Remember how the Trump phenomenon is a referendum on the decades old bait-and-switch scam practiced by the Republican Party? You know, how every election the rubes get promised an end to abortion, teh gheys prayed-away, Obamacare repealed, the Kenyan Mooslim Usurper hounded out of town — and especially how they were going to get their country back from all those folks of the wrong hue, speaking the wrong language and flooding across the border with canteloupes for calves? And how after every election all that never happened and it was back to business as usual and Washington’s just a sack of skunks with a reek you can smell in Topeka?
I bet you remember too how Trump rolled the whole rotten corpse of your granddaddy’s GOP and all its deal-making, C.R.E.A.M.ed leaders traitors by speaking the unspeakable and vowing to do what none of the weaklings and failures would or could dare to imagine. Round up the invaders and ship them — toddlers and abuelos alike — through the yuuuuge, classy gate in that yuuuge and beautiful wall?
Well, guess what Trump-rubes. You’re being rolled. Again.
Here’s Trump-surrogate and GOP congressman Chris Collins blowing the gaffe:
Collins said he believed the wall Trump promised to build along the US-Mexico border would be more an idea than a physical wall. “I have called it a virtual wall. Maybe we will be building a wall over some aspects of it; I don’t know….
“I call it a rhetorical deportation of 12 million people,” Collins said.
He then gestured toward a door in his Capitol Hill office.
“They go out that door, they go in that room, they get their work papers, Social Security number, then they come in that door, and they’ve got legal work status but are not citizens of the United States,” Collins said. “So there was a virtual deportation as they left that door for processing and came in this door.”
Collins added: “We’re not going to put them on a bus, and we’re not going to drive them across the border.”
And there you have it folks.* Trump is, as ever, a fraud. His prominent supporters know it. His opponents know it. The only question is when his voters figure it out, should, FSM-forbit, the scalp ferret and its pedestal ever take up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
*Please note that, of course, I’m not saying it’s a bad thing that a prominent Republican acknowledges that there isn’t going to be a terrifying episode of ethnic cleansing here in these United States. I’m just drawing attention to the fact that, in what should surprise no one, the con is strong in this candidate and this party.
Image: Georges de la Tour, The Cheat with the Ace of Clubs, c. 1634 or before
lollipopguild
It seemed that this was the plan all along but it is nice that one of the insiders is willing to reveal it to a reporter. Nothing to see here, move along.
ET
Trump is just a really wealthy real estate grfter.
different-church-lady
It’s a wall made out of IDEAS!
lollipopguild
Do I smell a whiff of “AMNESTY?. Saint Reagan preserve us!
LAO
I’m at the point of believing that Trump supports simply do not care about “facts” or his positions. They simply want to burn the house down.
Hal
So they never get citizen status? Just pay taxes and work and live in the US for the rest of their lives? Sounds downright Feudal.
Rathskeller
This is a mile over the heads of Trump supporters. They want blood. They want a U.S. rid of brown people.
germy
What a beautiful painting. Interesting that a deck of cards from the 17th century looks identical to today’s decks.
Good news for Trump?
An EgyptAir flight bound for Cairo from Paris has disappeared from the radar,
the airline announced late Wednesday.
Amir Khalid
It’s hard to be surprised, since Trump doesn’t believe today what he said yesterday. I’ve always wondered, though: when his supporters call him a man who tells it like it is, what are they responding to?
sigaba
@germy: Violence, chaos and the unexplainable are always good news for conservatives.
SFAW
Tom –
What? No BernieBro bashing? I’m starting to go into withdrawal over here. Pink
unicornselephants!One hopes that Hillary surrogates will spend a goodly amount of time and money telling America what a fraud and liar Triumpf the Insult Comic
DogFascist is.Well, I wrote “Hillary,” but clearly I meant whomever gets the nomination, which apparently is still in doubt, according to some.
LAO
@Hal:
True. But for the republicans — this is compassionate policy stance.
Iowa Old Lady
Support for Trump is about emotion, not policy.
NonyNony
@SFAW:
Elizabeth Warren is clearly ready to start – she started a few weeks ago.
sigaba
@Amir Khalid: I could be cynical and suggest that a lot of Trump supporters don’t care if there’s a wall or not, all they really wanted was to watch people clutch their pearls.
