Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

I’m more Christian than these people and I’m an atheist.

‘Museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.’

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Dead end MAGA boomers crying about Talyor Swift being a Dem is my kind of music. Turn it up.

Books are my comfort food!

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

…and a burning sense of injustice to juice the soul.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Optimism opens the door to great things.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2016 / Open Thread: HRC’s Big Speech

Open Thread: HRC’s Big Speech

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There’s a full transcript at Time, but beware — it includes a LOUD autoplay clip.

The reviews are mostly glowing. At CNN, not usually HRC-positive [warning: autoplay video]:

There’s a new Hillary Clinton in town.

A speech that was billed as a major foreign policy address instead unfolded as a savage, mocking evisceration of Donald Trump Thursday as the former secretary of state adopted an aggressive new campaign persona designed to repel the unpredictable challenge posed by the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

In one of the most striking speeches of her political career, Clinton dispensed with the sober diplo-speak that has characterized her previous national security addresses and went straight for the jugular, unleashing a series of biting attacks on Trump.

In the spirit of President Lyndon Johnson’s notorious “Daisy” nuclear blast ad targeting Barry Goldwater’s temperament in 1964, Clinton warned that Trump should not be let anywhere near the nuclear codes because he could start a war when somebody “got under his very thin skin.”…

The speech marked a significant moment in Clinton’s campaign, as it was the first real signal of the tactics and attitude she will use to take on Trump and offered a preview of what are likely to be fierce clashes between the rivals at a trio of presidential debates later in the year. It demonstrated the kind of sardonic, unrestrained humor that she often shows in private interactions with friends and reporters but has refrained from displaying in public…



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Of course, not everybody wants to jump on the bandwagon…

Reader Interactions

212Comments

  1. 1.

    Schlemazel Khan

    I read that CNN fact checked the Drumpfenstein monster in real time yesterday. The banner on screen said “Trump says he never said Japan should have nukes. (he did)” That is a small thing & it scares me for how it might be abused in the future but for now it would make his lying a lot harder if they called him on it like that every time.

  2. 2.

    CarolDuhart2

    -She gave a speech neither Trump or Sanders could give-a Big Mama speech full of seriousness and resolution.

    Both men think that just being white and male is enough to be a leader-just like both McCain and Romney did before them. So they aren’t prepared, feeling they have no need to be. No need to learn, no need to have plans, nothing. And it shows.

  3. 3.

    RK

    Great speech. Clinton really needs to use more humor. “Dangerously incoherent” captures Trump’s nonsense perfectly. If they could make that stick….

  4. 4.

    cmorenc

    You can kill most autoplay clips from loading by changing the setting in your browser to require your permission (on an individual clip-by-clip basis) to play Adobe Flash. Once you give permission, however, you usually do have to put up with the 15 or 30 second ads they stick in front of the content you want to watch.

  5. 5.

    Betty Cracker

    Clinton really rattled that rat bastard Trump but good. It’s obvious from the hot-take tweet: “She doesn’t even look presidential,” i.e., “She doesn’t even have a penis!” And it’s even more obvious from his incoherent flailing at last night’s rally, which included threats to abuse executive power to persecute his enemy should he be elected, which he won’t be.

  6. 6.

    Mary G

    She was so good in that speech and at some level Trump knows it. His response was weak sauce. I think she did herself a world of good with undecided California voters.

  7. 7.

    magurakurin

    But what was Sanders’ reply

    I agree with Secretary Clinton that Donald Trump’s foreign policy ideas are incredibly reckless and irresponsible. But when it comes to foreign policy, we cannot forget that Secretary Clinton voted for the war in Iraq, the worst foreign policy blunder in modern American history and that she has been a proponent of regime change, as in Libya, without thinking through the consequences.

    Slow golf clap for you, Bernie…ya putz.

  8. 8.

    Amir Khalid

    @Betty Cracker:

    last night’s rally, which included threats to abuse executive power to persecute his enemy should he be elected

    In a just world, this alone would disqualify Donald from public office.

  9. 9.

    sm*t cl*de

    The speech marked a significant moment in Clinton’s campaign, as it was the first real signal of the tactics and attitude she will use to take on Trump and offered a preview

    What the what? Is CNN usually this stupid? (rhetorical question, I know).
    “Clinton did this thing, therefore she is going to keep on doing exactly the same thing in the future.”

  10. 10.

    Anne Laurie

    @magurakurin: Heh. I had a tweet with that quote from Sanders, and took it out, because at this point why bother?

    (Reserving the right to change my mind about that, depending on how bad the #BernPheeling gets tomorrow, of course… )

  12. 12.

    magurakurin

    @Anne Laurie: You are correct of course. But, damn. I watched the whole speech this morning on Cspan on demand stream. I mean, it was good, like really frickin’…good. The way she delivered the dagger blows was masterful. If Trump had been the murder vic in an episode of CSI, then Grissom would have been explaining how this knife wounds could only have been made by the hands of medically trained professional. She was top drawer, righteous kill mode on Trump’s ass.

    And Sanders come back with that shit pile. There is no way on God’s Green Earth that Bernie Sanders could have delivered such a speech in such a way. He’s Double A at his best. A long way from the Bigs.

    Every time I think I’m out, they drag me back in…..

  13. 13.

    Cermet

    The t(alking)Rump has been trumped by someone who is competent, actually strong, and knowledgeable. Funny how a draft dodging, multiple bankrupt, serial divorcing, utterly non-religious blow hard is the perfect presidential material for thugs because they were told by their betters that he is; so they, like peons in North Korea follow their anointed leader just like a 1984 novel. This attitude is the antithesis of everything thugs claim to believe in yet they both support and give up their beliefs as needed.

  17. 17.

    Schlemazel Khan

    I also heard that Drumpf has really decided to go the extra mile to prove his entire campaign is a parody of the GOP. He entered a rally yesterday to the lilting tones of Wagner. If SNL did a cold opening with Drumpf entering to Herr Hitler’s favorite composer I would think it was over the top & many Republicans would complain that it was unfair. But, since he did that himself, he either really is an insane megalomaniac or the Joker with a better beautician.

