Derp Furor. pic.twitter.com/ZcVREq6aDg
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) November 20, 2015
Nate Cohn, in the NYTimes, says “The G.O.P. Establishment Has a Big New Hampshire Problem“:
The last two Republican presidential primary contests have followed the same script: A conservative candidate wins in Iowa, a relative moderate wins in New Hampshire, and the latter — with broader appeal and all of the establishment’s resources — outlasts the former in a protracted fight for the nomination.
But so far this cycle, New Hampshire’s voters aren’t playing along. Donald Trump has led every poll in New Hampshire since June. Candidates like Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush have struggled to get out of the single digits.
The weakness of mainstream candidates in New Hampshire poses a big challenge for the party’s beleaguered establishment. If a candidate acceptable to the party can’t win New Hampshire or Iowa, the G.O.P. will face a bleak choice: undertake the daunting and expensive task of mounting a come-from-behind effort, or grudgingly acquiesce to a candidate it really doesn’t want, like Ted Cruz, but who may be better than someone it can never accept, like Mr. Trump….
How is Mr. Trump doing so well? He’s drawing on many moderate and secular voters who haven’t supported the anti-establishment but usually religious candidates who have fared well in Iowa. The same pattern emerges in national polls, which often show Mr. Trump faring best among self-described moderates…
No worries, reports the Wall Street Journal — “GOP Operative Plans ‘Guerrilla Campaign’ Against Donald Trump“:
The Republican establishment, increasingly alarmed by the enduring strength of Donald Trump’s presidential bid, is ratcheting up efforts to knock him out of the race, including the first attempt to unite donors from rival camps into a single anti-Trump force.
A well-connected GOP operative is planning a “guerrilla campaign” backed by secret donors to “defeat and destroy” the celebrity businessman’s candidacy, according to a memo reviewed by The Wall Street Journal…
… The sense of urgency has mounted in part because Mr. Trump continues at or near the top of GOP polls, even after many predicted that the Paris terror attacks would lead voters to turn to a more seasoned candidate.
The most concerted effort is Trump Card LLC, the self-styled guerrilla campaign being launched by Liz Mair, the former online communications director of the Republican National Committee.
“In the absence of our efforts, Trump is exceedingly unlikely to implode or be forced out of the race,” according to the Trump Card memo. “The stark reality is that unless something dramatic and unconventional is done, Trump will be the Republican nominee and Hillary Clinton will become president.”
Opposition research, grass-roots organizing and donor outreach has been going on for weeks, Ms. Mair said, while declining to name any backers. “It’s loosely organized and highly confidential,” she said. “I certainly know donors who are very happy that their fingerprints will be kept off things.”…
Ms. Mair, who has ties to the libertarian movement and the GOP establishment, said that donors backing Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Mr. Kasich and Mr. Bush are interested, and that some worry that going public could hurt their candidate…
…[P]ossible tactics include fake pro-Trump ads that show him supporting socialized medicine, seizing property through eminent domain and taking other positions that stray from GOP orthodoxy; using a Trump impersonator to show him insulting people; and attacking his business record in “stark, nasty terms.”
The goal, according to the memo, isn’t to convert Mr. Trump’s supporters into backing other candidates, but to dissuade them from voting altogether, especially in New Hampshire’s influential first-in-the-nation primary…
My emphases. If you have a dim memory of reading about Liz Mair in the not-too-distant past, she was the hip young digital strategist hastily sin-binned by Scott Walker’s campaign for WrongThink:
… “In other news, I see Iowa is once again embarrassing itself, and the GOP, this morning. Thanks, guys,” Mair wrote of a January event hosted by conservative Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), according to the Associated Press. “The sooner we remove Iowa’s front-running status, the better off American politics and policy will be.”…
So, she’s not in the business to be loved, obviously. Whether she and her “donors” can actually do much to kneecap Donald “Il Douche” Trump… well, The Hairpiece would certainly be a high-value trophy for an oppo-research firm with no ethics, assuming that last clause isn’t redundant.
