as I have been able to determine, is to talk shit about the other one as if that make people want to support your guy. The correct response, again from evidence present here, is to talk shit about the first guys favorite. rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat,
OzarkHillbilly
@Just One More Canuck: He was defective when he got here. We’re gonna file a class action lawsuit.
BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: What concerns me about tRump is the celebrity effect. We saw that here in CA with the Governator.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@cokane:
The fear is that Trump might get a bunch of knuckle dragging morons who usually stay home to come out and vote. Normal polling might not catch them because they usually don’t bother to vote. This would be a very bad thing.
BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: Hillary is a Boomer.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor):
True risks both.
Keith P.
This will make for an interesting game of chicken. Right now, Mitch McConnell has almost zero choice but to not accept any SC nominee, no matter how moderate (or even conservative). But with Trump on cruise control (hahaha) he has to start thinking that Hillary’s candidate will be a bigger stick in the eye.
BillinGlendaleCA
Another moon shot(from earlier this morning).
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Meanwhile, yesterday Chuck Todd was saying Trump is Hillary’s worst nightmare. (your liberal media bias in action).
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@BillinGlendaleCA: that’s a really sharp snapshot – you can almost see Gingrich’s moon base
OzarkHillbilly
@BillinGlendaleCA: that would make her one of the spawns of Satan and the antichrist, not THE spawn of Satan and the antichrist. I have a reputation to uphold here.
@BillinGlendaleCA: There is that, but California is not MO or (name any other state) so I am unsure of how it translates.
Kay
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor):
Trump will become more and more conventional as the GOP establishment starts to back/advise/pressure him.
They’ll try to do both things- get the GOP base (they will get that- they’ll all be backing him if he’s the nominee) and then keep the disaffected, lower income voters who think Trump is new and different.
They could pull that off. The base is already a given. He just has to move towards conventional GOP positions privately while still proclaiming he’s different to the masses to get both groups.
Baud
@Kay: Trump can etch-a-sketch every day and no one will care.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Kay:
That will make him even more unelectable, he’ll just be a conventional Republican with an opossum on his head.
BillinGlendaleCA
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Thanks, the Gingrich base is the bright spot on the left side of the moon.
SRW1
Not one itsy, bitsy comment about Carson’s snarky press release! Truly, the Lord has forsaken him.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I really don’t think so, not to the extent that so many do. Then again, I didn’t think the stupid could so totally and completely overwhelm the GOP.and nominate the Hairpiece, and at this point I figure it is all but certain they will.
Bill E Pilgrim
@BillinGlendaleCA: You faked that, admit it. It was really taken on a set in Area 51. (Nice BTW)
Kay
@Baud:
Agreed. They’re already advising him. Rudy Giuliani on the WOT and William Bennett on education – he’s actually going backward from Romney- more conventional.
The establishment will capture him privately and then he’ll say whatever the hell he needs to say to his disaffected voters. GOP Base + whatever he picks up there among the Trumpsters.
gene108
@magurakurin:
Money is on Trump. He’s in the WWE Hall of Fame after all.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Bill E Pilgrim: Thanks, I can prove it’s real, I have the neg…
Joel
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): I can’t complain about Bruegger’s; most parts of the country have never seen a good bagel. At least they make theirs correctly.
Einsteins/Noahs and Panera (the other popular option) are just a poor facsimile.
Baud
@Kay: I’m already looking forward to my tax cut.
debbie
@Kay:
Pretty pathetic, considering neither can really control tax cuts, but then Strickland lost my vote when he refused to debate.
gene108
@OzarkHillbilly:
Trump’s said all those things and he’s still winning big. They might not be that important to R voters anymore, when compared to a wall with Mexico.
Baud
@Kay:
@debbie:
Is anyone running against him in the primary?
debbie
@SRW1:
Hopefully, Cruz even more. The fact that Trump won the evangelical vote should have all the Christian grifters’ heads spinning.
BillinGlendaleCA
@gene108: What will work against tRump is ridiculing his competence. Show that EVERYTHING he touches turns to shit. The dude couldn’t make money on casinos! His airline failed, his “university” failed… And Hillary can do it to his face in a debate, he’s thin skinned.
ETA: Everything he touches turns to shit, just like George W. Bush.
Bill E Pilgrim
I think it’s pretty clear that the GOP establishment is going into complete, openly-displayed freakout mode not because they actually give a shit about Trump’s “non-traditionally-conservative” policies as they blather on about, but because they think with him as the nominee they’re going to lose. And badly.
Back in 2002 I was watching the French elections up close and personal, and there are some parallels. When Jean-Marie Le Pen got more votes than the socialist Jospin, which got him into the two-way with Chirac, it was somewhat (note, only somewhat) similar. The “rounds” of voting there are very roughly like our primary system, and our two nominees are roughly like their final two candidates.
And everyone freaked. I mean freaked, it was amazing to watch. Fragmented votes came together, which is what happens in any case, but it really happened this time. In the end, Chirac got 82% of the vote, and Le Pen 18%.
Yes different systems, different populations, etc etc. However it’s pretty clear that what Republicans are afraid of isn’t “non-conservative values” but losing 80 to 20. And as someone above pointed out, this has downticket ramifications. Or you know, 60 to 40, which does also.
Look at Frum here, he’s not freaking because Trump’s policies might be enacted, he wants Republicans to pretend to have whatever policies will get them elected and he thinks that Trump is paying so little attention to “winning” policies this year that while he might ignite the crazies to get the nomination, he’ll get demolished in a general election. And he will.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: I agree. You can’t have a substantive debate with Trump.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Summer/Fall Attack Ads (heavy rotation):
debbie
@Baud:
Yes, this guy. PG Sittenfeld. I’m really disappointed that Strickland is ignoring him. Very un-Democratic behavior.
OzarkHillbilly
@gene108: He’s still losing a majority of Republican votes by a whopping 2-1 margin.
Baud
@debbie: His mobile home page gave no information about where he stands. Is he to Strickland’s left?
Kay
@Baud:
Strickland was like that as governor too. His ideas were so timid they were barely noticeable. He infuriated Democrats in rural areas because he insisted on “bipartisan” for appointments of vacancies- judges, etc. They literally have no chance to elect a Democrat in some of these places and Strickland decided that would be his outreach to Republicans- appoint some in rural counties. Of course Kasich gets in and no Democrat is even considered for an vacancy anywhere, ever.
debbie
@Baud:
Yes, a bit to the left. He also is anti-NRA, unlike Strickland. He’s much, much younger; he’s more energetic; he would be key to rehabilitating the Democrats in Ohio.
Baud
@Kay: What’s his base of support then?
