David Brooks of The New York Times has written perhaps the most Brooksian column ever in today’s anti-Trump jeremiad. Here, he acknowledges that his own too-long absence from the Applebee’s salad bar lulled him into a false sense of security about Trump’s prospects:
Moreover, many in the media, especially me, did not understand how they [voters] would express their alienation. We expected Trump to fizzle because we were not socially intermingled with his supporters and did not listen carefully enough. For me, it’s a lesson that I’m going to have to change the way I do my job if I’m going to report accurately on this country.
“Report accurately” — is that the current euphemism for the service Brooks performs these days? He goes on:
Donald Trump is an affront to basic standards of honesty, virtue and citizenship. He pollutes the atmosphere in which our children are raised. He has already shredded the unspoken rules of political civility that make conversation possible. In his savage regime, public life is just a dog-eat-dog war of all against all.
Brooks goes biblical in the column too, quoting Psalms at some length. But look at what passes for introspection in that column and despair of true party reform, even if Trump leaves only a scorched husk in his wake.
Baud
Their invitations to the cocktail party must have gotten lost in the mail.
Mustang Bobby
The Republican Party and the candidates that they put forth — and egged on by the likes of Mr. Brooks — created this situation for their party and for the country. An adult would own up to it. To quote Gen. Colin Powell, “It’s the Pottery Barn rule: you broke it, you bought it.”
My freude is duly schaden.
MattF
Brooks believes he lost touch with The People when he moved out of Bethesda.
dr. bloor
The nerve of those little misbehaving peons for not expressing their alienation exactly as we told them they should.
Baud
Shorter Brooks: Trump is the anti-Obama, who I also loathed.
Wag
There’s nothing wrong in his sentiments expressed in the second quoted paragraph. The problem lies with his lack of introspection about his Party’s role in the creation of FrankenTrump.
RedDirtGirl
@Mustang Bobby: I’d be curious to know Gen. Powell’s thoughts on He, Drumpf.
Van Buren
“I’ve been consistently wrong, but you should listen to my explanation of why we got in this mess and how to get out”
Pretty much every pundit, 2016.
debbie
@Wag:
This is pretty much true of all conservatives. Convinced of their own excellence and acumen, certain that other views or opinions are ludicrous and baseless.
Chyron HR
Isn’t a jeremiad some kind of amphibian?
Baud
@dr. bloor: The manual on alienation is clear. They’re breaking the rules!
Baud
@Chyron HR: I think you’re thinking of Jeremiah. He was a bullfrog.
Troublesome Carp fka Geeno
@Chyron HR: A bull frog of some sort, I think.
PaulWartenberg2016
Driftglass has been spending the last six months just jumping up and down on a pogo stick screaming about how terrible Brooks and the rest of the self-appointed “Pundits of Wisdom” have been in their defense of the Republicans becoming such a cesspool that the party’s best candidate is an openly-acknowledged monster.
Drift’s likely having his ninth orgasm of the morning reading Brooks’ latest.
Mustang Bobby
@Baud: Yeah, but I never understood a word he said.
PaulWartenberg2016
@Troublesome Carp fka Geeno:
I know him, he’s a friend of mine.
PaulWartenberg2016
@Mustang Bobby:
On the bright side, he always shared his wine.
Mustang Bobby
@PaulWartenberg2016: Yes, he always had some mighty fine wine.
OzarkHillbilly
The govt is persecuting Christians:
They have been ordered to repay $7 million in donations to over 125,000 worshippers.
Wait a minute…
So what did he do that was so different from so many preaching, for example, Prosperity Gospel?
So the difference between a scam and a religion is fake people? Got it.
PaulWartenberg2016
JJJJOOOOOYYYYYYYY TO THE WOOOOOORRRRLLLLDDDDDDDDDDD!!!
BillinGlendaleCA
Joy to the World.
ETA: Guess I should retire for the morning, I’m slow.
Baud
All the boys and girls.
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea
Won’t you all vote for me!
Mustang Bobby
@BillinGlendaleCA: All the boys and girls.
OzarkHillbilly
I am in moderation and I never once used the ca$!no word or speak of pen!$s. Sigh…
Amir Khalid
We must have the video.
@Mustang Bobby:
Deine Freude ist wirklich geschadet? Wieso denn? I think you meant to say, “I freue mich at his Schade.”
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Brooks’s problem is he doesn’t love to have fun.
Cheers,
Scott.
BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: In moderation and no fun to show for it. It’s a sad day.
ETA: FYWP, of course.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Sanders was on Maddow last night and called on elected delegates to abandon their constituents and switch their votes to him.
The Democratic Socialist is now calling for an undemocratic outcome. The leader of “the People’s Revolution” now calls on elites to thwart the will of the people. The advocate of social justice now calls for suppressing the votes of the majority black voting bloc in southern primaries in favor of a minority of white Reagan Democrats. Apartheid.
He’s gone mad. It’s like Kurtz in “Heart of Darkness”. All the
nativescrowds treating him like a god has warped him into thinking he’s a deity.Kropadope
What makes Trump different from the other Republicans besides his failure to even pretend to care about policy details? I’d say it’s refreshingly honest of him. Being against what Obama is for, updated daily, will not work once Obama is gone. It will be helpful for Republicans to have a nominee who demonstrates what they truly stand for, nothing but money for the new aristocracy.
Mustang Bobby
@Amir Khalid:Thanks. I’m learning. My new boyfriend is from Germany, so I’ll get better at it.
Baud
@Kropadope: Tone.
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: If Hillary gets enough pledged delegates, it’s all moot.
Kay
@Wag:
And HIS role in it. David Brooks romanticized what was essentially low income life in a lot of these places. He made it out to be better than it is. He did what they all did- pretend country music and gun culture and showing your patriotism by “kicking ass” in other countries was enough, and it’s not enough. It’s “lifestyle” stuff – it’s impractical, not their “real lives”. Most of it is escape from their real lives, which are pretty fucking grim.
He dressed that up and made it into “community norms” or something and it was never resilient or grounded in anything real. It was never even “local”, so you see things like rural white people in NW Ohio flying confederate flags or dressing like they’re in a bad movie about Texas. It’s a replacement for or distraction from their real lives.
OzarkHillbilly
@BillinGlendaleCA: Maybe I should stick to quoting bad 70s songs?
BillinGlendaleCA
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: I saw that and found it pretty annoying. It has hardened my resolve to vote for Baud!(if he makes it to the CA primary).
@Baud: He wanted pledged delegates to switch their votes.
ETA: On that note, I shall retire for the morning. I’m thinking of going to a local garden(Descanso Gardens) and taking some pics(regular, IR, 3d, and 3d/IR).
Kropadope
@Baud: What, is he too shrill? That’s sexist.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: Ah, I thought he was talking about the superdelegates. The rules prohibit pledged delegates from changing their votes, right? At least for the first ballot. Maybe I’m confusing GOP rules and Dem rules.
debbie
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Someone woke up on the overwrought side of the bed.
OzarkHillbilly
@Mustang Bobby:
Congrats.
Baud
@Kropadope: In Trump’s case, he’s too crude. The David Brooks of the world have a specialized genteel language for communicating the same ideas that Trump says in vulgar Anglo-Saxon speech.
Iowa Old Lady
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: He was really talking about pledged delegates, not super delegates? I must be naive because I’m disappointed in Sanders.
Mustang Bobby
Via Mother Jones:
Paranoid much?
debbie
Who said this, Brooks or Grassley? They’re all so interchangeable anymore.
OzarkHillbilly
@Iowa Old Lady: It’s not really surprising when you consider the fact that Sanders is new to this whole “political party” thing.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Iowa Old Lady: yeah, he really did as BillinGlendaleCA confirms in an above comment.
He said he was more electable and therefore they should vote for him.
imagine the outrage and outcry if Clinton called on pledged delegates to screw their voters.
big ol hound
@Baud: Yeah, when was the last time Brooks got a notice of a tractor-pull and BBQ or even a “float party” wet t-shirt contest down the Chattahoochie.
Iowa Old Lady
@debbie: I just saw that quoted from my state’s fine senator. He must be hearing unpleasant things about his reelection.
Baud
@big ol hound: “Brooks” and “wet t-shirt” in the same sentence leads to bad visuals. Shudder.
Kay
@Baud:
I was an Obama delegate to the Dem convention in ’08 and there was a small but intense effort to get delegates to switch sides. I tend to let people go on forever but I was followed for 3 days by a Clinton delegate until my husband told me he would not hang around me if I continued to pretend I was listening to her, or “persuadable” (I wasn’t). The delegates vote. It’s an actual ballot. They’re polled first- almost like a jury- we were given a lecture by the state Party chair not to “embarrass him” but that was just his charming personality.
Anyway, you’re called to the convention center to line up and fill in a paper ballot. There’s no check for “faithfulness” that I’m aware of, and there was no analysis on whether Clinton pledged delegates switched sides. I have no idea how many there were “supposed” to be. Obviously that might have changed if there was some shocking result because it’s an elaborate television production and they need the result to be the same as the plan.
Iowa Old Lady
@OzarkHillbilly: But he’s not new to democracy. Geez. All my illusions are shattered.
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: I had that same thought about Clinton. I stopped by the GOS and found things calmer there but still quite a few people spitting with deranged hostility toward Clinton.
Hal
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: There’s a similar narrative going around facebook from none other than Dennis Miller. See, Hillary has x number of delegates and Sanders has y number. That’s without super delegates. If those super delegates would flip to Sanders? He would be winning! According to Miller “they” are ramming Clinton down people’s throats. Apparently via people actually going out to vote? If wishes were horses I guess.
Baud
@Kay: Interesting. Unless something dramatic happens, I don’t expect Sanders’ efforts will come to anything. Clinton had a better case in 2008 than Sanders does current. One of these days, I may need to find a way to become a delegate, assuming I don’t become a superdelegate by winning the presidency.
Baud
@Hal:
Didn’t he go full wing-nut after 9/11? Who cares what he says?
sherparick
1. As has been pointed out by dirty rotten hippies and assorted people of color for the last thirty years, the Conservative Movement, and the Republican apparatchiks who hooked their stars to it for fame, fortune, and power, having been shredding the rules of political civility and democratic norms as documented by Steve Gilliard, Driftglass, and in his lonely perch in the MSM Professor Krugman. David Brooks was cheering Newt Gingrich wage guerrilla war on his own leaders if they compromised with Democrats, cheered him on when shutdown the Government and tried to extort the destruction of Medicare out Bill Clinton, and then cheered on Newt when he started the impeachment of Clinton (while engaged in his own extra-marital affair).
2. Political norms continued to be shredded in the Senate as Senate Republicans, fearing what Limbaugh, Levine, and Hannity would say on talk radio, or what Conservative fundraisers and interest groups might do to primary them, in lock step refuse to give the President’s nominee to the Supreme Court the courtesy of a hearing. Lets here old David say something besides “both sides.”