"Secret guerrilla plan" to stop Trump & "save the party" conducted by ppl who nearly destroyed the party. https://t.co/wDgkwdHK7x
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) November 20, 2015
Mike J
Just chopped eight pounds of onions for onion soup tonight. Now the six hours of cooking down begins.
jayboat
Great response in the comments of that piece:
Take a bow, Republicans.
You fought for unlimited money in elections, since money = free speech.
You mocked community organizers and yearned for a businessman who would run government like a business.
You detest civility and “political correctness” in favor of crudely and obnoxiously “telling it like it is.”
You reject the spirit of compromise in favor of misleading attack ads and the politics of personal destruction.
You want a president you can have a beer with, and who doesn’t talk like he’s smarter than you.
You attack public education, teacher’s unions, the arts and humanities, academics and the “cultural elites” in favor of dumbed-down and simplistic “common sense.”
You attack mainstream media and public broadcasting in favor of ratings-driven hate radio shock jocks and Fox News.
You reject cultural and ethnic diversity in favor of “real Americans.” and demonized immigrants as violent disease-infected marauders who steal jobs from Americans.
You celebrate intolerance, bigotry and hatred as “religious freedom” and “traditional family values.”
You elect clueless, unaccountable anti-government motormouths with no loyalty to their constituents in a misguided effort to rein in the “government overreach” of “career politicians.”
With each new iteration and election cycle you have managed to further coarsen and debase the level of civic discourse and political participation.
Having made “liberal” a slur, you now have made “moderate” an epithet worthy of derision.
And now, as your party leaders cringe powerlessly, you cheer on the unprecedented spectacle of a yahoo and vulgarian, a cartoonish reality TV “boss” with national name recognition, notoriety and multi-billions at his disposal making a mockery of not only your primaries but the country’s entire electoral process.
Congratulations, Republicans, on the fulfillment and culmination of your efforts.
At long last, take a bow.
Frankensteinbeck
Anyone who predicted that is in deep, deep denial about the role of racism in Republican politics.
Right. Carson has the fundie bigots sewn up. Trump has the more secular bigots.
What was it, 75% of self-described ‘independents’ are not just partisan, but the most partisan voters of all?
Debbie
Fake pro-Trump ads? No thought that Trump would immediately jump on Twitter and call them out for this dirty trick and that it could totally undermine their efforts and make Trump even more inevitable? Yeah, that’ll be just the ticket!
Chris
“Am I jumping the gun, Baldric, or are the words ‘I have a cunning plan’ marching with ill deserved confidence in the direction of this conversation?”
jl
OK, I think I’ve recovered from laughing fits.
“The goal, according to the memo, isn’t to convert Mr. Trump’s supporters into backing other candidates, but to dissuade them from voting altogether, ”
I can’t read the link since I won’t give WSJ any money. But, how are they going to dissuade Trump supporters from voting? Anyone who has a subscription, give me a clue, please.
Well, I guess it is natural, since voter suppression is the first thing they think about if they are afraid of losing an election. If a segment of the GOP gets in the way of the establishment GOP party apparatus, why should anything be any different? Keep them away from the polls. Seems, though, it is easirt to dissuade low information voters, or voters with high costs of voting due to poverty or long work hours in the general, than to dissuade fired up nutballs agitated by Juanold Terump in a primary.
Edit: problem is that if loser schnooks like Rubio and Jeb? can get barely over 10 percent (and I think that is now a lost dream for Jeb?), they are going to have to keep a lot of people away from the polls.
I guess depends on how serious Trump has been about building a GOTV political organization. Media reports in late summer said he was seriously funding one. Time will tell, I suppose.
Chris
@jayboat:
Fuck, that was epic.
Jewish Steel
Not the kind of thing you telegraph let alone leak to the WSJ if you have something truly effective in mind.
This is just another grift. And there’s the tell.
Redshift
Emphasis mine. I guess modern journamalists can’t be bothered to point out the previous (unsuccessful) efforts to unite donors behind an anti-Trump. So much easier to just rewrite this press release without question.
