Now that Trump has become the only game in town for Republicans, Bill Kristol sounds a lot less firm about #nevertrump. I can maybe handle David Frum as long as he stays on the lawn and doesn’t try to mingle. Bill Kristol on the other hand can keep the fuck out of my political coalition.
I am also pleased to see that Dick Morris has adapted from dumb Why Trump will implode tomorrow this time for real pieces to dumb explanations of why Morris was sure all along that Ted Cruz was toast (find your own links to Newsmax). I will feel a lot better about November with the two most reliably wrong pundits in American history on Trump’s side.
Seriously though, Dick Morris. Hillary Clinton. At this point he doesn’t have much choice but get with Trump, does he?
But in general I see no reason why all those Republicans running from Trump necessarily have to jump in bed with the Democrats.
They could always start a new party! Let Trump have his Front National voters and focus on the GOP’s core values of low taxes for rich people, slashing Medicaid/Medicare/Social Security, and military belligerence. Surely racist stupidity could not explain that much of the GOP’s continued relevance as a national party. Why not put the question to a test?
MattF
Well, that’s the basics. In that vein, though, I was disappointed to see that Marc Thiessen has been critical of Trump. He needs to get with the program.
schrodinger's cat
Party of Lincoln now the party of Trump! Well done, GOP establishment.
Kay
I think Hillary Clinton went home last night because it hit her that she has to save the world :)
Hopefully she’s recovered from that realization because there’s truth to it.
Tim F.
@MattF: Thiessen is being tactical. He will come around to Trump. Since the Gaffneyites jumped in with Trump, who would Marc Thiessen hang out with? If nothing else the torture stuff will draw him in for sure.
Punchy
This Trump Event should finally separate the True Conservatives from merely the Cleeks Law Adherents. I’m guessing the formers may have no trouble becoming the latters, since there’s zero integrity within the GOP base, but in a perfect world, any decrease in turnout from 2012 ought to become the baseline for the number of actual conservative members who call themselves Republicans.
More likely is that really aren’t any True Conservatives, and never have been, and Trump will get his obligate ~48% of the vote akin to Romneys….
srv
Let’s see how many of the #NeverSanders crowd flips when Hillary gets indicted.
Tim F.
@srv: #neversanders? Who is that? If you ever found one of those I would love to know about it.
Mike J
How many of them will take the Kelly Ayotte path and “support but not endorse”? Or is it endorse but not support?
Culture of Truth
an open question is, what exactly about Trump do they like? He’s against big trade deals, has talked about raising taxes, and he’s a horrible racist. Clinton is hawkish and a bit left of center, so it can’t be all anti-Hillary. So if it’s no ideological and it’s not personal, why not form a third party? Or it’s all about power, but Trump isn’t going to share much of that either.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Not a one of them will. Turnout will look like the last election, plus or minus a few tenths of a percentage points. All the butthurt #NeverTrump people will dig down and yank the lever for him anyway. Every last one. It’s what they do best – follow orders.
schrodinger's cat
@Tim F.: What about Bobo, Chunky Bobo, Low rent Bobo (Gerson)?
Just One More Canuck
Who makes Steve Guttenberg a star? We do! We do!
BR
Tim, I’m looking forward to posts (hopefully from you) rallying the commenters of this site to make calls, knock on doors, and register voters. Your insistence and persistence during the ACA fight made a real difference, and will make a real difference in the general election.
Major Major Major Major
It’s the No Homers. We’re allowed one.
Cermet
@srv: LOL; keep fucking that chicken. Sooner or later you may get it to lay the egg – not.
Kay
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
I agree. One of them already told me today that the President doesn’t really run anything and that Trump will be a “figurehead”. The thing is he would also be a horrible figurehead.
Jeffro
@Punchy: I was trying to spell out for my dad and brother what a non-Trump conservative “Freedom Party” would look like, should they choose to do the principled thing and start one instead of falling in line behind Trump…and then realized it’s not my job to bring them around anymore. They’re the ones who support the racists, religious nuts, and Randians. Anytime they’re willing to stand for their supposedly conservative values and leave the “R”s behind, they’re welcome to do so.