3. I don’t want to excuse the ethical regression and retreat to tribalism and insanity of much of the white working class (as opposed to the Black, Asian, and Hispanic working classes who have suffered probably even more, but at least know who the real enemy is), but the real drastic collapse of the economy in much of the country is what has created the fuel for Trumpism and the retreat into tribal White identity politics. As the Pew Trusts Stateline group reported in January, “more than three-quarters of the counties in Michigan, Indiana, Georgia and South Carolina experienced median income declines of 10 percent or more.” The entire report shows income and wealth declines through out the U.S. outside of oil patch, Silicon Valley, and New York City. http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2016/01/22/fewer-manufacturing-jobs-housing-bust-haunt-many-us-counties
4. Besides Brooks, Tom Friedman and the “both sides” group at the Washington Post are besides themselves that both parties have become dominated by anti-trade, especially since the trade and investment agreements are very dear to people like Jeff Bezos whose business model depends rents earned from patent and copyright monopolies and the manufacture of goods with low cost labor China and South Asia and selling it dear in the U.S. (free of sales tax that the local brick and mortar merchants have to charge). They chant that such agreements are great for the economy at large, ignoring the all the benefits go to 5% while 95% lose out.
5. So in the end, David Brooks, who has supported all the wrongheaded policies and political r*t**cking of the last 30 years can go screw himself on that fine porch view he has on his property in Maryland.
p.a.
@Mustang Bobby:
Sorry… I’m
borrowing plagiarisingstealing this.Immanentize
@Iowa Old Lady: At some point, maybe when Bernie started talking about the Transcripts!! or maybe as recently as his Michigan surprise, he started to really think he could win. And he really wants wants wants to win. So he is going the “give me super delegates or give me death” route. When I first heard that this week I was incredulous. Now, although I have been a Hil supporter all primary, I am a little upset/sad about this. He’s just like every other politician with a goal or toddler who wants an ice cream.
Kropadope
@Hal: Dennis Miller is a Republican dipshit trying to stir up Democrats, whom he supposedly abandoned for finding them annoying.
Mustang Bobby
@p.a.: Duly noted. My agent will be in touch.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Not sure if people know this but Brooks’s essays on Applebee’s salad bar and political sociology were fabricated.
Sasha Eisenberg discovered he had made it all up out. When he called Brooks for a response, he attacked Eisenberg, saying he was unethical for unmasking his fraudulent writings:
I
Kay
@Baud:
I don’t either, but there was a concerted, elaborate effort in the Obama campaign to bring the Clinton delegates over prior to the convention. We were asked to get on conference calls, listen to their concerns and welcome them. I did that. I didn’t do all of them but I did at least two. These were Ohio delegates who were pledged to Clinton and it was about a month prior to the convention. We were advised not to talk, just listen, hear them out and then tell them they were welcome and their concerns would be included in any Party events at the convention. They weren’t “PUMAS”. They were people who genuinely believed they had been sidelined, and maybe they were. I don’t know.
OzarkHillbilly
@p.a.: Plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery.
Baud
@Kay: Thanks, Kay. Since I can’t win outright, and a tie between Clinton and Sanders now looks unlikely, I now have a Plan C for getting the nomination.
How many delegates are there? I’ll need to buy some stamps.
Hal
@Baud:
According to Al Franken, Miller was always conservative. 911 just gave him a reason to let his conservative freak flag fly.
beltane
I’m glad David Brooks finally realized that the United States most people live in is a foreign country to him. Maybe the rest of the establishment media will come to the same conclusion. Brooks is by no means unique, most if not all of our media and political elite are operating in a land they really know very little about.
OzarkHillbilly
My wife thinks her commute is bad:
Lion claws man in Nairobi rush hour
RSA
Brooks writes as if Trump the candidate sprang fully formed from Obama’s forehead. Yeah, David, go with that.
Kropadope
@Baud: Don’t worry, in order to build consensus, Hillary may well move to have Baud nominated by acclaim., bypassing the need for a formal vote.
Kropadope
@RSA: Obama isn’t even mentioned in the article.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: There’s always the possibility that Sanders will go back on his word and decide to go Nader in the general-election campaign. Even a write-in third-party campaign for Sanders could be enough to elect Donald Trump president.
Baud
According to Benen, Sanders was talking about superdelegates last night.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/sanders-surprises-controversial-superdelegate-strategy
Kay
@Baud:
We were told to consider it a second election, and that’s what it is, IMO. It’s a pretty sure thing, that election, but it isn’t about marching orders it’s about persuasion. It’s always, always better to let people consent rather than compelling them to do anything in my view. It wasn’t even just individuals. I got what I believe was a rep from a Latino group in central Ohio on one of the calls. I didn’t ask because she seemed to assume I was aware of her organization, but my sense was she speaking on behalf of some group. Some of the delegates represent groups- labor unions, orgs, like that.
Immanentize
@beltane: this is like a perfect LTE for the Times. Please email it in and see if they print it. It is picture perfect and pithy to boot!
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
It occurred to me yesterday, the people complaining Garland is old and white are themselves supporting an old white guy for president.
NorthLeft12
Oh my effing Dog! Out of all the Brooks’ columns I have ever read, this one must be the most odious and delusional of them all. It is a classic of projection, ignorance, and just plain stupidity.
Will we ever, perhaps just once, read David’s mea culpa regarding his own complicity in the foul state of US politics? And yes, that was a rhetorical question.
Aimai
@Kay: fascinating.
Kropadope
@Baud: Well, you know how certain Balloon Juicers, particularly David Koch, enjoy libeling Bernie Sanders at least once per thread.
Kay
@Baud:
I watched it. I like her but she was so excited that she “made news” that I was bothered by it. I’m not clear why she comments on media coverage while it’s happening. I feel like she crosses a line, and it’s about control- she has to get her take in before the listener. She needs to back off a bit. If it’s “news!” people should recognize it. I don’t understand why they can’t accept this part of their role- they can’t be so consistently in front. They have to let some of it go and just be what it is.
Kropadope
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
I’m pretty sure Garland’s age or complexion aren’t the reason Trump supporters don’t want him on the SCOTUS.
beltane
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: It goes both ways. The loudest complaints have come from Hillary supporters like Markos who are convinced Hillary will appoint someone to the left of William Kunstler if Obama just gets out of the way.
Mustang Bobby
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Who you calling old? Judge Garland is two months younger than me.
Okay, yeah about the white part.
Germy
Hillary was on Broad City:
http://splitsider.com/2016/03/watch-hillary-clintons-full-cameo-from-last-nights-broad-city/
Baud
@Kay: Is there any sense about how many actually switch? I expect most delegates are pretty loyal to the candidate they initially pledged to support.
Patricia Kayden
@Baud: To be fair to Brooks, he did pen a middling ode to how much he missed President Obama. The last paragraphs were infuriating though.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/09/opinion/i-miss-barack-obama.html?_r=0
Baud
@Patricia Kayden: Too little, too late.
brendan
To: David Brooks
From: Murka
Re: Accurate Reporting
David,
Accurate reporting requires:
1. Pen/pencil
2. Pad of Paper
3. Recording device – most important
4. Not listening to the little voices in your affluent mind
Just think of it as a field trip back to Journalism 101…
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Immanentize: The tone in Bernie’s team’s e-mails has changed dramatically from the Pre-SuperTuesdayII mailings to those the day after the blowouts. Before it was (roughly) “Send us money now or you’re enabling the Millionaires and Billionaires™ to kill the planet. Don’t be an enabler of the corrupt system that supports Hillary!”. Now it’s (roughly) “Things are going our way now! We can win in the caucuses if we have your money!” They seem to be trying to to tone down the attacks – maybe they read my previous criticism here. ;-)
I was surprised, though, that there was about a day delay after Ohio before they started the e-mails again. Maybe there were battles about the best way to spin the losses.
I still think they’re in the “try anything, stay in the news, try to keep Hillary off-balance” mode, but I don’t think it’s working. I don’t think they’re seriously trying to steal Hillary’s delegates, but I do think they’re going to try everything they can to win – for a short while anyway. They don’t want people to have a strong case that “if only you’d done this and this and this, then (missing step 2), then you would have won!” The people running his campaign are thinking about the next campaign – they want arguments why they’re still worth having even when they ran a high-profile losing campaign.
The news in the NYTimes yesterday that Obama’s saying it will soon be time to get behind HRC should help Bernie’s team tone things down a bit, too. We’ll see.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
A few hiccups aside, Hillary’s team has seemed remarkably on-balance. Not the gold standard of Obama’s 2008 campaign, but they weathered the loss and bad press after New Hampshire and Michigan. It’s especially remarkable because I suspect they didn’t expect Bernie to achieve the level of traction he has, so they’ve had to adjust pretty quickly.
Larv
Brooks should get an “88” tattoo on his hand so as to more easily intermingle socially with Trump supporters. Probably would make mingling at synagogue a little awkward, though.
And that’s exactly the issue here that Brooks and all of the other anti-Trump, “rational” Republicans fail to acknowledge. They want to pretend that the problem here is The Donald, who has simply seduced all these poor troubled voters into supporting him with his Trumpian wiles. Bullshit. The problem is that a significant portion of the Republican base is just vile and hateful, having spent the last twenty years being told by conservative media to hate anyone who disagrees with them. Trump has just figured out to best push the buttons that Fox News installed. He’s realized that while dog-whistles are okay, a regular whistle plaving a rousing version of the Horst-Wessel-Lied is even better. Not because he’s particularly evil, but because that’s what his supporters like and demand.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@beltane: He’s a ninny. Remember back 2008 he wanted Obama to pick Sebelius as VP and when he didn’t he threw an ugly tantrum like a pre-schooler. (photo).
guachi
“We need diversity. Obama shouldn’t have picked an old white Jew for the Supreme Court,” says progressive supporting an old white Jew for President.
Technocrat
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
It’s easy to forget that the non-candidates are driven by resumes and job prospects just like the rest of us. It explains some things.
Chyron HR
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
It’s weird how if you call yourself a presidential candidate, then lying to people via e-mail to get them to send you money magically doesn’t constitute wire fraud.
OzarkHillbilly
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Sounds familiar, where have I seen that before?
Patricia Kayden
@OzarkHillbilly: Sad how you can find people who will give their money away for the most ludicrous reasons ever contrived. Sigh.
beltane
@Immanentize: Thank you for the kind words. I’m actually quite angry about all this. This country’s entire media and political establishment has been so sealed off from the rest of us that they don’t even know where to buy a clue. A large part of Trump’s appeal is that he plays to the people in the cheap seats, gleefully mooning the well-heeled, the educated, and the sophisticated sitting in the box seats. This type of behavior is emotionally satisfying for many people. Any pundit or journalist who can’t understand why this would be the case needs to get out more and meet more people outside their social circle.
Immanentize
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: that makes sense. It’s just after months of “super delegates are evil and meaningless” from Bernie supporters to have the candidate consider a super delegate strategy is disorientating. I agree that Bernie’s tone over the next three weeks (until the big April primaries) will tell us a lot about whether he is going to help democrats win or try to burn the place down.
PS. I’m sorry I couldn’t get back to you on our Apple search discussion. I am traveling without my darn computer. My basic position is that a prosecution shouldn’t be the only goal in evidence gathering. (Quarrels was wrongly decided). But later I hope?