Brachiator
I saw the WSJ story last night. I wondered whether Rupert Murdoch, who owns the journal, was giving Trump advance warning of the bum rush to come.
It is going to be interesting to see how Trump reacts to this, whether it will fire his anger as much as he gets riled when he feels he is not getting the respect of female debate moderators.
But even if the GOP grandees successfully oust Trump, they will still have problems with the core of Republican voters, who have clearly signaled that they are not happy with what they perceive as a feckless and insincere GOP mainstream.
And oh yeah, the Republicans carefully nurtured the worst fears and instincts of GOP voters. It is too funny for words that they didn’t realize what rough beasts they would unleash.
ETA: on the following:
A well-connected GOP operative is planning a “guerrilla campaign” backed by secret donors to “defeat and destroy” the celebrity businessman’s candidacy…
This sadly reminds me of the assurances of the efficacy of military attacks designed to destroy and degrade ISIS.
dmsilev
A ‘guerilla campaign’ that starts its stealthy work by announcing its existence in the Wall Street Journal? Yes, that definitely will work.
It wouldn’t surprise me to learn of a _real_ undercover campaign against Trump, but it’d be the sort of thing that we’d only learn about once the “Trump once said something nice about Obama” ads actually started airing.
dmsilev
@jayboat: Shorter version: “To the great surprise of Doctor Frankenstein, his creation is no longer under his control.”
Also of note: In the original story, once the ‘monster’ awoke and was spurned by his creator, said monster very quickly devoted himself to ruining his creator’s life.
Betty
@jayboat: Thank you. That pretty much says it all.
Iowa Old Lady
I must be too dumb hick to figure out what’s going on, but is “UP” still on MSNBC?
jl
@efgoldman:
” They’re so very bad at politics. How the hell are they winning all these elections. Other than lying and cheating, I mean. ”
My belief is that very slow and frustrating job market recovery after the 2007/8 recession suppressed turnout, which very badly damaged Democratic candidates. Plus, to honest, a few points to the GOP due to White bigots and racists. I am not discounting the GOP lying and cheating, or effect of wedge issues, but I think depressed turnout had a lot to do with disastrous midterms.
Haydnseek
@Debbie: You beat me to it. If challenged, all Trump has to do is direct attention to the WSJ article and their little playhouse comes tumbling down.
dmsilev
Maybe the reporter got it wrong. The GOP is actually planning a gorilla campaign against Trump. There’s going to be someone following him around in an ape suit, and Because Reasons, that will cause Trump to lose support.
bemused
@jl:
Disuade fired up Trump supporters from voting altogether? That’s a head scratcher. I doubt there’s any trumped up stories they could smear Trump with that would turn off his groupies.
Germy
Oh shit, wait til srv hears about this…
jl
@Redshift: And actually, IIRC, there have been efforts to unite the funders in last couple of election cycles. To get the best true conservative candidate, or truest social conservative hero, whatever. Never seems to come to anything.
The dull witted and earnest Walker maybe the only example of someone who promptly and precisely obeyed orders.
bemused
@efgoldman:
They are in denial.
pat
I wonder if they are telegraphing their intentions in the hope that Trump will go even further into raving lunatic mode against his opponents, thereby turning off his followers.
After writing that, I remembered that the more insanely antagonistic he gets, the more they love him.
Frankly I don’t know who worries me more, President Trump or President Cruz. Probably Cruz, actually.
p.a.
Well if they’re gonna rat fuck Trump, I would 1) characterize him as a target rich environment. 2) advise the rat fuckers to wear double layer hazmat suits, because unlike McCain 2000 Donnie won’t sit there and take it.
JPL
Where does Trump’s support go? Ted Cruz must be smiling.
NotMax
Magilla GorillaAttila Guerrilla.Because a circular firing squad is such a savvy idea.
Petard. Hoist. Repeat.
(Of course, the one Spanish term they’re willing to publicly appropriate is a martial one.)