What’s more monsterous? Deporting millions? Or not caring if they’re deported or not so long as you get your jollies watching someone on TV talk about it? I think the latter might actually be worse– making people the unwilling contestants in your reality show.
Major Major Major Major
The cognitive dissonance in Republicans (and part of your rant here) reminds me part of the Kids in the Hall movie.
lollipopguild
@Amir Khalid: They are responding to their initial impression of him-That he is a “Truth Teller”. Laugh out Loud. He did a very good job at the start of telling them exactly what they wanted to hear. That first tape of him is on continuous play in their minds and they do not want to hear anything else.
LAO
@Major Major Major Major: How do you clean coffee out of a keyboard? Asking for a friend.
lollipopguild
@Major Major Major Major: Very nice example!
CONGRATULATIONS!
If the Mexicans were actually deported they’d have one less group of people they can hate on. Truly, that’s some unconstitutional repression that shall not stand!
But really, did anyone think he was serious? (Rhetorical question, I know plenty of his devotees that think he is). But really. Who’s going to clean the rooms in Trump Tower? Never would have happened.
Jeffro
Oh so it’ll be a rhetorical deportation, then? I wonder which is more like to Make America Great Again: rhetorical deportations or self-deportations?
(I bet Mitt would like to know, too)
Tom Levenson
@SFAW: Don’t worry. Your regularly scheduled programming will resume shortly.
SFAW
@NonyNony:
Yes. But I don’t think she can do it alone. Of course, if she can, so much the better.
And let’s hope Fuckwad keeps trying to pull the “Pocahontas” shit. I have this hope that, at some point, with enough of Fuckwad doing stuff like that, non-wingnuts will say “What the fuck? Are you 12 years old? And YOU want to be President?”
I expect that to happen the day after I get my pony, or a unicorn.
benw
If only there was a useful and catchy phrase to describe the state of working and paying taxes but not being able to have a vote for one’s own government.
Meanwhile, Mexico breathes a sigh of relief because paying for a virtual wall will be a LOT cheaper.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Major Major Major Major: Gleemonex. There’s so much awesome in that movie, but the part that always sticks with me is when the mother is on Gleemonex and remembering “the best moment of her life”. That scene puts me in tears, curled up laughing, every single time.
batgirl
OT: For some insane reason, I’m watching The 700 Club. “Pro-life,” “Christian” Pat Robertson just said to let “drug addicts” and “bums” “starve to death.” Wonder what verse of the Bible that is from?
Bitter Scribe
The virtual wall will keep out all those Mexican avatars that are sneaking into the United Online States of America.
NonyNony
@LAO:
Eh. He got a lot of support from white supremacists because of his stances on deporting immigrants. I’m assuming that those folks will continue to believe that he’s going to Make America White Again like he promised them and that either his surrogates are liars or this is just a Big Lie to the American public to get him elected to office. Big Lies are okay, so long as they’re directed at the sheep and not the wolves.
But heck, I expect him to walk this back at the first debate. Then walk it forward again. Then back. And then do the cha-cha with it. He can say anything and his supporters will hear what they want to hear because he’s promising to Make America White Again and that’s all that matters.
Roger Moore
@Hal:
Which should be extremely popular with large segments of the
ConfederateRepublican party.SFAW
@Tom Levenson:
For some reason, that reply reminds me of this.
NonyNony
@SFAW:
Sadly anyone who has enough sense to respond like that either became a Democrat during the W years or this is their first election. Anyone voting for Republicans post, oh let’s be generous and say 2004, can’t possibly think that obviously childish namecalling is a bad thing.
The Other Bob
This way the media can say it’s OK for moderate people to vote for Trump. He did not mean all that fascisty stuff don’t ya know.
gene108
@Amir Khalid:
He’s going to make it so they can say nigger in public again without fear of reprisal.
The rest is optional and open to negotiation.
Jeffro
@NonyNony:
Exactly right. The only thing to do is point it out loudly and often – that he’s on eight sides of every issue, every day, sometimes every hour. It should be enough to keep the D base, hold on to a large majority of independents, and win a few R defectors.