  18. 18.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @sm*t cl*de:
    Seriously? You have to ask if CNN is that stupid? Of course they are, they are the Duplo blocks of news, simple and nothing to actually build with. They, like all tv news have severe dementia and are unable to remember from minute to minute let alone day to day what was said or done, each minute is a discrete event unaffected by any minute before it and representative of every minute after it – at least at that minute.

    OTOH, as I said n #1 above, they did call Drumpf a liar live on screen so there are signs of brain activity there

  21. 21.

    Joyce H

    Hey, is anyone else seeing what I’m seeing? On Hardball, Chris Matthews has been showing clips of old Trump interviews – the main point is to contrast what Trump said then to what he’s saying now. But what I’m being struck by is not what Trump said then and now, but the difference in the way he says it. Back then, he was still of course a narcissistic egomaniacal bully, but he didn’t display the rambling, the ranting, the repeating himself, or the childish vocabulary. We all know that Trump has been attacking the judge hearing the Trump U case, but what I didn’t realize until today is that in an hour-long speech, he went into a twelve minute rant against the judge. Twelve minutes. In a campaign rally for president.

    So what I’m starting to think and wonder if anyone else is thinking the same thing is — dementia?

  23. 23.

    Baud

    @Schlemazel Khan:

    I also heard that Drumpf has really decided to go the extra mile to prove his entire campaign is a parody of the GOP.

    I’m not sure how much of a parody it is. Someone here said that the title of their new Obamacare replacement is titled “The World’s Greatest Health Care Plan” or something like that.

  24. 24.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @Amir Khalid:
    Of course! Ride of the Valkyries. If there is a more “Aryan” song in the world not sung by two blue-eyed sisters from Montana I don’t want to hear it.

  27. 27.

    Betty Cracker

    @Cermet: SC Governor Nikki Haley is the perfect representative of the mindset you describe:

    South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) warned that the divisive rhetoric presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump is known for can lead to tragic events like the racially-motivated massacre last summer at a Charleston church.

    “I know what that rhetoric can do,” Haley said in a Thursday interview with the Associated Press. “I saw it happen.”

    So she recognizes the magnitude of the danger! Does Haley take a courageous stand against potentially deadly hate speech? Nah!

    Despite their differences, Haley has said she will support Trump as her party’s nominee.

    A craven, cowardly chickenshit, just like Paul Ryan.

  28. 28.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @Baud:
    Yes that is the official name the Congressman gave it (I forget which clown). The GOP has become such a parody of real life that Drumpf has to stretch to parody the parody

  29. 29.

    EconWatcher

    Perhaps to my discredit, I had mostly found the Trump campaign amusing up until now. But the attacks on the federal judge really, really sickened me. A guy who spent several decades as a federal prosecutor going after major Mexican drug cartels, and at one point needed a bullet-proof vehicle and 24-hour guards because of a hit order that was heard on a wiretap. In other words, a guy who has done something important for this country, at great risk to himself and his family. Trump is not fit to clean his shoes. But Trump says the judge is a “hater” who should be “looked into” because he’s biased as a “Mexican.”

    It’s not funny any more. I really, really hate that piece of $#!t.

  31. 31.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    @Betty Cracker:

    The mindset of enablers like Ryan and Haley is not dissimilar to that of the conservative German pols and industrialists who thought they could act like a leash on Hitler.

  36. 36.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    @Joyce H:

    Nah – not dementia. It’s the result of a lifetime of being affirmed by fawning subordinates.

  37. 37.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    So the Republican line about Hillary’s speech yesterday is “it was a political speech not a foreign policy speech”. I hate to break it to the Republicans, there’s an election goin’ on.

  40. 40.

    germy shoemangler

    I’ve seen several B-J commenters predict there will be no debates. Has that ever (not) happened? That a candidate for POTUS refused to debate his opponent? I mean, anything’s possible this election cycle but I’m somewhat skeptical.

  41. 41.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @EconWatcher: It is still amusing. While the very idea of a President Trump may be terrifying, it is at the same time absolutely ludicrous. I remain convinced that the country which twice elected a black man with a funny sounding name and an astonishingly stable, even temperament and still mostly holds that man in admiration will not elect a philandering, pathologically lying, serially bankrupt, incoherent 3 yr old carnival barker to replace him.

    Of course, I have been wrong a time or 2 before.

  43. 43.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @germy shoemangler:

    That a candidate for POTUS refused to debate his opponent?

    During the television age(post 1960), there were no Presidential debates in 1964, 1968, and 1972.

  44. 44.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    @amk:

    Hill has made her pivot, and The Bern is now irrelevant. He’s already marginalized himself even further insofar as his Senate standing is concerned.

    Hope he enjoys his new sole Senate assignment – a committee of one, that being a subcommittee of subcommittees on recommending names for rural berms.

  46. 46.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Baud: We old folk have some degree of usefulness.

    ETA: While I do remember some things from 1964, I don’t remember the election. I do remember the subsequent elections pretty well.

  50. 50.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Baud: No puddin’, my nurse has me on prunes.

    ETA: However, I did not eat the prunes when we were on our 14 mile hike. Wouldn’t be prudent.

  51. 51.

    Patricia Kayden

    @amorphous: I don’t hate him but I am very disappointed at how bitter and ungracious Senator Sanders has turned out to be. I hope he redeems himself by conceding graciously by the time the Convention rolls around.

  52. 52.

    Amir Khalid

    @germy shoemangler:
    Donald needs to work out how to spin his no-shows as a win for him. He was able to say that he was too big to debate the other Republicans — and as it happened, he was — but that won’t work with her.

  53. 53.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @germy shoemangler: I predict half a debate… Nah, one quarter of a debate, but no more after that. Hillary will be just so mean to Trump that he will be forced to take his toys and hold fund raisers for…. Scratch that, He’ll be forced to hold infomercials for stakes, the wooden kind, that he will promise to drive thru Hillary’s blood sucking vampire heart.

  54. 54.

    NobodySpecial

    You said ‘open thread’,and I’m taking you at your word. Plus Trump bores me. The question with him is not if he’ll lose but how many spite touchdowns Hillary will add on for emphasis.

    Anyways, I’m pimping for a guy I know, because he wouldn’t think to promote himself here and I have no shame shilling for good people.

    So anyways, there’s a Kickstarter for his new game Red Markets, which is a role playing game about economic horror, which is not your usual RPG fare. I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I know there’s a few gamers on the board, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to spread the word.