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Patricia Kayden
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Senator Sanders should be proud that his campaign pushed Secretary Clinton to the left and that he won several states. Not bad for an older, (possibly atheist) Jewish candidate who is funded by small donations.
While too many of his supporters are obnoxious, he appears to be a nice guy. We have had two wonderful candidates this time around, although neither measure up to our current President, in my opinion. I foresee Sanders having zero problems campaigning for Clinton in the general election.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I saw it, and honestly, it was pretty much what Hillary Clinton was saying back in 2008 — I won crucial states, I poll better against the GOP opponent, etc.
Baud
@Betty Cracker: And for which liberal blogs lambasted her.
Iowa Old Lady
@Baud: So the issue is that Sanders suggested super delegates should switch to him even if he has fewer pledged delegates, at least partly because he’s more electable. That sounds better than asking pledged delegates to switch, but it still runs counter to Sanders’ usual narrative about pledged delegates being the important ones.
OzarkHillbilly
@Patricia Kayden: It’s a story as old as religion.
Kropadope
@guachi: The way Hillary supporters put words in Sanders supporters’ mouths is so obnoxious. This is Republican grade caricaturing and straw-man raising. I won’t decline to support a candidate simply because his or her supporters are vicious, nasty people with a flagrant disregard for the truth, but this is exactly the effect I predicted Hillary Clinton on Democratic party culture. Epistemic closure that way lies.
How long after Democrats start prioritizing winning over basic integrity will they stop being on the right side of the issues, I wonder?
Kropadope
@Iowa Old Lady: Reading the quote, I don’t even think that was what he was suggesting.
It seems to me that he anticipated such a switch only in one of two cases; he surpasses her in pledged delegates somehow, or her candidacy becomes politically untenable for some reason.
Ruviana
@Kay: Or in the Northern Kingdom of Verrmont.
ETA: The author describes rural Vermonters adopting the style and trappings of Southern “redneck”(their word) culture.
beltane
@Patricia Kayden: Sanders always had a reputation for being on good terms with both Clintons. He ran this year because he’s old and wanted to get his message out while he was still able. The fact that he was even a contender is shocking to me. Perhaps his message resonates more than people would care to admit.
As an Obama supporter, I remember a lot of ass-kissing of Clinton and her fans after the nomination was a done deal. Maybe with the Republicans in disarray it’s seen as OK to make it a habit of shitting on Sanders supporters since their votes are not needed in any case.
rikyrah
i.e….he refuses to speak in Frank Luntz-approved dogwhistles that make covering for the GOP possible.
gene108
Cannot Thomas Friedman loan David one of his taxi drivers, from which David can receive the folk wisdom of the common man?
Kropadope
@Baud: Was it that or the fact that she was trying to use the support of delegates from states where Obama either wasn’t on the ballot or didn’t campaign due to rulings by the DNC to put her over the top for the nomination?
Baud
@beltane: There’ll be plenty of time for ass-kissing when the primary is done.
oldgold
I stopped watching Maddow a couple of years ago. The failure to come to a point, smartest person in the room obsession and ceaseless attacks on straw-men drove me away.
Last night I was channel surfing and saw that Sanders was her guest. I decided to watch. It was terrible. She did not interview him. Rather, she cheered him and pushed him down a path she had chosen for him. Her style, sadly, reminded me of
Hannity.
rikyrah
Dear David Brooks:
Please name me 5 POLICY differences between Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and John Kasich.
I only ask for FIVE.
hint- there are none.
I’ve said from day one.
They didn’t speak up against Trump BECAUSE THEY AGREE WITH TRUMP.
They only have a problem WITH HOW HE SAYS IT.
The content is ok.
But, Trump’s crime is not speaking in Frank Luntz-approved dogwhistles.
Baud
@Kropadope:
It was everything, IIRC. There was definitely concern that the supers would give the nomination to Clinton.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kropadope:
Bullsh!t. This is the same kind of stuff that has been going on since the first political party was formed back in Rome. I’ve been hearing the same kind of crap from some Bernie supporters and if you think it’s bad on our side of the fence, go to a Trump rally.
Don’t blame Hillary for human nature.
Betty
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: It was fabricated. He even got basic geography wrong that he could have figured out with a bit more research. Yet his piece was accepted as gospel truth by those who wanted to believe it.
Kropadope
@Immanentize:
I think his decision to run as a Democrat rather than an independent and his repeated assertions that “Hillary, on her worst day, is still a 100 times better than any Republican” are pretty strong indicators his intentions.
I think the most important thing he ought to apply his fundraising model to Congressional seats.
beltane
@Ruviana: It’s actually called the “Northeast Kingdom” AKA the West Virginia part of Vermont. That’s where I live. All I can say is that the great-grandparents of these Confederate flag flying people must be rolling in their graves because Vermont was the most pro-Union state in the nation during the Civil War.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
The thing is flipping the Senate means taking seats in purple states Florida, NH, Ohio, Penn. If you nominate someone who can be swiftboated and who moderate whites can’t identify with, then republicans retain senate and vote down the nominee anyways.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Yes they did! 2008 was a lesson in party nomination mechanics for me. I had no idea how byzantine the rules were until then.
Chyron HR
@beltane:
It really is so unfair that both candidates’ supporters are allowed to shitpost here. Tad should call the FCC or the FEC or maybe both and put a stop to that.
Chris T.
His name is Ozymandias, pundit of pundits;
Look on his Works, ye Village, and despair!
Kropadope
Testing.
@Immanentize: FYWP ate better versions of my comment thee times. This is horseshit.
He ran in the primary rather than challenging her as a third party candidate in the general. He has caucused with the Democrats as long as he has been in Congress He insists that Hillary, even on her worst day, is a hundred times better than any Republican. These are pretty solid indicators of his intent.
rikyrah
Meet Ted Cruz’s foreign-policy team
By Steve Benen
Most voters probably don’t pay attention to the presidential race at a granular level, but it’s worth keeping an eye on the kind of advisers a candidate surrounds himself or herself with. As we recently discussed, who a presidential hopeful turns to for guidance, especially on matters of foreign policy and national security, tells voters something important about the kind of presidency the public can expect.
It mattered, for example, that Jeb Bush surrounded himself with members of his brother’s team, just as it mattered that Marco Rubio put together a “dream team” of prominent neoconservatives. (Asked yesterday who he’s speaking with for guidance on foreign policy, Donald Trump said, “I’m speaking with myself. I have a very good brain.”)
As for Ted Cruz, Eli Lake reports today for Bloomberg View that the Texas senator is unveiling his own national security advisory team, which includes names like Elliott Abrams – who lied to Congress about the Iran-Contra scandal, and who was also on Rubio’s advisory team – and former assistant U.S. attorney Andrew McCarthy, known for his far-right contributions to National Review.
But the name that stood most was Frank Gaffney, one of the nation’s most notorious anti-Muslim activists.
gene108
@beltane:
If some Sanders supporters would not regurgitate every right-wing lie about the Clintons as reasons to not vote for Hillary, as well as acknowledge that Democrats are better, though far from ideal, as a whole than Republicans, I would feel it easier to not dismiss them.
When a portion feel super delegates were created for the 2016 primary to blunt their votes and throw the election for Hillary, they are skating into conspiracy theory territory.
And please quit posting about how Bill Clinton destroyed the global economy in 2008, by signing the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, in the year 2000, because it basically absolves Bush, Jr from any responsibility for being the shiitiest President in modern U,S. history. A competent 43rd President would have not let things get so out of hand and/or used the budget surplus Clinton left behind for more productive endeavors than tax cuts for the rich, leaving the government and the economy in better shape to respond to any financial crisis.
Kay
@Ruviana:
Thanks. I don’t know about everywhere in the country, but I feel like some places still have a “rural culture” that is different than confederate flags and NASCAR and guns (a lot of which amounts to BUYING a culture, really).
I feel like northern Michigan still has something of a “rural culture” for example. They’re actually outdoorsy. They spend a lot of time outside and they can tell you the name of trees and which river goes where and that sort of thing. “Why would you think that was a brown trout? Are you blind?” :)
JMG
As a veteran of many a losing campaign, I feel for the Sanders folks. I also know from experience that for a short time after a loss, one is hypersensitive and can interpret a remark as value neutral as “since you’ve lost, what do you plan to do next?” as a mortal insult. They need their grieving and venting time. But those are activities best done in private among the faithful.
low-tech cyclist
@Baud:
Now I’ve got “The Gambler” running through my head. Damn your hide!
Aimai
@Kropadope: if you think that hillary supporters are “putting words in peoples mouths” I invite you to head over to daily kos and read some of the pro bernie/anti hillary/anti democratic party voters diaries and comments. This does not reflect, Im sure, the sentiments or intentions of the majority of Sen. sanders’ supporters but no one is making this up. And its an open question as to how significant a portion of Sanders voters belong to the burn it down crowd. according to Sanders own supporters–unless they are all somehow rught wing trolls–hrc and the democratic party have only one shot at being worthy of their votes for president. And that is only if their candidate gets the nod. Lots of people over there are making this argument. Today. No one here is making that up.
Kay
@beltane:
I keep coming back to the question, though. What is the point of having a political Party if they have no role in attracting or keeping voters? It can’t really be all up to the voters, or why have this organization at all?
They seem to have lost their way a bit. It isn’t really about voters supporting the Party apparatus. “Vote in midterms, you slackers!” There’s one group who have a “job” in this set-up and it isn’t voters :)
It isn’t about Bernie Sanders campaign manager. It is about his voters.
Kropadope
@Aimai: I avoid the GOS and Twitter for a reason. This well pre-dates the 2016 election, too.
Betty Cracker
@JMG: Well said. Obama was the first candidate I ever supported in a primary who went on to actually win, so I am well acquainted with that feeling myself…
RSA
@Kropadope:
I know. It’s a belief of many of Brooks’s fellow conservatives, though, and he must be aware of it. I was (elliptically) pointing out that Brooks doesn’t talk about Republicans having created an environment where a Trump could become so popular.
rikyrah
hat tip-Booman
Like I said….they don’t disagree with what Trump says…they disagree with how he says it. Maybe if Trump had spoken in Frank Luntz-approved dogwhistles, they might have gone over the this guy’s head, and he’d be a Republican.
The great unsettling
…………………….
At midday on the eve of the [Iowa] caucuses, into the Hockenberry house walked two men who had driven to Dubuque from Milwaukee in a white Mercedes SUV. One of them was Ismail Fersat, who was from Turkey, and Muslim, and a successful entrepreneur who ran his own granite-countertop business. Once, back in Turkey, he was the national boxing champ. He came to America from Istanbul 16 years ago in hopes of becoming a professional boxer.
What did America mean to him? “For me, the key is democracy,” said Fersat, still two years away from citizenship. “I feel that if the people can tell honestly and confidently what they think without any fear, no matter what religion they belong to, what culture they belong to — that, to me, is democracy.” He had more than anything admired this about America — until he started to worry about it during this campaign.