@debbie: Does he have a shot at winning?
debbie
@Baud:
Nope, no chance at all. I don’t know about his base, but I intend to vote for him.
Baud
@debbie: Maybe next time or some other office.
If Lincoln Chaffee can make it into the debate stage, this guy should as well.
debbie
@Baud:
That’s what a lot of people are saying: It’s not his time yet. What they’re really saying is it’s not his turn yet. Screw the political machine.
Baud
@debbie:
And I still don’t understand how a strong labor state like Ohio can’t find more aggressive people to run under the Democratic banner.
Baud
@debbie:
I’d be more sympathetic to that argument if Strickland hadn’t already lost a statewide election.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
His billionaires have really deep pockets, don’t they?!
I think you meant $12 million or $12,000,000. $12,000,000 million = $12×10^12 = $12,000,000,000,000 = $12 trillion.
;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who has noticed this construction from you several times in the past. ;-)
debbie
@Baud:
Exactly!
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: i was told there would be no math on this blog
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Tripod
The Sanders campaign has entered the death spiral. Not enough cash on hand to contest all the Super Tuesday states, and they have nowhere near enough margins in the states they are competing in to offset delegate wipeouts in Texas, Virginia, Georgia, et al.
Baud
@Tripod: Why don’t we just let it play out?
Kropadope
@Tripod: Man, the Sanders campaign has died more times than Kenny.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@OzarkHillbilly: Turnout was around 5% higher in 1992 (with Clinton, Bush and Perot running) compared to 1988 (with Bush and Dukakis running). A credible 3rd Party run by Trump could drive turnout up a little, but the way demographic shifts have been happening, I don’t think it would change the outcome from Team D winning. Perot actually had some proposals that made some sense at the time (I’m convinced that he’s the reason why Clinton went ahead with the balanced budget stuff, etc., not G-S and Rubin – Perot’s relatively strong showing scared a lot of people).
Dividing the GOP won’t make them stronger. Let Donnie tear them up – it’s good for our prospects. (It’s not good for the country long-term, though. We need at least two sensible national parties. Perhaps something sensible will eventually rise from the GOP’s ashes.)
Cheers,
Scott.
Sherparick
@OzarkHillbilly: The thing with Trump is how many upper class and upper middle class Republicans will still vote for him over Hilary as the (in their warped, selfish minds), the “lesser of two evils,” while drawing millions of blue collar working class whites who did not vote Romney or McCain, but may turn out to vote for him. http://news.yahoo.com/donald-trump-turn-millions-missing-white-voters-205309534.html;_ylt=A0LEVjk5BctWn5IALwMnnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw–
The wild card in this, particularly if Hilary is the nominee is if lack of enthusiasm for her (particularly since there will be a very negative campaign against her), will suppress Democratic turn out and if there is a slice of the Democratic electorate in minority groups who would not want to vote for woman for president (misogny seems to be enjoying a fashionable revival in America at the moment). Liberals, Democrats (particularly the Clintons and their friends), and “Progressives” (not necessarily being one on the same) should not assume this election is in the bag because the Republicans have become the Cloudcookooland Party. Near 1/2 the nation is in Cloudcookooland thanks to the Mass Media Infotainment Complex (example this morning: CNN breathless anchors went on about Kalamazoo mass shooter and community concerns that it was ISIS terrorism, but that the authorities were saying that the lonely middle age white male Uber driver who shot 8 strangers, killing six, in cold blood was just another nutty white guy with a Glock, so no need to worry, except we should all be scared to death that ISIS will pop out from under our beds and chop our heads off. People are so much better it they drop the card and stop watching these shows.)
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@gene108: Yup. There’s a clip of Trump saying he supported the upcoming Iraq war, but it doesn’t matter. His supporters don’t care – they don’t trust the media anyway.
The way to get to Trump isn’t to point out his stupid and contradictory policy positions, it’s to get inside his head. “Short fingered vulgarian”, “Terrible businessman who ran a ca$ino into bankruptcy”, pointing out that he sells his name to hucksters and charlatans and his Trump brand suits and ties are made in China and Mexico, etc. He’s told everyone dozens of times what his weakness is – he can’t stand being mean and treated “unfairly”. He’s a bully who can’t take people actually standing up to him and pointing out he has feet of clay.
Just because JEB was incompetent at it doesn’t mean that attacking Donnie is a bad strategy.
Cheers,
Scott.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Bah, I said the bad word for a gam bling establishment and am stuck in the moderation dungeon. Help?
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
satby
@BillinGlendaleCA: That is wonderful!
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Baud: Ohio isn’t a strong labor state any more. Metzenbaum’s days are long, long gone.
I’ve still got friends in Dayton. Many of Ohio’s cities got crushed in the housing bubble. It, and the loss of jobs from the ongoing destruction of manufacturing, made lots of nominally Democratic voters very angry. It’s a very long process to fix things that need to be fixed and to get people’s trust again.
I think that electing Kasich made things worse, of course. But too many people don’t see that lifting up the bottom half of the economy helps everyone much, much more than tax cuts and the like.
Cheers,
Scott.
Chyron HR
@Kropadope:
Your official Sanders Primary Schedule:
February 21, 2016: “It can’t be over, Hillary hasn’t even won a primary election yet!”
February 28, 2016: “It can’t be over, Hillary hasn’t even won a primary that wasn’t tainted by African-Americans voting the ‘wrong way’!”
March 2, 2016: “It can’t be over, we haven’t even held all the primaries yet!”
June 15, 2016: “They can’t give the nomination to Hillary because she didn’t win every state!”
July 28, 2016: “I’ll kill that fucking bitch for stealing the nomination!”
Kropadope
@Chyron HR: The bile spewed from some people around here toward Sanders and his supporters is absolutely disgusting.
Central Planning
Do presidential candidates get to see secret/top secret information before the election, or is that only after they are elected?
I wonder if Trump thinks getting this information (regardless of winning the election) will help his business empire.
Bobby Thomson
@OzarkHillbilly: I
That would be stupid. So do a majority of Americans.
DCF
@Sherparick:
The Big Lie: Hillary the Pragmatist vs. Bernie the Dreamer
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/02/the-big-lie-hillary-the-pragmatist-vs-bernie-the-dreamer/
satby
@Bobby Thomson: but not most self identified Republicans
FlipYrWhig
@Kropadope: Maybe people hold grudges about being called corporatists, warmongers, behind the times and fake progressives.
raven
@Kropadope: “some people ” So the fuck what?
FlipYrWhig
@DCF: Good thing Bernie Sanders has many very practical and detailed plans for overturning “systemic corruption”! Like.. that thing, and the other one. Repeating the word “plutocracy” like Rain Man isn’t an argument.