Capri
@Culture of Truth:
Two things: The base never liked the pro- Wall St., tax -cuts-for-the rich parts of capital C Conservatism in the first place. Trump gives them the isolationist, racist part without the trickle down economics crap that even their pet rocks knows is bullshit. Most of the pearl clutching the conservatives are doing about Trump is about how willing he to call the B.S. conservative principles crap B.S.
Yes, they do hate Hilary that much – it’s an animus that began 30 years ago when she said that as Bill’s first wife she wasn’t just going to stay home and bake cookies and hasn’t stopped since.
Jeffro
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
While future events are never certain, my guess is we’re headed for a 53%-46% HRC win. There is no reason to think, with a Dem party largely unified on the issues, and with AA, Hispanic, and female demographic groups especially mobilized to register and vote, that turnout will be any lower than it was back in 2008. I just don’t see it. YMMV.
MattF
@Kay: Yeah, I just don’t see Trump as the Spirit of Ecstasy.
Jeffro
@Kay: A figurehead with immense power – the power to launch nukes, shake world markets, offend our allies, embolden our enemies, deploy our military, pass every bill that comes across his desk or none of them. And a figurehead beholden to no restraining forces of any kind whatsoever.
So…who’s up for some good ol’ GOTV???
Tim F.
@schrodinger’s cat: #nevertrump for sure. NPR conservatives will settle for Hillary right along with the Chamber of Commerce plutocrats who keep them relevant.
@BR: Will do. I should have already started whipping up calls about Garland. Senators like Toomey in my state seem entirely too comfortable with the current state of play.
Face
@Mike J: Can you endorse something you dont support?
Kay
@Jeffro:
Oh, I agree. I was horrified in a gut way last night when this came true. It’s all fun and games until the morons succeed with one of these stunts.
Major Major Major Major
@Tim F.:
If I were the CoC, I would’ve been on the Dem bandwagon since… well, actually, right about now. And the NPR Conservatives/totebaggers, which is mostly just a simulation of one friend of mine that I run in my head, will bitch and moan about how they can’t vote for somebody like Kasich and then begrudgingly vote for Hillary in the end, but be very annoying, independent, and high-minded about it first.
Jeffro
@Kay: Yup, me too (on the ‘horrified’ note). And then, as I put it in an earlier comment (to paraphrase): “I was horrified that we’re going to have to go up against this loose cannon in the fall…until I realized, heyyyy, we get to go up against the loose cannon in the fall! Which party’s position would we rather have right now? I’m feeling better already…”
(Ok not completely better but a little better!)
Aleta
Some percentage of anti-liberal voters refusing to vote for Trump; some percentage of progressive voters refusing to vote for Clinton: has this been foretold in the pro-Biblical literature ?
Face
I think you may be unaware of just how absurd some of these voter ID law restrictions have become. There’s certain to be a depression of votes in some of the purple states. However, the worst laws seem to be in those states already very red (KS, TX), so the extent of damage is limited. I hope.
Dork
So how do NeverTrumpers and Dems come together? After all, we have the same goals. Can we have a national GoToMeeting call and hash out a coherent plan?
MattF
@Aleta: See the Book of Revelation.
boatboy_srq
@Kay: I keep thinking the last contested parts of the GOTea primary was a choice between Zaphod Beeblebrox and Palpatine. And the funniest/saddest part is that the GOTea can’t figure out which is which.
? Martin
@srv: We’ve been promised a Hillary indictment for 20 years now. You guys can’t follow through with anything.
BR
@Tim F.: Great!
boatboy_srq
@MattF: no, no, no: voter disengagement is foretold in the Revelation of Red.
(H/T George Carlin)
Aleta
@Kay: The news industry wanted viewers, we wanted entertainment, and here we go now.
Benw
@Aleta: are we not entertained!? Is this not why we watch cable new!?
I’m still in the “ha ha Trump” phase. I can’t help it.
Aleta
@MattF: Fire, flood, locusts…does it say anything about opposing sides each opposing what they themselves have become?
MattF
@boatboy_srq: They voted for the one with two heads. Better than just one!
Davebo
@srv: To dream.. The impossible dream!
It’s good to see that Rush instilled in you the courage to believe and no, I’m not talking about the Canadian rock band.
MattF
@Aleta: I’ve never read the ‘Left Behind’ novels. But I do wonder…
Kay
@Aleta:
I’m not taking any responsibility. I think he’s gross and I thought birtherism was horribly offensive and blatantly racist.