Woodrowfan
@Iowa Old Lady: yep, fascists just want to follow a “strong leader”. the details are unimportant.
yellowdog
@benw: It’s called being a resident of DC (or Puerto Rico, Guam, VI, etc.). DC licence plates read ‘Taxation without Representation’.
Roger Moore
@sigaba:
I think it’s more that they want somebody to bash Those People. As long as Trump is safely in white supremacist territory, they’ll be happy.
Amir Khalid
@batgirl:
“Blessed are the mean, for they don’t have to share the Earth with anybody.”
Iowa Old Lady
@SFAW: What is it they say? With all this horse shit, there has to be a pony in there somewhere.
Josie
Trump is a rorschoch candidate. They all see what they want to see in him, which makes him popular to a certain segment of the population. I’m just hoping they are not in the majority.
NCSteve
We shouldn’t take this Herr Hitler chap’s antisemitic extremism and grandiose plans for invading Eastern Europe and the USSR and liquidating or enslaving Slavic races too seriously. Of course it’s impossible. The important thing is focusing on beating the Communists and, above all, those horrible Social Democrats who brought this horrible democracy claptrap down upon us.
Iowa Old Lady
@Jeffro: Suggested ads: run clips of Trump saying 3 or 4 different things about a subject, then pose two questions. 1. What is Trump’s position on X? 2. Are you sure?
Hoodie
@Iowa Old Lady: This is why it doesn’t matter. I suspect a good number of Trump supporters know he isn’t going to build a wall or deport 11 million people, they just like that he does the the equivalent of shouting n****r in public and doesn’t apologize for it, which is a signifier of dominance. They live in fear and somehow think that him “speaking his mind” somehow means he is going to protect them, with the added benefit that supporting his emissions is a passive-aggressive way of venting their own resentments. The best way to go after Trump is to make it clear that he can’t or isn’t going to protect them. Hillary has made a start in that direction by talking about things like Medicare buy-in for those over 55 and increased childcare benefits. That forces Trump to either top those promises or reveal that he’ll just be another tool of the GOP establishment. He’s already showing that by trotting out a list of SC nominees ordered by the Heritage Foundation, and I suspect he’ll be in a bind to do more of that to get campaign funds out of the PTB. He may even be forced to backtrack on preserving social security benefits. Quit trying to point out that Trump is a buffoon and a liar; he is, but they ain’t listening to that. Bribes work better.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@gene108: This is pretty much the number one unspoken demand of GOP voters. It’s what they want far more than anything they claim publicly to want. They want to be the Big Men they imagine they were in the fifties, where blacks and Mexicans quailed at their footsteps and always addressed them as “sir”, and a homosexual lived in a crappy house, by themselves, in a state of abject terror. All the schools were segregated and the wife had dinner on the table at five.
But shit wasn’t really like that back then, 70 long years ago. And they know that. But they at least want to be able to say “nigger” all they like. Trump’s given them his blessing.
tazj
@Amir Khalid: I know that was a rhetorical question but I can’t resist. In general, telling people off and demeaning people without facing any of the consequences that any other member of American society would face. He’s flip-flopped on basically everything he’s said in the past and his fans and the press still love him.
After telling reporters in the last few months that women who’ve had abortions should face punishment, now he says the women will “punish themselves.” He denies making fun of that disabled reporter even though his speech was recorded. He says Ferguson and Oakland are the most dangerous places on earth. He basically gets to kick everyone around and still enjoys the good life.
Since – I don’t believe I’m going to admit this, my husband is a Obama voter turned Trump supporter, you might have to put up with me posting more instead of lurking for my mental health.
benw
@yellowdog:
Just think, Republicans want to extend those blessings to millions of people scattered throughout the US. How can anyone turn down the pitch that “you’ll be living just like people do in our great nation’s capitol”? It’s downright progressive!
MattF
One of the basic strategies of a grifter is convincing the marks that they’re in on the scam. The Trump fans think (hope, believe) that Donald is really really really trying to give them what they want. Whereas, at best, he is really really really trying to give them what they deserve.
Josie
@Josie: rorschach. My edit refused to save.