OzarkHillbilly
@Sherparick: I largely agree… Nothing you have said is wrong and yes suppressed voter turn out of Dems could be a problem, BUT…. It could be a problem whether it is Hillary OR Bernie running. It can always be a problem. Do not underestimate the possibility of damage that an avowed socialist can do to our party’s chances. It is a very real danger.
I also notice you make no mention of suppressed voter turn out on the GOP side, which is a very big danger for them if Trump gets the nod and a not insignificant danger if Cruz does. The RNC is very much worried and rightly so.
In other words, I think you give too much emphasis to our perceived weaknesses and not near enough to the GOP’s. None of which is to say we have it in the bag, we don’t. The dangers are real. But so are the opportunities. We have work to do.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@BillinGlendaleCA:
This. A thousand times this.
And to expand on the theme, point out that while he left ruin in his wake, he PERSONALLY came out smelling like a rose. Send a loud message that America can’t tolerate a failed executive who golden parachutes out of the falling wreckage every time he’s given control of something.
I’d like to see a total for him somewhere in the 40% range – Georgia in play.
Bobby Thomson
@satby: It’s at best a wash, because if he has any idea what he’s doing, Trump will be attacking Clinton from the left on a lot of issues, trying to create the same dynamic on the Democratic side.
DCF
@Kropadope:
I’ve concluded that the commenters who derisively label Sanders’ supporters as ‘purity ponies’ are (over)reacting to their own sense of feeling ‘dirty’ for their support of ‘pragmatism’, ‘experience’, and ‘incrementalism’ – euphemisms and code words for inaction regarding systemic plutocratic corruption.
danielx
It’s true – I thought nothing could top the Republicans’ 2012 collection of plutocrats and nutcases (Michelle Bachmann still has the craziest eyes not in Charlie Manson’s head). But the current field has provided me with giggles far beyond those provided four years ago. Although I still miss Charlie Pierce’s channeling the Marquis du Mittens….
Kropadope
@FlipYrWhig: Oh, yeah, and I just love being called racist, sexist, naïve. Almost as much as I like having my points completely ignored, when they aren’t being deliberately misconstrued. For the record, I haven’t called anyone here any of those things you said.
@raven: It’s enough of the commenters here that suddenly this blog I’ve been coming to for nearly a decade feels like a hostile environment. It’s not cool.
Elizabelle
@OzarkHillbilly:
Isn’t that strategy a double-edged sword, though? Because it plays to the folks who want to say, “See, he’s not that bad. He’s just saying that stuff to get elected.” ie. Republicans who want ANY excuse to avoid voting for the Democrat, or not voting.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@DCF:
No, upon a moment of thought posited by your wishful clappy fantasy, I have nothing to feel bad about. Cautious, measured reforms inspire consensus and personal investment in a status quo as opposed to blind rage at the world being upended.
Kay
@Baud:
I don’t think he understands the electorate anymore. Ohio really was a fairly moderate 50/50 state where a kind of “bridge builder” like Strickland could do okay because Republicans would work with him. Now they just want to burn it down.
Labor in Ohio is its own political ecosystem. They really do wok hard for Democrats here- the Labor Council is the group I’m closest to because they show up and they’re amazingly resilient- they have loss after loss and they’re as optimistic at the start of each cycle as they were at the last, but they’re not “Democrats” so much as they’re “labor”. They’re well-informed on their issues but they treat the rest like a sideshow.
My middle son is in the IBEW and he came fro dinner last night. I asked him what his co-workers think of Trump and he said they think he’s funny. His local canvassed for the Toledo mayor (who is an AA woman) so I assume they’ll canvass for Clinton but they’re less “partisan” than one would think- they’re issue people.
raven
@Kropadope: Ah, “some people on this blog”.
DCF
@FlipYrWhig:
Rather than enabling and expanding said corruption?….
The Second Gilded Age is upon us – and the longer it is allowed to exist (and fluorish), the more difficult (read: painful) will be the restoration of ‘majoritarianism’.
OzarkHillbilly
@Bobby Thomson:
And 90% of Republicans are adamantly against those things. The idea is to get Trump off balance and having to defend himself on all sides. If he is constantly having to reassure his base that all those things he said aren’t true, it reduces the amount of resources he can devote to expanding that base.
Trump is a really weak candidate who has for the moment captured the Republican Id. But what does he do when the bully act no longer works?
TallPete
@Sherparick1: Well that number will depend allot on voter turnout. Only 60% show up to vote on a good year. Would a Trump candidacy bring more voters in? I hope not but I suspect it would.
DCF
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
Cautious, measured reforms inspire consensus and personal investment in a status quo as opposed to blind rage at the world being upended.
Are you so complacent as to accept the ‘status quo’? ‘Measured’ is yet another euphemism for gradualism….
The electorate’s anger (rage?) is far from blind – the cause(s) of our collective distress are being revealed with increasing clarity….
Sherparick
@Sherparick: I know we are long way from the election, but when you look at the Real Politics.Com poll of poll trackers, Clinton appears to have a very hard ceiling of 45% with all the Republicans. She trails Rubio (who I expect stands in as “Generic Republican who is not Clinton), 47 to 42% and barely leads Trump and Cruz. (And Sanders I don’t seeing doing much better and the Republicans have hardly started the r**f**king of Bernie.) I know I am a bit of an Eeyore, but really wish people would be more frightened of what President Trump or Rubio with a Republican Congress would do (I would expect one thing would be to pass citizenship laws that would raise questions about the citizenship of of anyone born in the United States the last 30 years who had one or more non-citizen parents (think of it as the Turn 14th Amendment, Obama Birther, and Insure Republican rule in perpetuity Act of 2017, right after Rubio’s Wealth Preservation and Inequality Act of 2017 abolishes the income tax on capital gains, inheritance, and dividends.
Kropadope
@FlipYrWhig:
Actually, he does have plans to face systemic corruption. He has big, bold plans such as amending the Constitution to allow for campaign finance reform. Obviously that’s a heavy lift, but he notes even Supreme Court appointments will have the ability to overturn Citizens United if when the appropriate case emerges.
Some of his legislative goals WRT corruption look pretty manageable, such as increased transparency, including disclosure requirements for donations. Even if he can’t get anything through legislatively, he also wants to enforce existing campaign finance laws more aggressively.
So, there’s a piece of his plan to fight systemic corruption. Obviously there’s more but I can’t do all your reading for you. So, remember, just because you don’t know about or choose to ignore something, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@OzarkHillbilly:
I see what you both say. Perhaps it is best done by a PAC steering those would-be conservative votes to some third party nutter like the Constimatooshin party candidate.