  57. 57.

    Chris

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    Using foreign policy to score domestic political points was George W. Bush’s entire presidency. A bit late to start finding that objectionable.

  59. 59.

    debbie

    @Mary G:

    His response was weak sauce.

    The down side to Twitter. Sooner or later, he’ll have to abandon it.

  63. 63.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    During the television age(post 1960), there were no Presidential debates in 1964, 1968, and 1972.

    thanks, I didn’t know that.
    But was it something mutually agreed upon or was it one candidate refusing to debate the other?

  64. 64.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I predict half a debate… Nah, one quarter of a debate,

    Reminds me of the old story about Rodney Dangerfield. During his last illness he was about to enter the hospital and was asked how long he’d be in there. He replied “If all goes well, about a week. If not, about an hour and a half.”

    “Mr. Trump, how long will the debate last?” “If all goes well, about two hours. If not, about fifteen minutes.”

  66. 66.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Amir Khalid: Trump can claim that instead of debating he’s raising more money for Vets. That’s what he rolled with last time.

    He’s such a joke.

  67. 67.

    NobodySpecial

    @BillinGlendaleCA: I am completely unsure, because I know I hit the /link button. Let me try one more time, and apologies for the inadvertent triple post.

    Link

    RK got it working faster than I did. Thanks, RK.

  68. 68.

    billcoop4

    @Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:

    @OzarkHillbilly I predict half a debate… Nah, one quarter of a debate, but no more after that. Hillary will be just so mean to Trump that he will be forced to take his toys and hold fund raisers for…. Scratch that, He’ll be forced to hold infomercials for stakes, the wooden kind, that he will promise to drive thru Hillary’s blood sucking vampire heart.

    : I think if Hillary works things well in a debate, she’ll be able to get him to call her a ‘bitch’ or worse (it begins with the next letter of the alphabet). And then all she would have to do is raise an eyebrow and look at the camera.

  69. 69.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    Google says the bill’s cosponsored by Pete Sessions (TX) and Jack Cassidy (LA), which tells you almost all you need to know. Except maybe this:

    proposing to allow people to leave the Obamacare exchanges and instead receive a $2,500 tax credit (plus $1,500 for each child) to purchase health insurance on the private market or put in a health-savings account.

    My plan at work has a $1,750 deductible for the higher cost/lower deductible option. I can’t imagine the $750 left over would be a significant help on paying the premiums.

  71. 71.

    Reggie Mantle

    @magurakurin:

    Funny, I remember a time when liberals agreed that the Iraq War was a bad thing. Now that Hillary’s your Dear Leader, the greatest military and strategic blunder since Hitler invaded Russia is now A-OK and contending otherwise is an excuse for “liberal” hatred and vitriol.

    Your transformation is nearly complete.

  72. 72.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    Seriously. I wander through Twitter sometimes and the posts never fail to turn abusive at some point. I don’t know why people/companies/groups/whatever continue to use it.

  74. 74.

    Baud

    @debbie: I think the idea is to pay young, healthy people to leave the exchange so that insurance markets collapse and thus require deregulation.

  78. 78.

    Matt McIrvin

    It was more that presidential TV debates didn’t really get started until 1976; 1960 had been an unusual one-off. There had been some radio debates in a few earlier cycles.

  80. 80.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Immanentize: “Across the Universe” was written by Lennon, but while he was with the Beatles; so writing credit is (Lennon/McCartney).

  82. 82.

    msdc

    “Liberals aren’t going to love this campaign strategy…”

    Fucking Yglesias. Everybody is going to love this campaign strategy – everybody who’s not Trump.

  84. 84.

    Kay

    You wonder when they hit bottom- they have to find a bottom first, I guess. Paul Ryan, who is the closest thing Republicans have to a national leader, endorsed the candidate who went after a federal judge based on the judge’s ethnicity.

    That ALONE should be disqualifying. It’s June and the general hasn’t even really started yet. What will they have accepted and normalized in that Party by November?

  85. 85.

    Immanentize

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    During the television age(post 1960), there were no Presidential debates in 1964, 1968, and 1972.

    I guess Nixon learned his lesson in his sweaty 1960 ass kicking from Kennedy?

  87. 87.

    Applejinx

    @magurakurin: You’d rather she continue that direction?

    Good for him. He’s not going to win anyhow and we do have to direct Hillary, because she does pay attention to what people think. Regime change causes way more problems than it solves (not that avoiding it removes all problems, oh fuck no)

  88. 88.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Opponents of huge Alabama landfill fight company’s $30m defamation suit

    Residents in tiny Uniontown, Alabama, are locked in a legal battle against a company that has dumped millions of tons of coal ash there and then filed suit for defamation against those protesting against the act.

    The residents formed a group, Black Belt Citizens Fighting for Health and Justice, to fight the placement of a landfill filled with the coal ash in their town that they say threatens their health and constitutes a racial injustice. Uniontown is 91% black, and is among the poorest communities in the nation: half the residents live below the poverty line.

    The company that owns the landfill, Georgia-based Green Group Holdings, has slapped four of the residents with a $30m lawsuit for defamation, objecting to the way they describe life on the edge of the 1,200-acre Arrowhead landfill.

    On Thursday morning the American Civil Liberties Union – whose co-founder was a Uniontown native – filed a motion in federal court to dismiss the suit, saying it goes against “the very core of the first amendment”.

    My ACLU dollars at work.

  89. 89.

    TS

    @Germy Shoemangler:

    But was it something mutually agreed upon or was it one candidate refusing to debate the other?

    From wikipedia (but I think not sourced)

    “Nixon later refused to do television debates in 1968 and ’72 as he felt his appearance had cost him against JFK in the tight-run race.”

    Edit: As noted by Immanentize above

  90. 90.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Kay:

    What will they have accepted and normalized in that Party by November?

    A salute to the party leader consisting of the right arm held at at 60 degree angle?

  91. 91.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @msdc: “One simple trick to win a presidential election! Click here! Liberals hate this strategy!”

  94. 94.

    sherparick

    @magurakurin: Actually, good points. http://www.vox.com/2016/6/3/11845614/obama-air-force-academy-commencement

    But she is still not Trump. From today Kthug column:

    “…But there’s an extra layer of venom to his pro-pollution stances that is both personal and mind-bogglingly petty.