For years in Wisconsin, he had thought that he should support the Republicans, because they would be best for business. Then along came Trump. “When Trump came out, I felt offended by the comment he made. The Muslim is blah, blah. That hurt me in a big way. I see democracy as something else. When Trump came out, boom, no more. I’m done with the Republicans. I said, ‘I’m on the wrong side!’”
joes527
This is the guy who said that Sarah Palin “represents a fatal cancer to the Republican party.” Did you catch that? Not a treatable melanoma, but a FATAL cancer.
But he came back to curb once it became clear that there was nothing to be done, and sticking with telling the truth endangered his meal ticket. This is what makes Brooks so very evil. He is neither stupid nor deluded. He is just willing to participate in _anything_ to keep those checks coming.
Watch for the same story arc here. As soon as it becomes clear that criticizing Trump threaten’s Brooks’ gravy train, look for a shift to both-sidesism to deflect any discussion of how Trump is an affront.
Kropadope
Betty Cracker, FYWP keeps eating one of my posts about how Bernie’s intentions following his expected loss in the primary. Several versions of it have been eaten. I’ve tried re-phrasing, re-ordering, adding things, subtracting things. Nothing worked. When I tried editing my “testing” comment, it said my comment was being marked as spam. Any help?
HRA
Thanks to Kay for correcting the wrong assumption about delegate shopping. It’s nothing new at all. I, too, phoned delegates to see if they were solid for their candidate or would consider voting for my candidate. It is even done at the convention.
Did you (some of you) not see Senator Sanders say “Hillary and I are friends.” very early in the campaign? She also acknowledged it. Please stop believing he is the enemy or I will be wondering if you really are a Clinton supporter and not an R Trumpeter here to cause trouble.
Rant over
.
rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 3/17/16
Snyder called out in Congressional hearing despite GOP cover
Rachel Maddow reports on Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s testimony before the U.S. House Oversight Committee on his role in the mass lead poisoning in the city of Flint.
Kay
@JMG:
Too, the “LOSER, we like winners!” theme goes against the other constant theme, which is “run in every race”. That involves a lot of losing. 3/4’s of these races we all think people should be running in are lost causes from the get-go. Democrats have to decide. Either we only admire winning or we run in every race.
beltane
@Kay: Other than devoted party loyalists, most people tend to vote Team Me not Team D. The real threat in every election, not just this one, comes not from 3rd party candidates but from semi-tuned in people saying “meh” and not bothering to vote at all. I’m extremely grateful the Republican party is imploding first, but this doesn’t automatically mean we are entering an era of Democratic ascendency.
Kay
@HRA:
Democrats haven’t sealed the deal with young people. First of all, there are new ones every year and second of all, they may not consider themselves “Democrats”. They didn’t sign a blood oath. I know my 21 year old doesn’t consider himself “a Democrat”, yet he canvassed for the Toledo Mayor (she won) and Bernie Sanders (who lost). He meets my exacting standards for membership, which are “vote occasionally” :)
Betty Cracker
@Kropadope: I fished it out (#115). No idea why it got eaten — “fundraising” triggered the spam trap, maybe? At any rate, I agree with what you said, FWIW.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Even liberal NYT & MSNBC find it unsettling to get pledged delegates to ditch their people.
Aimai
I want to add one more thing. I really think the whole kerfuffle over the superdelegates and sanders going after them is ridiculous . The guy is a political actor and he is rightly going to try to win the nomination. All is fair in love and war–he and his supporters should make their best and worst case to the voters and to the superdelegates at the convention.
But that being said im reminded of the essay that came out recently (cant link, sorry, on my phone) persuasively arguing that people/pundits/voters really dislike WOMEN when they are asking for money/power or higher office. But they dont object to men doing it. Sanders has very much benefitted frim a (partially true) narrative that he was selflessly “running to push the democratic party to the left” without suposedly intending to actually take power. His supporters could imagine and represent him as above or beyond politics–very obama 2007-8. In contrast hrc’s dogged, hardworking, electioneering gets cast as “selfish” and aimed at power. But sanders is also aiming at power. Its not enough for him (nor should it be) to just get his ideas out there. He and his supporters want to get into power to wield power. And the name of THAT game is politics. And it would be nice if they admitted thst Sanders is not above doing whatever it takes to get power, hold power, snd excercise power. If he doesnt have to do exactly what bill clinton did it will only be because he faces a different set of political rnemies snd friends. If he doesnt have to do what obama did its only because his white privilge will protect him somewhat and because he is not as skillful a politicsl actor as obama he wont get half of ehst obama did.
Kropadope
@Betty Cracker: Sweet, thanks muchly.
Kay
@beltane:
Democrats have their own splits. It’s always been fragile, these alliances. I agree with you that they have to do more for the 70% of working people who don’t have a college degree and aren’t getting one and it can’t be earned income tax credits or food stamps. I feel like that says to people “the work that you do has no value” and you can’t say that to people. Also, it does have value. Someone has to do it. Not everyone is going into a thrilling STEM career. That’s just not true. They know it’s not true.
Kropadope
@Kropadope: Just wanted to add that the Revolution must continue and grow, even after Bernie’s anticipated loss.
Just Some Fuckhead
Gotta be tough for Mr. Everyman, Stenographer of the Bourgeoisie, to admit. Don’t be surprised to see him out on the town redoubling his efforts to understand the normal man, taking advantage of the self-serve hibachi grill at RubyTuesday’s or enjoying family style dining at the China Garden Express window.
SRW1
Shorter David Brooks:
“Geez, these Trump boneheads can’t even take a little cake joke.”
bemused
@Kay:
Also true of northern Wisc and Minn.
geg6
@Baud:
Not according to Bernie. Head-to-head polls showing him beating Trump by more than Hillary are more important than winning actual delegates.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
Like Brooks is going to spend time hanging out with the great unwashed Drumpf hordes. I’d actually like to see video footage of him doing it because it would probably be hilarious.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kropadope: Happens to me too from time to time. I’d say “pray” but I’m an atheist.
Kropadope
@geg6:
Quote?
Kay
@Kropadope:
He does say that, all the time. He says “not all, but some” in a way that makes me laugh. That to me means he’s a Democrat- he can’t speak without equivocating :)
geg6
@Hal:
My brother-in-law worked with him when Miller was just starting out on local tv (BIL used to be a producer at KDKA-TV). Even back then, Miller was an arrogant asshole. My BIL hated him and was thrilled when Miller left Pittsburgh for LA. He says he was like the polar opposite of Michael Keaton, another Pittsburgh comedian who has done pretty well. Way better than Dennis Miller, for sure.
FlipYrWhig
@Aimai:
Right, and I don’t particularly care for this part of Bernie ’16.
@Kropadope:
But see aimai’s point about how Bernie and certain of his supporters have this tendency to see politics as vaguely sordid. Can the model be exported to people who don’t do the Bernie Sanders anti-politics politics? Part of what Bernie is doing is creating (and/or exploiting) an outlet for venting rage at the system. The stakes are high and the urgency is fierce. Is a Congressional candidate ever going to be that? “If you’re fed up with business as usual, send Water Commissioner Lenore Tomlinson to Washington!” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Kropadope
@Kay: He says that head-to-head polls show him performing better, yes, but do you have a quote saying that delegates don’t matter? I bet you don’t.
JMG
@Kay: :Losing a lot is the price of participating, especially for Democrats. As the old baseball team owner Bill Veeck once said, “if the status quo didn’t win more often than it lost, it wouldn’t be the status quo anymore.”
But losing isn’t as soul-damaging as not playing at all.
Kay
@bemused:
I lived in city Minnesota but I’m sure you’re right. They have a weird set of skills that I feel like they picked up in their childhood. “Why do you know how to drive a backhoe, ‘soccer mom‘?”
WarMunchkin
@Kropadope: Having read the discussion here and then the actual interview, this “controversy” seems wildly off base. “The winner wins unless something happens” seems noncontroversial
Chris
@debbie:
Yup.
Was reading a conversation between two relatives the other day with the conservative one wringing his hands about how “what could possibly have gone wrong to make so many Americans feel abandoned and run into Trump’s arms?” It was blatant that the answer he wanted was “we elected Obama, and he broke the country” – even though it’s Republican elites and not Obama or the Democrats who’ve suffered the most in terms of losing voters to Trump. Nope, couldn’t possibly be a judgment on his side of the aisle. For an added bonus, he compared the violence at Trump rallies to the violence the DFHs committed in the 1960s. Naturally, he didn’t push this so far as to wonder “if Trump voters are just alienated people who might have a legitimate grievance, like I insist that they are, maybe the DFHs of then and now are too, and not the faceless mob of communists to be shot that I always think they are?”
Introspection is for other people. Always.
Kropadope
@FlipYrWhig: He says the system, a system which he himself participates in, is corrupt. That doesn’t mean that all participants are necessarily corrupt (and your frequent assertions that he says they are is at best reading too much into his quotes, at worst an outright fabrication), just that the system should be changed such that integrity isn’t a major handicap
Matt
Shorter Brooks: “Who knew that decades of stoking racial resentment and making lies more palatable than truth would lead to a professional liar and bigot taking over the GOP?”
Cathie from Canada
@gene108: I keep remembering the Mel Brooks line from Blazing Saddles: They’re the common clay of the old West. You know, morons!
Chris
@Kay:
The idealization of the Wholesome Small Town Folksy People by the Republican establishment and Official Washington in general has more than a trace of the “Noble Savage” trope in it.
NonyNony
@Kropadope:
Or that Sanders isn’t very good at communicating in sound bites. I’ll be honest, when I listen to a few of his speeches or interviews it certainly seems like he’s saying that everyone involved in the whole system is corrupt. A lot of his supporters online certainly seem to think that’s his message too. Like you I don’t think he actually means that, but the fact that he can get that takeaway message from people supportive of him means he’s either communicating poorly or he’s talking out of both sides of his mouth (I chalk it up to him communicating poorly myself, but I can see the argument for the other side).
Kay
@JMG:
My heart literally goes out to them. I’m sad. Especially the young ones.
I don’t know but my sense at the ’08 convention was there some institutional support for Clinton staying in as long as she did as a back-up. There’s always the chance the candidate crashes and burns, some giant revelation or big disaster, and they knew they would probably win the general with either. It’s pretty cold and transactional, really. This is their JOB, it’s what they do for a living. They’re really not like “voters” or “supporters” at all. Some of it is gross. I was in an elevator with what I think were big donors. They were literally wearing jeweled pins with “DNC ’08” or something like that, while I had a crappy lanyard. I hope they weren’t real diamonds but I suppose it’s possible.
geg6
@Kropadope:
Actually, yeah, that’s what he was suggesting. It’s what he said after Rachel asked him twice and he wouldn’t answer and finally asked him again, slightly differently:
I understand your wanting to find reasons that Bernie is not a hypocrite. But he is.
Betty Cracker
@Chris: It sure does. Interesting observation.