Sure, it is ratfucking, but it would work and not diminish the toxicity of the current expressions of the Oompa-Loompa.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Kropadope
@raven:
Sorry if I was unclear, but what did you think I meant by “around here?”
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@DCF:
It took 40 years for us to reach this point, so yes, the process has to be gradual.
Purity ponies could benefit from courses in psychology and social psychology.
OzarkHillbilly
@Elizabelle: Look, you can say it as “Trump said he likes PP, even gave money to them, but I have stood up and fought the battles in Washington for women’s health that Planned Parenthood is dedicated to.” or some version of that. That is killing 2 birds with one stone.
One can also just say, “You know who I am. Will the real Donald Trump please stand up?”
OzarkHillbilly
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: I am all for ratfvcking, especially if it is a GOP rat.
raven
@Kropadope: America. Tell you what, if he wins I’ll vote for him. If she wins I’ll vote for her. My FB is full of Bernie people who are all jacked up. I don’t say nuthin.
Betty Cracker
@Kropadope: I agree, and I’m an undecided-leans Hillary. It’s also stupid politics. On the other hand, some of the Sanders supporters are raging dickheads too. Best to just ignore the assholes and not let their rantings affect your views of either candidate, both of whom are thoughtful folks who would be a trillion times better than any Republican.
DCF
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
Thirty-five years, to be precise – ever since the rise of Reaganism….
FYI, I have a B.A. (Alpha Kappa Delta) in Sociology and an M.A. in Psychology…just sayin’….
Chris
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Are you sure it’s because they think he’ll lose, or is it because they think they can’t control him? That he’s not “part of the club,” so to speak? The way he’s running on telling the base that the establishment is taking them for suckers and he’s going to take back the party for them has to scare the elites.
satby
I was about to bail because I’m just staying off the threads that turn into endless BvsH bushes, but I noticed my sleeping dog Rosa is having a happy dream, judging by how hard her tail is wagging.
So I thought I’d share that happy mental image with you all.
Sayonara.
Kropadope
@Betty Cracker: Yeah, sorry, I’m sure I’ve escalated at times too. It’s just hard to deal with being constantly confronted with things I didn’t say. Like every asshole Bernie supporter is my fault.
rikyrah
Four Paths Obama Could Take With His Supreme Court Nominee
BY IAN MILLHISER
FEB 22, 2016 8:00 AM
By many accounts, President Obama hopes to name his choice to succeed the late Justice Antonin Scalia within two weeks, so there is precious little time to speculate about who that nominee may be. There’s also a dauntingly long list of potential nominees. Seven years in the White House, including more than a year when a Democratic Senate could confirm nominees without fear that they would be blocked by a filibuster, enabled Obama to elevate a number of potential justices to lower courts. Additionally, California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) appears to have used his three appointments to his state’s highest court to build a farm team for Democratic presidents looking for a future Supreme Court nominee.
The person the president eventually picks will reveal a great deal about how he plans to confront Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) plan to block anyone Obama sends up. Below are four potential strategies the White House may deploy. This list is not meant to provide an exhaustive catalog of potential nominees. Many names that have been suggested in the media as possible nominees (Loretta Lynch, Pam Harris, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Pam Karlan, Paul Smith, etc.) are not discussed below.
Chris
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Part of the reason I’ve taken the rise of Donald Trump so casually is that we already haven’t had “two sensible national parties” in decades. Donald Trump wouldn’t be anything new in this instance – the party was already unacceptably bad, if not quite in the same ways (look at the shape the country was in when W was done with it). So at this point, why not root for Trump and hope that he burns the party structure to the ground? “Something sensible rising from the GOP’s ashes” is as likely to rise from that as it is from any other scenario.
FlipYrWhig
@Kropadope:
Great. Of course the DISCLOSE Act failed and Citizens United is in place.
@DCF:
Remember when I was making a comparison to Rain Man?
@Kropadope:
That’s nice. It is the prevalent tone of the Sanders campaign online and frequently of the candidate himself: finger-wagging, accusatory, thin-skinned, and self-important. So many Sanders people think Hillary Clinton is not just wrong but an all-encompassing betrayal of a century of left-of-center thinking. Which is insane bullshit. And they egg each other on to keep saying it. It motivates me to be an asshole. I won’t say “to be an asshole back” because there’s a good chance I’d be acting like an asshole anyway, but it’s FUN because of the sheer zealotry that seeps out so many places.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kropadope: The brush, no matter who wields it, is always perceived as broad.
japa21
Can we all agree that there are some very obnoxious Sanders supporters here and that there are also some very obnoxious Clinton supporters here?
There are also far more reasonable supporters of both sides than there are obnoxious ones. People talk about how thin-skinned The Donald is. I see a lot more thin-skinnedness here than he shows.
There are reasons to be concerned about both candidates. Some of Hillary’s connections to Wall Street concern some folks. Just how bad it would be is unknown. Personally, it doesn’t bother me that much, nor does her reputed hawkishness.
Sanders does seem to be over reaching with some of his proposals, poor math, etc. Legitimate reasons to be concerned although probably not as much as some people here make it out to be.
Personally, I lean Hillary but I totally understand why folks are supporting Bernie. So let’s stop with the name calling. Please?
And I know that I am wishing for ponies when I hope that the acrimony will stop.
PurpleGirl
@Kay: Before the 2012 election I had the opportunity to talk with an IBEW Local 3 member who was canvassing in my building. They were supporting Obama very strongly. I was pleased to hear that because so many of the older IBEW members had become Reagan Democrats in the 1980s (as my father did).
FlipYrWhig
@Chris: Nothing sensible will ever emerge from the Republican Party. The minimum we can expect is that they might decide to go back to 1990s GOP mode and attempt to address social problems with policy–in stupid ways, of course, because what else is new, but at least they’d be trying to accomplish something, rather than the way things are now, where they deliberately try to accomplish nothing because accomplishing something validates the presence of The Government.
PurpleGirl
@satby: That is so sweet. Happy dogs (and cats) are so nice to watch even when they are sleeping.
Betty Cracker
@Kropadope: I’m hardly in a position to play Comity Fairy; I should take my own advice to ignore assholes more often than I do! You just sounded a little despairing. It’ll be over eventually, and then we can be united once again in opposition to the actual enemy. ;)
DCF
@FlipYrWhig:
It motivates me to be an asshole. I won’t say “to be an asshole back” because there’s a good chance I’d be acting like an asshole anyway, but it’s FUN because of the sheer zealotry that seeps out so many places.
That sums it up rather well….