    For example, he has repeatedly denounced restrictions intended to protect the ozone layer — one of the great success stories of global environmental policy — because, he claims, they’re the reason his hair spray doesn’t work as well as it used to. I am not making this up.

    He’s also a bitter foe of wind power. He likes to talk about how wind turbines kill birds, which they sometimes do, but no more so than tall buildings; but his real motivation seems to be ire over unsuccessful attempts to block an offshore wind farm near one of his British golf courses.

    And if evidence gets in the way of his self-centeredness, never mind. Recently he assured audiences that there isn’t a drought in California, that officials have just refused to turn on the water.

    I know how ridiculous it sounds. Can the planet really be in danger because a rich guy worries about his hairdo? But Republicans are rallying around this guy just as if he were a normal candidate. And if Democrats don’t rally the same way, he just might make it to the White House.” http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/03/opinion/the-id-that-ate-the-planet.html?ref=opinion

  95. 95.

    aimai

    @Kay: They already normalized curb stomping of opponents and near riots. I’m pretty sure that the press is going to refuse to cover the violence and utterly inappropriate and unpresidential behavior in other than a passing way, like the way they do white people mass shootings.

    If we are very lucky someone is going to have a “at long last sir, have you no decency” moment and then the floodgates are going to open. The press are simply not willing to do anything that they think other press people are not doing. So there will be no real criticism, no “get the fuck outta here” moments until someone important enough makes it easy.

  97. 97.

    Immanentize

    @BillinGlendaleCA: tru dat. I’m just trying to type fewer things on my mobile. I really love that song and I really like Laibach’s version a lot. They did an entire Beatles cover album

  99. 99.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @BillinGlendaleCA:
    @Matt McIrvin:

    Rick Perlstein in Before the Storm:Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus (the first book in his series about the modern conservative movement) writes:

    Constantly, Goldwater agitated for a television showdown with Johnson. But there would be no televised debate in this election. Johnson had put in the fix—twisting arms to kill the bill that would waive the legal requirement, under the Federal Communications Act’s Section 315, of inviting every declared presidential candidate all the way down to Lar Daly, he of the Uncle Sam suit. Goldwater could still push for debate—if he was willing to share the stage with half a dozen minor-party candidates.

  100. 100.

    sherparick

    @Reggie Mantle: Of course, Trump supported the Iraq War and then he didn’t. And he saying he is going to “Bomb the Shit” out of ISIS (use nukes?) in Syria and Iraq. And take a run at Iran. Also, liberals have been voting for Bernie, which makes Hilary less a “dear leader,” then someone who is far better than the alternative.

  102. 102.

    Amir Khalid

    @Applejinx:
    What would Bernie done differently, and how would he have done it? That’s all he ever says, that’s as deep as he ever gets, in criticising Hillary’s foreign policy. One expects more from a President.

  103. 103.

    Betty Cracker

    @Reggie Mantle: No one, including Clinton, thinks the Iraq War was a good thing — she admitted her vote was a mistake, as you are surely aware. The point is that this race will come down to Trump vs. Clinton. You can keep wailing and rending your garments over the now defunct Sanders revolution, or you can suit up and help us defeat the Orcs. Your choice.

  104. 104.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @Immanentize: A reggae band (I don’t remember their name) did an entire album of Sgt. Pepper’s; covered every song reggae style.

  107. 107.

    bemused

    Trump will meet with 500 prominent evangelicals for a “listening session” later this month. Michael Gerson is worried. He is warning evangelicals to not “bear the mark of Trump”, legitimizing Trump. Gerson describes “Trumpism” as fear of outsiders, refuges, outsiders, Muslims, etc. If they legitimize Trump, “evangelicals are not merely accepting who he is, they are changing who they are.”

    Dear Michael, Get real. Evangelicals won’t be changing who they are. This is who they are and who they have always been.

  108. 108.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @SiubhanDuinne: I still have to read “Before the Storm”, I’ve read “Nixonland” and “The Invisible Bridge”. The should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand modern American politics.

  110. 110.

    Kay

    @aimai:

    I differ a little bit on the media role. I feel like there has to be a limit on how far they can go in “disqualifying” candidates, because that’s too much discretion and power for them. They can’t be that far out front. I object to how they treat Clinton for exactly that reason- I don’t think they’re “reporting” on her supposed lack of “warmth”- I think they regularly cross the line into leading it. It’s imperfect but it’s necessary that they hang back. What metric would they use for “disqualification”? The one they used for Al Gore?

    Ryan is a different story. He took an oath and he has been promoted as a national leader of that Party- he’s a sitting elected official. We can’t have this situation. A Presidential candidate can’t attempt to discredit a judge based on ethnicity. There are norms. They’re important. This is structural stuff- the frame, not the wallpaper. It isn’t political media’s responsibility to save the GOP from their primary electorate. The reporting on Trump University was very good. The WSJ is hot on the trail of the “Trump lies about his income and assets” story. There will be more revelations.

    I think he went after the judge to distract from the Trump University story. That will happen again.

  112. 112.

    Reggie Mantle

    @Gin & Tonic:

    When you can’t bring up that it was wrong and that a vote for it was wrong without being shouted down, you’re supporting the mistake.

    Seriously, one of the cliched comebacks around here is “you must be paid by the Republicans to post this stuff.” But lately I’ve seen defenses of big banks, Big Pharma, Big Insurance, and the Iraq War here.

    Karl Rove doesn’t need to pay people. You’re turning into Bush Republicans all on your own.

  113. 113.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Germy Shoemangler: Thanks, I hadn’t heard that version.

    The first hike the kid and I took was to Mt. Hollywood. At the beginning of the trail there’s the George Harrison memorial tree. Actually it’s a replacement, the original tree was killed by Beatles, eh beetles.

  115. 115.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Reggie Mantle:

    When you can’t bring up that it was wrong and that a vote for it was wrong without being shouted down,

    Sorry, I’m not finding that here either. Surely you can provide me with a link?

  116. 116.

    Reggie Mantle

    @sherparick:

    Of course, Trump supported the Iraq War and then he didn’t. And he saying he is going to “Bomb the Shit” out of ISIS (use nukes?) in Syria and Iraq. And take a run at Iran

    All of which Hillary is likely to do, given her interventionist and hawkish history and outlook. Which is why people ask: so where’s the difference?

