First, a little perspective courtesy of valued commenter Jim, Foolish Literalist (in the morning thread):
Don’t be complacent, but don’t panic. It doesn’t do any good, and it ruins your hairdo.
Also, take heart that you’re on the right side. Need more evidence that you walk among the sane? Consider this insane essay that has attracted quite a bit of positive notice in Wingnut World. It’s called “The Flight 93 Election.” The author argues that while it may seem crazy to vote for an inexperienced, wildly inconsistent, ignorant buffoon like Trump — who may very well not know how to run the country if elected — conservatives really have no choice.
He (I feel sure the anonymous essayist is a “he”) compares the situation of conservatives in the U.S. to that of the passengers on the hijacked United Flight 93 plane, and Trump and his voters to the group of passengers who stormed the cockpit of their airliner on 9/11. Here’s how the essayist describes present day America:
America and the West are on a trajectory toward something very bad. On the one hand, conservatives routinely present a litany of ills plaguing the body politic. Illegitimacy. Crime. Massive, expensive, intrusive, out-of-control government. Politically correct McCarthyism. Ever-higher taxes and ever-deteriorating services and infrastructure. Inability to win wars against tribal, sub-Third-World foes. A disastrously awful educational system that churns out kids who don’t know anything and, at the primary and secondary levels, can’t (or won’t) discipline disruptive punks, and at the higher levels saddles students with six figure debts for the privilege.
This is utterly detached from reality. Crime rates have dropped dramatically, as have teenage pregnancy rates, taxes and government oversight. It’s true that services and infrastructure are deteriorating, but that’s because “conservatives” refuse to pay for them. Terrorism is a stubborn problem, but even a disruptive punk in a failing school should be able to grasp that “bombing the shit out of ISIS” when were already doing that isn’t a panacea.
What this person is suggesting is more akin to a mutiny aboard Captain Sullenberger’s plane: crashing through the cockpit door to toss the Hero of the Hudson aside and install Mr. Magoo at the controls.
Of course, even the deranged essayist doesn’t imagine Trump will actually be able to make those damn kids pull up their pants or roll back globalization wholesale. But he eventually gets around to naming the chief benefit of electing Trump, from the “conservative” point of view:
Third and most important, the ceaseless importation of Third World foreigners with no tradition of, taste for, or experience in liberty means that the electorate grows more left, more Democratic, less Republican, less republican, and less traditionally American with every cycle… The Left and the Democrats seek ringers to form a permanent electoral majority. They, or many of them, also believe the academic-intellectual lie that America’s inherently racist and evil nature can be expiated only through ever greater “diversity.”
So there you have it, folks: economic anxiety, that’s what’s driving the Trump phenomenon. Be glad you’re not that guy.
Yutsano
Ugh. I seriously just want this shit show to end.
lamh36
hey Betty sorry to these jack but what’s this about??
@FlaDems @GainesvillePD This is Republican @KeithPerryFL assaulting a Democrat in his front yard!
Poopyman
This isn’t Capt Sullenberger’s plane. Our (economic) engines are powering along just fine. These guys would be more like the original Flt 93 hijackers.
Other than that – spot on.
btom89
Hi, I wanted to thank the Balloon Juice community for their help and opinions on my Bill gets a Balloon illustrated book (about when Bill Clinton gets fascinated by the falling balloons on the last night at the DNC), especially JR in WV among others. I actually created a Kindle book (mobi format) out of it and uploaded it to the Amazon bookstore. They accepted it and it’s online. I wanted to leave a free copy (in both PDF and mobi formats) for anyone who’d want one, and if you wanted to, I’d appreciate it if you left a review on the Amazon listing. Thank you again so much.
Mobi format: https://www.dropbox.com/s/mud9s9b94l52m27/Bill%20Gets%20A%20Balloon.mobi?dl=0
PDF format: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ydsxibz2p6x40rv/Bill%20gets%20his%20Balloon.pdf?dl=0
Trentrunner
Now it seems is a good time to imagine what a Trump presidency would actually look like:
– Trump would appoint 2-4 Supreme Court justices, resulting in a 6-3 or 7-2 conservative majority that would take decades to reverse
– Trump would very likely have a Republican Senate and House, so he could pass whatever legislation he wanted, including
– building the Mexico wall,
– halting immigration and travel from any “terrorist” country (France, Turkey,
Germany, et al.)
– repealing Obamacare
– reversing Obama’s executive orders on DACA/Dreamers
– appointing a hostile and unqualified Cabinet (Christie, Palin, his children, et al.)
– dissolving the CFPB
– defunding Planned Parenthood
– deporting 11 million brown people (thanks Calouste)
Putting aside all the ancillary Trumpfuckery and embarrassments, what LEGISLATIVE and EXECUTIVE action could we expect from Trump’s first 100 days? What am I missing?
Calouste
In other words, the Confederacy.
Calouste
@Trentrunner: Deporting 11 million brown people?
btom89
Also, I really don’t pay any particular attention to the polling too early. They tend to sample the ones who’d be more enthusiastic about answering the phone and following through with the polls. That’s why you see a bigger bump for the Republican candidate after the RNC—-their supporters are more motivated and more likely to follow through with the polls, and a bigger one for the Democratic candidate after the DNC. I saw an earlier post here that had a link to the Princeton statistics website that explained that the depressed polls in favor of Clinton was due to the pneumonia scare and I assume everyone should see the polls return to a more realistic level as Hillary gets better and gets out there in public again.
lamh36
I hate when parents drag kids for photo ops. but I also hate that some pols force photo ops in the kids…
Rhis poor chile
btom89
I left a post earlier up in the thread that may be in moderation—can someone check it and take it out of moderation?
mike in dc
It’s about
ethics in gaming journalismeconomic anxiety.scav
It’s a plot I’m telling you, the evil leftist elites are importing! foreigners, passive little foreigners on a shelf with no agency or drive, dreams or energy to get to this country on their own, foreigners from the rest of the world where no liberty or even the concept of liberty exists, foreigners with no personal experience in liberty just like the holy founding fathers, foreigners that will necessarily become democrats because democrats are in themselves necessarily foreign to real america and without tradition in this nation, THOSE are the foreigners being purchased abroad and snuck in in a vast conspiracy to do white republicans against everything they are owed as the only Real Americans that just want the liberty and freedom of being surrounded by people only exactly like themselves. Those evil democratic elites are also sneaking out and drawing more red on the planet’s thermostat and pretending this is a problem.
Major Major Major Major
It’s really about
ethics in the handling of classified emails and state department ‘favors’white supremacy.delk
Former Family Research Council president Gary Bauer brought up the Flight 93 metaphor last week at the Values Voter Summit.
I guess he forgot, one of the heroes Mark Bingham was openly gay.
Major Major Major Major
@mike in dc: damn it. Story of my profession’s life (librarianship): late again, but at least my formatting was correct!
ETA: and now you’ve edited it to take even that away ?
cokane
i love how latinos, who come from democracies inspired in part by the US, and in some cases where abolition predated our own, somehow, magically, do not have a “liberty” tradition.
Jeffro
Betty, it should be noted that the educational outcomes in the elementary, high school and higher Ed levels have never been better. Seemed like you were pretty confident that the “Flight 93” author had his facts wrong in all of the other areas – he was wrong about education too.
Older white folks (and truth be told, younger ones too) losing their privileged status – who knew they could be so panicked, so unbelievably shallow and stupid, as to compare their “plight” to that of Flight 93?
G
O
T
V
Matt McIrvin
So, going by the metaphor, they openly want to destroy the United States and kill all its residents, to avoid a far deadlier collision with… what?
FlipYrWhig
@Jeffro: I was going to say this too. See recent Bob Somerby Daily Howlers (yeah, I know) for a primer on the particulars.
raven
I lobbied for years to remove Sic Semper Tyrannis and Pat Lang from the BJ blogroll and finally it was. That being said, even though I am banned there, I look at it every day and there are plenty of people there who agree. If Hillary gets elected it’s WAR!
schrodinger's cat
My kind and gentle friend has become a moron who lives in fear since she moved to Idaho. I just can’t with her anymore.
shomi
Yea but something something Al Gore. Also some poll somewhere says something that is scary so I’m so very afraid like a little bunny rabbit. Same as 2012.
–your average Ball Juice pantswetter
MattF
There’s a winger in my work environment who’s been muttering lately about the End of Civilization. Not sure if I should find that encouraging.
Chip Daniels
The third point- about immigrants- is really his only point, the one and only single most important issue for Trump fans.
That’s why they don’t care about his lies, don’t care that his policy proposals are gibberish, that he has no experience and no temperament for office.
He hates the same people they do, and that’s all that matters.
Really, every other trope of the right; fiscal conservatism, Burkean restraint, law and order, tradition, Judeo-Christian ethics…they all fall by the wayside to the issue of doing harm to brown skinned people, immigrants and natives alike.
shomi
@Trentrunner: But it’s not going to happen so why in the fuck do you people keep masturbating over it? Over and over and over with this what if bullshit.