Aimai
Ive got two rising voters in my house. I think to the extent politics is left/right they will follow a lifetime of parent instilled moral teaching. They , like me, will vote democrat to green/ independent in every election they can. Most younger voters are well educated about their own interests, hazy on ZuS history snd politics unless they have made s special study of it. They tend to be early adopters of wave candidates. Definitionally they are the future of the country but they are st the earliest stage of their voting not always great judges of character or strategic thinkers. They also dont usually have a detsiled enough historical memory (or perhaps i mean institutional memory) to evaluate decisions taken in real time by political actors “in the arena.” That is not an insult. Just an observation.
Party politics is also no different from anything else in the US. People have few organizations/institutions to which they belong from cradle to grave, few associotionsl groups to educate and shelter them. School is one place but its term limited. Church? Falling off. Boy scouts, bowling lesuges, unions and political parties are of declining importance. Thats not the fault of the democratic party but it is a problem.
HRA
@Kay:
Yes, I see the same attitude in my own children. What I am going to find most interesting is what my one son-in-law who is a very professed R will have to say a week from Sunday about the primary. I do not see him ever supporting Trump if he is nominated.
The young Sanders supporters is a problem for the election. I hope they will turn out to vote..
OzarkHillbilly
@Chris:
Or as Caribou Barbie put it, “So happy to be back in Real America(tm) ….”
bemused
@Kay:
People choose to live in the northern regions even if it is inconvenient in many ways. You have to travel often far distances to shop, go to school or work but they like that there is a lot of outdoors to play in, fishing, hunting. lakes, seasons and recreation without a lot of people getting in their way.
Kay
@Chris:
My eldest son is funny about it. He lives in Chicago (he started planning his escape at about nine years old) and he vigorously corrects anyone there who romanticizes. He got made fun of in high school for listening to classical music on headphones. It is like the least obnoxious snobby thing a person could do. It;’s silent and also none of their fucking business.They didn’t want him doing it! Out of bounds!
geg6
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
This is why I’m thrilled with the three Dems running to face off with Toomey. Any one of them is a pretty good choice and all of them resonate with different voting blocks but none of them turn anyone off.
Kropadope
@geg6: So, let’s say that Hillary is ahead in pledged delegates leading up to the convention, then she suddenly becomes unavailable due to a plane tragedy or an unlikely, undeserved indictment. Would either of these “other factors” constitute a reason for her pledged delegates to switch to Bernie or some other Democrat? Or does it make Bernie a hypocrite to insist that we shouldn’t have a candidate who’s dead or on trial?
p.a.
@Chris:
Yes^2 and as long as the savages stayed on the reservation everything was hunky-dory. But the gates are now blown off their hinges, there’s turds in the punchbowl and a Balrog in the woodpile. (h/t Hvd Lampoon)
Just Some Fuckhead
@FlipYrWhig: I’m really hoping to get something new out of your zillionth rehashing of the Hillary v Bernie contest. Thank you for your selfless efforts on behalf of insanity.
JMG
@Kay: If the wealthy were uniformly Republicans, the Democratic party would be very different. But no ethnic, age, or economic group in this country is uniformly anything. We’re just too big for that.
magurakurin
@Iowa Old Lady:
It’s important to know what Devine said early to get what Sanders is hinting at toward the end of what he said to Maddow. Devine said:
Devine is clearly talking about a floor fight and getting delegates to switch.
Then look closely at what Sanders says:
He is very subtly and cleverly alluding to what Devine had said early. These two are very wily, I’ll give them that. But they can get fucked for all I care now. Fuck it if the Sanders people wanna sit home, fine. We’ll just have to take out Trump without them. If they wanna help, they are welcome anytime, anywhere, no questions asked.
rikyrah
hat tip-POU
As Hillary Clinton Sweeps States, One Group Resists: White Men
MARCH 17, 2016
excerpt:
“She’s talking to minorities now, not really to white people, and that’s a mistake,” said Dennis Bertko, 66, a construction project manager in Youngstown, Ohio, as he sipped a draft beer at the Golden Dawn Restaurant in a downtrodden part of town. “She could have a broader message. We would have listened.”
“Instead, she’s talking a lot about continuing Obama’s policies,” he said. “I just don’t necessarily agree with all of the liberal ideas of Obama.”
Mr. Bertko said that he rarely crossed party lines but that he voted for Donald J. Trump, who is making a strong pitch to disaffected white men by assailing free-trade agreements that Mrs. Clinton once supported. “I know a lot of guys who are open to Trump,” he said.
The fading of white men as a Democratic bloc is hardly new: The last nominee to carry them was Lyndon Johnson in 1964, and many blue-collar “Reagan Democrats” now steadily vote Republican. But Democrats have won about 35 to 40 percent of white men in nearly every presidential election since 1988. And some Democratic leaders say the party needs white male voters to win the presidency, raise large sums of money and, like it or not, maintain credibility as a broad-based national coalition.
To win a general election, Mrs. Clinton would rely most heavily on strong turnout from blacks, Hispanics, women and older voters. Though she won among white men in Arkansas, Alabama and Tennessee, and tied in Texas, some Democratic officials and pollsters say they fear that without a stronger strategy, Mrs. Clinton could perform as poorly among white men as Walter Mondale, who drew just 32 percent in 1984, or even George McGovern, who took 31 percent in 1972.
“Her most serious relationship problem is with white men, on a policy issue front but also stylistically, and she is at real risk for running worse than the average Democrat with white males,” said Peter Hart, a veteran Democratic pollster.
Kropadope
@WarMunchkin:
Quoted in full for truth.
Just Some Fuckhead
@rikyrah: I’m shocked to find out white Republican men don’t support Hillary Clinton. Thank you for sharing that groundbreaking investigative piece.
WarMunchkin
@Kropadope: This, as you may recall, is what Hillary got torn apart over in ’08 when she brought up Obama and RFK. I got what she was saying at the time, though horribly worded. Sanders was likely tripping over that same concept and not nearly as distastefully.
FlipYrWhig
@Kropadope: Sure, I’m reading between the lines a bit, but I think it’s the logical consequence of the overlap between his statements and the persona. I have integrity, other people with integrity could arise. So far so good. But the answer to the question, posed to any given Bernie supporter, of why he doesn’t do more to support down-ticket candidates or the party as a whole, tends to be “well, the party is opposed to him and in bed with oligarchs, why should he help it?” It seems to me like he sort of needs a party-like apparatus to truly do what he wants to do, but he also doesn’t really like building institutions because that would be going from anti-establishment to counter-establishment. But this is a problem with all political movements.
geg6
@Kropadope:
That’s the argument his campaign is presenting to the delegates they want to switch. He’s more electable, delegates be damned. His campaign manager, I believe, said it the other day (I don’t have the time to look it up; I’m at work about to start our first freshman award packaging). Multiple Bernie supporters have said the same over multiple blogs I’ve read over the last couple of days. It’s a meme his campaign is putting out there. I’ve been seeing it everywhere the last two days or so.
FlipYrWhig
@Just Some Fuckhead: But someone is wrong on the Internet! How can I resist that?
Amir Khalid
@Kropadope:
Let’s try another, similarly plausible scenario:
So, let’s say that Bernie’s riding in a car to a campaign rally, and the car suddenly undergoes a complete existence failure. …
geg6
@Kropadope:
Oh, please. You’re being as disingenuous as Bernie is. Obviously, in the face of a major disaster hitting Secretary Clinton, such as illness or death, Bernie should get the nomination. But if that’s what he meant, why did it take getting asked the question three times before answering with this cryptic nonsense?
OzarkHillbilly
@Just Some Fuckhead: Repeatedly reading someone who drives you insane is kind of insane. I suppose the sane thing to do would be to stop reading it, but then you couldn’t whine about how insane it all is.
Aimai
@Just Some Fuckhead: not republicans tead the fucking comment. Also fuck off with your attitude to a noted baloon juice comenter.
Just Some Fuckhead
@OzarkHillbilly: Fuck you. This is a post about David Brooks and Donald Trump. We shouldn’t have to run into the same tired rehashing of Hillary v Bernie in every goddamn thread.
Chris
@beltane:
But they’re only beginning to realize it now. I think what this election’s shown as far as the MSM is concerned is that they were convinced that they had their finger on the pulse of the Republican voters (who are after all the only ones who count, along with many a small minority of centrists and conservative Democrats). And are only now learning different.
After all, the Republican voters, despite brief flirtations with other people, would usually buckle under in the end and give most of their votes to the same candidates that the Village wanted – Mitt Romney, John McCain, George W. Bush, Bob Dole, George H. W. Bush – VSPs and Washington insiders with all the right connections. From that, you get a smug, complacent, patronizing view in the MSM and the rest of Official Washington that they and the wholesome good-hearted simple-minded common people of the Heartland are on the same wavelength, or at least that the commoners understand who the Best People To Have In Charge are. So the pundits were convinced that they and the people, or at least the only people who mattered, were on the same wavelength.
Now, the Trump campaign has destroyed all of that. They expected this to go just like 2008 or 2012; the voters indulge their curiosity in Trump, maybe a few other fringe candidates, for a few months, but then when push comes to shove they rally around the Right Person, Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio. That’s how the script works… and that’s why they stuck to these predictions even quite a while after they should have known better. Now, they’re finally realizing that Donald Trump is happening whether they want it or not, and they’re finally facing up to the fact that they never knew their voter base at all.
geg6
@magurakurin:
Yup. Exactly. I’m done giving him any benefit of the doubt for being some sort of model of ethical politics. He’s a piece of shit and so is Devine. Hypocrisy is one of my cardinal sins. Don’t set yourself up as the model of all good behavior, call other people nominally on your side corrupt and then start with this kind of shit.
geg6
@rikyrah:
Fuck white men. Hell, even my white man hates white men at this point. The world will be a better place when they all finish killing themselves with oxy, alcohol and rage.
**Obviously, all white male Juicers are excepted from this rant.
Chris
@joes527:
I didn’t remember that, but the way you describe it I don’t think it’s even about the money so much as basic middle school rules. Brooks thought the new girl was going to be one of the funny outliers that everybody could point and laugh at. When she unexpectedly turned out to be one of the Popular Kids, he swiftly backtracked lest he be left out of THAT club.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@OzarkHillbilly: GMTA. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
bemused
@Just Some Fuckhead:
It would be the same issue if the candidate was a woman not Hillary. We’ll be talking about white Republican man attitudes about women until they kick off or stfu.
danielx
My man Dave. Never ceases to amaze. However…Mr. Brooks, let me help you out a trifle.
1. report – You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
2. not socially intermingled – if you saw your average Trump supporter in your swimming pool, you’d drain it and start over. If you left your Villager bubble and tried to “intermingle” with Trump supporters, say at a Tennessee roadhouse, you’d be lucky if you walked out with your condescending ass intact.
3. Dave, ol’ buddy ol’ pal – let me read something back to you.
Trump has already done this? You’re a little late to the fair, or maybe, perhaps, you missed things like the average daily Limbaugh rage fest, or such things as Newt Gingrich’s opus “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control”, which just came out recently, you must have missed it. Kidding! It was written for the 1996 CPAC shitshow. A sample:
Any of this sound familiar? Dave? C’mon, enough with the weeping into your Manhattan. (Btw: never order one of those at a Tennessee roadhouse.)