It’s all cable tv, GOP politicians and GOP voters as far as I’m concerned. I don’t find people like Donald Trump at all appealing in any way.
Trollhattan
@Kay:
At this point he’s like a belligerent Ronald Reagan–all personality and zero substance–and I have every reason to believe he’d stack his administration with grifters and crooks and true believers just as Reagan did. How many convictions, plea bargains and prison sentences were there from that administration? Hillary is untrustworthy?
Aleta
@Benw: oh me too. It’s the first rescue technique I learned in my lifesaving manual.
Trollhattan
@? Martin:
I have the paperwork here on my desk. I’m using the whitey tape as a paperweight.
Shell
Ive actually been horrified by this whole process….but a third party created by the GOP old guard? Now THAT Id pop some serious popcorn for.
Major Major Major Major
@MattF: I have. They’re fun, until they get (even) preachy(-er).
@Aleta: No :(
But there’s lots of ratfvking involved in Ragnarok.
Culture of Truth
@Capri: Oh I know why the base likes Trump. I meant the conservative elites and such. There’s nothing really appealing for Trump for that crowd, beyond the fact he will be the nominee of the party they traditionally support. Which is not nothing, but if they do support him, it will be with the caveat they (a) don’t support his ideas or policies and (b) don’t support him personally and (c) will have little influence with him or his administration.
Shell
And look how well that worked out with George W.
The Other Chuck
@srv: You didn’t even have the energy to try this time, did you?
Down, not across.
scav
@Kay: Figurehead and doesn’t do anything? So, all that rage-blaming Obama is a tempest over a meaningless figurehead. 8 years of fussing and bringing governance to a halt over the national mascot. Their number one goal was to prevent the mascot from doing nothing consequential on the sidelines.
MattF
And, right on cue, the NYT gushes over how reasonable President Trump will be.
Roger Moore
@Capri:
Say that again after looking at Trump’s tax “plan”, which involves lowering the top tax rate and eliminating the estate tax. He’s giving away at least as much to the ultra-rich as any other Republican; he just claims his plan will be good for the middle class.
Roger Moore
@Dork:
It’s very simple: the NeverTrumpers don’t vote for Trump. Nothing more is required. If they really feel like voting for Hillary, that’s great, but staying home is good enough.
Kay
@Trollhattan:
i loved how they were all saying he doesn’t have the “temperament” to be President of The Republicans.
Yeah, because the rest of them are such serious and thoughtful good-government statesmen.
He’s perfect to be their leader. The problem is foisting their poor judgment and inability to discern character off on the rest of the country.
Aleta
@Kay: Sorry to imply you personally. Of course you’re right, he is a monster.
NonyNony
@Dork:
Here’s a plan:
* We vote for Clinton
* The #nevertrumpers stay home
If they don’t like that plan, then they can go ahead and vote but write-in “Zombie Ronald Reagan” on their write-in ballots as a symbol of protest.
Either way I’m good so long as we all stick to the plan of not voting for Trump and they don’t have second thoughts once they get to the polling station.
ETA: And I see that Roger Moore got there before me…
Mike J
@NonyNony: And remind your Republican friends, staying home is like one vote against Trump, voting for Hillary is like two votes against Trump. So if they really, really hate him….
Kay
@Aleta:
There will be an attempt to make Donald Trump some reflection of “the country” to shift responsibility from those at fault.
My position is I had nothing to do with it, and in fact OPPOSED :)
Cacti
@Roger Moore:
This.
All we need for them is to not vote for Trump.
In the case of some of the women voters though, I think some of them will actively cross the line and vote for Hills, because Trump is such a caveman.
Cacti
@Kay:
Trump might be the perfect distillation of the ideal post-Gingrich era GOP candidate.
He’s loud, boorish, ignorant, and bigoted. All of the qualities that the 21st century right wing admires.
Amir Khalid
Does anyone know if the Donald has ever been a real CEO at any of his businesses? I mean, if he has done what real CEOs do: plan and oversee execution of business strategy, pick executive VPs of this and that, lead people; and how good he is at it. For me, there seems to be that gap in the stories about Trump the businessman; they’re only ever about him doing glamorous International Man of Commerce stuff.
pat
@MattF:
That is the scariest most disgusting thing I have ever read. Cripes. Who is this Patrick Healy crackpot?