  120. 120.

    Donut

    @CarolDuhart2:

    I agree. Though completely different sides of the spectrum, neither man shows an inclination to respond positively when advised that their preferred perspective, talking point or subject matter is not the only game in town. This is what has always bothered me aboit Bernie’s candidacy and why, despite early support, I quickly drifted away. When presented the opportunity to talk about actual plans to get shit done, he demurs and changes the subject. The infamous “I’m not here to talk about Latin America, I’m running for president of the United States” interview (paraphrasing) comes to mind, as does his interview with the Daily News Ed board. I have said many times, prior to getting in the presidential race I thought he was a wonderful and exemplary mouthpiece for progressive ideals and progressive issue-framing, but he has nothing in the tank to back it up. Ideological purity is wonderful and all but if you really want a movement that leads to “revolution” then people need to feel that you can deliver.

    I’d take Bernie any day over Trump. Duh. A zillion times over. But he’s still saying nothing and doing nothjng that will change the reality that Clinton has an insurmountable lead and a better chance of actually getting some actual progressive shit done. I don’t agree with Yglesias on a lot of shit but that Vox piece linked to above is spot-on.

  121. 121.

    Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class

    @Reggie Mantle:

    Did you tremble with rage as you tapped out that last sentence? Please tell me you trembled with rage…

  122. 122.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    I’ve read Before the Storm and Nixonland, and I own (but have not yet started) The Invisible Bridge. I’m hoping Perlstein is going to bring the series current with one more book, at least through the rise of the Tea Party.

  123. 123.

    Reggie Mantle

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Read the thread, G & T. Sanders brings it up, and it’s all “AAAGH I HATE BERNIE SO FUCKING MUCH HE’S SO UNGRACIOUS HOW DARE HE.”

    You can’t even mention Hillary’ s vote for the war without so-called “liberals” trying to silence you.

    I wonder…I hear this blog and Cole used to be all for the wingnuts. Is Cole a sleeper agent? Is this some Long Con to bring you all into something indistinguishable from the Republicans Party in all but name? Just kidding. Mostly.

  126. 126.

    Patricia Kayden

    @EconWatcher: A “Mexican” who was born in Indiana and grew up in the U.S. But of course, brown people can never be full citizens, amirite Trump? Yet I just read that Morning Joe was speculating that Trump could get more Latino votes than Romney. ***rolls eyes***

  128. 128.

    Reggie Mantle

    @raven:

    Keep talking to this punk and he’ll keep showing up.

    You can’t help yourselves. The Dear Leader must be defended. Just like Bush had to be by the wingnuts. The reason they were so nasty and hateful was they knew the only way to deal with criticism was to try and shout it down. And now, the circle is complete.

  130. 130.

    John D.

    @Reggie Mantle: Look, asshole, LINK THE DEFENSES of the Iraq War.

    You keep claiming you’ve seen them. Show me. Who, and when?

    Also, one of the things in your list is not like the others. “Big” is not inherently evil. “Big Pharma” is keeping my mother alive right now. “Big banks” owned my last home for 20 years, and let me pay it off at a rate I could afford while raising two kids in it.

    You have a simpleton’s understanding of these issues — all surface shine with no depth. Robosigning is evil. Charging $100,000 for a medicine that used to cost a few thousand is evil. Merely being large is not. Martin Shrekli is one fucking guy, after all. Hardly “Big Pharma”, but he’s among the most despicable humans on the planet. Maybe you should focus your energy on preventing and regulating actions instead of blindly reciting talking points?

  133. 133.

    Patricia Kayden

    @raven: Yep. Showing up and trying to derail every thread with his nonsense. YAWN.

    @bemused: “Mark of the Trump”. LOL. Sounds awfully close to Mark of the Beast. This election is so bizarre.

  136. 136.

    bemused

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Good one, I like.
    Gerson can’t be this stupid, can he? It’s the same old ruse. Don’t acknowledge Trumpism prevalent among evangelicals. Just warn them not to drop their masks.

  137. 137.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Carolinus: If Sanders co-signs any nonsense at the Convention, he’ll just make himself look silly. He has lost this competition and needs to bow out with some dignity. Any disruptions by his supporters are futile attempts to win something which he lost fair and square.

    In any case, I’m glad that Secretary Clinton is ignoring him and setting her sights on Trump.

  138. 138.

    starscream

    I keep wondering when we’re ever going to get an intelligent BernieBro here, and then I wonder if there is such a thing.

  139. 139.

    Emma

    @Reggie Mantle: Do these eruptions satisfy some sort of internal rage? Do you meander through the Internet looking for someone to be angry at or is BJ especially blessed? Considering the amount of support Sanders got here at the start of his campaign you’d think you would cut us a break.

  140. 140.

    Chyron HR

    @Reggie Mantle:

    The Dear Leader must be defended.

    Is that why you come here every day enraged that we aren’t showing proper fealty to Sanders?

    OH NO SORRY, it’s DIFFERENT when you do it! My mistake.

  142. 142.

    Reggie Mantle

    Once again, the quickest way to send the Clintonites into spasms of rage is to bring up Hillary’s vote for the Great Mistake.

    It was wrong of her. You KNOW it was wrong of her. It showed either abysmal judgment or, if you buy her explanation for it now, the ability, even willingness, to be hoodwinked by one of the stupidest and most inept Chief Executives in our history. Which is why you go ballistic when anyone, especially Sanders, brings it up. It’s why you demand that anyone who brings it up be ignored or “pied.” It’s Hillary’s Achilles Heel, and you become indistinguishable from the people who once would call you traitors when it’s mentioned.

  144. 144.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Reggie Mantle:

    You can’t even mention Hillary’ s vote for the war without so-called “liberals” trying to silence you.

    Just a weeeeeeee bit over the top. Characterizing arguments that disagree with your own as ‘“liberals” trying to silence you’ is just whining. Nobody, and I mean nobody, has tried to silence you, and until a front pager bans you, it is a hilariously ridiculous accusation. And if a front pager ever does? You still won’t be silenced because you can always go someplace else.

  146. 146.

    bemused

    @Patricia Kayden:

    Beyond bizarre. Sometimes I think of it as a Twilight Zone episode. We have entered a portal hole to another dimension. If a movie had been made before 2000 or so of all the insanity up to now, we could never have imagined any of it as possibly happening.