Dave, Dave…I totes understand the morass of despair in which you’re wallowing. Might could be you should seek the counsel of a good Jungian therapist. In the meantime, you can continue to console yourself with the thought that you, you personally, had nothing whatsoever to do with the current state of affairs. One in which your beloved Party finds itself head down in upper shit creek.
Edit: Dave, you do know that Trump is having each of of your wails of despair framed and hung in his office? Dave? Dave? Get your head out of the toilet and pull yourself together, man!
FlipYrWhig
@Just Some Fuckhead: David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch brought it up 150+ comments ago. Not quite sure why I’m the particular one you’re poking at but whatevs.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Immanentize:
Don’t sweat it. Threads go dead too quickly here for detailed discussion. I’m sure the topic will come up again and we can battle it out then. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who thinks there’s a balance that needs to be struck, but isn’t sure how to do it with strong encryption available everywhere these days.)
Shell
Read Newt Gingrich’s take on Trump in an earlier thread. He seems to be turning into Kent Brockman, “And I for one welcome our insect overlords….”
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Being from Massachusetts where the rural culture isn’t really a thing and went overwhelmingly for Trump in the R primary, my question is what fucking excuse does inherited billionaire and all around shitweasel Ernie Boch Jr. and his social circle have for supporting a fascist like Trump, other than stone cold racism? He’s had a couple of money raising events for him, heavily covered by the media like it was Carnivale. Ernie the lesser said something incredibly entitled about the whole thing, like “what can really happen in 4 years?” Frankly I’m surprised Brooks hasn’t basically come out and said the same thing, from his perch high above the little people. Maybe that’s next week’s column.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Woke up this morning to see that Sanders has decided to start dick punching Obama over his Supreme Court nominee.
Thank for helping, Bernie. Gotta say I’m not feeling any Bern anymore.
p.a.
LBJ was wrong when he said, after signing Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, that he’d lost the South for a generation. It’s 2 gen going on 3. There are obvious cracks in the wall; things don’t change by changing opinions but, as the scientist said, by the accretion of funerals.
OzarkHillbilly
@Just Some Fuckhead: Ooooohhh, that hurt. Look, You are a flaming asshole who is quite proud of being an illiterate too boot. This is an
OPEN THREAD.
It’s right there at the top. Reading is fundamental. Try it some time.
Just Some Fuckhead
@FlipYrWhig: It is an open thread so I’ll own up to being wrong. But it would be nice to at least get a trigger warning.
WarMunchkin
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
For crying out loud:
p.a.
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Don’t know about racism, but google ernie boch + unions. He’s a Koch.
different-church-lady
NOW you realize that?!?
Hal
@p.a.:
Oprah Winfrey said the same thing when asked about old, racist white people.
different-church-lady
@Ruviana: Pssst: It’s “Northeast Kingdom”
p.a.
@different-church-lady:
Dear Mr. Brooks, allow me to offer my editorial services, example above.
Pogonip
Shorter Brooks: Trump is Not Our Kind Dear.
Chris
@WarMunchkin:
Dear Bernie Sanders: when running for the White House in the wake of a president who’s still immensely popular with rank-and-file Democrats (more so than you are), one should pick one’s battles with that president very carefully. Especially if you’re going to do this kind of thing in public. Ask Al Gore sometime how distancing himself from a similar president went for him. Are you SURE this is worth getting into a scrap over?
different-church-lady
@Chris: Because AUTHENTIC!
El Caganer
@p.a.: The Koch Boch?
Kropadope
Bill Clinton had nothing on Obama.
Technocrat
@rikyrah:
The premises of Political journalism are so screwed up. Millions of white men voted for Hillary Clinton to run the country. But because she didn’t get ALL the millions, she has a “problem” with them.
How many millions of white men voted for that reporter?
different-church-lady
@Wag:
Entirely incorrect: the problem is a surfeit of introspection. David Brooks is an introspection machine — it just that the machine is wired backwards.
El Caganer
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Because it would be….crude. Not classy, or yuge – oh, sorry, I seem to have mixed up my fake wingnut intellectuals with fake wingnut populists.
MomSense
If by some chance you were asleep during the “Willie Horton” election or those horrific Helms ads with the black handed job applicant stealing the job from the white handed job applicant, and you missed Reagan’s choice of locale to announce his candidacy and all the rest of his dog whistling Dixie, then maybe you didn’t notice that Trumpster made such a fuss about the President not being born in the United States that our President had to summon the press to present a special issue “long form” birth certificate to prove his eligibility to be President. Where was the outrage then? Even after that the Republican nominee Romney accepted Trumpster’s endorsement and allowed he and his wife to host events and fundraise for him. And surely Brooks is aware of Jim Crow, segregation, bussing, the mass exodus of Dixiecrsts to the Republican Party after the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts. Either Brooks is an ignorant fool or he has been cynically using his columns, speeches, and appearances to cover for a political party that has been indefensible for decades now.
John D.
@Kropadope: In this context, sure he did. Bill Clinton job approval ratings in March 2000 were hovering around 60%.
Chris
@Technocrat:
Yeah, I’m aware that as a white man, the things that offend me aren’t at the top of the country’s worst problems, but… as a white man this offends me, dang it. Where do these people get off speaking for all of us? “Notallwhitemen” is a hashtag they should be sending to right wing douchebags talking about Obama or Clinton or whoever’s “white men problem,” not SJWs.
dr. bloor
@geg6:
I’m working as fast as I can.
different-church-lady
“Let’s say Hillary Clinton is kidnapped by a joint ISIS/al qada operation and taken in a steel shipping container to deepest Pakistan. A pacifist Obama, his hands tied by a republican congress, and not wishing to be perceived as giving one candidate an unfair advantage, is unwilling to take unilateral military action. Although she leads in delegates, the prospects of her being alive to accept the nomination are slim. Should she consider releasing her delegates to the presumptive replacement nominee?”
dr. bloor
@rikyrah: Fuck Dennis Bertko and his draft beer in the downtrodden part of town. There are so many tells in his comments that he was never, ever pulling the lever for HRC that I lost count after “the liberal policies of Obama.”
She’s not wasting her time focusing her pitch to guys like that because she knows they can’t be had.
Technocrat
@Chris:
No, I get where you’re coming from. It’s like liberal white men don’t exist, and I say that as a black man. The narrative has become all important, so white guys are exclusively old Republicans who would never vote for teh wimmenz.
Chyron HR
@different-church-lady:
“They try to cut her head off but the machete is too blunt. She stumbles to the door trying to escape, but she’s too woozy from loss of blood to turn the knob. A missile will hit the compound in two minutes.”
“Do, ah, do you have a question?”
“My question is about the budget…”
patrick II
Brooks doesn’t like the “all against all” part. When it was just rich dogs eating poor dogs he thought everything was fine.
ruemara
@Kropadope: it’s not libel when it’s a quote.
WarMunchkin
@Chris: Holy shit guys. So many non controversies. Do we live in the same universe? Are we reading language correctly? “I’d nominate someone more liberal but support the President’s pick” is 100% a valid thing to say without anybody undermining anybody.
different-church-lady
@rikyrah:
Boy, there’s nothing like those early Bruce Springstein lyrics, is there?
Technocrat
@different-church-lady:
Outstanding
different-church-lady
@dr. bloor:
Oh, they can be “had” all right: you just need to be offering them the right kind of snake oil.
different-church-lady
@Chyron HR: Stuff like that makes life worth living. Or BJ worth reading. Or something…
Capri
The other thing Brooks and his ilk have totally missed is the fact that for the past 8 years, Fox and Fox Business have been giving Trump legitimacy by treating him like a great expert on a regular basis. He was put on the air whenever they needed a reliable wing nut voice to trash the latest Obama or democratic idea. They breathlessly covered his whole birther thing, which further cemented his bona fides. I’ve heard Carl Rove point that out, but nobody else has.Trump is similar to Huckabee in that respect, he didn’t exactly arrive on the right wing scene out of nowhere.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Chyron HR: rofl.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kropadope
@geg6:
Because upon being asked a question several times, one tends to exasperatedly come up with some “well, duh” response.
Marc
Having Clinton and Sanders say that they’ll nominate their own (e.g. more liberal) justices if elected helps Obama by raising the stakes of obstruction for Republicans. “No, you can’t approve garland after the election” is a good thing to say.
There are posters here actively twisting what he says and does. Give it a rest; barring some dramatic twist, your candidate is the nominee.
There are people here so hostile to Sanders that I have to ask whether they’d vote for him if he was the nominee.
Aleta
@Cathie from Canada: re Blazing Saddles
Sometimes when I see Trump I say to myself “Work work work”
Kropadope
@FlipYrWhig:
Fixed.
Seriously, you have a major problem with making the least charitable interpretation of everything Bernie does, frequently crossing the line into dishonesty.
different-church-lady
Having now read the Sanders/Maddow exchange in question, I’d say Maddow asked him an idiotic question, and the only thing Sanders did wrong was answer it, rather than saying, “That’s a situation that’s so hypothetical that only a damn fool would address it.”
dr. bloor
@WarMunchkin: In fairness, I’m not sure Sanders can claim to support Obama’s nominee “100%” if he prefaced that by saying he’d ask Obama to withdraw the nomination if he won the election. There were any number of ways to address or deflect that question in a less ham-handed fashion, and the net effect is not entirely respectful to either Obama or Garland.
Kropadope
@geg6:
Still don’t see a quote. Multiple Bernie supporters have said the same over multiple blogs I’ve read over the last couple of days. It’s a meme his campaign is putting out there. I’ve been seeing it everywhere the last two days or so.
Irrelevant if true, but I’ve seen precisely one person suggest that the superdelegates should override the voters’ will to install Bernie, that person was Dennis Miller. Miller is damn near certainly not a Bernie supporter.
dr. bloor
@different-church-lady: Even Maddow seemed to be a little surprised that he bit on it.
japa21
@Marc: You know, I have not seen a single Clinton supporter even intimate they would have difficulty voting for Sanders if he got the nomination. The same has not been totally true for the reverse.
And the hostility toward Sanders is nothing compared to the hostility, nay hatred, pouring out from some Sanders supporters toward Clinton. Not just bordering on the dishonest, but actually being dishonest.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@japa21:
If I had a dollar for every FB feed Salon article comment, Bernfeeler friends’ posts comment section and twitter swarm that included #BernieorBust in it that have been liked, favorited and retweeted, I could retire comfortably tomorrow. What is the Hillary analog? I’ll wait.
FlipYrWhig
@Kropadope: I have read countless times, right here, Bernie supporters saying that they shouldn’t support the party because the party doesn’t support Bernie.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Marc: I’ve always been one of them. Think he’s the least qualified, by either temperament or experience, to have run in my lifetime.
That being said, of course I’d vote for him if he were the nominee! Jesus, have you seen what the GOP is puking up this election cycle? Crawl over broken glass for the Democratic candidate time.
Doug
Friends don’t let friends read David Brooks.