In addition to the “Romney is totally going to win” headline from 2012, this would also be a good time to post the always hilarious Dick Morris “Romney is going to win in a Landslide” statement. What ever happened to that fucking clown?
scav
I am convinced shomi walks across streets when the lights are red and only kisses people after receiving the come-hither slap because shomi’s reading of mood and reality are so reliably off-kilter. Still, it seems to amuse itself.
Timurid
@Poopyman:
The engines on Econ Flight 101 work just fine, but a bunch of passengers missed their connecting flights and are still stuck at the airport.
Not that Trump-Laden flying said plane into a skyscraper will do anything to solve their problems..
Major Major Major Major
@shomi: don’t you have a job, or a hobby or something? I paint and write books, maybe try that? And then never show them to anybody, because they’ll be horrid?
Corner Stone
@schrodinger’s cat: I would offer to help you out but I am plumb out of any “can’t evens” right about now. When Hillary’s body double gets back on the campaign trail again today I may find a few spare ones under the couch cushions. If I do I may be able to loan you one.
hovercraft
If only their kamikazi mission would kill just them, I;d say have at it, but it’s gonna bring the rest of us down with them. Aren’t they building some conservative utopia out in Idaho? If we cede territory to them will they just go away? We’ll add a few states into sweeten the pot. TX, OK, and several others would be good, we’d have to carve up a couple to keep both countries contiguous.
Trentrunner
@shomi: You seem nice. But let me repay your incivility with some explanation: It’s useful, especially in a campaign full of shiny-object horseshit, to list what might actually happen if the opposition wins. Some might find it clarifying–even motivating. Some might not. Those who might not may scroll right by. :)
But I’m also guessing that your bluster (and rudeness) is whistling past the graveyard. If you think Romney = Trump and Obama = Clinton and 2012 = 2016, you need to do more reading. We are officially in uncharted waters.
Poopyman
@schrodinger’s cat: Moving to Idaho is a flag for me. What made her move in the first place? If it was voluntary I’d question what her beliefs were before the move.
hovercraft
@scav:
It’s working, my parents were ‘imported’ in 1967 for college, they had me their ‘anchor baby’. And now through me there is my whole family of Africans here, all6 of us with our lack of culture and yet we have full rights as American citizens. The horror. I must confess, my family has not been sufficiently dedicated to our take over mission, having only added the six of us in 50 years. Slackers, i guess that proves their point. Hopefully the next generation will do better.
Tractarian
Thanks for this. I am calm.
I AM CALM.
Trentrunner
@hovercraft: Pretty sure they can have Mississippi and Alabama and Georgia and….
…wait, have we done this before?
lamh36
Because of course he would…racist bastard!
Trump trashes black pastor who shamed him in Flint church: ‘She was a nervous mess’
Villago Delenda Est
“The brown people are coming! The brown people are coming!”
Miss Bianca
@btom89: sweet! congrats and thanks!
coin operated
@hovercraft: Idaho is already a conservative utopia. I’m up here visiting my dad right now. Lots of Trump signs, and quite a few for Mike Crapo (R-North Redneckistan). Man has a debt clock on his homepage and proudly boasts of his efforts to defeat Obamacare.
They may have chased the skinheads out a couple decades ago, but the underlying white angst never went away.
Major Major Major Major
@Trentrunner: shomi is a troll who exists solely to complain about the blog.
Keith P.
@Trentrunner: And filibuster would completely go away so that he could ram whatever he wanted through a compliant Congress.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
This is now the defining characteristic of the “right” in this country.
Joe Falco
@shomi: Sucking on Sean Hannity’s toes every now and then on the latter’s radio program.
BR
Reminder: please sign up to volunteer for the campaign — it’ll just take 30 seconds to find a local event and sign up. Voter registration deadlines are coming up and we need everyone. It’s clear the media has given up on doing its job, so it’s up to us.
scav
@hovercraft: That does rather reassure me that my insistence on a documented pattern of multiple-births is simplly a must in the bloodline when I’m leafing through the catalog. I’m hesitating between muslim Turks or some pagan Nigerian middle-belters but only because I’m unsure which cuisine I’d rather have for lunch. I do like my egusi but I may be in a bit of rut . . .
MomSense
@lamh36:
hahahaha! Love the expression on her face.
Lizzy L
I am not calm, I am freaking out, but I also know with the part of my brain that is not freaking out that freaking out is silly, and a waste of emotional energy and time. I’m leaving town today for a half-work, half-vacation, 4 & 1/2 days on the CA coast. Going to have fun with good friends. So while I am not calm, in a little while I will be. In fact, I hope to be oblivious, as in finger-in-ears-not listening oblivious. Have a great weekend, see you in a bit…
Timurid
@coin operated:
Or the skinheads just grew their hair out and got jobs and mortgages and such… Not that they aren’t still slobbering racists. But respectably so…
piratedan
I really don’t think its about economic insecurity, I think these folks are letting their latent racism drive them emotionally.
The economy is improving (thank the FSM for Nancy Smash having her shit together at the start of 2008) and we’re still coasting on that, why? because no one can name a single piece of economic legislation emanating from the house in the last six years that has had anything to do with jobs or the economy (at least nothing that I can remember, its possible that I’m wrong)
Hillary wants to dump money into infrastructure, that means Jobs and not just jobs in the city, it means jobs everywhere, power grids, wastewater treatment, roads, bridges, parks… Trumps job plan apparently means that he’ll spend money on the INS to round up and deport people (so much for small government).
These people have conveniently forgotten what 2008 and 2009 were like and who was driving that fucking bus. All they’ve seen since 2008 is the color of a certain person’s skin and for reasons we well know, can’t give credit for him saving as many folks as he possibly could and now think that we’re back on the road, we should let the dysfunctional bastards that put us in the ditch originally back in charge.
Its emotional, its not rational and people that are supposed to give us the information to keep it rational have gone all E Network on the process instead of actually talking about the importance of the decision.
Corner Stone
Ok, that is one rambling, incoherent mish-mash of an article. That screed was supposed to *convince* someone to vote for Trump?
rikyrah
@Trentrunner:
Your list is quite accurate.
That this isn’t enough to scare people…
Kanye shrug.
Brachiator
I really don’t care about being on the right side. I care about being on the winning side.
Get out the vote.
@Trentrunner:
Actually, it is unimaginable. Trump has no policies. He is not a real or even a competent politician. His presidency would be his ego matched against the GOP grandees who think that they can control him, and the racist advisers who see an opportunity to make America white again by restricting immigration of undesirable groups.
There is not much indication that Trump has much of a coherent agenda that goes past building a wall. And the wall is his big idea not just because he wants to solve the immigration problem, but building and making fanciful deals is all he really knows.
Miss Bianca
@lamh36: “OMG – get me out of heeeerrre!”
rikyrah
@lamh36:
We expected any less?
But, she should have known better.
Period.
Calouste
Qusay Trump speaks his mind:
And of course everything in it is projection.
eric
I think that the defining aspect(s) of a trump presidency will be twofold: a separation of powers dispute and the potential for congressional reassertion of war powers — the two are not unrelated, but could be mutually exclusive in certain instances.
Patricia Kayden
@Trentrunner: You should tweet that so Jill Stein and Johnson voters can see what will happen if they vote against Secretary Clinton and allow Trump to win. They’ll own whatever nonsense Trump does as President.
hovercraft
@coin operated:
I know but there is an actual attempt some place to create a federal government free zone.
Ah here it is”
I’m thinking expand it to include the entire state and throw in a few others.
gvg
the only thing that would sort of save us if Trump was elected is that he is kind of a do it my way or you are my enemy kind of guy. the other GOP extremists are trending that way so I think it wouldn’t be long before they all started fighting with each other and vetoed Trumps agenda, whatever that was that day. Trump is petty and spiteful and the rest aren’t much better and he really isn’t consistent enough to be called a conservative so he is sure to do something they think is wrong quickly. There is still plenty of executive power though so we wouldn’t get off lightly. I can imagine him trying to remove Roberts for instance, because he doesn’t even know the law nor think it should be followed.
What I have been imagining is him being in control of the military and changing his mind all the time. I can see him giving different orders to different officers and ignoring the chain of command. Sure they would try to not obey illegal orders but I don’t think ignorance of the chain of command is protection against that. Plus he talks so much and contradicts himself in the same sentences even so how are soldiers supposed to handle that? he is an idiot who doesn’t know it.
I still think he is going to lose badly but I do realize their are some things the founders did not predict.
Major Major Major Major
@Patricia Kayden: for Stein and Johnson fans a lot of those are features, not bugs. Obamacare is evil for both of them for example.
hovercraft
@lamh36:
That poor child is going to be traumatized for life.
Amir Khalid
@Brachiator:
Actually, my friend, you do care about being on the right side. Because that, and not the fact that she’s the presumptive favourite in 2016, is why you’re with Hillary. So don’t sell yourself short.
coin operated
@hovercraft: Yeah…that was from 2013. The idiot proposing the Citadel managed to go camping in Idaho one time, but not much else has come of it.
raven
@gvg: He wouldn’t be the first blithering idiot that has been president.