  148. 148.

    Kay

    @Patricia Kayden:

    No one should be surprised. This guy came to fame in the GOP based on birtherism. Someone needs to write a book or do a good documentary on birtherism. I felt like it was important at the time and I still do- a kind of lowering of standards that would lead no where good.

    I was at a political event at a senior center in ’12. We take turns at the Dem booth. I had lunchtime shift. I was standing next to the Dem candidate for sheriff- I know him and we were chatting. This old man came up, blue coveralls, picked up a piece of Obama lit, leaned into me and spat out “The PRESIDENT wasn’t BORN in America”. His hands were shaking he was so mad. I felt the sheriiff’s deputy go on alert. It was like the air changed. Just wild, the level of hate. I was rattled by it and I deal with a lot of angry/irrational people in my job.

  149. 149.

    NonyNony

    @starscream: By definition, the “BernieBros” are the jackasses.

    People who support/supported Sanders but who are reasonable people are not falling into the trap of saying “Bernie or Bust”. Only jackasses say bullshit like that.

    Also most of these guys are like the PUMAs – some portion of them are jackasses, and some (I suspect larger) portion of them are Republican ratfuckers out to cause chaos. One of my disappointments in Sanders has been how he and his staff have failed to identify the fact that his internet support is teeming with people who say horrible sexist and somewhat racist things and who, if you track back their histories a bit, you discover were once big Ron Paul supporters. These guys are not legit Sanders supporters – these guys are jackasses messing with liberals for shits and giggles. I suspect a few of the Sanders “supporters” who say things to start fights around here are actually guys like Right To Rise – trolls who like to piss off liberals and who have figured out a better way of doing it than pretending to be a Trump supporter.

  150. 150.

    Betty Cracker

    @starscream: There are plenty of intelligent Sanders supporters, including my husband, who voted for Sanders in the FL primary. He intends to vote for Clinton in the fall since she will be the Democratic Party nominee. He gets that there’s a difference between a bog standard Democrat like Hillary Clinton and a racist, misogynistic, belligerent walking collection of personality disorders like Trump. In other words, he’s not a goddamned idiot like the wailing toddlers who are banging sippy cups on high chairs all over the internet.

  154. 154.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Joyce H:

    So what I’m starting to think and wonder if anyone else is thinking the same thing is — dementia?

    Funny you should say that. A psychologist friend of mine was suggesting the same possibility, based on Trump’s disjointed speech patterns and behavior. Maybe Alzheimer’s, on top of the flaming narcissism. However, IANAD, so YMMV.

  155. 155.

    Chyron HR

    @Reggie Mantle:

    “What is really dumb, is that you have closed primaries, like in New York State, where Republicans could not participate.”

    – Bernie “Messiah” Sanders, 2016/05/28

  156. 156.

    bemused

    @Kay:

    That boiling lava core of hate and rage has been inside so many rightwingers for a very long time. After 911 when the Bush and WH were doing a hard sell on WMD and it was constantly in the news, a co-worker was stunned by a customer he was casually and pleasantly chatting with. The subject of WMD came up and my co-worker simply said something like he hoped WMD wouldn’t be found or if WMD was found and the customer immediately turned into the farmer you describe. It was inconceivable to customer that there would be any doubt about WMD. My co-worker told me the story all wide-eyed and shaken with a whoa, what just happened expression on his face.

  160. 160.

    PurpleGirl

    Re the troll: There are times I wish Balloon Juice used disemvowelment as Making Light does. You can see that a comment is there but unless you really want to read it it remains vowelless. (The downside is that you really a moderator to do the disemvowelment.

  163. 163.

    PurpleGirl

    @PurpleGirl: Oops, my bad (and FYWP wouldn’t let me edit)

    What I meant:

    (The downside is that you really need a moderator to do the disemvowelment.)

  164. 164.

    Paul in KY

    @Kay: Spiffy uniforms, maybe a shade of brown or black, with a ‘T’ insignia where the vertical line becomes a lightning bolt. That’s my take on where they are going.

  165. 165.

    Glidwrith

    @Reggie Mantle: I think I’ve got your number: you are one of those trump trolls that’s trying to keep both sides of the Clinton-Sanders divide going, aren’t you? Most of the Sanders’ folks are fine people that WILL make sure deadbeat Donnie doesn’t come to power.

    Apologies to the rest of the commentariat if everyone else already figured this out.

  167. 167.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    The weirdest thing about Bernie’s campaign is it isn’t very grass-rootsy or “new”. His spokesperson is a long time political operative who spouts polls constantly. I would think Sanders would promote one of his younger early supporters to a public position, or a group of them, instead of campaigning on cable television. It’s so unimaginative and he had all that small donor money and complete freedom on how to use it- he could have CHANGED something- shook up the campaign-industrial complex. Instead it feels like a campaign from 2000 or thereabouts. I’m surprised at how “establishment” it feels.

  168. 168.

    El Caganer

    @Kay: If you’re used to running for election in a state with half the population of Philadelphia, you might not be too well prepared for a national campaign.

  169. 169.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: You’re right. Much of the Sanders campaign feels like a squandered opportunity to me.

  171. 171.

    C.S.

    @Reggie Mantle:

    I’m more of a Democrat than the Lite Republicans around here.

    Which you demonstrate by … loudly denouncing the Democratic nominee? And spit-shining the hiney of her non-Democrat primary opponent? Hookay then.

    Your really shouldn’t be sullying yourself even debating here. I think the purity of your soul deserves better. So you should probably just go cotemplate Jill Stein’s Twitter feed for a couple months.

  172. 172.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    I noticed it in Ohio. They ran back to back sort of unremarkable political ads, seemingly hundreds of them. That’s what campaign finance reform is about– it’s a recognition that this is a billion-dollar industry and ad buys are a huge part of that. There’s two parts- the raising and the spending. He raised all that money from small donors and then spent it in such ordinary ways. They could have done a REALLY grass roots campaign- they had enough money to reject tv ads and literally hit every door by hiring organizers. I’m curious if tv ads have declining returns. He could have experimented with another approach.

  173. 173.

    Paul in KY

    @Baud: It is a little more uplifting read than ‘1984’. You definitely should read it, though. I did & I’m glad I did.