FlipYrWhig
@DCF: Maybe you should copy-paste some more links to insight-less bully-boy articles that tell you what you want to hear.
April
@DCF: Yeah, incremental changes, like those this country has been making since the New Deal, are making this country more corrupt. Sure. If this country was not prepared to overthrow capitalism when anarchists were throwing bombs and killing presidents, why would we overthrow it now? And who is to say if we do “overthrow the existing order”, that we will install a progressive or liberal future? We are not the ones with all the guns and the media. Anyone willing to risk what we have accomplished so far to toss the playing pieces in the air, wishing for a better outcome, must have nothing at all to lose now.
Fair Economist
@Betty Cracker:
Bernie and Hillary have both made it clear they’ll be eager to bury the hatchet when the time comes, so that will make it easier.
Chris
@japa21:
Nope.
I don’t really understand why that’s the case, but judging from thread after thread after thread, the answer would appear to be “nope.”
scav
@japa21: I hope (on days where I really really try to wear rose colored glasses for a change) that a fair bit of animus is just a byproduct of not really being able to effectively influence events that much, so people substitute energy into the delusion of agency and that energy gets explodey against any nearest available target like static electricity. But, then, with more normal specs, there seems to a lot of some sort of psychological muddle where people are confusing candidates and their own (and their oponents) personal self-worth into that of the candidates — not even the actual candidates but idealized / demonized caricatures fed by cheap campaign memes — it’s like watching bumper stickers hurling dueling gages at each other, or watching deathmatches between shadow puppets cut out of yard signs.
rikyrah
Conservatives: Court nominee must be stopped at all costs
02/22/16 06:00 AM EST
Conservative leaders are sending a blunt message to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell: The Supreme Court is more important than your majority.
McConnell’s (R-Ky.) top priority since becoming majority leader last year has been to put his colleagues in a strong position to win reelection, in part by showing that Republicans can govern.
But bottling up President Obama’s nominee to replace the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia could bring the work of the chamber to a screeching halt, if Democrats choose to retaliate.
Conservatives say that’s the risk McConnell has to take.
Taking action on a Supreme Court nominee — even through the Judiciary Committee — when Obama has less than a year left in his term would be a cardinal sin, conservative activists say.
They argue the ideological balance of the court is so important that it’s not worth playing political games to take the pressure off vulnerable Republican incumbents.
“I would rank having a conservative justice as more important than having the majority in the Senate,” said David Bozell, president of For America, a conservative advocacy group. “God knows this Republican majority in the Senate hasn’t done much anyway for conservatism, period.
“If you look at some of the conservative movement’s successes, it’s in large part due to the court doing some decent things and making some good decisions,” he added.
FlipYrWhig
@Fair Economist: I think Bernie Sanders has a hugely important role to play, if he wants it: exciting young people and liberals to participate in the process and make sure their voices get heard. I have some concern, though, that he’s so lukewarm about the Democratic Party as a vehicle for that sort of rallying to the cause.
Chris
@FlipYrWhig:
Woooooooooooooow.
You know things are bad when the very best-case-scenario is Republicans going back to where they were in the 1990s (the age of the rise of Fox News, the Clinton Derangement Syndrome, and the Gingrich revolution purging the last remnants of the moderate Republican faction).
japa21
@scav: Yeah. Probably the truest part of that statement is when you speak of the conversation revolving not around the actual candidates but the “idealized/demonized caricatures” of the candidate.
And it seem the more virulent the comment the more unrealistic the view is of the candidates in both directions.
ET
Like Michelle Obama, I want to be like e Virginia McLaurin when I grow up.
FlipYrWhig
@Chris: I think that’s where we are, honestly. There aren’t too many good-government Republicans left at the federal level; by and large, there are only ideologues. What Republicans COULD do is say that, for instance, they’re willing to use a market-friendly cap-and-trade approach to climate change; or that they can have a simpler tax code and maybe even lower rates if they help get rid of corporate-friendly subsidies; or that they can Wyden Waiver the red states by attaching various ideological strings to the Medicaid expansion. That’s the best case.
Germy
@Chris:
Agreed. I’ve been enjoying Trump’s attacks on his GOP rivals, as odious as he is.
But the party structure wants to WIN, and if they perceive Trump as taking the nom, I expect they’ll put their full weight behind him. I’ve noticed it already with some RW commenters on my local online news. They started out saying he was terrible and didn’t have a chance, and now little by little I see them defending him.
benw
Dang it, I came to BJ to make fun of Republicans and a fight about Bernie and Hillary broke out.
I enjoyed the bearded Professor dropping the hammer on Rubio this morning.
Germy
@ET: She was wonderful. I felt her joy.
Can you imagine the things she’s seen in her century? All the insults, all the danger? I loved that she was so happy to see Obama she danced. I love her.
OzarkHillbilly
@Germy: They have to defend him, he’s so easy to attack.
Germy
@OzarkHillbilly: You’re right. And it’s been funny to watch the Villagers twist themselves into knots over him.
Chris
@Germy:
Oh, yeah. I haven’t seen it (largely because I don’t watch any RW news and get my sense of what they’re thinking mostly from relatives and acquaintances, and don’t watch much of the Village either), but I do think if given a choice between Trump and
Hillary ClintonBernie Sandersa Democrat, they’ll all pick Trump.Germy
@Chris: I take RW news in small doses, but I see the RWNJs commenting all over every “straight” piece in the online versions of my local newspapers.
Betty Cracker
@Germy: I’ve noticed that shift too, mostly from local wingnut columnists who fancy themselves responsible Republicans. They’re going through the stages of grief in real time. Not at acceptance yet, but they’ll get there.
Germy
Out of some twisted and unshakeable habit, I checked in to see what Kunstler was saying on his Monday blog, and I see he’s peevish as usual:
http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/between-the-loathsome-and-the-unspeakable/
(don’t look at his reader comments unless you have a strong stomach; it’s a swamp down there)
delk
Cruz campaign latest Rubio smear
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@OzarkHillbilly: I’d also guess there’s a non-trivial chance he turns out a lot of infrequent voters that will show up to vote against him. I mean, a lot of those voters are probably hispanic and if I were hispanic I’d turn out to vote against the guy.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@benw: Not to mention he’s lazier than W. I mean, the guy couldn’t show up to work as a State legislator, he won’t show up to work in the Senate. POTUS is a 24/7 365 job and The Rubot can’t even work 9-5 regularly.
Paul in KY
@Germy: He’s not that fond of Hillary either.
Bobby Thomson
@Kropadope: if you can’t pass legislation because congress is corrupt, how do yiu get a constitutional amendment (the first amendment ever to the First Amendment) through that body and a super majority of at least as corrupt state legislatures?