NonyNony
@Mike J: Honestly, I’d rather they stayed home. Because if they vote they’ll probably vote Republican downballot even if they vote for Clinton, but if they stay home then they won’t.
I’d like to sell it as “a vote for Hillary is a vote against Trump, sure, but staying home and not voting at all is a statement of no confidence in the GOP”.
(Do I believe that? Hell no – you vote for whoever is going to advance your agenda the most even if you have to hold your nose to do it. But I’d like them to believe it because oh. my. god. do so many Democrats seem to think that staying home and not voting is some kind of “statement”. It would be nice to level that playing field.)
goblue72
@Trollhattan: The comparisons between Trump and Reagan are moronic.
Contrary to popular belief amongst pearl clutching liberals, Reagan was not a fool or some barely competent figurehead. He was President of the Screen Actors Guild for many years (during which time he was an FBI informant) He was politically active for years in 1960s. He was elected TWICE as Governor of most populous, diverse and richest state in the country – which included defeated Democrat Jesse Unruh, one of the most powerful politicians in California state politics. He decided against running for a third term, but probably would have won (in which case, Jerry Brown wouldn’t have been Governor.) He ran for President in 1976 and came within a whiskey of defeated the SITTING President (Ford) of his own party. When Reagan was nominated a GOP candidate for President in 1980, he was not some random, doddering schmoe who just showed up. He was an established, highly successfully & powerful politicians who was the leader of a right-wing vanguard that went back to Goldwater and that was taking over the Republican party from its then moderate Establishment leadership.
Liberals let their hatred of the guy get in the way of recognizing how good of a politician he was. And they got creamed for it.
Trump ain’t Reagan. He’s Goldwater with more money, less smarts, and lacking entirely in anything approaching an organizing political philosophy around which to build a movement. He’s a Know-Nothing candidate and going to wind up in same place the Know-Nothings did.
Iowa Old Lady
We have a number of Republican neighbors and acquaintances, and most of them say they can’t vote for Clinton but won’t vote for Trump. So they’ll stay home or skip the top line of the ballot. It’s a long time until November. We’ll see.
Iowa Old Lady
@Amir Khalid: Along the same line, how good do we anticipate Trump will be at running the general campaign? I guess I’m not sure how much and what the candidate does vs the party.
Jeffro
OMG HILLARY ALREADY HAS THE BESTEST ANTI-TRUMP AD EVER UP ON TWITTER…I’m still looking for a way to link it, but holy cow is it hysterical. She can run it a gazillion times over the next six months and let it do all the lifting here.
(the ad is all quotes from Republicans who ran against Trump, so it’s a double-win: slams Trump and boxes them in if they try to support him now)
Trollhattan
@goblue72:
If you say so, Skippy, it must be true. Did you sleep through the Reagan administration (both of them)? I did not.
Mike J
@Jeffro: twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/727932354883248129
catclub
@? Martin:
They will get to it right after they repeal and REPLACE Obamacare.
Mike J
@catclub: Do we have to spend every thread talking about berners? Indict Hillary, repeal obamacare, little birds on podiums…. Just sick of it.
Major Major Major Major
@Mike J: Hard when they’re the ones starting it.
gex
@Mike J: Well now this is an interesting thing. See, I thought srv was a right wing troll. And it has been the right wing going after her and wanting to indict her for those many years. It’s been Republicans in Congress trying to get something, anything, on Benghazi.
Interesting how pushing back against that gets read as going after Bernie people.
Paul in KY
Trump does scare me. Has a higher ceiling than Cruz had. Hillary will need to be on top of her game to beat him.
Applejinx
@Capri: This. Hillary could try and campaign on tax cuts for the rich and trickle-down 90s think, and then the left can hate her and the right can hate her for that AND the social justice stuff AND the racism stuff.
But she’s not going to, because if she was that kind of dumb she would have lost to Bernie Sanders, who’s the Trump of the left and never intended to win when he started, just change the conversation.
Paul in KY
Have changed my email address. Will be retiring soon & old address will be defunct. Guess that’s why the moderation. You don’t have to post this comment.
goblue72
@Trollhattan: I happen to know my political history and respect my political enemies. Doubly so when they win. You can tell yourself whatever fantasies about Reagan as a politician that you want if that makes you feel better.