Origuy
@batgirl: It’s from Matthew’s Epistle to the Republicans 25:25: “For I was hungry and you let me starve, I was thirsty and you let me parch, I was a stranger and you called the cops on me”
different-church-lady
@Amir Khalid:
“Is” is only present tense, after all.
The Republic, Blah Blah Blah...
A virtual wall…
A rhetorical deportation…
Unfortunately only the BS appears to be real here…
Typical crock…
SFAW
@Iowa Old Lady:
I had forgotten that one, thanks for the laugh.
Woodrowfan
@tazj: OK, I’ll bit. why does he like Trump??
WereBear
Sadly, when Republicans have only pale people left in the nation, they will come up with ways to still find scapegoats, cheap labor, and those to look down upon.
It’s how they roll.
Chyron HR
@NCSteve:
That’s nice, dear.
Joel
A prime opportunity to post the Walkmen.
rikyrah
@LAO:
this
this
this
peach flavored shampoo
Shorter: We’ve pretty much lied about everything, all things, and anything. Also, expect virtual reductions in the deficit, virtual tax increases on the Wall St. folks, and virtually nothing done whatsoever with regards to making America great again.
rikyrah
@Hal:
Which suits the GOP business arm just fine.
lumpkin
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
What makes anyone think that Trump is not serious? The wall and ethnic cleansing are two of the few things he’s been consistent on. Just because some flack tosses out some chaff to gull the press and those who don’t want to believe the worst could actually be true doesn’t mean Trump won’t do exactly what he says in at least this one case. If he wins, it will be with a senate majority and he’ll get a far right wing SCOTUS. The house is already beyond the fascist event horizon. There will be nothing to stop him from pursuing this. A bill to do exactly what Trump has championed will come out of the house, go through the senate and land on his desk in short order – you think he won’t sign it? The supreme court will rule that since the objects of the racial purge are not US citizens, the government doesn’t need to follow any due process. If Trump is elected, it’s gonna happen.
Jeffro
@Iowa Old Lady:
Great idea! Or just do it as a timeline of most any given day – put a digital display up in the corner of the screen.
6:27: screen shot of Twitter where Trump says X.
8:15: screen shot of Morning Joe call-in, Trump says Y.
10:04: Trump rally…Trump says Z.
1:34: Trump spokesperson on cable news, denies Trump said X, blames Jewish reporter for making Trump supporters post hate-filled responses to her criticism of Y.
6:05: Trump back on news or at rally, denies he ever said Y, X has always been his position, thinks Z is great too. And so on.
rikyrah
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
They wanna party like it’s 1958.
And, think someone’s gonna go along with it.
They whine about their ‘freedom of speech’.
They have ‘freedom of speech’.
They want ‘ freedom from consequences of speech.’
They wanna roll upon some Black folks, call them Nigger, and there be no repercussions. They don’t want to accept the responsibility, that if, you roll upon the ‘wrong one’, your teeth could be like chicklets spread all over the floor.
Folks are not having it, and they’re mad about it.
They’re mad that the White Man can’t do whatever he wants -WITHOUT CONSEQUENCES.
Phuck that.
NOBODY is playing with them.
Make America Great Again?
Phuck.outta.here.
rikyrah
@The Republic, Blah Blah Blah…:
Didn’t Mittens go through with this…Self-deportation anyone?
Jeffro
@Hoodie:
I don’t think even bribes would work with Trump supporters – they are too far gone.
Just pound him for being on eight sides of every issue, every hour, and leave him to his base (which is less than 100% of Republicans, who are already not a majority of voters or EVs). Let his negatives help us scoop up whatever independents and R defectors we can, and add them to the D base.
WereBear
Heck, if I thought Trump would give them what they deserve, I might vote for him.
tazj
His response is “He tells it like it is. All politicians lie, they say one thing but do another.” My counter argument is ” Look at president Obama he ran on implementing the ACA and he did it. ” Basically everything he ran on he at least tried to do or did. He has no answer to that. When I bring up all the horrible and stupid things Trump has said he’ll say “but he doesn’t really mean those things.” Ok, enjoy your con man.