D58826
@Trentrunner: privatizing social security and medicare. destroy the epa and environmental regulation.
hovercraft
@piratedan:
It’ the fear of losing the power they’ve always had, to privilege whites over everyone else. Once they are no longer the majority what if those people treat them like they’ve treated everyone else? The browns are taking over, what if white is the new black? They are saying hell no!
The Red Pen
This is good news for John McCain.
Miss Bianca
@Calouste: Hell, with the Nazis themselves it was all projection, all the time (yeah, I went there). During my dissertation research I came across Nazi propaganda accusing German Jews of planning to pump poison gas into the Berlin subways.
Reactionary radical Republicans – they learned it from the masters.
btom89
@Miss Bianca: Thanks *blushing face emoticon*
MattF
@Calouste: Probably reflects typical conversations back at Trump Central. DT Jr. just forgot that there were normal people within hearing range.
hovercraft
@coin operated:
Well if Idaho isn’t an option, Glenn Beck was also working on a ‘patriot’ enclave in Texas, they can have that instead, and it would give the access to the ocean, to flee back to where they came from, if the browns in the new America or the Mexicans to their south got to frisky. Yeah I think Texas is a better option.
hovercraft
@The Red Pen:
Halpern this morning pushed back on the Kurt Eichenwald piece, saying that the questioning of Trumps International entanglements meant that we were precluding a businessman with those credentials from the presidency, which would be a great loss. I think he wold make an excellent White House Press Secretary for Trump, the beltway already knows and loves him, and they would never ever question his veracity.
scav
Going back to that importing foreigners, I also like the underlying assumption that the foreigners simply must be being imported — actively imported — because what foreigner (in their necessarily unfreedom acquainted passive little minds) would want to come to America enough to do it on their own. Foreigners have no drive, America holds no attractions for them. Everything would be stable except for those active transporters of damaged goods, the Democratic and educated elites.
catclub
@raven:
White Aryan Resistance?
raven
@catclub: Just regular “flyover” Americans according to them.
MomSense
@Corner Stone:
I’m a donkey on the edge.
raven
@MomSense: I’m a bird on a wire.
catclub
@Calouste: new word from Qusay:
that is in the same class as refudiation! Indiscretion and discrepancy all in one.
scav
@raven: Hedgehog on a bender signing in!
Corner Stone
@MomSense: Eddie, is that you?
Matt McIrvin
@Miss Bianca:
Didn’t Hitler base the structure of the Nazi Party in part on the supposed Jewish conspiracy as described in “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”? (I remember reading this somewhere, but can’t find it now.)
Booger
Hmm…I guess the Flight 93 analogy is kinda apt…if you put the Rethugs in the role of those who have been hijacking our proud nation and directing it on a course towards destruction since, what? About the 1968 election? Yeah, that makes sense to me.
Also, too: Looking at Drumpf preening in Flint the other day at the defunct waterworks…it’s a measure of the man that he makes Richard F. Nixon look like a wise and reasonable man. How did that ever happen?
hovercraft
The apple not only doesn’t fall far, it may still be on the tree.
EDIT : I see Calouste beat me to it.
Corner Stone
I have MSNBC on with it muted because Trump is giving a speech at The Economic Club of New York. Just from the chyron clips they are showing this looks like a real humdinger of batshit crazy-ass lies. I may actually have to find a transcript later. But probably not.
Mathguy
Just saw the Drumpfster fire on CNN bragging that taxes rates would drop from 35% to 15% under his administration. I don’t think even Gandalf could make that magical asterisk work.
Dog Dawg Damn
Haven’t been able to watch TV today. HRC was so on fire last week with multiple events daily. Is she put there today? She needs to get in front of a camera at some point and say something. Shocking preferably.
Major Major Major Major
@raven:
Feebog
Can we talk about polls for just a minute? Yes, the race has tightened some, but the nationwide numbers from this week are a real mixed bag. There are a number of things going on that may explain that. First, some pollsters are switching from a registered voter to likely voter screen. In the past, that has almost always resulted in a bump for the Republican. Second, there are more polls with a Republican “house effect”. Third, there are a couple polls out there that go beyond the “house effect” and simply put their thumb on the scale. Rasmussen is one that we are all familiar with, but another is the LA Times-USC poll. This is a daily tracking poll that has a different methodology. They have about 3000 people pre-selected, and they poll about 400 each day. But it appears their daily sample is not random, but simply rotated, so that each person is sampled about once a week. Nate Silver projects that they are about 6% tilted towards Trump. For instance, last week they were showing HIllary up by one; today Trump is up by 6%. They have shown a consistent bias for Trump that, along with Rasmussen, gets thrown in the daily average of polls. Not to say we shouldn’t worry, there really has been a tightening, but we need to be more aware of the methodologies and bias in these polls before we push the panic button.
jl
@scav: Of course, White European American were in no sense ‘imported’ to the US.
I hope the Native American vote has the honor of putting HRC over the top and into the WH.
I also hope that HRC gets back on the campaign to start hammering issues with Trump that our worthless ciorporate news media information product industry seems to have forgotten about:
-Trump doesn’t seem to understand how NATO works
-his war crime plans to deal with undocumented immigrants makes no sense (and he is flip-flopping all over the place, gee I thought flip-flop was a big deal with the news diva schmucks)
-his tax plan is more tax breaks for billionaires will blow a hole in the budget (a little budget blowing actually macroeconomically might be a good thing, if done for another purpose, but that kind of discussion is like trying to explain algebra to a particularly dimwit hamster as far as the news jerks are concerned)
-he has no realistic plan to ‘bring the jobs back
-his is lying about a crime wave, and his plan to deal with it is that when his fat ass hits the seat of the chair in the Oval Office, then something magic will happen.
Maybe the debates will remind people of that side of Trump. Or maybe doing a manipulated and dishonest ‘Dr. Oz’ show is presidential now. And anyway, why is that goof show not a crisis of credibility and trustworthiness for Trump?
Seanly
@Poopyman:
Yup. The blockquote of America’s percieved ills is detached from reality.
Also, go to Sam Wang’s site if you want to be assuaged about the polls a bit. He uses all polls and includes drift. While 538 includes drift they also allow for some fudge factors and the now-cast numbers aren’t based on the history of all the polls, but just the current one. Dr. Wang has a post from August (I think) that explains why 538’s approach isn’t very good for political forecasting.
Lastly, we haven’t seen any debates yet. I think these are really going to hurt Trump. He’s not preparing, he doesn’t know anything to begin with, and will likely come across to rational people as both a bully and an idiot.
Matt McIrvin
@catclub: Let’s dispel with the notion that these indiscrepancies are refudiated.
D58826
@scav:
didn’t we used to do that? It was called the slave trade!!!
hovercraft
@catclub:
Trump family contributions to the english language, bigly and now Indiscrepancy. They must be so proud.
Corner Stone
@hovercraft: Before this election I knew basically nothing about Trump’s sons or others, but did have a neutral to slightly positive meh feeling toward Ivanka. She seemed to have a career, education and then a family – all pretty normal given the situation she seemed to be in.
It’s hilarious how revealing this election has been about how truly awful all these people really are. They are just despicable people, really terribad individuals. Some might even say, deplorable.
Corner Stone
Andrea Mitchell is a horrible interviewer. She is simply awful at her job.
Ryan
@hovercraft: He went to Wharton. He has the best words!
Miss Bianca
@btom89: your watercolors are great, btw (they are watercolors, right?). I am so jealous – I can’t draw or paint worth a damn, and I would love to be able to.
El Caganer
@raven: I don’t read any of the stuff over there on domestic affairs – if I really wanted to indulge in that sort of crap, I’d go directly to Stormfront.
MomSense
@Corner Stone:
I wish. I’d be so out of dodge if I had his money.
hovercraft
@Dog Dawg Damn:
She has an event in NC this evening, and then tomorrow she’ll be in DC for a Black Women’s Symposium and Luncheon and then a CBC event tomorrow night.
EDIT: I would be shocked if she doesn’t talk to the press on the plane, or before they board.
FlipYrWhig
@Feebog: I’ve been suspecting that “likely voters” gamesmanship explains almost all of the nervous-making numbers.
gwangung
Both Trump and his progeny lie as easily as they breathe.
And the media won’t call them on it. This gives them incentive to lie more.
D58826
@Corner Stone: When senility sets in I’m hoping the first thing I forget is anything remotely connected to the Trump family.
Miss Bianca
@Matt McIrvin: Don’t remember running across that reference but at this point, considering the right-wing tendency to project, and steal from those they demonize – even if what they are stealing is part of their bullshit projection – it wouldn’t surprise me at all (I bet Adam would know – we’ll have to remember to ask him).
Patricia Kayden
@hovercraft: I wouldn’t be willing to cede them TX or OK given that both of those states have liberal enclaves and loads of minority voters. But I understand your point. I am loathe to cede any states to Rightwingers given that they will always find a way to screw over their minority populations. Just look at what is going on in North Dakota right now with the Native American population and that pipeline threatening their water supply and cemeteries.