  175. 175.

    Kay

    @El Caganer:

    The ONLY fun thing about being involved in a political campaign is thinking about creative ways to spend money :)

    We “managed” a campaign for a state rep in 2011 and we only had 3k. I was the treasurer and I was obsessed with how to allocate it. I’m not that creative but I was at least trying! Nothing is better than spending other peoples’ money :)

    Bernie Sanders just followed the campaign-industrial handbook. I expect better from these youngsters! I want to see some of that much-discussed liberal “creative class” thinking. Jeff Weaver isn’t even very good at traditional campaigning, let alone anything new.

  177. 177.

    hoodie

    @Kay: Bernie’s people copped some of the crowd stimulation techniques that had been pioneered by the Obama campaign and used them effectively, but there are limits to how far you can get with that alone. Obama had Axelrod and Plouffe, but anyone paying attention could tell that Obama, when you get past the “Yes we can!” group enthusiasm, is an extremely competent executive who can deal with the kind of things that get thrown at a president, e.g., the Rev. Wright fiasco, the market meltdown, etc. Bernie, not so much. He’s mostly a creation of his campaign and his weaknesses as an executive in handling difficult situations are now glaringly apparent.

  179. 179.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @O. Felix Culpa: Frontal lobe shrinkage in the elderly male (Stumpf turns 70 on Flag Day). Prominent symptoms are incoherence, hairtrigger anger & loss of impulse control. Probably should be known as Hyk-Goml Syndrome (Hey you kids, get off my lawn!).

  184. 184.

    hovercraft

    Oh look, this sounds like fun

    Call them Hillary’s home-state haters.

    A group of rabble-rousing Bernie Sanders supporters from New York is headed for the Democratic National Convention next month as hand-picked, at-large delegates — and they’re threatening to make trouble for Hillary Clinton at the very moment she hopes to make history as the first female nominee of either party and unite Democrats for the coming battle with Donald Trump.

    Story Continued Below

    .

    .
    The disgruntled Sanders delegation, heading to Philadelphia with deep reservations about Clinton’s brand of center-left pragmatism, serves as a reminder of how contentious the four-day meeting could become, and a warning to Democrats of the importance of bringing Sanders happily into the fold.

    Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/bernie-sanders-convention-delegates-223848#ixzz4AWVi8pCn
    Follow us: @politico on Twitter | Politico on Facebook

    1.2K

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    Call them Hillary’s home-state haters.

    A group of rabble-rousing Bernie Sanders supporters from New York is headed for the Democratic National Convention next month as hand-picked, at-large delegates — and they’re threatening to make trouble for Hillary Clinton at the very moment she hopes to make history as the first female nominee of either party and unite Democrats for the coming battle with Donald Trump.

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    Follow us: @politico on Twitter | Politico on Facebook

  185. 185.

    Shell

    So what I’m starting to think and wonder if anyone else is thinking the same thing is — dementia?

    He looked really raggedy during last nights shriek fest. Im sure theres a website now thats taking bets on when exactly he’s going to keel over.

  186. 186.

    chopper

    @ruemara:

    hey, if mid-40’s goblue can represent an entire generation (millenials) to which he doesn’t even belong, ol’ princess reg here can speak for 10 million Bernie voters, all of whom are apparently as whiny and self-satisfied as he is.

  188. 188.

    Bruce K

    I’m still pondering the possibilities if Trump finally goes over the edge and does something to make himself politically radioactive – and I mean like Chernobyl Unit 4 radioactive, something beyond what he’s managed so far. This time last year, I would have bet he wouldn’t have lasted this long – not that a superior Republican candidate would knock him out, but that he’d have self-destructed long before now.

    Now … well, if he goes over the edge now, he probably takes a good chunk of the GOP establishment with him, based on how many people are now saying they’re on his side.

    If it happens before Cleveland, Ted Cruz is standing in the wings and waiting to swoop in and act the part of the angel of deliverance (gaak), which might make things more, ah, interesting, but the Clinton campaign almost certainly had a game plan ready to run against Cruz. But if it happens after Cleveland…?

  189. 189.

    Paul in KY

    @shomi: Good point. I just don’t see how the Repubs can get rid of him now (barring an unfortunate ‘accident’ the Donald may incur). His whackjobs would riot in Cleveland if he isn’t coroneted (IMO).

  191. 191.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Shell:

    My favorite comment on another blog…
    “My, she was yar!”

    Given the upcoming convention site, that quote is particularly apt!

  194. 194.

    Dmbeaster

    @Reggie Mantle:

    But lately I’ve seen defenses of big banks, Big Pharma, Big Insurance, and the Iraq War here.

    Karl Rove doesn’t need to pay people. You’re turning into Bush Republicans all on your own

    More BernieBros baloney. I wanted to think this type of crap was an outlier until similar nonsense started coming out of Bernie’s mouth.

  195. 195.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Betty Cracker:

    Much of the Sanders campaign feels like a squandered opportunity to me.

    Moi aussi. When the alter kaker decided it was about him & not his politics, the whole shebang went south in a hurry. Opting for the cult of personality & whining that “the system is rigged,” instead of building a bench (you’d think a former carpenter would know how to do that) & organizing the idealism of the young under the banner of “democratic socialism” as something larger than any one candidate, has arguably wrecked the brand for another generation as all too many bright-eyed Sandersnistas* conclude it’s hopeless & stomp off to tend their own gardens. (* NB: I specifically exclude the BernieBeards, the remnants of the Sixties who ought to know better but never learned the lessons of 1968-72 & with their impending decrepitude/demise are screaming REVOLUTION NOW! at the top of their lungs. They can go fuck themselves, because they are the problem.)

  196. 196.

    Elie

    @Shell:

    I’ve been making my case for Trump having dementia for a while. His cognitive skills and speech patterns are suggestive. With this sort of thing, time will tell. Not only is his speech primitive but watch the guy move. They showed him coming down the steps of his plane and he moved like a really old man. He is not well, but we’ll see if both the cognitive and physical deteriorate enough to make it more than just speculation. The media and his followers will cover for him but I would not be surprised if he had a big bad undeniable meltdown at some point.