The only way around Citizens United is to overrule it. Any Democrat would have exactly the same strategy to do that.
And even before Citizens United, it’s not as though Americans voted like Scandinavians. There are some real trade offs in a pluralist democracy that don’t just disappear.
Matt McIrvin
Bernie fans on Facebook currently passing around some kind of link about Hillary’s dirty tricks in Nevada and demanding that the caucus be nullified. I don’t yet know what this is about and am not sure I want to find out.
Patricia Kayden
@OzarkHillbilly: I was trying to figure out how Frum can state that Republicans want more immigration. That’s a bald faced lie.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@OzarkHillbilly: Cruz wants to increase the H-1B visa cap by 500%, and the last omnibus spending bill from the House quadruples the number of H-2B visas.
Maybe that’s what Frum is harping on.
Germy
@Paul in KY:
Kunstler had nice things to say about Rand Paul. He was disappointed when that campaign was suspended. Gives you an idea of where Kunstler’s head is at.
FlipYrWhig
@Matt McIrvin: I always wondered what happened to the Diebold conspiracy true believers…
Applejinx
@Germy: Wow. This guy has an even darker view of the economy than I do. Not being able to even hold elections because the basic structure of capitalism falls apart and there’s no food in supermarkets? Uh, that seems a little extreme.
J R in WV
I am sometimes a bit over-the-top,, and have been know to get profane late at night. But I have (I think) tried to be calm about the Dem primary battle. Both sides have some good points.
Bernie is barely a Democrat at all, and apparently has not been raising funds to share with down-ticket candidates. He has some good ideas that most here could approve, but no real path to implementing most of those ideas, some of which are going to be controversial.
Hillary has been around Washington a long time, longer than many. She has been working hard on down-ticket races, and has spelled out feasible steps she wants to take to fix some things we all know are broken. Some call her stiff, etc, etc. I’m thinking no one who has seen the famous barking dog bit still think she’s stiff.
I guess I’m obviously in this race a mainstream Democrat, which is a change for me. I was a huge Obot, and got my first Obama bumper sticker long before the convention. All our cars had Obama bumper stickers in 2008, and I vowed they would be on there until they eroded away geologically. Actually we traded one in and totaled the other, but that’s not the point.
Here’s a point: Go Hillary! Don’t let me down now, woman, raise hell with those Republicans!
Germy
What’s all this?
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/02/boners-is-losing-it
Germy
@Applejinx: He’s been talking like that for over a decade. And his followers/readers truly ache for society to collapse; they truly seem to want it.
benw
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: if Rubio somehow becomes President, the best-case scenario is that he is in fact too lazy to show up and the country just sort of drifts along with no progress on anything from the Executive.
Germy
@benw:
The worst-case scenario is that he surrounds himself with Cheney types who put all sort of papers in front of him to sign, which he does without bothering to read.
Gin & Tonic
@Germy: I may have to surrender my blog-reader card for this admission, but who is this person and why should I care about his views?
jl
FromwhatIhereonthenewssomeone…. toldRubiototalkslower….sopeoplecouldunderstandhim…enoughtomaybeseehowhedon’tmakeanysense…
andthehardwareseemscompatible….seemscompatblewiththeinstruction…
And here I have been practicing how to imitate Rubio signal emissions.
Will this be Good or Bad News for Republicans?
Anyway, the Rubio speech act modification event is the most significant GOP primary development I noticed over last day or two.
Edit: In last couple of interviews I heard, Rubio doesn’t give the impression of a nervous HS musician rushing up to a complete botbh of his Spring music recital. It does give the impression of gravitas, at least compared to the previous update.
kc
@Fair Economist:
Not for me.
Matt McIrvin
@Applejinx: Kunstler started out as a New Urbanist and architecture critic and got gradually crankier and crankier to the point where he made mclaren’s Shithole America rants look temperate and mild. Then he started on the idea that the Peak Oil-induced collapse of Western machine civilization is going to happen any moment now, and the only societies that will survive will be semirural communities of the sort Kunstler likes to live in, and the cataclysm will sweep away all the horrors of modern society that Kunstler doesn’t like.
He’s one of the people conveniently filtered out by my Short Pants Rule, that any cultural critic who goes on about grown men wearing short pants as if it were a sign of the apocalypse can be safely ignored.
Paul in KY
@Germy: Oh, OK. That explains it…
Kathleen
@debbie: He is currently City Council member in Cincinnati. I’m impressed with her work on Council. I also have personal bias. He and his team showed up at race benefitting my neighborhood and cheered me on at finish line.
benw
@Germy: I thought about listing the worst-case for President Rubio, and I kept thinking of worse and worse things!
jl
@benw: Thinking about the worst case scenario of any President GOPer leads to a bottomless downward spiral into the abyss. That has been my experience, so I try to concentrate on defeating any and all of them.
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: I like your ‘Short Pants Rule’. Can see that you would filter out a bunch of dipwhacks.
Germy
@Gin & Tonic: @Matt McIrvin:
I discovered Kunstler during his New Urbanist “Geography of Nowhere” phase, because he took a bunch of smart stuff that other writers had said about exurbs and cities, and put it all together in one digestible “popular non-fiction” framework.
But even in his earliest writings, there was some crank stuff peeking out; some off-putting racial resentment and a tendency towards oversimplification. He made some big money touring the world giving his powerpoint presentation about suburban wasteland. (For most of his life he was an impoverished lower-middle-list novelist.) After the economic collapse, he lost some savings, and became a crank on world economics.
I suspect it’s all personal with Kunstler. He found his voice complaining against suburbs, because he found himself living in a shitty part of upstate NY, he rails against the economic system because he lost some of the money he’d salted away (well, didn’t we all??) and recently he got in trouble at some college he’d been hired to speak at because of his rant on ebonics. So now “the PC culture on campuses” is part of his schtick.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
One could argue that this is not as clear a distinction as Krugman thinks… But I’m glad to see Rubio’s plans getting some attention. I think “Mitt Romney would pay no taxes” might get people’s attention
(Dear MSNBC– do we really need your correspondent live-whatevering from an airport shuttle to give the same CW pablum that probably seven people in your studio and made up for the cameras could give without a script?)
benw
@jl: word.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: too bad K-Thug is too shrill to listen to.
Gin & Tonic
@Germy: Any relation to the well-known leftist lawyer?
Marc
@debbie: Strickland beats Portman, and Unknown Guy gets stomped by Portman. That’s the bottom line for me. Given his age, I doubt that Strickland serves for more than one term, so I’m a lot less concerned about purity than I am about Supreme Court appointment(s).