PaulWartenberg2016
Economic Anxiety as an excuse falls flat on its own face because:
1) the economy is stable,
2) what the economy needs is better regulation of criminal financial institutions that keep ripping poor customers off on a daily basis,
3) many of the Trump supporters aren’t screaming about jobs, they’re screaming about foreigners and feminists and Muslims none of which has anything to do with jobs (and before you scream about illegals taking our jobz, the only jobs most illegals are taking are low-paying agri jobs no white folk would take (SEE Georgia when they banned illegals, their agribusiness market collapsed due to lack of workers filling vacancies) or high-tech jobs using the HB-1 rule that’s being abused by large-scale corporations).
Millard Filmore
@Calouste:
Not so. Slavery is when you own me. Freedom is when I own you. They have plenty of experience in liberty.
Shell
What riles me is the people who say they’re voting for Trump just because “they want a change.” Talk about a case of “be careful what you wish for.”
hovercraft
@Corner Stone:
Tweety and the rest of the male media gush about hoe articulate she is, I wonder why. They seem to think that she’s the key to his outreach to women, which is Kellyanne’s area of expertise. The fact that she is said to be one of his most trusted advisors and yet is rarely deployed tells me that Conway has found that she is not the asset that everyone claims she is. If anything I can see her putting women off every time she opens her mouth, if yo are sexually harassed get another job. Gee why didn’t I think of that. Walking out of an interview because you are being challenged because you are full of shit.
EDIT : She’s as good at attracting women voters as Palin was.
Cacti
@Seanly:
I’ve no doubt that Hillary will mop the floor with Trump in the debates.
I also have no doubt that the librul media has already decided that Trump won them.
The Dems need to be ready to push back hard against this.
EllenH
@BR: Thanks for the nudge. I just signed up to phone bank here in Arizona this weekend!
BR
@EllenH:
Great!
PsiFighter37
Trump’s economic speech makes me want to break the television.
Fuck all of those out there who have enabled him and let him get so far.
If he is elected, this country will get what it deserves.
Poopyman
@Corner Stone:
Again – and I’m starting to say this here every day – Andrea Mitchell’s job isn’t necessarily what you believe it should be. However, I’m sure Andrea Mitchell is completely clear on what her bosses think her job should be.
hovercraft
@Patricia Kayden:
We have to make sacrifices, the burial sites are the biggest obstacles, because they can’t be relocated. As to the Austin’s of the world, they are just going to have to move I’m sorry, but remember many nutters will be going to Texahomasawissibama, so there will be plenty of locations for the liberals to relocate to, with infrastructure already in place.
Iowa Old Lady
@PaulWartenberg2016: Exactly. When people say they’re voting for racist, misogynist, xenophobe because he’s a racist, misogynist, xenophobe, why not believe him? Let’s dispense with the idea that Trump voters don’t know what they’re doing. They know exactly what they’re doing.
hovercraft
@Iowa Old Lady:
Lil Marco is that you?
Patricia Kayden
@Calouste:
That’s disgusting of him. He retweets White Supremacists all the dang time and now tries to portray his father as some kind of victim similar to Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust? Disgusting.
P.S. And what a lie to suggest that his father hasn’t been coddled by the “liberal” media to the tunes of millions of dollars of free advertising.
Major Major Major Major
@Feebog: You can nitpick about individual polls, though that’s best reserved for doing parlor tricks. Aggregate and average, aggregate and average, aggregate and average.
Iowa Old Lady
Also, I’m rolling my eyes about Trump’s “outreach” to POC. I assume yesterday’s visit to Flint was part of it. Today he trashes the pastor who asked him not make a political speech.
I assume he’s really trying to convince white voters he’s not racist so they can vote for him without shame. How does this help?
Corner Stone
@Poopyman: No, I don’t mean she tosses softballs to Trump people and misleads about what HRC is/is not doing.
I mean the actual task of conducting an interview. She has awkward pauses in between questions and never seems to be ready for the person’s response.
Iowa Old Lady
@hovercraft: Yes! My point was that LilMarco had a point, though not about Obama.
gogol's wife
@hovercraft:
Hope she passes them a few microorganisms.
jl
@PaulWartenberg2016: I agree that the economic anxiety theory is inadequate to explain the whole Trump phenomenon. I agree that much of Trump’s support is due to bigotry (which includes racism)) and xenophobia.
I can;t dismiss economic anxiety as playing no role, however. During, and ever since, the financial panic and Great Recession, for the first time since the Great Depression, Whites were hit very hard and the economic conditions for at least half of them have not recovered. Won’t see that in the unemployment rate, need to look at net wealth and employment to population ratio. It is true that now the labor market and real compensation is improving on a sustained basis enough to be noticeable, but a lot of damage remains, compared to before 2008. But it is still a very slow and weak labor market recovery compared to any other recession, except the Bush II dot com bubble, but that was shallower and did not affect as large a percentage of the population
I think many Whites without a college education do feel greater economic pain and injustice now than ever before and looking for someone to blame.
That line might be infuriating to many, since in absolute terms, and even in relative damage, non-Hispanic Whites still on average did much better than other groups. But the Non-Hispanic Whites use their, and their family’s and community’s history as a reference point, and political science seems to show that people respond more to relative changes more than their absolute level of welfare when voting. So it has to be taken into account in electoral politics.
HRC was wise to note that in her ‘basket of deplorables’ comment. Our worthless news media chose to dishonestly ignore that part of her comment for the sake of their dishonest horse race, biased character narrative story-arc BS coverage. But if the Trump goons decide to keep flogging that horse, she has a good response.
The Other Chuck
@hovercraft:
Not for a moment. These people don’t deserve a square fucking inch, or any form of legitimacy.
Seanly
@Poopyman:
My favorite fun facts about Andrea Mitchell is that she is married to Alan Greenspan and they were both in Ayn Rand’s inner circle of truly weird and despicable people. And there are some in the wingnut circles who paint her as liberal.
For some reason, I equate her with Cokie Roberts. Two horrible, horrible people who are somehow regarded as non-partisan, good centrist reporters, but are really nothing but a couple of dried up, conservative harridans.
schrodinger's cat
@Poopyman: Sick and ailing mother. At first she felt like a fish out of water complaining about the people around her now she sounds just like the folks she couldn’t stand 5 years ago.
Patricia Kayden
@hovercraft: It would never happen anyways since it’s actually the redder states which get the most tax benefits and federal assistance. They would never leave the U.S. to be on their own and fall into third world status within a few years. We’re talking about backward people who deny climate change, don’t support birth control, don’t believe in government regulations and are suspicious of public education. I don’t see them doing very well when they get together to form Rightwingistan with no Federal money.
different-church-lady
OK. I’m not panicking. Is it alright if I just get completely depressed instead?
BR
@different-church-lady:
Nope, sign up for a volunteer event. It’s the best cure.
The Thin Black Duke
@PsiFighter37: Uh, I’m not comfortable being the “collateral damage”.
hitchhiker
I don’t think I’ll be calm until the networks call it for her in 50-some days. And after that — after that, my friends, we’ll have years of watching while they encase her in metaphorical cement and chains, just like Obama. So, thinking lightly about this mess while working hard locally.
Here’s a cheery thing that happened last night: went to a brilliant Tedeschi Trucks concert in Seattle at McCaw Hall. At the break after the warmup band we all trudged through the winedrinkers toward the halls where the bathrooms are, and there was a long freaking line going into the mens. What!? Yes, yes. The mens room had a 5 minute line. The women’s room was magically giant and no waiting at all. Every single one of us was laughing, and I saw women talking about it all the way back to my seat. “Never seen this ever before in my life!” #thankshillary!
Poopyman
@Seanly:
And neverevereverever disclosed when she was pontificating on (MS?)NBC while her husband was Fed Chair. That told me which way the wind was blowing right there.
Major Major Major Major
@jl: Economic anxiety can bring out latent racism. It can be both.
ETA: Not ‘latent’ per se but you know what I mean.
different-church-lady
@BR: Wouldn’t be a bad idea if I weren’t already completely overextended this month as it is. (Thus, depression is a state that is more just extended to the election situation, rather than a symptom of it.)
I think a sane observer might see the decisions I’m making this month as healthy self-preservation, but to me they feel like some kind of career-cum-financial suicide. Basically I’m just worn down by all the bullshit and want to quit and spend my way through the 3 months of retirement savings I have. And then throw myself into a volcano or something…
PS: also, I live in an insanely safe blue state, so in the past my meager volunteer efforts have always involved going to border states that are more in play.
Steeplejack
Just tuned to The Dr. Oz Show with Trump. Eek! Five minutes in and Trump has already talked about how routinely talking to 15,000 or 20,000 people and waving his arms is exercise.
This is starting soft and looking to continue so.
Patricia Kayden
@BR: Thank you for your emails.
Turgidson
@hovercraft:
Does Halperin go out of his way to be the biggest idiot on the planet? Does he have to practice and work at it, or does it just come naturally to him?
Good fucking lord, that is massive head trauma-level stupidity, even by his pathetic standards.
different-church-lady
@Major Major Major Major:
Inate?