One thing you have to understand, my husband is a registered Republican who still loves Reagan. He’s not a disgruntled Democrat and not a reliable voter in anything other than presidential elections. I’m still hoping to turn him to the light, even my elementary school aged kids are criticizing his choice.
rikyrah
@lumpkin:
See, this is the difference between those White folks that say, ‘ Well, he doesn’t REALLY mean that.’
And, Non-White folks that understand ‘ I don’t have the phucking LUXURY to see if he does or he doesn’t. I have to take him at his word.’
As I Non-White person, I don’t want to be in the position to find out.
There is absolutely NOTHING – in terms of the modern GOP, that should give you ANY comfort that it wouldn’t come to pass.
hovercraft
Trump supporters don’t care about the specific policies, they want someone who will punch their enemies. For eight years no one has punched Obama and they have had to sit back and watch. The republican establishment let Nobama do whatever he wanted to this country, while they bent over and took it. Now comes this great American savior who singlehandedly challenged the usurper and made him produce his ” birth certificate”. He obviously is the man to restore America and make it great again.
sigaba
@LAO: Wrap the end of the USB cable in plastic and put the keyboard in the dishwasher. don’t use detergent. Cold water wash, Don’t heat dry, allow the keyboard to air dry for one day.
piratedan
if only people grokked what made America great… according to some, it was during the 40’s and the 50’s…. with people fighting against Fascism and Nazism and Communism and there were women in the workforce and having to accept that 90% tax bracket existed and that the Armed Forces realized that it needed to integrate and stuff like the GI Bill and the Marshall Plan that involved making things and rebuilding the world. I really think the country likes to have goals and projects, interstate system and going to the moon were fine examples.
Strange how none of that shit ever gets remembered.
SuperHrefna
@tazj: Argh! Sorry to hear about your marital difficulty, being married to a Trump supporter must be challenging. How did he go from Obama to Trump? Was he ever interested in Bernie? I know there is overlap between Bernfeelers and Trumpeters, but I haven’t heard much about the Obot route.
Frank Wilhoit
@LAO: …and that is why the “deportation” is going to take the form of a high sign to The American People to take care of the problem themselves, by direct action.
Who’s going to stop them? Donald Trump?
Roger Moore
@WereBear:
Religion and national origin were good enough reasons for discrimination in the past; there’s no reason they couldn’t be good enough in the future.
eric
@Jeffro: honey, it was but a rhetorical affair,,,,truly the dialectic of give and take until, exhausted, our rhetoric was spent
SuperHrefna
@tazj: So he goes straight from “He tells it like it is” to “He lies”? So is your husband just grooving to the belligerence, arrogance and cocksuredness, rather than listening to the words? Serious suggestion: have you guys tried therapy?
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
FTFY.
eric
@batgirl: 2 GOP Platform 13
Aleta
So we can go to Trump Reality Park, put on our goggles and walk around a virtual reality wall, which will have his name everywhere, and look like it’s made of gold. Maybe the lab that produces it will be funded by Mexico with UST-rump loans.
A facsimile or two are probably being built in 2nd Life as we speak.
Buy UST bonds today, while the bonus Trump-carving knife is still available.
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
When they talk about things that are not serious and that can’t be real: Mississippi school ordered to desegregate 60 years after Brown v Board, voting rights, redlining, black unemployment, infant mortality, life expectancy. I could go on but these thins that Jesse and Rev Al and other “rabble rousers and race hustlers” rail against, any effort to deal this is what they want to take “their country back from.
But hey it’s our country too, so fuck you and get off my lawn.
eric
@gene108: you used the hated n-word. “negotiation” that is what they hate. they want daddy to tell the womanly dems to suck it and like it. that is their image of so much of the world in one distorted picture
SuperHrefna
@piratedan: What made America prosperous in the 1940s and 50s was the rest of the world reeling from the aftermath of WWII. 3% of the world population had died, Britain had bankrupted itself in order to win and there was a power vacuum which America expanded into. I really think it had more to do with the gestalt of the world situation than any specific facet of American culture back then. America was simply the biggest economy left standing after the apocalypse.
tazj
@SuperHrefna: I think he could have possibly gone for Bernie if he was doing better in the primaries. I did hear him say some complementary things about him before the primaries began. I unfortunately think he’s one of people who are attracted to authoritarian type figures in politics. He was raised in a very strict conservative Asian family where he told me he never had any say in what he was expected to do.(amateur psychology on my part) He also occasionally watches Fox news, hence the Hillary hate.