Gex
I think in the past that the hard core bigotry of the conservative candidates has been muted some by their Christian extremist Bible thumping. Trump provides access to all the hatred of others (based on race and gender) without having to actually find the Biblical portion of the platform appealing. Meanwhile Trump offers nothing that offends the Bible thumpers. It’s evolution in action. Trump is the the superbug of GOP politics.
mdblanche
@Chris: “Fear not, my lord…”
jl
@Debbie:
” Fake pro-Trump ads? ”
Is that the plan? How weird and outrageous would a fake Trump ad have to be to turn off Trump voters? He already loudly and jovially insulted Iowa GOP voters outright for supporting Carson. Something like ‘How stupid are people in Iowa?’
Maybe they are planning to run ads that Trump is really a Jeb? in disguise?
dmsilev
@bemused:
“Trump is actually the son of an illegal Guatemalan immigrant”
piratedan7
the current tea bagger wants a sugar daddy who’ll take care of things… kick the upstarts to the curbs making sure everyone knows who is really in charge as far as foreign policy is concerned and if a few ghetto kids, migrant worker sons and some white trash buy it in the course of making that happen, that’s a price they’re willing to let them pay. As for things back home. they want it white and christian and they would like their sluts to be available but not brazen. They want it understood that they will be on 3rd base tyvm and if anyone else succeeds, well that’s just gravy because we all like the odd sporting event and concert.
As for anything else, just stfu because as long as NCIS is on (used to be Murder She Wrote and Matlock) then life is good as long as they feel that they have it better than everyone else, which is how it should be.
scav
Announcing that the traditional mainstream GOP apparatus and big money are plotting against Trump? Announcing same in MSM? O! is there redder possible meat to throw to the Trump followers in a little trail of crumbs leading toward the polls?
Haydnseek
@Redshift: Yeah, great idea. It’ll be just like The Avengers, only with old, white neo-fascist billionaires. Love to be a fly on the wall in some of those meetings…….
Amir Khalid
Add me to the people who don’t see any chance of this plan succeeding. The more The Donald looks and acts like a fascist, the more his fans love him. The more you paint him as a party outsider, the more a party base disenchanted with the party establishment will cling to him. The more successful you are in discouraging Republican turnout so they won’t vote for him, the more likely it is that Democrats will gain House and Senate seats next year. This plan is like putting Donald in Lady Gaga’s meat dress, and expecting stray mutts to run away from him.
Brachiator
@efgoldman:
And where are the strong Democratic candidates to actually run in elections?
@NotMax:
Fixed that for ya. I wonder who the GOP Che behind this guerrilla campaign might be?
blackcain
So, let me get this straight, these people are actively trying to knock down the front runner and possibly the second runner so that they can get their establishment types back in the race. That’s going to backfire, they’ve created a system that rewards exactly this kind of thing. I mean, you have republican politicians amping up the crazy. Do they think that they are going to turn around and attract moderates after their party folks continue to their crazy outreach?
They will crash. They will burn. And they’ll be out millions of dollars in the attempt.
gelfling545
Since Trump stands on the stage & blasts the audience with rhetoric & ignorance that would ruin practically any other candidate I can’t imagine how they hope to deal with him other than buying him off or an assassination attempt.
jl
@blackcain:
” They will crash. They will burn. And they’ll be out millions of dollars in the attempt. ”
Which brings a thought to my mind. This certainly could be a cunning plan, that will actually work, to pump a huge pile of cash towards GOP consultants and media flacks. The GOP is so lost in its own BS, that the only truly cunning plan any of them can hatch, and that also will work, these days, is to con some money, or some votes, out of some suckers.
Brachiator
@Gex:
I’m not sure this is entirely the case. Carson’s strong support has been among fundamentalists and deeply religious people who find Trump insincere about his religious convictions. And so, you had two outsiders running strongly against the GOP mainstream, but appealing to different audiences.