BR
@different-church-lady:
I understand the feeling quite a bit. I can say that I have at times in this election season blocked off blogs/news sites for myself just so I wouldn’t have yet another thing to worry about. But it really has been a breath of fresh air to volunteer again — there’s something positive about it that is reinvigorating, to my surprise.
Mnemosyne
@lamh36:
I started laughing so hard that I had to show the picture to my coworkers because they were getting worried.
That poor kid. She’s going to picture him lurking under her bed for YEARS to come!
different-church-lady
@Turgidson: Wasn’t he the original “good news for John McCain” guy?
Miss Bianca
somewhat o/t, but thanks to LGM today I ran across this article, which I thought contained a rather neat rejoinder to the “tyranny of the two-party system, man!” arguments that were being put forward here yesterday:
Read the whole article, on how “anti-consumerist” Ralph Nader basically turned the concept of voting into a consumer-choice act.
Iowa Old Lady
@Steeplejack: As someone who suffers through an aerobics class three times a week, I find that sad!
catclub
@Trentrunner:
Disasters in All the rest of the world. NATO, UN, Russia, Turkey, Syria, China, N. Korea
Major Major Major Major
@different-church-lady: Innate but low-grade enough that it doesn’t influence their policy preferences until it’s their ox getting gored. Like “Love Me I’m A Liberal”, ‘I love Puerto Ricans and negroes, as long as they don’t move next door’
Turgidson
@Corner Stone:
Coming up next, Andrea Mitchell has a no-holds-barred interview with Donald Trump Jr. about Hillary’s emails! Don’t miss it!
hovercraft
@jl:
Ever since the Reagan revolution that began the destruction of unions, the top 1 % has been siphoning off more and more for themselves, and the economic insecurity that used to be reserved for people of color has now spread to the white working class. The economy has been restructured to give almost all of the benefits to the corporations and the people at the top. Deregulation, globalization and the lack of bargaining power has been eroding the middle class for decades. Many women went to work because it became necessary to support the family as wages stagnated. We did not suddenly become a nation of debt lovers, the banks saw a new way to make more money by making credit more available, and we took it because our paychecks weren’t stretching a far as they used to. And when that still wasn’t enough and the banks saw another trough of money sitting out there ready for the taking we turned to our homes and turned those into ATM’s instead of seeing them as the nest eggs they were supposed to be. These people are either at or approaching retirement age, only to realize that they have nothing, given the choice of blaming themselves for voting for these policies through their choices, they are blaming the people who are on the upswing. Seeing polls consistently showing minorities are the most optimistic is proof that ‘those’ people have taken what used to be theirs, why else would they be so optimistic about the future.
catclub
@Steeplejack:
So are there ads for ED medications during Dr Oz?
I knew that before any tuning in was necessary.
hovercraft
@The Other Chuck:
No they don’t deserve it, but I’m willing to pay them to make them go away.
Iowa Old Lady
@Major Major Major Major: I think people can be encouraged to live up to their better instincts or encouraged to give in to them. As you say, Trump does the latter.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
Does not compute. What I want most is for the right side to be the winning side. I sure don’t want to be on the winning side if it turns out I’m on the wrong side.
different-church-lady
@Miss Bianca: People who rail against the two-party system are actaully in favor of a two-party system. It’s just that they redefine the two parties as “us” and “them” — all politicians (them) are corrupt, and the voters (us) are inherently screwed.
It’s not a political view, it’s an display of off-the-shelf cynicism.
hovercraft
@different-church-lady:
Bingo. hence the nick name
Dalai Rasta
Does anyone have any idea who actually wrote the Claremont piece? My bet is on Angelo Codevilla; he wrote a piece for Claremont’s site years ago, actually accusing Barack Obama of being a CIA plant, based on Stanley Kurtz’s ravings.
jl
@hovercraft: As MMMM said above, there are often latent bigotries that are connected to resentment about economic disappointment. As in ‘those nice, rich, White men can’t be lying to me! No way! And they say the liberals and minorities did it to me!’. If a person with latent bigotry is gullible enough to swallow that kind of BS, then things head in an ugly direction. Which I guess we see at Trump rallies.
Calouste
HuffPo has an article that Trump wants to nominate totally unqualified billionaire Pieter Thiel to the Supreme Court. I wonder how the religious right is going to react when they find out Thiel is openly gay.
tobie
@Turgidson: Please, God, tell me this is snark:
There are only so many body-blows I can take in a day.
Major Major Major Major
@Iowa Old Lady: They can! But many don’t. And Trump (and people like Farage in England) are using them.
Iowa Old Lady
Speaking of living up to your better impulses, I’m failing at doing that because I want someone to find a man who’s the height and weight Trump claims to be, dress that man in a suit similar to Trump’s, and pose him as Trump is posed in a picture. Put them side by side. Do we believe Trump’s weight claim?
Maybe I can claim this is about “transparency” rather than fat shaming.
The Ancient Randonnuer
@Calouste:
If Trump made the offer to Thiel then we know it will never happen. Remember, Trump reneges on all promises.
Gindy51
@mike in dc: 3rd longest bull market 1900 to now… thanks Obama http://ritholtz.com/2016/09/bull-markets-dow-jones-industrials-1900-present/
hovercraft
@Calouste:
It will cause some grumblings, but the Koch groups will shut off all the money to anyone objecting because he like them is a ‘true libertarian’ who will always rule against the government and believes in completely unfettered capitalism.
Also what The Ancient Randonnuer said.
catclub
@The Ancient Randonnuer: There was a rather large article at Bloomberg that Mark Cuban had soured
on Trump.
Encouraging because anti-Trump.
Discouraging because shows how shallow Cuban is to think for one microsecond that Trump is a possible president.
SenyorDave
@catclub: He soured pretty quickly on him, but it is discouraging that it seems mostly to have occurred because of his economic views and business practices, not because he’s a racist, sexist bigot.
1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)
@Booger: Underneath the roaring paranoia , the raging insecurity, and the seething resentment, Nixon was intelligent, and he know when he could and could not kick against the pricks.
I would also to say, despite his many failings, he did actually love the United States, and wanted stable and reliable governance.
I think I’ve said before one of the things I’ve hated about the GOP these past 25 years is the way they make Richard M. Nixon look good.
SiubhanDuinne
@Seanly:
Half true. Alan Greenspan was an early member of Ayn Rand’s inner circle, as was his first wife, Joan Mitchell. But Rand died in 1982, and Greenspan and Andrea Mitchell didn’t marry until 1997.
hovercraft
@catclub:
Cuban has been trolling Trump for months, after that QVC press conference he had on election night to prove his side businesses were still on operation, Cuban said he wasn’t a real billionaire, because real ones don’t hawk penny ante shit for money. He even offered to do debate prep for Hillary if asked, when his name was mentioned as a candidate to play Trump(he wasn’t asked).
SFAW
@Calouste:
They won’t care, at least not in any practical terms.
D58826
@1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet): And because of his interest in FP he pretty much went along with the liberal democrats in Congress on a host of domestic issues – EPA, clean air and water acts, etc. And the opening to China was uuuuge
D58826
@SiubhanDuinne: How old I am, I remember when she was just a radio reporter for KYW all news in Philly
BruceFromOhio
“We’re all dead anyway, so let’s make it entertaining!” or something.
Blind pig, acorn. You feel like you are being lied to because you really are being lied to, dipshit. Just not by who you’ve selected as the target of your ire. Classic Republican.
Major Major Major Major
@srv: He’d really be more of a gay Roberts.
Roger Moore
@Major Major Major Major:
People who have looked carefully say that economic anxiety is a result of racism, not a cause. Racists are more likely to feel economic anxiety regardless of their actual economic situation.
Kay
Republicans might literally destroy the country. It’s like the rot in their horrible Party could bring the whole thing down.
I think it’s reasonable to take a coupla days and come to terms with that :)
We’re talkers, Democrats! We talk things thru. It’s part of our process :)
jl
@BruceFromOhio: The pseudonymous author betrays him or herself at the end. I expected some outrage like ‘reparations for slavery’ or ‘return of the Southwest to Mexico’, or ‘more government Caddies free of charge to loafers’. But ‘greater diversity’?
You can almost hear some bigot in the 1930s muttering about having to hire sketchy Jews, Pollacks and Eye-talians that show up for job openings.
Kay
It’s us and them, though, isn’t it? My mechanic asked me if “that idiot” was going to win.
I knew I liked him. It took a decade for us to bond but the potential was always there.
scav
@BruceFromOhio: They also don’t explicitly deny the inherently racist and evil nature of America, but rather a) don’t feel it requires expiation or apology and b) certainly not by greater diversity. Maybe a carefully worded footnote in an overly generous Texas textbook.
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: Sure, but that doesn’t mean economic anxiety doesn’t exacerbate racism in ways that can lead to racist policy preferences. Since racism is not the sole cause of economic anxiety and everybody holds some prejudice, there’s eventually a tipping point for many.
BR
@Kay:
Did you recruit him to recruit others against Trump? Seems to me your mechanic might be the best messenger against Trump.
Steeplejack
@Calouste:
“Thiel is openly gay”—only since being outed by Gawker, which he then crushed by funding Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against them.