He liked president Obama because he was against the Iraq war and thought Bush was a horrible president.
Chris
@SuperHrefna:
Western Europe and Japan remember the three decades after World War Two pretty much the way we do. The French call it “the thirty glorious years.”
SuperHrefna
@tazj: Can you get him on Fox news detox? Maybe on the grounds that it is poisonous to growing minds. Can you get him interested in Vice news instead? They cover all kinds of stories cable news doesn’t and it might broaden his horizons a bit.
gvg
A surrogate I have never heard about claims Trump doesn’t mean it. Um, so?
I already figured out Trump doesn’t actually know the limits of the Presidents power not to mention that the country of origin doesn’t have to cooperate and take them back nor any idea of the cost, nor any idea of the impact on us of losing those workers etc. Nor any idea of constitutional rights of American born and the lawsuits and the judges and lawyers already in place.
I still don’t think the surrogate can know what Trump means. It’s been pointed out before that people are seeing what they want to see in Trump and they all see something different and contradict each other. This comment just explains some of his supporters, not Trump.
Who knows what Trump would do. I don’t want to find out. Frankly its already hurt us having a dumbass GOP Congress. Trumps random ideas would tank the world economy and I don’t want to think what the rest of the world would think about us when they are starving because we elected an idiot not to mention the other GOP fools who won’t learn anything. If it was just him and a sane Congress, they could stop him. As it will be……….oh dear, oh dear no.
GOTV
Hoodie
@Jeffro: The point of the bribes is not simply to bribe them; it’s to make it clear that Trump can’t deliver, that he’s an empty braggart and that his GOP buddies will sell him out if he tries to promise too much that would interfere with their larceny. We went through this with Gore. Bush was an ignoramus and a bullshitter, not all that much different from Trump. Gore’s problem is he tried to act like a sober, responsible adult to create a contrast with Bush, but the voters decided they’d rather have a beer with W. Gore would have been better off embracing the Big Dog and promising everyone more of those great times they had in the 90’s. All Gore got out of being responsible is being accused of claiming to have invented the internet. A lot of Americans are infantile when it comes to politics, they respond to displays of dominance and promises of milk and honey that get backed up by the dominance display. Trump gets that; Bernie is using at least part of that formula.
Brachiator
Here is the one problem with this analysis.
Of course the mainstream GOP wants to say that it’s safe to back Trump, that he is one of their own. And even if he is elected and they don’t like his proposals, the GOP can run the obstruction game on him just as they did with Obama. We’ve seen this before, at the state level. Governator Arnold tried to shake up the status quo in a minor way and found that he was opposed by both Republicans and Democrats. And Arnold did not have the political savvy or enough allies to get around the roadblocks. But the obstructionism did not help Republicans, who have been shut out of statewide office in California for the past 10 years.
So here’s the thing. Trump torched the current and future presidential ambitions of Jeb!, Rubio and Cruz, and had the nerve to slam Dubya about the Iraq War and Romney about his cracks about the 47 percent. And this is exactly what Trump’s supporters wanted to hear. Now, they want to see the rest of the national level Republicans held accountable, and it will not be sufficient for Trump to meekly pivot toward the GOP establishment.
Trump’s failure to deliver will not lead to a comfortable return to the status quo. The Tea Party, which was engineered by the Koch Brothers and others, purged GOP moderates. But renegades from the Tea Party and independent voters turned on the remaining GOP grandees, and will light them up if they fail to deliver.
The GOP’s back is against the wall. If Trump backs away from or fails to deliver on his major promises, he will not only be dismissed as a huge failure, but he will take the party down with him.
Bodacious
What? While running for president, Trump created up to 40 companies, some of them to do business with Saudi’s ??? Sometimes I wonder about buzz feed, but this one’s over the top. Is this for real? Not surprised if it’s true, but just when is it too much for his supporters?