  198. 198.

    gwangung

    @Uncle Cosmo: Yes, pretty much, to you and Betty. I knew the Sanders campaign was all talk when I saw the lack of details and the lack of movement building. It all became about Sanders winning NOW, rather than about pushing the issues. The lack of downticket candidates, the disinterest of taking over or persuading party structure and so forth are big stumbling blocks for the Sanders issues in the future.

  199. 199.

    J R in WV

    @Reggie Mantle:

    You need to stop commenting here and go read some books, history of politics in the US, history of foreign relations since WW II, history of the Republicans / Democrats, etc. Because you reveal stunning ignorance of real politics and the ways the complex world operate every time you post. You can fix that if you spend a few years studying the real world.

  200. 200.

    Captain C

    @Reggie Mantle: If you honestly think that as President, Hillary Clinton is going to drop nukes on the Middle East, then I want two of whatever it is you’re on.

  203. 203.

    Ruckus

    @O. Felix Culpa:
    There is evidence here and he is about the right age to start showing outward signs. And those signs may just be his toxic personality and stress. We won’t know for a few years because he for sure isn’t gong to have tests and if he did he sure wouldn’t share the results. And no one is going to suggest to him that he has a problem, they’d be fired before they finished the sentence.

  204. 204.

    Ruckus

    @Kay:
    Sanders campaign is one reason I have grown to dislike him. It’s a loud nothingburger. All flash and no substance. Nothing past a few phrases about how he’s going to fix things. Really it’s a kinder, gentler drumpf campaign. ELECT ME, VOTE FOR ME, I’LL FIX STUFF. MY STUFF WILL MAKE YOUR LIFE BETTER. (no sonny we don’t need to discuss the contents of the elixir, just drink it)

  206. 206.

    Fair Economist

    @Bruce K:

    I’m still pondering the possibilities if Trump finally goes over the edge and does something to make himself politically radioactive – and I mean like Chernobyl Unit 4 radioactive, something beyond what he’s managed so far.

    Well, he’s now entered a rally to Ride of the Valkyries to denounce a judge for not being ethnically white. I’m hoping that will finally be enough.

  207. 207.

    Bob In Portland

    Anyone wonder what Hillary’s imposed “no-fly zone” over Syria would do?

    Right now Syria, Russia and the US have been flying sorties against the various rebel groups. The initial bombing by Russia has greatly weakened ISIS and the al-Nusrah forces and now ground forces are making advances.

    Will the US turn its jets against the Russian and Syrian jets? A no-fly zone would AID ISIS and al-Nusrah. Their supply lines from Turkey would be reopened. Considering that the US didn’t take out the supply lines going to ISIS and the oil shipments going from ISIS to Turkey, does this mean that the US will now finally take them out or will they let things go back to how they were? What will be the outcome?

    Let’s say the US imposes a “no-fly” zone over Syria, Syria and Russia flies its planes on anti-terrorist missions and the US shoots down a few jets. What do you think that Russia will do? They have S-500s in Syria. Do you think they won’t shoot back?

    What’s going to happen with the Kurds? Is the US going to fuck them over again, as we have historically this century?

    Just curious if anyone here has actually examined H. Clinton’s military strategies for that region of the world?

    And what happens with the US holding naval exercises in the South China Sea?

  208. 208.

    MCA1

    @Ruckus: I think you’ve got that backwards. This would be the greatest long con piece of performance art in the history of mankind if it turned out he was just slow-trolling the Republican movement in America for the past half decade +. I don’t think that’s what he’s attempting to do, but sometimes I do wonder. Especially lately, now that he’s dropped any pretense of trying to act presidential himself having sewn up the nomination. Just watch him speak. If I’d been away living on Mars for the last 20 years or something and came home to this, and you told me that Andy Kauffman was behind this, I would absolutely believe it, because that would be more plausible than the alternative.

    I also hold open the possibility that, if Drumpf loses by a landslide, in order to save face he insists after the election that this was all in jest. A charitable mission. He just wanted to either destroy the Republican Party by piloting the Frankenstein’s monster of their making, or point the mirror at all of America and show it how fucking ugly it really is, or prove that reality is actually Reality TV, or somesuch. Because he may come to the realization that that’s a better business result for him and his brand than “Insane conman loser who vastly overstated his own wealth and 2/3 of the country has decided is a colossal asshole.”

    What’s actually seeming more and more plausible to me, though, is the “Oh, shit” theory. He ran as a lark, found it hilarious that by being obnoxious and bullying and spotlight hogging and whipping up the rubes it just got him more attention, and enjoyed vanquishing those robot clowns in the Republican primaries. But now that he’s faced with the prospects of (a) having all his many skeletons unearthed by the Democrats for the next 5 months, and (b) possibly having to actually BE President of the United States, he wants the fuck out of this.

  209. 209.

    MCA1

    @Paul in KY: The slow but as-inevitable-as-sunrise-in-the-East capitulation of the party apparatus to Trump would seem to indicate that, while they still could find a way to remove this cancer from their corpus politicus, they’re not going to. Clinton may turn him into a zombie candidate by the time the convention rolls around, but (a) they know they’ve got no better shot with the installed white knight of their choice once Trump’s brownshirts torch Cleveland, (b) they’re alright operating as the minority party and still think they’ll have the House regardless, and (c) they’re just too chickenshit. They’ve all cravenly gotten around to pretending they didn’t have the fainting spells about Trump 6 months ago when he was all up in their base killing their doodz already.

  210. 210.

    Ruckus

    @MCA1:
    There is no doubt that he lives for attention. None in the least. He has built his life on that and nothing else. This isn’t art. This is a rabid narcissistic personality with money (not nearly as much as he says but then that’s all part of that personality) at work. He always shoots from, well around from the hip, he shoots from his ass. (OK one could make the argument that he’s all ass so he could shoot from anywhere….) He has gotten worse as it has become apparent that more and more people are seeing what he really is. A major fucking asshole. That is his whole persona. He tried a new con and it’s sorta worked, he’s the republican nomination. But his cons worked before because he didn’t have the level of exposure that he now has. He now has to defend the con but it is indefensible to anyone who doesn’t think like him. And of course he’s getting older and there are many fun things that come along with getting older. Not all of us get all of them but most of us get some of them at some point and they start hitting about his age. Alzheimer’s, and it’s friends and relatives for example. Money doesn’t help much with these, other than it sometimes make things a bit more comfortable.

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