He will make a fine and impartial judge on the nation’s highest court.
jl
@Roger Moore: Do you have a link or a reference? I’d like to see what it is.
I think the problem today isn’t a mass of racist Trump supporters claiming non-existent economic anxiety to justify their horrible political preference, though I am sure there are many of them, surely enough to be a stable proportion of his support as measured in polling. But I don’t think there are enough of them to elect Trump.
I think we are talking to about real economic harm to the whole population, and that for the first time in living memory has created sustained damage to a broad spectrum of Whites who are susceptible to racial and other sorts of bigotry in their reaction to their first taste of sustained economic disappointment and hardship. I think that is a larger pool of support for Trump, the ones HRC said we can and need to persuade to come to their senses, and this is the group that could elect the miserable and unqualified Trump.
Kay
It must be so hard for the Trump kids. These are people who have never even been to a job interview! No wonder they keep running away when challenged on very simple questions. My 14 year old has endured tougher competitions than these people.
glory b
@catclub: No, Cuban was always pro-Clinton.
He’s from Pittsburgh, he was campaigning here for her in July.
He also appeared on television to debunk the idea that Trump has a vast fortune.
Dog Dawg Damn
If Trump can change our dialogue this much in 15 months, imagine what he could do in 4 years.
In 4 years time, he’ll have had the NSA, CIA, FBI, Congress, and all other players at his disposal to ensure his re-election.
His second term will be spent repealing the 22nd Amendment.
This is how democracies fall. Can’t even believe we are here, but the anti-democratic bullshit the Republican party has been peddling is being used against them by a genuine tyrant.
Unbelievable.
Kay
@BR:
He’s quiet. I was surprised he spoke to me directly. His wife does the books and she usually talks to me- she’ll say like “John says you need…”
They have a good reputation as businesspeople. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t like Trump. They’re not crooks.
Major Major Major Major
@Steeplejack: Gawker didn’t out Thiel, he was openly gay before that. Just because the news hadn’t reached certain Valleywag-reading investors doesn’t mean he wasn’t out. That’s a statement about the investors’ state of knowledge, not anything unethical Gawker did.
scav
Whee. Second lowest minimum for Arctic ice. But, no doubt Trump will count the tongue-waving he will get lying about this (and soo many other subjects) as exercise and thus proof that he should immediately be handed the presidency as his just due as the most fit, handsome and masculine bigy leader in the land.
BR
@Kay:
Well a least I hope he and folks like him can be persuaded to show up and vote.
gwangung
@Kay: There’s still journalists at the local level…mid level folks still seem to be practicing the trade…
sukabi
@Trentrunner: well, first off, drumpf won’t bother with legislative anything, all going to be executive decree, because that’s how he rolls. The repubs better have an impeachment process ready for a drumpf contigency on day one, because by week 3 it might be too late.
Iowa Old Lady
@gwangung: Like the Cosmo reporter who scared Ivanka off. Kay joked that reporter should moderate a debate. It would be better than Matt Lauer.
Keith G
@jl: I think you have that pretty much right. Hell, even POTUS seems to agree if you take his “Bitter Pennsylvania” comments at face value.
Turgidson
@tobie:
I mean, yes, it’s snark. But….it also isn’t. Andrea Mitchell would fucking love to have that interview. She thinks Hillary’s emails are the most important historical event since the Big Bang.
Suzan
@btom89: These are wonderful paintings. Did you do them?
Cacti
@Iowa Old Lady:
How pitiful is it that Cosmo is performing real interviews of the Trumps, while “hard news” media outlets give them a free rein to lie their asses off?
I haven’t seen the press this completely in the tank for the R candidate since Dubya in 2000.
Steeplejack
@Major Major Major Major:
Then why did Thiel go after Gawker? (Serious question.)
Cacti
@srv:
We’d have had an immediate succession crisis after the death of George Washington (no heirs).
Iowa Old Lady
@btom89: The pictures are beautiful. I reviewed as Avid Reader, though Amazon asked me about the “plot.” LOL
Roger Moore
@jl:
As I understand it, it isn’t a matter of people falsely claiming economic anxiety to cover for their racism. It’s that demographic changes make the country an uncomfortable place for racists. They see the country headed in a direction they don’t like, and that makes them anxious about everything, including economics.
Mike J
hovercraft
@Turgidson:
Well at least since Benghazi, which was the biggest scandal ever in the history of politics.
Major Major Major Major
@Steeplejack: he didn’t like Owen Thomas, and he could.
catclub
@glory b: Always isn’t as long as it used to be:
sukabi
@Turgidson: I think you’ve found Andrea’s problem…she hasn’t had a big bang in quite some time.
Keep your panties on, old white woman being snarky.
Calouste
@Steeplejack: Gawker didn’t show enough deference to a Master of the Universe(TM).
Brachiator
@srv:
I guess this explains some of the support for Trump.
Iowa Old Lady
@Roger Moore: That’s fascinating.
hovercraft
@sukabi:
Just the thought of those two trolls doing the nasty..
Time to find some cute puppy videos.
Major Major Major Major
@Steeplejack: @Calouste: basically. Insufficient fealty to the almighty dollar among the local press. (Thomas is an SF-based business and finance reporter highly critical of Silicon Valley’s various… eccentricities.)
rikyrah
@The Thin Black Duke:
.
Me neither
jl
@Roger Moore: We disagree then. You see high Trump polling numbers and you just conclude they are all racists who are making up economic hardship as an excuse to act out their racism? If so, I think you are too simplistic. I think economic problems are a real factor in addition to White bigotry and racism.
catclub
@Cacti:
The Obama admin has been too boring. They want some excitement. Never mind that people unlike them suffer when there is excitement.
NorthLeft12
Sorry, I haven’t had the opportunity to read the comments and am likely repeating some comments that have been more artfully and succinctly stated than mine, but WTF!!!
Those list of ills that the essayist lists are either non-existent or actively promoted by the actions of conservatives everywhere. And to top it all off, place the blame on those people of colour from outside.
I recall a famous politician reacting to Nixon’s enemies list with horror, saying something to the effect that people who did not support him were considered people that he needed to work at to win over [or words to that effect], not enemies to be vilified and punished.
But that is exactly what the Repubs do. Time after time, and decade after decade. “If you are not with us, you are against us!”
Major Major Major Major
@jl: I imagine it like a migraine or a seizure–there’s a systemic stress threshold after which the disorder takes over completely. A sufficient level of economic anxiety can make country club racists into full blown fascists.
Gravenstone
Loving the sub-head on CNN site just now. Headline about how Trump claims he’ll have 4% economic growth. Sub-head, “He Wants To Take Economy Back To Clinton Days”. Hey Donch, we’ve got an even simpler way to do that – elect Secretary Clinton, who is actually running this cycle! Easy peasy.
gwangung
@Mike J: Yeah, this is interesting.
I don’t think we’ve seen a poll where Clinton is doing worse than Obama with whites. Yet we see a lot of polls where the race is apparently tightening. A lot of those polls, however, show slight undersampling of Dems, high oversampling of independents and/or older people.
Makes me think there’s some manipulation of poll results to support a horse race.
(Not to be complacent though; if all the angry white racists show up, Trump can win—but only if none of the non-racist whites and minorities don’t show up).
Brachiator
@catclub: The Mark Cuban interview is actually quite good. He offers a sober assessment of Trump. I think this piece, and even Colin Powell’s emails offer good reasons for opposing Trump.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Kay,
you were the one who crystallized it for me a few months ago.
They want to absolutely destroy the New Deal and take away the American Social Safety Net, and throw us back into the 1800’s.
Yep.
Never forget…they chose ECONOMIC TREASON against this country, in the midst of the greatest Economic Downturn since the Great Depression on January 20, 2009.
Never forget that.
Major Major Major Major
@Gravenstone: wow. That reminds me of when Meg Whitman ran an ad saying “when I first came to California it seemed like anything was possible…” and Jerry Brown’s response was Gosh, who was governor then?
JMG
Kevin Drum points out Trump’s tax plan calls for almost eliminating FDA food safety inspections. Seems to me that ought to be mentioned by Democrats, oh, every six seconds for the next two months.
rikyrah
@Mike J:
I expected it.
Was there a thinking person that didn’t believe that Hillary would do better with White People than Barack Obama?
Really?
Seriously?
Of course, they come up with this,
Trump’s at 1% with Blacks
Low teens with Latinos
About the same with Asians..
but, it’s a horse race.
Uh huh
Uh huh
Something does not add up
jl
@Major Major Major Major:
Edit: thanks for expressing my thoughts more clearly and more briefly.
I think a problem for the idea that White racism, or white nationalism, is the sole underlying cause is why it seems so powerful now? The GOP had disruptive elements before that tried to put it front and center, and I think it was seen as hurting them Pat Buchanan is an example.
I don’t think either one is an independent prime cause. I think that both are independent causes that also have a lot of interaction. A prosperous White bigot is a complacent White bigot who will let things slide in terms of diversity, for example. Racism and bigotry are less ‘fixable’ in the short run. A lot of older White bigots will never fully abandon their prejudices, we have to hope that their kids are not as bad, and persuade the oldster to put of with stuff that they don’t really like in the meantime, and help it do gown by not being indifferent to their legitimate complaints (though that is usually not easy, since they are likely to mix up their legitimate complaints with bigot and racist nonsense).