MomSense
Yesterday that horrific show With All Due Respect Both Sides Do It So We Will Just Blow Sunshine Out of Our Bums For An Hour was on while I was doing dishes and I couldn’t believe the TrumpFluffing they were doing. The slightly less dickish one wasn’t on so it was Halperin and the Mad Man from Morning Joe.
Dear Dog it was a struggle not to smash the tv.
HRA
It seems like many people missed the Trump statement of “It’s only a suggestion. I am not the president.” a few days ago. It is what it is now.
It could be asked of everyone as to why they support their candidate while you in turn admit why you support your candidate rather than being crassly belligerent. That would be a nice start to a good conversation.
SiubhanDuinne
O/T, Morley Safer has died. It’s been years since I watched 60 Minutes, but I always liked him. RIP.
misterpuff
Its interestingthat when the Repugs try to moderate their goals for mass public consumption vs the Base, they end up in contorted arguments.
RMoney: We won’t deport, they will self-deport.
DRumpf: We won’t punish women with abortions, they must self-punish, and by extrapolation, slut-shame themselves.
pseudonymous in nc
@Rathskeller:
There are going to be a lot of angry white men with guns who want to be part of Trump’s deportation squads. Trump will offer them jobs to do it. It’d be like the WPA but for ethnic cleansing.
Matt McIrvin
@SuperHrefna: And because of that, the US dollar became the standard that all the other currencies in the world were pegged to; at that point, they couldn’t devalue their currency to get a favorable trade balance. (Goldbugs like to say that we were on the gold standard, but while that was theoretically true, it was also illegal for people to own gold bullion, so a run on Fort Knox was impossible. It was really a US-dollar standard.)
Chris
@Brachiator:
They’ll be severely hampered without an independently superwealthy candidate like Trump to rally around, though.
Miss Bianca
@Major Major Major Major: I’ve obviously missed a masterpiece, here…
rikyrah
@SiubhanDuinne:
I liked him too.
RIP, Mr. Safer.
tazj
@SuperHrefna: He only listens to Fox news on his phone and even then, not that often, mostly he’s playing video games to relax after work. I ‘m not worried about my kids they really don’t like Trump and I don’t get into political discussions with them, but they know I don’t approve of his rhetoric. Their teachers have been very critical of his racial bigotry and they told me this even before I commented on him.
Chyron HR
@HRA:
That’s nice, dear.
Miss Bianca
@tazj: That’s cognitive dissonance on an order I can’t even fathom,
rikyrah
@misterpuff:
Because, what they want to do isn’t popular. Which is why they live in the world of Frank Luntz-approved dogwhistles, giving the MSM cover to pretend that the GOP isn’t what it is.
When folks point out what they REALLY want to do, we are told, over and over, that, ‘ they don’t really mean that. You can’t be right.’
Yes, we are right.
They want to turn Social Security over to the Hedge Fund people.
They want to turn Medicare into a voucher program.
They want to take away the healthcare of the 20 million people that now have it under Obamacare.
They want to take away the federal park system and sell it to the highest bidder.
They want to take away birth control for women.
They want to take away the RIGHT TO VOTE for MILLIONS of American citizens.
ALLL of my list above – there has been a GOP proposal TO DO SO.
Yet, I am consistently told by the dumb ass ‘ independents’, that ‘ they really don’t believe it. ‘
Man….ain’t got time for that foolishness.
EBT
@LAO: The value of Stigginit can never be ignored.
tazj
@SuperHrefna: He only listens to Fox news on his phone. I’ll take your suggestion and try to gently persuade him to see things differently.
HRA
@Chyron HR:
I did not write what you suggest I wrote here. Grow up!
srv
Well, it hasn’t stopped a trillion pixels to be spilled by liberals at Balloon-Juice implying such.
Those living in reality knew you were being all emo, good to have you re-enertering reality for a short while.
cleek
won’t hurt Trump a bit. the dipshits who bought the Maximum Trump persona aren’t bright enough to know they’ve been played – if they even hear about his flipflops, they’ll just assume he’s pandering to the middle. which he is.
jl
The problem a Trump nomination poses for GOP is simple. He won the primary, very bigly, by taking positions on several pivotal GOP themes, that when stated plainly, are obviously stupid, counterproductive, senseless and deeply immoral. So egregious that it would probably doom him to a defeat by a landslide in the general election. So Trump’s pivot to the middle has to be so blatant that it threatens to blow up the GOP electoral con operation.