Germy
@Gin & Tonic: No.
Matt McIrvin
@Germy:
I’d forgotten that he’d gotten onto that.
One of his big things is an insistence on trashing anyone working on any strategy for getting civilization off carbon fuels that does not involve returning to a preindustrial subsistence-agriculture society. If it incorporates any sort of modern technology, it deserves nothing but scorn, because anything that involves electricity will be useless after the Great Crash when we return to our bean plots and draft animals.
Barry
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): “I assume Coral Gables does not have a large contingent of NYC retirees or the Einsteins would be burnt to the ground for sacrilege of calling the thing they sell a bagel!”
No, you want something like that in the vicinity. Otherwise, those people would be standing in front of you at your bagel shop.
Germy
@Matt McIrvin:
Yes, he calls it “techno-narcisissm” or something. He mocks young inventors “Dude! We have the technology!”
He posts photos of his backyard farm on his website (he paid someone else to do all the digging and planting) and yet he lives in a town he hates. He wrote about it, and the comments section filled up with angry locals telling him to get the fuck out “if he hates it so much”.
daves910
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
j
Just a couple of Monday morning rants from someone new to the site-how y’all doin’ this pretty morning?
CNN op-ed pundit: how can Rubio, arguably the most conservative repub running, get traction as the moderate candidate?
Maybe because you and the rest of the lamestream media keep calling him a moderate-do your job dumbass.
HRC wins Nv. by 6% and it’s described universally as a squeaker. Trump takes S.C. by 10% and it’s a landslide. Granted he won all the delegates, but when did 35% become a landslide?
That said, I think Kasich will be the surprise in March-the media meme that he is somehow the compassionate caring one will catch on. Of course he’s really just another heartless, obnoxious, asshole but media gotta media and pundits gotta pundit.
Notice the indignation at the small number of debates seems to have faded, next time there’ll probably be a call for fewer.
WIll the ides of March ever arrive?
Kay
@J R in WV:
Actually, Democrats in the House are looking at Sanders as a model for their own races, not the national Party:
Thank God. The national Party has done a terrible job getting people elected. If candidates develop small donor fundraising and their own lists of supporters they don’t have to go thru establishment channels and they’ll be less dependent on big donors, who steer policy.
Mike J
@daves910:
Last time they rotated through many not-Romneys, and as each popped up their vileness would shine through.
chopper
@Kropadope:
whereas you’re all sweetness and light.
DCF
@April:
‘Incremental changes’ – retrograde ones, since the ascendancy of Reagan – have made this country far less of a democracy than it was prior to 1981.
Why are you referring to guns and bombs? If that is your only concept of revolution, it’s no wonder the prospect of significant change(s) frightens you….
DCF
@FlipYrWhig:
Reading your comment, it’s clear that you never read them….
glory b
@Sherparick: Hey, most African Americans know enough to be afraid. I’m sick of the people (whoEVER they may be) that say “I’m not sufficiently inspired,” “Someone who said on the internet that said they were for Hillary (or Bernie, so I can have both sides cred) said something mean to me. so I might stay home,” etc.
Look, African Americans in Mississippi crossed over and voted in the Repub primary, because they knew they couldn’t win anything in the general and they would make sure the least destructive of the establishment vs. Tea Party republicans got elected.
The rest if us, who want there to be a civil Rights Act and a Voting Rights Act and maybe more than $47 of food stamps per month (which is all a single person with no dependants gets in PA), have to take the time we could have spent keeping body and soul together to unruffle your feathers so that maybe you won’t stand by smirking when your take-my-ball-and-go-home attitude loses this election fo rthe Dems? Thanks for showing us how much you really care.
Black folks have spent YEARS voting out of fear rather than inspiration, and we have some of the highest voting percentages in the country, so you know what? It can be done.
Please.
El Caganer
@Germy: Kunstler spoke at a Georgist convention that I attended in the 90s. I thought he was a nut even then.
Matt McIrvin
@Germy: There’s a strain of libertarian techno-utopianism that genuinely is infuriating, that claims we should do absolutely nothing about fossil fuels because some sort of technological miracle explosion will fix the problem if we just let free markets run unfettered. It’s dumb because a market isn’t magic, it’s a machine that needs inputs–if nobody tells it there’s a need to stop polluting the atmosphere, it’ll never know.
But Kunstler goes after the people who are actually working on the problem.
Germy
@El Caganer: What did he say that tipped you off? Did he talk about building orphanages to house all the minority babies or was it his peak-oil doomsday scenario?
Germy
@Matt McIrvin:
Yes, and that’s why I have a problem taking him seriously. One of the reasons.
chopper
@Matt McIrvin:
kunstler is a pessimist. there are a lot like him – they feel that there isn’t going to be any sort of answer to our energy and climate crises and things are just going to stagnate and ablate away, like a great depression that never ends.
it’s easy to feel that way from time to time or even often. the math isn’t good on that end. but kunstler and his ilk are basically rooting for the monster tearing through tokyo. many of them feel like it may as well start now so they get to have front row seats to the show, holding up a big foam middle finger inscribed with ‘i told you so’.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@benw: That was W’s approach and it didn’t exactly work out well. If he lazes his way through the POTUS then someone will be making those decisions for him. Who that is or what they’ll decide, who knows? But my guess is those decisions will be terrible. But, it’s all speculation because I don’t think he’s capable of working hard enough to become POTUS.
Germy
@chopper: You have summed up Kunstler succinctly.
J R in WV
@Germy:
This is LGM poster bspencer keeping track of Freddie deBoer, a would-be political commenter, who posted on his twit account a photo of Stalin-era propaganda, wherein Stalin holds up a cute curly-haired blonde child holding flowers in the right hand and a Soviet Union flag in the left hand.
Freddie’s headline (Tag? I dunno from Twit) for this political artwork is #ObamaandKids is identical in attitude to this:
Freddie’s Picture
A long time ago Freddie was a front page poster here at B-J but went away after some scathing remarks about his wordy meaningless front page posts.
Seeing his work on the Twit feed, I understand how he got all down about the comments on his political philosophy, and went away.
Elie
@glory b:
Right on! Well said…..
Wrb
@Germy: Jim also became obsessed with Peak Oil which reinforced his apocalyptic visions. Now that it looks like the curtain has been pulled away from that industry scam and produces are pumping as fast as they can to not be the ones who are left with a lot in the ground, he seems a bit crankier. I think his early synthesis of what was going wrong in urbanism and architecture, but he is drawn to dystopian visions. It may be that these are what most electrify audiences on his lucrative speaking tours.