It will be interesting to see whether Trump benefits from any collapse of Carson’s candidacy.
bemused
@dmsilev:
Ha. Or plant rumors with rightwing media that Trump has been secretly meeting with Hillary and possibly Obama who have made a deal Trump can’t refuse to take a dive when he gets nomination and too close to election for GOP to turn things around.
Germy
@Amir Khalid:
If they want to succeed, they’ll paint him as an insider … a friend of Hillary & Bill.
NotMax
@blackcain
So, no downside then?
@BrachiatorKind of ruins the intended subtle implication of bungled Hispanic outreach, though.
blackcain
@jl:
Sure, why not? I mean it is trickle down economics. Except the money is coming from folks like Adelson. Keep pumping money hoping that they get a leg up on the political ladder. The only thing it will do of course is attract more asshats who want to manipulate the base to get more money and get in on the cash train. Those big donors are getting shit for their money. It’s actually quite sad to watch. In the last 10 years, the party has produced NOTHING. No bills, nothing.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: The Howard Dean question is a good one, but the way the DNC operates in regards to Congressional, state, and local elections is only one part of the explanation. As is gerrymandering. If you go back and look at it, the longer a presidency goes on, the poorer the president’s party does in midterm elections. And that holds for Senate, House, governorships, state legislatures, all the way down. It is very rare to see a president’s party pick up seats in a midterm.
p.a.
Can’t say an attack on Trump won’t work because these voters are truly stupid people. Fear makes you stupid. (Am I not supposed to say that re:previous post?) Who knows what the little mouse on the wheel in their heads will respond to?
MattF
They’re going to spread rumors that 1) Trump was encouraged to run by Bill Clinton (which is actually true), 2) Trump is zombie Vince Foster and the kerning in his campaign literature proves it was printed in 2002, 3) Trump is a Kenyan Muslim Socialist who spends every night in the basement of a deserted Wal-Mart store and wants to take your guns away.
jl
@MattF: @Germy: But they already tried 1), didn’t they? Trump used to be a liberal, mingled with the Clintons?
Trump just shrugged it off. reminding people that Reagan was at first a pro-union Democrat, and absolutely he did go to a some yoooge and really classy and fantastic Clinton functions in the course of buying off politicians and influence peddling. Hell, Trump might graciously offer to show off the pics of Himself and Clintons at some old Bash to his next few rally crowds.
rikyrah
I don’t know who will win Governor of Louisiana tonight but..
Even if the Dem loses, he will be able to say to himself that he brought it. That he brought a gun to a gun fight. He was not playing with Vitter, and did not pretend that he was playing with him. He should have no regrets, cause he beat DAT AZZ continuously throughout this campaign.
Anoniminous
For the next six weeks GOP voters will be focused on the holiday season, not politics. Then it’s four weeks to Iowa, a week later is NH, and we’re off to the races. In theory, there is still time to knock off Trump. But you can’t beat someone with nobody and the GOP Establishment/Corporate Wing doesn’t have anybody. JEB! has destructed. Rubio is seemingly taking votes from JEB! and is on an upswing but only to 11.6% support – roughly where he was in May – and 19 points back.
jl
@efgoldman:
” But why do Dems stay home at midterms.”
That, and how to solve the problem, is the 64 K buck question. I think Dean had, and Sanders has, better ideas than the moderate and corporate Democrats, but can’t say that I know much about it.
Juju
@Mike J: Have you made beef stock for your onion soup?
Anoniminous
@efgoldman:
State parties are on life support. The midterms are almost entirely a contest of political organizations GOTV.
Schlemazel
@jayboat:
Well said!! Thanks
@Chris:
+1 for the Black Adder
this is why a ‘like’ button would be nice
rikyrah
couldn’t happen to a better bunch of no-good, rotten muthaphuckas
.
NotMax
Jeb! Smash!!
In a pig’s eye.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
Have we ever seen a party so eager to kneecap its own front runner like this?
Thoughtful Today
…
The Republican Party is perversely showing itself to be more small (d) democratic than the Democratic Party: Less elite control, more debates, and more citizen involvement.