Mnemosyne
@gwangung:
IIRC, part of what happened in the 2010 midterms was that a small but statistically significant group of whites turned out who had NOT voted in 2008.
I still don’t think there are enough of them in blue and purple states to flip the election to Trump, but it’s another reason not to get complacent about turnout.
Jeffro
Courage, it couldn’t come at a worse time…
There’s no simple
Explanation
For anything important
Any of us do
And, yeah, the human
Tragedy
Consists in
The necessity
Of living with
The consequences
Under…
(listening to a little Tragically Hip right now…seemed apropos…)
Let’s keep talking about consequences, folks, because it sure looks like America could use another dose of Fear of a Trump Planet.
Running on high-minded ideals is fine if this were that kind of contest…it ain’t. It’s not apples and oranges, it’s not even apples and moldy strawberries. It’s apples and rancid meat (or if you prefer, Italian vs tire rims and anthrax)
jl
@Major Major Major Major: Won’t happen, and I suppose would be no point to it other than entertainment, but would be interesting to see Trump debate Jerry Brown.
We’d see if Trump’s health is as good as he claims, or maybe if it is not, see him stroke out.
Iowa Old Lady
@rikyrah: Which is why I think there’s a sampling problem in the polls. From what I can see, they assume a whiter electorate than 2008 and 2012, despite they country having become less white. They probably think POC won’t turn out for Clinton like they did for Obama.
Tazj
@Kay: You would think this would get attention
Oliver Willis and Digby have it on their Twitter feeds or I wouldn’t know about it. You would think just in the interest of self preservation the rest of the national media would question him about this. We’ll see.
hovercraft
@gwangung:
Because democrats are registering as less enthusiastic, especially minorities so the pollsters are assuming depressed minority turnout. Chuck Todd said earlier in the week that she was doing worse than Obama with white voters in some states. I would assume he was referring to OH and NV, but I can’t remember. I think the pollsters are making the same mistake they made in 2012, lack of enthusiasm is not the same as disengagement. In the re-elect we weren’t as excited as ’08, but we still turned out, and this year just like last time, we have a superior ground game. I think this is a good wake up call, to remind us to GOTV, complacency is our enemy.
Ryan
Academic and intellectual are synonyms. Why use both? Also, why separate them with a dash instead of a comma? Is academic – intellectual supposed to mean something special?
jl
@Tazj: HRC needs to start hammering Trump on all of his idiotic policy statements and incoherent flip flops.
hovercraft
@JMG:
This is the headline on his speech at TPM:
Enough said.
BR
@rikyrah:
That something is turnout. Hillary is up with registered voters, but the likely voter screens are (I think accurately) showing less enthusiasm for Hillary than there was for Obama. That’s why I keep posting, over and over, that everyone needs to volunteer — it takes 30 seconds to put in your zip code and sign up for a local event.
I don’t know many people who were even vaguely political who sat on the sidelines in 2008 — everyone was volunteering. That’s not the case this time. If we volunteer we will win.
Patricia Kayden
@Iowa Old Lady: And yet Trump has given POC every reason to come out and vote against him. There is no doubt what he will do to and against POC should he win. Can you imagine someone as vindictive and bigoted like that Trump having all the power of the Presidency at his beck and call? That thought should get every liberal, progressive, POC, etc., to get out and vote and to encourage as many people as possible to do the same.
Major Major Major Major
@jl: that would be awesomely entertaining. It would be cool to see Jerry stumping for Hillary but there’s no love lost between him and the Clintons I think.
Roger Moore
@jl:
No. That’s not what I said. What I said is that the current state of the country makes racists generally anxious, and that anxiousness extends to economics, so that racists are more likely to be anxious about the economy than non-racists in the same economic circumstances. I never said, and I don’t believe, that they’re making up feelings of economic anxiety to cover their racism. I think they’re generally anxious about everything they say they are, including economics, crime, and terrorism. I just think they’re anxious because they’re racist and Obama has been a huge shock to them, not racist because they’re anxious.
Miss Bianca
@jl: I’m going to go ahead and call bullshit on this one. Any white person with a brain and a heart who’s suffering from economic hard times ought to be able to tell the difference between Clinton, who has an actual economic plan, and Trump, who’s got nothing but hot air and racialist fog-horning. And *any* person, regardless of race, color, or creed, who is voting for Trump is either dumber than a bag of hammers, or is cool with racist and sexist rhetoric if not an actual racist or sexist him- or herself. No more excuses. No more apologies. No more special pleading for “the white working class”.
Mnemosyne
@jl:
Here’s the problem: we have white people feeling a lot of economic insecurity, but their diagnosis of the root of the problem is cuckoo bananas, and the only “solutions” they will support would actually make the problem worse.
When I was a young teenager babysitting my 2-year-old cousin, he fell and split his lip — blood EVERYWHERE. But when he saw that he had blood on his hand (because he had touched his lip with it), he was convinced that his hand hurt and wouldn’t let me clean it. I finally managed to wipe a little of the blood off and when it didn’t hurt, he finally let me clean up the rest.
Am I saying that Trump voters have the emotional maturity and understanding of a 2-year-old? Yep, pretty much, and with little hope that they’ll grow out of it.
(My cousin survived his adventure without a scratch and is now a 6-foot tall blonde California liberal. Yay!)
Applejinx
@jl: Yeah. It’s extremely stupid to deny economic problems after Brexit. It reminds me of how old and neoliberal this place so often is.
Look at this: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PRS84006173
That is my litmus test for how the economy’s doing, because it (and metrics like it) have closely tracked how I did as a small business owner. LOOK at it. It’s showing a clear trend line towards recovery, but consider the context. Look at the trajectory SINCE 2001. Hell, since the 1970s, 1960s, 1950s. Look at 2008. Gee, what could have happened then that would fling our government into full-on petulant hara-kiri mode and a conscious, planned attempt to ruin everyone and punish them for electing a socialist niclang?
Economics IS politics and this graph documents the war on the public sector and indeed the public in general. It doesn’t just happen. 2001 and 2008 are both momentous in that they are inflection points triggering full-on internal war on America itself, first with a neocon orgy and unfunded war, and then the punishing of the nation for electing Barack Obama.
Of course if you think business and the stock market and index funds including Halliburton etc. are important, this will make no sense and things have never been more awesome, and you are the 1% (and a damn traitor in practical terms).
But people’s LIVED EXPERIENCE tracks this metric quite well, and that is why Trump hasn’t already failed his way out of here.
Mnemosyne
@Iowa Old Lady:
Which is a racist assumption in and of itself, of course. Most POC I know are champing at the bit to vote for Hillary.
Applejinx
(continued) I suspect the reason that now the media’s at war with Clinton (yeah, that’s novel, that never happens) is because she poses a threat to their core assumptions.
She was indeed associated with the neoliberal movement (basically, economic privateers, see NAFTA, New Labour etc) because that was the times, I can’t fault her for going along with the prevailing Very Smart People at the time (certainly not reviling them and balking them). People are assuming they can predict future behavior based on that.
But if that was true, Hillary would have lost to Bernie Sanders, rather than taking point for basically the same platform (classic public sector liberalism) and cutting him right out of the equation. She and her people had no intention of losing yet again and they paid attention. They now have Brexit to look at, as a cautionary tale. I don’t really believe they are that special kind of stupid to double down on basically Trump economics (the irony is, Trump is appealing to the economically desperate, but he has no fucking clue how to fix anything).
How to fix everything is, public sector liberalism and becoming a deficit-fueled international consumer of the world’s products. Our public sector would feed SO many people if it was cranked up. It’s more productive than the private sector. Hell, smart private sector people like Elon Musk take full advantage of all the public sector funding they can. Employed people can buy stuff. That includes imports, and notably the Eurozone will be increasingly desperate to export.
The world can end up depending on America to consume, and completely unable to say an unkind word about our decifits (which thanks to Democratic administrations aren’t so bad, it’s the Republicans who blow the debt up, usually with corruption and war). International war is now trade, full stop. That’s how it’s done. (that’s also why Obama’s been wanting the TPP: it’s biased towards American companies, though not at all the American people)
The media don’t dare let Clinton be President: they are predominantly 1%ers and are deeply invested in bullshitting the populace in order for their little neoliberal investor-class con game to continue. They sold out very long ago but have been doubling down until people are on the verge of guillotines and revolt, and now they want to redirect the anger.
And again: even granted that Clinton is greedy and power-mad (like all politicians? hint hint even Bernie?), she stands to gain more from taking over the government and doing basically what Bill did. Intense spending, put people to work, jack up taxes on the investor class and tell them ‘shut up, you’ll be doing better in four years and you know it’. And they would, but it’s heresy to side with labor or the people, so they want to take her down.