El Caganer
@Germy: It was his incredible admiration for himself. I have never heard another speaker who you could see was in love with every word coming out of his mouth. Very, very strange.
chopper
@Germy:
the other thing is, when things get even slightly technical he’s in over his head. one reason why he always falls back to moral scolding as that’s more his wheelhouse. he doesn’t have any real background in economics or the extraction industries, but he is a good writer and so is pretty good at putting other peoples’ ideas together into a well-written persuasive piece. but then he starts making all manner of predictions from it which haven’t yet come to pass, and so he goes back to making fun of black kids with their pants on backwards or whatever because that’s a constant to him.
his non-fiction work has been pretty good, but his blogging is just a cranky old man bitching about ‘people these days’.
Germy
@J R in WV:
Before my time. I’m always too late for the fun!
Germy
@El Caganer: @chopper: @Wrb: I would love to see a Kunstler thread here. He’s so horrible and tragic. I bought Geography of Nowhere and Home From Nowhere when they first came out, and then little by little I backed away saying “this man is insane…”
chopper
@Wrb:
i think a lot of people who got on the peak oil bandwagon missed two salient points. first, ‘peak oil’ really refers to a peak in conventional oil, which it appears the world did hit a few years back (2005 or maybe 2008 or so, depending on the numbers). and the fear from that camp was that easy, conventional oil is what industrial civilization is based on. ‘peak oil’ wasn’t intended to refer to all hydrocarbon liquids lumped together including unconventional crap.
second, the extraction industry is as beholden to economics as the economy is to it; economics plays a big role in whether or not hydrocarbon plays are used or left in the ground and the economics are really difficult to predict years down the road. so people who took a simplistic tack like ‘oil starts running low and the price takes off forever’ have been stymied by the last few years in the oil market. people who looked at it from a more economic lens have not. ignoring the economic side of things, shale producers should have closed off all their wells a while back because they’ve been their selling their product below spot cost for some time now.
DCF
@Tripod:
Death spiral? While I certainly think, at this juncture, that HRC holds the inside track to the POTUS nomination, your ‘coroner’s report’ appears somewhat premature….
Specifically, Sanders has widened the Overton window with respect to both the POTUS and downticket races:
Why Bernie Sanders won the Democratic primary — even if he loses
While Hillary Clinton has the inside track to the nomination, Sanders has nonetheless made his mark on history
https://www.salon.com/2016/02/22/why_bernie_sanders_won_the_democratic_primary_even_if_he_loses/
Jim, Foolish Literalist
so when people say some recent arrivals in the threads seem familiar… Never mind.
Paul in KY
@El Caganer: Trumpian, even?
Tripod
@Baud:
It has played out. I’m not particularly vested in either candidate, but the process is what it is, and I don’t believe “narrative” or “Overton Window” counts for shit.
What’s the cash on hand, the delegate count and what constituencies are in play? The data presented in the FEC reporting (13 million left on hand), ad buys (only in MA OK CO & MN), and recent polling (46/46 in MA) supports that the Sanders campaign went all in for Nevada, came up short, and are about to get swamped.
I don’t think it was a bad play (apparently they had some trouble spinning up in NV), but I’m not going to keep clapping for Tinker Bell because hurt fee-fees.
El Caganer
@Paul in KY: No, I wouldn’t say Trumpian. The Donald just opens his mouth and lets that ol’ stream of consciousness run free. JHK is very aware that he is telling you VERY IMPORTANT THINGS.
Wrb
@chopper: Yes and also I think the realization has taken hold among producers that climate change is severe enough that a lot of the reserves are going to have to be left in the ground. If you look at the strategy of say the Sauds 10 years ago they were acting like they owned scarce resource and hoarding would be rewarded. Now they are pumping as fast as they can. My belief is that they’ve realized that the peak oil numbers don’t work. We simply can’t burn all the hydrocarbons in the ground and still gave a planet. Some hydrocarbons are going to end up worthless. Thus the race is on to get yours sold. If that is, in fact, I don’t see an event likely to reverse the conclusion, so I suspect prices are down for the long haul.
I’ve been in some closed urban design and architecture discussion groups with Jim since the 90s He a nice guy but extremely wedded to apocalyptic visions, even hysteria. It has made him a good living. I’ve disagreed with him and what he was trying to sell several times and may be an original model for his techno optimists or whatever his term is. He seems to get upset years ago when I argued that a lot of the arguments made by peak oil advocates didn’t hold up and smelled of the work of industry lobbiests.
Germy
@Wrb:
He may have mentioned you in one of his blogs. (not by name)
Wrb
@Germy: Wouldn’t. be surprised.
Uncle Cosmo
@Matt McIrvin: Kunstler’s “scorn” is to some extent a necessary warning flag in the face of anyone who believes (or trusts) in a techno-quick-fix providing sufficient usable energy with low GHG emissions. It’s liable to be a lot more painful (in terms of economic dislocation) than anyone presumes (or wants). Imagine the transition from horsedrawn carriages to autos in a world where a significant fraction of planetary manufacturing & commerce is tied up in buggy whips.
There is abundant non-GHG-producing energy available to be collected or produced, although it’s harder to collect or produce than most of us realize (& AFAIK no one has quantified the entire cycle of construction/operation/dismantling of power sources to show net environmental impacts [e.g., acreage occupied, waste heat, trapped insolation]). The real problems lie in being able to release that energy when, where, in quantity & at rates suitable for productive purposes. There are reasons gasoline/petrol/essence has been the energy source of choice for mobile applications for something over a century–high energy density, storable, mature technology for conversion, mature & extensive infrastructure for delivery, etc.–& any candidate for replacing it will have to compete on those terms.
Marjowil
I much prefer gradualism to backwardism.
Paul in KY
@El Caganer: Understand. Thanks!
Matt McIrvin
@Uncle Cosmo: Well, the technology Kunstler insists will win in the end is literally horsedrawn carriages and buggy whips.
I don’t think anything is going to replace petroleum for everything we use it for today. I think there’s going to be a spectrum of replacements instead. The hardest nut to crack is probably going to be aviation; all I can figure is that this is the one and only application where biofuels might make sense, and there might just have to be less aviation.
Matt McIrvin
@chopper: I was never clear on why there had to be this abrupt, everything-goes-to-hell catastrophe when extraction hit peak and stopped increasing. People would make qualitative arguments about why this would lead to a sudden price explosion that would paralyze everything so thoroughly that civilization would just stop. But it was all pretty vague.
Eventually Carlos Yu pointed out to me that in the original, crude computer model that was the basis of “The Limits To Growth”, everything tended to collapse when the limiting resource was about half-consumed and extraction leveled off. He thought that the image had taken hold at that point.