In contrast:
Establishment Dems are perversely relying on anti-democratic elite control, rejection of debates, and rejection of Citizen inclusion.
Fascinating, yes?
Clinton supporters are welcome to explain the perils of
democraticmob rule.I’d love to hear it from them.
Mike J
@Juju: Nope, I’m a wimp, I bought it.
srv
@Germy: Hopefully, you people are coming out of your denial.
I’ve been saying for months that Trump will win the moderates and millions who have had enough of the Clintons. And the poutraged Berniebros aren’t voting for her – they’ll either be noshows or pulling the lever for Trump.
Brachiator
@p.a.:
Fear makes you dangerous, often to yourself.
Not quite the same thing as stupidity.
These GOP Trump hunters still act like the members of a country club, even when fearful. Like Jeb! at his worst, they seem to think that the Donald is a piece of trash, and they just have to put on a pair of gloves and put him out with the rest of the garbage. But to be sure, they are also stewing in a sense of their own sense of superiority.
But Trump is a nasty street fighter. Could he be pushed too hard, and actually pull down the GOP house if backed into a corner?
scav
@Anoniminous: Well, for that
holidayChristmas season, I hope they remember to remove all three Magi from their various crèches. Apart from them all being ivory-tower over-educated elitist “Wise” Men, Casper and Balthazar are clearly dangerous likely terrorists (Casper: Indian scholar, representing Asia. Balthazar: Babylonian scholar, representing Africa). Melchior might get a security pass to be within ten-miles of the baby Jesus as he represents Europe but then he’s a Persian scholar, so probably the scariest of the lot!Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: I get it. My understanding of the literature on this, which I honestly haven’t really stayed up on as its not really pertinent to my work these days, is that its a familiarity issue. And it can be disrupted. Gingrich was counting on picking up seats in the 98 midterms for the GOP, he actually lost them. Some have argued that was the result of him overplaying his hand with impeachment, some that Clinton was just that good a politician. My guess is it was a combination of the two.
NotMax
@Mike J
Not a dish with which to be stingy with the sherry. :)
Onion soup is the sole reason I keep Bovril in the larder, to fortify store bought beef stock.
NotMax
Blockquote text in comments back to being giganticized again.
Fie on that.
rikyrah
It’s almost December 1st, and the crazy azz Trump and Carson continue to lead the polls.
tee hee hee
pamelabrown53
@piratedan7:
Fairly mediocre rant but what’s wrong with NCIS and Murder, She Wrote? (Never watched Matlock).
NCIS, is of course all Hollywoody in that the good guys eventually win and it’s 100% pro American but most of us can differentiate entertainment from reality. As far as Jessica Fletcher: to me she was the TV answer to Miss Manners.
Brachiator
@Thoughtful Today:
What does this mean? What does this mean to you?
How would the Democrats benefit from more debates, especially when Sanders hasn’t seem to evolved past a vision that was shopworn in 1924? He’s already spending more time spouting slogans than elaborating coherent policy. This has made it easy on Clinton, who has also been assisted tremendously by lame debate moderators.
How do you see citizen inclusion (whatever that means) as helping to determine a presidential candidate?
rikyrah
@Mike J:
By hand or cuisinart?
Germy
Headline:
Organizers seat woman behind Trump ‘because she’s black’ — so she silently protests by reading her book
An Illinois woman became an Internet celebrity after she read a book during a campaign speech by Donald Trump.
Johari Osayi Idusuyi, a student at Lincoln Land Community College in Springfield, said she brought a copy of “Citizen,” an award-winning book on everyday racism by Claudia Rankine, to a rally near her home, reported WICS-TV.
“I’m genuinely not interested in him as a person, but if you have the chance to see a presidential candidate, why not?” Idusuyi said.
She and some friends ended up with a spot directly behind the Republican candidate after seeing an open seat and being invited into the VIP section by a campaign staffer.
“I think we were chosen for obvious reasons,” Idusuyi told Jezebel. “We are minorities and there weren’t a lot of minorities there. He also instructed us to sit in the middle, so we kind of already knew what this was.”