Hillary would have lost to Bernie Sanders if she wasn’t prepared to read the electorate. I think the chances of her stupidly coddling rich people and the financial sector are roughly the same as Trump winning. It could happen, but there’s a lot of evidence to suggest she isn’t that kind of dumb.
Also, if she does understand the dire economic straits her country is in, she can’t say it any more than she can admit pneumonia. Look for declarations that she’ll fix everything, but no real admissions that fixing is necessary. And for the love of God, don’t be stupid and decide that since she’s not declaring disaster, that things are great and awesome. She would not be campaigning this way if she thought things were great and needed no salvaging. But she can’t say it. She won’t say it, you have to just accept that there will be no negative-sounding appraisals given to the press.
Behind elite, closed doors, her team correctly identified the Bernie threat, is aware of what happened with Brexit, and they will bring this home if they’ve got any brains and ambition at all. Hell, it’d even be the same Clinton playbook. This is not hard.
Brachiator
@Amir Khalid:
I found Trump and Sanders both to be inferior candidates. So yeah, I care about being on the right side. But ultimately it doesn’t mean squat unless we win. If Trump somehow wins, there will be absolutely no comfort in being right.
Feebog
@rikyrah:
I have some of the same questions about recent polls. I took a look at the cross tabs on the NYT/CBS poll and one thing that stands out is that Johnson is taking away a lot of independent voters from Clinton. I don’t think that entirely explains the numbers, but something the Clinton camp certainly has to be concerned about.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
This does not make sense to me.
“I just lost my job and I don’t have any savings. But I’m non-racist, so I’m cool.”
Nope. Doesn’t make sense at all.
That Trump appears to be gaining ground after a couple of weeks of news and commentary focusing on race should tell you something about race being less of a factor for some people.
Trump is a bit of a conundrum. His recent visits to black churches, etc., at one level appears insincere and ineffective. And it is not just weird, but a warning sign that he has attached himself to some obvious bigots. But here’s the crazy thing. How many other Republican presidential candidates have spent more than a hot second in a black neighborhood? Is he really reaching out to white voters when he does this? Maybe. But he wouldn’t have to bother if the people he wanted to reach were stone cold racists.
NorthLeft12
I just want to add that the entire comparison of Flight 93 to a bunch of greedy, ignorant, and bigoted RWNJs is offensive to me. And as a Canadian, I avoid the 9/11 remembrance stuff with a passion, but I did end up watching the movie “United 93” directed by Paul Greengrass just this last weekend.
I have to admit that I was quite moved by this story of ordinary people caught in a nightmarish scenario. Even knowing the story did not prepare me for the emotional impact.
Again, a pox on that essayist for his truly odious comparison.
Betty Cracker
@NorthLeft12: Agreed. It is deeply offensive.
eclare
@btom89: Congratulations! Amazon is currently reviewing my review.
Brachiator
@Feebog:
Yep. An NBC poll analyst noted this same thing last week (I think during a Maddow show appearance).
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
Take your example of somebody who just lost their job and has no savings. Yes, it would be rational to be anxious in that case. But you’re likely to be a little less worried if you believe the economy is doing well enough that you’ll be able to get another job in short order, or that at least you’ll get enough benefits to keep you from starving, than if you’re convinced the economy is completely in the tank and you’re facing long-term unemployment.
And even in the worst of the Great Recession, most people didn’t lose their jobs. If they were anxious, it was because they were worried about whether they would lose their jobs in the future, or if there would be money for raises, etc. Again, your economic anxiety level is going to be affected by your overall perception of the strength of the economy. If you think things are going well, you’re going to be less worried about layoffs, more optimistic about raises, etc. than somebody who has a generally negative view of the economy.
And the evidence shows that at least since Obama’s election, racists are more likely to have a negative view of the economic big picture. I found this article that talks about it. What they found is that there’s been a shift in people’s perception of the economy depending on their attitudes on race. To quote them:
The really interesting thing is that the effect shows up in a longitudinal study, i.e. one where they interviewed the same people in 2007 and 2012. They also say that when they looked at the reverse, people’s perception of the economy didn’t shift their racial views. IOW, being a racist makes people doubt the Obama economy, not the other way around.
eclare
@BR: Just signed up. Phone banking.
Tripod
Liberty? LULZ. Lots of voters hold conservative views. The GOP white nationalist shit show exclude them on the basis of skin tone or gender or sexual orientation…..
Miss Bianca
@Roger Moore:
This. This dynamic is what I’m talking about, here. This is why racists can tell themselves that they’re voting for Trump because they’re really worried about is the economy, and I am damned sick and tired of liberal apologists saying, “well, wait, you can’t just call them racists, they’re really WORRIED about the economy!”
Turgidson
@JMG:
That’s the kind of thing the Dems could focus-group, and the respondents would refuse to believe it was a serious proposal. This happened quite a bit in 2012, when Willard Mitt “Mittens” Romney was running with the Zombie-Eyed Granny Starver and borrowed most of his Roadmap to Dystopia for his tax plans. Swing voters the Dems focus grouped simply refused to believe Romney was actually proposing that heinous nonsense.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
I think that most people understand their own personal situation pretty well, and even though there has been some improvement, the economy is still slow, wages are still stagnant.
The difference between those who have racial resentment vs those who don’t has more to do with who they blame for their predicament, a sad, dangerous insistence that a black president could never care about them and a fundamental belief that America exists primarily to benefit white people.
But this is separate from any flawed observation that non-racists are less anxious about the economy. This might be similar to what some of the stories you cite say.
Maybe it’s just a matter of emphasis.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
They may understand their own situation in terms of their job, but your opinion of the economy as a whole is very important, too. As I said, if you think the economy as a whole is in bad shape, you’ll be more anxious about long-term wage growth, about job stability, and about your ability to get another job if you lose your current one. And, as their study showed clearly, people with more negative racial attitudes had a more negative opinion about the economy; the ones with the most negative attitudes thought the unemployment rate was rising even as it was falling.
And I don’t think this is limited to economics, either. The numbers say crime has gotten dramatically better over the past 20 years, but plenty of people think it’s worse, and you can bet that racial attitudes have a huge impact there, too. The same thing with education, teen pregnancy, etc. Lots of people believe those things are getting worse even as the numbers say they’re getting better, and it’s a fair bet that racists are more likely to have negative attitudes. After all, how could things be improving when the country is being overrun by Those People?
Applejinx
fred.stlouisfed.org
since the post I put this in is stuck in moderation…
You can plainly see we are on a trajectory of improvement that looks like a trend.
You can also plainly see that it is, we hope, OUT of the shit, which we are still in, those of us who are ‘labor’ and not the investor class.
Very simple, really. ‘the economy’ includes capital, treated as whatever proportion of money it represents (pro tip: most). The human beings tend to resemble ‘labor’ a lot more, things are improving, and we are historically bad off and just barely showing signs of recovery, which is not a given (much less ‘happy days are here again’).
Applejinx
fred.stlouisfed.org
Oh, for heavens’ sake. Is the St. Louis Fed a synonym for boner pill?
Help with the freakin’ FYWP would be appreciated. I don’t even know what the heck is triggering it this time.
You can plainly see we are on a trajectory of improvement that looks like a trend: and that we are historically in the shit and only barely poking a desperate fingertip OUT of it. So claiming everything is grand, is disingenuous.
Chris T.
@Shell: The proper response to someone saying that is to slap them (or punch in the nose, etc). When they ask “what was that for?” you say “you wanted a change, I made a change!”
(seriously, violence is not the answer, but this would make a good cartoon)
Roger Moore
@Applejinx:
No, but naked links will set of some reflex in FYWP every time.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Applejinx:
FYWP currently doesn’t like naked links.
Can you explain what that chart shows? What is “labor share” of the business sector?
Uncle Cosmo
@hovercraft: Road apple doesn’t fall far from the horse’s ass.
Applejinx
@Roger Moore:
@Steeplejack (phone):
Oh, thanks: that explains it :) “The wage share (or labor share) is the ratio between compensation of employees (according to the system of National accounts) and one of the following variables: gross domestic product at market prices. gross domestic product at factor cost. net domestic product at factor cost (domestic income at factor cost)”
jl
@Miss Bianca: I can see your point, but the electoral problem is that thoughtless people have the right to vote as well as thoughtful people. And in some parts of the country, it is easier for thoughtless Non-Hispanic White people to vote than for thoughtful non-White people who are poor or pressed for time due to various responsibilities.
So, if you can go ahead and be dismissive, but you have to face the facts as they are to win elections. I’d rather win elections.
I do think how to address the problem of economic anxiety among certain Whites who have bigoted tendencies is a problem. It is too easy to get lost in various Byzantine code word and subtext tangles involving ‘White working class’ or ‘White heritage’ crap. But I think we need to try.
Barb2
@Chip Daniels:
Bingo – hating the “other”. The unifying variable.
LAC
@Iowa Old Lady: I have voted in every election since I could vote. I am a likely voter and I am 53 years old. But I have never got a polling call. I do think that we are underrepresented in the polling and not considered a factor in some minds, hence the “de white folk panic” button being hit. I never understood the disconnect. But as long as it spurs action, then bring on the New York Times / CBS poll of shut-in old white folks.