Fair Economist
@japa21:
A lot of Sanders supporters seem to have been suckered by the endless crusade of the right-wing media against Hillary. It’s a depressing testament to the power of Fox News that they can influence socialists. Notably all these complaints about Hillary being “dishonest” when both Clintons have been excellent about keeping campaign promises for almost 40 years.
Marc
@japa21: I’m glad to hear it. It’s a bit surprising given the things that people post here, but good to know in the event that it becomes relevant.
different-church-lady
@dr. bloor: But what about AUTHENTIC!
Bartholomew
That is because Hillary R. Clinton is one of the most thoroughly hated politicians that this country has ever produced. The democrats are forcing the split, fingers in both ears and a snide grin that begs wiping off.
Now you and other wallstreet leftists have a giant target painted on you, and your most passionate members have joined elsewhere. This is what the habit of scapegoating and ignoring the concerns of your supposed allies has brought.
Whine more about how everyone else is deluded, it’s kind of becoming funny now.
WarMunchkin
@Marc:
This is absolute wankery. It is not surprising. It should not be surprising. I don’t like the attitude of people around here towards Sanders, but you’ve come in here and said things that are well within the definition of concern trolling. The number of people who won’t vote for Sanders should the world turn inside out and make him the nominee is virtually nil. Stop making stuff up. Stop making stuff up and then projecting your fears onto other people, then accuse them of fulfilling those fears. Stop making stuff up, pretending there’s a broad consensus and asking other people to refute it. There’s enough of that in politics.
Iowa Old Lady
@Kropadope: This is from the transcript of last night’s Maddow show:
different-church-lady
@Bartholomew: Translation: “I never should have married you in the first place!”
Chyron HR
@Bartholomew:
B-b-but Kropadope assured us over and over again that Sanders’ supporters are unfailingly civil and never motivated by personal animus. :^(
MomSense
@Bartholomew:
Guess neo-liberal isn’t cutting it anymore.
Brachiator
Curse you, Pacific Time! I’ve obviously missed a chance to jump in early with comments here. But holy mother of God! Brooks has got me laughing my ass off with his insipid and clueless whining.
This smacks of an unseen Downton Abbey episode in which Lady Mary comes downstairs to look in at the servants as they eat lunch.
“Oh, don’t get up. I just wanted to see how dreary your miserable and unimportant little lives are. Yes. There. I really can’t stand being in the room with you, but I will allow a question or two about how you are all getting on. Anyone? Anyone?”
different-church-lady
@srv: I’ll have you know I took the subway this morning.
Marc
@WarMunchkin:
You do recognize that what I wrote was intended to be conciliatory, right? It was an honest question and I accepted the answer.
different-church-lady
@srv:
I can imagine myself falling into an industrial meatgrinder. It doesn’t mean I want to do it.
Kropadope
@Iowa Old Lady:
He’s talking about superdelegates there, and what he is arguing is that they should follow the will of the voters. The opposite of what geg claims. The next paragraph is the very one I’ve been responding to at length which basically says “the pledged delegates should also do what the voters said, barring some unforeseen incident that renders one of the candidacies untenable.”
There is literally nothing there suggesting, as geg claims Bernie said, that the delegates should override the preference of the voters in favor of Bernie. Quite the opposite in fact.
Chris
@Technocrat:
The reason it enrages me is that erasing the existence of any other kind of white men, over and over and over, is something “mainstream” culture does constantly to protect the feelings of the more prejudiced white guys. After all, if everyone’s like them, then they’re just following the herd and how were they supposed to know better? It’s why “oh, you younguns don’t understand, EVERYONE was racist Back Then” has become such a cliche.
@japa21:
We must not hang out in the same circles. I was copied on some of the emails Democratic relatives of mine were passing around between themselves and with their friends a month or two ago. All of them were aghast at the dangerous socialist and totally prepared to jump ship for Michael Bloomberg if Sanders became the nominee. And this was during the brief period of time when it looked like Bloomberg might actually throw his hat into the ring (as opposed to Sanders who’s always denied that there might be a third party run).
Do these people make up a majority? No, nor even anything close to one, any more than the pain-in-the-ass Sanders supporters do (it’s useful at this point to remember that both candidates have largely favorable ratings among Democratic voters, it’s only politics junkies who really care). Would’ve been just enough to throw the election to the Republican, though (if Bloomberg had run). It’s not just the activist left that’s tempted by Naderism.
Brachiator
@Marc:
You’re just making shit up.
I wish that Sanders was a better candidate. He does not impress me much, but he seems like an honorable and decent guy. I noted before that my niece affectionately calls him “everybody’s favorite crazy substitute teacher.”
I also appreciate the strength he has been showing in the most recent primaries. And I would happily, eagerly vote for him should he somehow become the nominee. I have always said this, as have many others here.
japa21
@Marc: I recognized it as conciliatory, although as WarMunchkin pointed out, it really shouldn’t be surprising. But then I don’t know if you have been doing much recent reading of threads here.
An as an example of the hatred I mentioned, Bartholomew’s comment is a perfect example. Language such as that has been used by more than him. It would be hard to imagine someone with that much hatred of Clinton and her supporters (noticed his comment’s display contempt for both) ever voting for her.
Kropadope
@Chyron HR:
No, that’s not what I said at all. I said that Bernie and his supporters are unfairly maligned, often outright lied about, by very dishonest people on Balloon Juice who, instead of engaging the arguments presented to them, either argue against a straw-man or bring up some phantom other argument from Twitter or wherever that we have no hope of verifying. For an example, see your very own post.
ETA: You people are becoming seriously unhinged.
WarMunchkin
@Marc: I apologize. I misinterpreted your remarks as passive-aggressive, and I shouldn’t have.
bemused
@Brachiator:
Brooks and company have never actually given the hoi polloi any thought other than what they imagined other people not them were like. They’ve never needed to until Trump busted everything wide open but it’s unlikely they will ever bother to try.
redshirt
Brooks oozes College Republican to me.
If I ever met him I bet I could smell it on him.
japa21
@Chris: I should have been clearer. I was referring to here, as that was Marc’s reference point.
Kropadope
@UnFair Economist:
Funny, I don’t see any Sanders supporters criticizing Hillary about Benghazi and rarely about e-mails (an issue which Bernie dismissed). I don’t see a single mention of Vince Foster or Whitewater or the Clenis or any of the typical right-wing bugaboos.
What I do see, very frequently, are assertions that failure to pretend that Hillary Clinton shits rainbows is repeating right-wing talking points.
redshirt
No joke, I’d vote for a wooden Indian if it were the Dem nominee. Republicans must be stopped at all costs.
japa21
@Kropadope: I agree that is not what you said, but you are also being totally out of line with comments like the unhinged comment. Plus, 95% of the time, the discussions here have centered around specifics that Sanders has brought up. Yes, there may be a few Clinton supporters who are a tad hyperbolic, but that number is, at least here, outnumbered by the “unhinged” Sanders supporters. At least one, who I think you know well, feels he/she has been told just vote for Clinton and don’t even talk about your issues. Which is totally incorrect.
Kropadope
@ruemara:
Are you talking about the quote that about 5 people on this thread are deliberately reading in a dishonest fashion because they like Clinton and that makes it OK to lie on her behalf? Or are you talking about those assertions geg keeps making which (s)he has certainly not provided a quote to support?
Kropadope
@japa21:
Here? HERE?!?!?!?!?!? You may want to revisit your assessment on the relative hingedness of BJ Hillary supporters and take yourself into account.
Kay
@Chris:
It’s not fair Chris but the evidence is just overwhelming- we’re better people :)
My sister now sends me unflattering photos of Donald Trump with no comment. She’s basically searching the internet for bad pictures of him. There are no words.
Technocrat
@redshirt:
Not gonna lie…I’m still a Baud! spoiler. We will be heard.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@redshirt: He claims he ended up being a Michael-Harrington-Democratic-Socialist in college. (We were in the same graduating class, but I didn’t know him then. And still don’t.)
Cheers,
Scott.
John D.
@Kropadope:
OK, I’ll bite.
Since I’ve seen a lot of people claiming to be Sanders supporters, what do you expect they are talking about when they claim that Sanders needs to stay in because Clinton is likely to be indicted before November?
Because, I have to tell you, I’ve seen a LOT of them claiming just that.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@John D.: The indictment will be about her e-mails and compromising national security by having things in them that were retroactively classified 4 years later. She should have known that they would be classified in the future. How can we trust her if she can’t look 4 years into the future to see that? How can we trust her when she doesn’t realize that the national security complex always wants to increase the amount of stuff that is classified? She should have known better. She’s not up to the job showing such bad judgment.
Only
TrumpBernie can save us./snark.
Cheers,
Scott.
Cermet
@MomSense: You think?
Rand Careaga
“We expected Trump to fizzle because we were not socially intermingled with his supporters and did not listen carefully enough. For me, it’s a lesson that I’m going to have to change the way I do my job if I’m going to report accurately on this country.”
Brooks would sooner season his food with ground glass than “socially intermingle” with the trumpenproletariat. Hell, I’d sprinkle ground glass on Brooks’ next salad if I had the opportunity. Second-stupidest man ever to hold a regular op-ed gig at the NYT.
bemused
@Kay:
It’s hard to fathom any woman not being disgusted by Trump. Those who support him have some troubling issues, imo.
japa21
@Kropadope: Much as I hate to say this, since up until now I have considered you part of the saner group of Bernie supporters, your last comment has now rendered you irrelevant in my mind. In fact, with the exception of Bartholomew’s earlier comment, that may be the most “unhinged” comment today.
Mike R
@Rand Careaga: How true, ground glass yummy, hope he has seconds. Is the first stupidest currently with the times, you are talking about Ross, oh please say yes, he is such a sack of excrement.
Brachiator
@bemused:
The modern conservative movement is based on the lie that Republicans understand what Americans want. The modern conservative movement is based on the lie that Republicans represent “real” Americans.
You could not get Republicans elected to any office if you had to depend on the votes of plutocrats. There just ain’t enough of them.
But Brooks, in his desperation, has revealed what’s behind the curtain. The GOP grandees never saw themselves as men and women of the people. They were better than that. But they thought that they had all these people under control and could easily bend them to their will with religion, guns and other conservative nostrums. Oh, yes, and lots of Obama hatred.
They probably thought that the easily contained sputters of outrage over the Wall Street bailout meant that they were in the clear. But now that the fires of little guy outrage have been turned into a blowtorch by Trump, people like Brooks are losing their shit.
bemused
@Rand Careaga:
He’s lying whether to his readers or to himself or both. He and most Republicans have no interest in listening “more carefully”. They’ll just make up different shit to justify how they want the world to run.
bemused
@Brachiator:
Right. Their mission now is to find different ways and words to con their voters back into the corral.
John D.
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: But it cannot be that, because that would be Sanders supporters talking about the emails, and I have been assured that They Don’t Do That by Kropadope. So I remain confused.
different-church-lady
@Kropadope: Shorter Kropadope: “I have never heard of Daily Kos.”