I live in reality. The Democratic Party made its own bed and has been a weak-ass political party since the 1990s, with seeds of that starting in the 1980s. Democrats are finally at a point where they are able to win the White House consistently, but only in part because their opposition has so completely surrendered the campaign finance system to its donor class that is has totally lost control over its own nominating process such that it can’t field a single candidate able to take down a clown like Trump.
But everywhere else, the Democratic Party is, by and large, still the loser party its been since the 1990s. It can’t hold the states, gets its ass handed to it in local elections outside of major cities, and it can’t win Congress, absent completely lucking into it due to the other party having a complete moron as its President fucking up so bad that the country hands Congress back to them for a few years.
Applejinx
@Dork: They’re going to have to have a come-to-Jesus moment and accept the idea of ‘Big Government works and does things’, plus deal with the reality that Hillary will not be selling out black voters. Not after this primary. There will be justice and she won’t put up with racist bullshit in her country. I can get behind that.
We are probably also going to see some redistributionism, though maybe not a lot: not back to New Deal levels, but pre-90s levels? It’ll be a land of ‘incentives’ while people get used to the idea that work is just plain going away forever, all over the world. Robots outwork sweatshops as long as you have the capital to build the robot factories. Algorithms outwork teams of humans and you don’t even need the capital…
Conservatism’s failed. The old worker-bee and wealthy industrialist model can’t even hobble along anymore in 2016.
Brachiator
@Iowa Old Lady:
I understand that there is a lot of this now. But Trump has just cleared the table of the rest of the GOP presidential klown kar. Who knows how anyone will feel after the convention and we know who the candidates and the VP picks are.
Who knew that Trump would be able to mount a successful primary campaign? It was only last week that some reporters were still remarking about how adept Cruz was at wrangling delegates, and that Trump was trying to get new and old staffers to work together. Now, all those news stories are fish wrap.
Cacti
@goblue72:
Agree somewhat. By the time of his second term though, dementia had started (if Don Reegan is to be believed), and when he said he couldn’t recall what had happened with Iran-Contra, he was likely telling the truth.
I disagree with the popular assessment of Reagan being a transformative politician though. The transformative GOP politician of the last 50 years was Nixon. But for his own paranoid criminality, the Republicans would likely have won every Presidential election from 1968-1988. Even at that, they only had 1 term of Carter interrupting their ascendancy.
Cacti
@Brachiator:
I didn’t doubt his appeal to GOP voters for a moment.
Since when have attributes of loud, crass, angry, bigoted, and dim witted been seen as negative attributes by the American right wing? Not in the last quarter century at least.
Roger Moore
@goblue72:
He also lacks Goldwater’s electoral success. Trump is closer to Henry Ford, except that Ford never actually ran for office.
Hungry Joe
I’d like to believe that If I were a 1%-er or a country-club, or even a Chamber of Commerce Republican I’d go with Clinton because she represents stability, while Trump threatens chaos. Slightly higher taxes (maybe) beats the hell out of economic meltdown.
For them, going with Clinton is the smart move. Tessio was always smarter.
(But look what happened to Tessio.)
(And to my point, now that I think of it.)
Trollhattan
@goblue72:
Then do some more reading and get back to us on how leadery Reagan was when he was in the office.
Aleta
@Jeffro:
@Mike J: thanks !
cmorenc
@Cacti:
This afternoon while Trump’s potential VP picks were being discussed on CNN, I heard some GOP commentator suggest how Gingrich would make an excellent choice for Trump’s VP nominee. I had to nod my head in agreement – I too thought Gingrich would be an entirely appropriate VP pick for Trump. Do understand, however that there’s a subtle, but profound difference between “excellent” and “appropriate” in that context.
Davis X. Machina
@Cacti
No one who has heard the names “Schwartzenegger” or “Ventura” ever thought Trump couldn’t pull it off….
daverave
I fear that a lot of fence-sitting Repub voters will be pulled off the fence to vote if things get ugly, and I suspect they will, at the convention in Cleveland. Hippie/colored punching is reflexive even for those that fancy themselves as “moderate.” In fact I suspect that Trump will welcome any Cleveland Chaos.