Same with Trump’s few sane and ethical stands, mainly on social insurance, which the GOP insists must be repudiated.
Trump is a mortal threat to the GOP electoral swindle that they have perpetrated on their racist and bigoted and fearful base for years.
Brachiator
@Chris:
And, so? Nobody saw Trump coming. Nobody. No one can say for sure what the next iteration may be like.
GOP voter dissatisfaction is real. The Koch Brothers and the Tea Party tried to manipulate this dissatisfaction. They failed. The dissatisfaction is not going away. It is just becoming angrier and more agitated. I don’t think the GOP will be able to distract or easily appease this bunch of loonies.
bemused
@rikyrah:
I just commented on a local blog that the GOP platform is to phase out SS and depend on the stock market to provide our retirement security, whittle down Medicare and Medicaid and Trump tax plan is huge tax cuts to wealthy with peanuts to the rest of us racking up $10 trillion deficit in 10 years. Got an immediate response that I don’t have a passing familiarity with Republican positions and reading is hard.
What the hell do you say to idiots like this?
boatboy_srq
@batgirl: IIRC that’s from the parable of the Good Samaritan (as told by the Levite).
rikyrah
@bemused:
That, unless you have a few million dollars, you will be phucked under a President Trump.
They are stuck on stupid.
boatboy_srq
@Brachiator: Indeed, the most signal failure of this cycle was the Kochs’ inability to control the primary process so that their selected candidates could advance. They spent a fvcktonne of cash on early contests only to watch their anointed pols summarily (and sequentially) Trumped.
Brachiator
@jl:
Keep whistling that tune. A Trump defeat is not a lock.
Trump is not a conventional politician. What is “the middle” for Trump?
He did not have any previous political constituency. His entire political career is based on satisfying his base, and in pulling the rest of the GOP into his orbit. He cannot easily change tack and still be perceived as Trump the Conqueror of the mainstream GOP.
TheronWare
Pick up grenade, pull pin, throw pin, hold grenade.
srv
@Brachiator: Trump will hit Hillary from the left and the right and already has.
Brachiator
@boatboy_srq:
Yep. And there was also this little tidbit from the LA Times about wealthy California Republican donors. They “invested heavily in the 2016 presidential race, spending about $55 million” through April. About $35 million of this total went to Jeb! It was money down a rat hole.
LAO
I know that Matt Taibbi can sometimes be too much, but his recent article, is pretty good.
Tenar Darell
@rikyrah: THIS
Also too, if they can’t get it at the federal level they will do it state by state and say fuck to the Constitution, and everyone else will have to split their resources to run around putting out the fires they’re setting.
Brachiator
@srv:
But Trump is thin skinned and profoundly stupid. His hits at Hillary don’t really matter. He is betting that a significant segment of voters are as stupid as he is, and just as undemanding.
boatboy_srq
@Brachiator: The Money went for the notTrump. NotTrump isn’t a winner for the GOTea when there’s a Trump on the ballot. Southern Teahadis may still run the Reichwing, but the Southern Strategy dogwhistling took a (fatal?) blow this time around. There are moments when it seems the Conservatist whingeing about “political correctness” is less hatred of progressive terminology and more resentment that Atwater’s approach to politics required them to use code words themselves.
Brachiator
@LAO:
Loved this part, which puts Jeb!’s failure to rise into stark perspective.
And I love this takedown of David Brooks and his ilk:
Comedy gold.
Agorabum
@Major Major Major Major: It’s called Denial.
I think Trump supporters just need some Gleemonex
Barbara
So far as I can tell the rhetorical wall plus deportation has morphed into regularizing immigrants by making them get work documents. I know sometimes it’s all in the label, but a cursory read of the comments at the Buffalo News (which are not crazy because real names are used) suggests that his most ardent supporters do understand the difference between a wall and what would essentially constitute immigration reform by a different name.
Uncle Cosmo
@srv: A shitheaded Rethuglican vulture like you wouldn’t recognize “reality” if it crept up behind you & whanged a 2×4 off your pointy widduw skull.