Rand Careaga
@Mike R: The stupidest man ever to hold a NYT op-ed gig was Bloody Bill Kristol, who is such an outlier in terms of sheer wrongheadedness—way, way behind your stopped clock—that his inclusion in any pundit metric just skews the scale all to hell. David Brooks at his least self-aware doesn’t even come close. Regarding Cardinal Ross, I agree that Brooks should look to his laurels, for young Douthat hath a lean and hungry look, but the kid needs a few more years before he’s ready to cross lightsabres with Darth Bobo.
Brooks’ real reason for existence is to serve now and again as a chew toy for the incomparable Charles Pierce.
Kay
@bemused:
We’re concerned about them, is what we should say. We’re reaching out because we care :)
Uncle Cosmo
@Shell: You typed “insect”–sure you didn’t get the c & the s reversed? (I tried typing it out but FYWP put me in immoderation for it…)
Peale
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Which, if true, makes me wonder. If she can see into the future, why would she push to go into Libya? Maybe she sees too far into the future and 20 years from now, Libya is a pastoral wonderland full of love.
Kropadope
@John D.: Not what I said, please review.
Kropadope
@John D.:
Just because you consort with crazies doesn’t mean you can extrapolate their opinions to the million of other Bernie supporters. By the way, you may also want to review what I had to say about bringing grievances from encounters with Bernie supporters in other forums (fora?) as rebuttals to the completely different arguments that are being made here, all while completely lacking citations.
Mike G
Fixed it for you, Brooks.
Chris
@japa21:
Ah, OK. Objection withdrawn.
Gravenstone
@WarMunchkin: You’ll notice that by saying this, Sanders tacitly buys into the Republican obstruction that there won’t a a hearing for (any) nominee between now and the election. Rather, he agrees that any action is likely to only occur in the lame duck session. I wonder why he might agree wtih McConnell on that?
Gravenstone
@Kropadope: Or, they could maybe answer it the first fucking time it was asked in as clear and cogent a manner as possible? Would that be asking too much?
Turgidson
@PaulWartenberg2016:
Six months? He’s been at it for more than a decade.
WarMunchkin
@Gravenstone: Let the truth be whatever you wish it to be!
mclaren
Yes, but:
And:
And:
So Brooksie has been pimping for 40 years worth of these assho!es.
Why is Trump any different?
mclaren
@John D.:
Only someone smoking dope thinks Hillary Clinton will be indicted.
No Sanders supporter I know has ever said anything like this — and I know a lot of Sanders supporters.
elftx
The “Superdelegates Will Switch to Bernie” meme has been out for awhile now and it seems to me his supporters are being fed a deliberately deceitful message.
What bothers me the most is how it could very well demoralize them should it not come to pass.
So many of them are such true believers in his campaign, just how apathetic a voter would they become ?
mclaren
@Chyron HR:
The favorite scam used by Hillary Clinton supporters on this forum seems to be the old bait-and-switch.
Step 1: Bait us with a wild claim that “Sanders supporters said [fill in some outrageous enormity — Hillary sucks the blood of babies! They’d rather worship Satan than vote Democratic if Sanders is not the nominee! They’re going to head to a tall building with a sniper rifle if people continue to criticize Sanders!!!]”
Step 2: Build up the wild claim with vague hand-waving assertions that “I have heard this from a LOT of Sanders supporters.”
Step 3: Switch to the soft-focus and avoid giving any actual details, never produce a verifiable quote anyone can check, never offer a specific source with a direct attribution.
So, in short, it’s all just Ann Coulter-style smear tactics. Lots of neublous claims about “Sanders supporters,” no actual verifiable quotes, nothing anyone can check. Just made-up bullshit designed to smear Bernie indirectly by casting opprobrium on his “supporters.”
Well, you know what?
Two can play at that game.
Some Hillary supporters have been said to eat babies for breakfast. I have heard that a LOT of Hillary supporters eat babies.
(Which Hillary supporters? Where’s the evidence? What are their names? Where are they located? Oh, don’t worry about those details…that’s irrelevant.)
See how it works?
Just stop it, Hillary supporters. I support Bernie Sanders and I will vote for your candidate if she is the nominee. You don’t need to resort to these infantile Fox-News-style smears to make Hillary seem appealing. She’s already a million times more appealing than Trump, and in this election, that’s all that matters.
mclaren
@beltane:
And they’ve been sealed off for a long time, at least 30 years. You saw the big split around the time Reagan got inaugurated. The Beltway villagers loved Reagan — Ailes gave them the story of the day prepackaged, so writing the news was always easy under Reagan. But the rest of the country hated the guy, and when his policies started to destroy the middle class, the hatred grew vitriolic…yet the Beltway never got it. They just never understood. They always thought Reagan was this wonderful telegenic guy who gave great media. The reporters and news anchors and pundits were so locked inside their million-dollar-Georgetown-home-and-Michelin-three-star-Washington-restaurant ecosphere that they had no real idea of the misery Reagan’s policies were creating outside the Beltway.
Fast forward 30 years, and the Beltway insiders remained so utterly clueless that they figured this election would be Business As Usual.
Well, Shithole America has collapsed to badly that revolution is now boiling up in the streets. And Trump isn’t the only symptom — we’re seeing the massive dissatisfaction with the status quo on both sides of the aisle. Bernie is a reflection of the same rage and Vesuvius-like eruption of anger at the status quo, but on the left.
Look, here’s the basic reality: capitalism is breaking down. When you get headlines like “Yelp Employee Fired After Public Post To CEO Saying She Can’t Afford Food,” capitalism is clearly not working.
Pro tip: if 25-year-old college graduates can only find jobs that don’t pay them enough to afford food, capitalism is broken.
Now the response to this headline is interesting.
Over at the academic economists’s websites people simply deny it. They claim “Oh, that’s an exaggeration. The economy couldn’t be that bad.”
Inside the Beltway, they ignore it — that headline doesn’t exist. Paul Krugman won’t mention it, David Brooks can’t discuss it, Peggy Noonan can’t touch it in any of her columns, Maureen Dowd will never get within a mile of it in any of her op-eds. Inside the Beltway that headline doesn’t exist.
But outside the Beltway, off the reservation of the academic economists, that headline is a magnet. Everyone I’ve showed it to says, “Yeah, that’s the way it is. That’s the new reality of work in a big city today.”
And that can’t continue.
If this is what capitalism means in 2016, then capitalism is finished. Kaput. Finis. No mas.
And you’re starting to see mass mobs of people so angry about this that they are just burning down the existing party establishment and throwing their support to anyone who promises to even vaguely address the issue.
And I can tell you something else:
If Hillary does not address this issue seriously and directly when she becomes president, you are going to see mobs in the streets. Cities will burn. Because telling people “If you complain about not getting paid enough to afford food, you’re fired” is a non-starter. If that’s the way we’re dealing with this problem in the U.S. economy, then we will have violence in the streets and the National Guard patrolling streetcorners and Washington D.C. burning to the ground.
John D.
@mclaren:
No examples?
Earlier today, on another site, to a guy I was responding to. I see 7-10 of these a DAY online. These are not uncommon.
Chris
@mclaren:
I wouldn’t want to claim that I have deep and abiding exposure to the underbelly of America and the safety net we rely on, but in my experience, it’s consistently worse than people think.
And it’s not just the Beltway or the Republican establishment. Virtually all of the upper class, but even plenty of the middle class people still don’t grok just how bad it is. I sometimes think one of the biggest things stabilizing America is the illusion that we have it better than we actually do – something powered by the fact that a lot of people are still living in what’s left of the middle class infrastructure the old New Dealers and Great Society-ers built, and the fact that that lingering image is still powerful enough that a lot of people still think it’s the norm. At its most extreme, this gives you the shit-for-brains who go on Glenn Beck’s show and spittle “I was on food stamps, nobody helped me!” – not realizing that that meager, anemic, pathetic, laughable excuse for a safety net was the help, that there’s nothing else out there, because they’re so saturated by Reagan’s stories of Cadillacs and T-bone steaks that they’re convinced there must be some massive wasteful aid program out there being distributed to some undeserving poor.
different-church-lady
@mclaren:
Now legal in two states.
Bernie’s already won one of them.
different-church-lady
@elftx:
Doesn’t bother me a a bit. They’ve earned it.
They were apathetic voters already. They’d just be returning to the their natural state until the next superhero comes along.
akryan
God, he’s condescending even when he’s wrong. One of the (many) things that irritates me about the pundit clowncar is this idea that Trump just gets his supporters from guys like Ol’ Joe Who Lost His Job at the Mill. He’s doing great among the poor and less educated, but he’s doing just fine if not winning in every other demographic of the GOP base too. My aunt is college educated, upper middle class,and she loves Trump. This whole idea that Trump just happened because so many people in the party have been left behind so they’re looking for something new, is BS. There’s nothing Trump says or does that is new to Republican voters. It’s just louder. Blaming Trump on the downtrodden and disillusioned is just one more way for them to blame the poor for something that the GOP politico-media universe has created.
Pogonip
@srv: When, oh when, will someone take an interest in us Voters Who Don’t Like Beer?
prob50
@Baud: @Pogonip: @Baud:
Well, then all I ca say is “Joy To The World”. Didn’t the late Hoyt Axton write that?
prob50
@Mustang Bobby: @Mustang Bobby:
How DOES one hold unpaid volunteers to a contract? I guess once Donald is elected TrumpKing he could decree it so – ya’ know, “off with their heads!”
Chris
@Pogonip:
SERIOUSLY! There are, like, two or three beers that are bland and inoffensive enough that I can stand to gulp them down for socializing purposes. That’s literally the closest thing to a nice word I can put in for the stuff. By and large, it tastes like skunk piss.
Of course, me and booze in general aren’t on the closest terms. I sometimes think it’s a shame I wasn’t born to a Southern Baptist family, I’d be one of the few with no trouble at all living the no-booze rule. But, no. Catholic. What a waste.
alan
@prob50: That and the working-class classic ‘Bony Fingers’
prob50
@gene108:
Uber’s put them all out of business.
prob50
@dr. bloor:
Dennis is still holding a seat at the bar and a mug for Dubyah.
Kenneth Almquist
@mclaren:
The story that the woman relates, in a nutshell: She decides to move to San Francisco, which has notoriously high housing costs. She views having one’s own apartment to be a symbol of adulthood, so that’s what she does, rather than trying to find a bunch of roommates and split the rent. As a result, rent consumes 78% of her after tax income. Commuting to work takes another 15%, leaving her with only 7% of her modest salary to cover everything else. If the pictures of culinary creations that she allegedly posted are any indication, the claim that she could not afford food is hyperbole, but spending 93% of one’s income on rent and commuting costs is a recipe for financial pain.
As far as I can tell, nobody every taught her how to manage money. She indicates that she had fully bought into the credit card company propaganda by age eight, and that’s not a criticism of her because no eight year old can be expected to work out the mathematics of compound interest and realize that borrowing at an 18% interest rate is a really dumb idea. So its not surprising she managed poorly.
If her story is a common one, that would suggest we have a problem that needs to be addressed. But saything that the story proves that “capitalism is broken” neither describes the problem nor suggests a solution.