Idusuyi insisted she went into the rally with an open mind, but she took out her book and began reading after Trump demanded the removal of some protesters, and she said supporters cheered after a supporter removed a woman’s Obama hat and tossed it into the crowd.
“I thought, ‘That’s bullying, that’s aggressive,’” she said. “I don’t think Trump handled it with grace. I thought, ‘Oh, you’re really not empathetic at all.’ That’s when the shift happened.”
Gex
@Brachiator: True. I guess my point was more that the religious hate was off-putting to the people who are otherwise on the same page as the more extreme Republican candidates with respect to hating racial minorities and foreigners. The H.W. Republicans who could actually find themselves advocating a pro-choice position. So people who were voting for the establishment guy might not have if the more extreme candidate dropped the Dominionist policies.
I still do think that Trump does not do anything to offend the evangelicals, but you are right, they are in the Carson camp at this point.
Amir Khalid
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:
The party establishment fears Trump because he’s not beholden to them. A Republican President who can tell them, “F off, I’ll do what I want” and suffer no consequences is their worst nightmare: he would effectively take over the ruling power in the party. Would you want the Donald running your party?
jl
@Adam L Silverman: As I said, I don’t know much about it except from reading some research awhile back, but IIRC, general optimism and mood, and economic conditions also play a big role in incumbent party turnout in midterms. So, to put it crassly, it is very important to keep those people happy and jollied up.
That is why I thought Obama had to go big on stimulus right after election, and if he couldn’t get it, to loudly blame any and all bad economic things on Republicans who blocked his request.
But, to be honest, it is unfair to blame it all on Obama. Summers tried to mix what he thought was good politics in with macroeconomic analysis and hedged Romer’s quite accurate scenarios. The onset of the recession was much worse than known at the time, actually deeper and more rapid than the onset of the Great Depression. And no one really knew the details of the relative merits of the New Classical/Real Business cycle macro of the Washington Consensus, and ye olde tymey hydropic Keynesian theory, even in a grande olde tymey economic downturn brought on by excess private demand in the wrong sector produced by a fragile over leveraged financial system. I remember Krugman writing a column that basically went ‘It was kind of downer being an economist, with the nagging doubt that it was all BS. But, damn, a silver lining of the Great Recession revealed that this Keynesian stuff really works! I’m actually dong some real science after all!’ So, we really didn’t know if it would have worked. Now we have very good evidence that it would have worked very well, and we all would be better off.
Comrade Dread
It seems to me that Trump is very much the sort of guy who would run a vanity independent campaign to screw the GOP for screwing him over in this way. The establishment guys are betting against Trump’s ego and that seems like quite the long shot.
Thoughtful Today
Clinton supporter to someone they disagree with: “As always you’re trolling and full of shit.”
NotMax
@rikyrah
Old-school style onion soup prepared with onions cut into rings. Slicing 8 pounds that way not all that time consuming.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Funny to see hip(ster) young thing and future of the party Liz Mair (MSNBC likes to have her on, she reminds me of Quinn’s speech about a shark’s eyes in Jaws) being called out by Laura Ingram, whose mini-skirts, zany earnings and fondness for so-called “rock” music made her the face of what was no longer your father’s Republican Party twenty years ago.
Besides over-playing his hand on impeachment and explicitly making it about sex, Gingrich was both a camera junkie and unlikable and off-putting in so many different ways. Tom Delay, Gingrich’s real and so far only successor as leader of the GOP House, didn’t give a shit about TV, or being liked or respected by the Russets and Broders of his world.
Amir Khalid
@Thoughtful Today:
I think they only say that to you.
Brachiator
Meanwhile, in another neck of the woods, Gawker reports on the new crime of flying while Muslim:
I didn’t try a link for fear of getting caught in moderation hell, or worse, but the story is easy to find.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
If the People just heard Bernie’s message, we’d get that political revolution! Voted in by the same people who are currently hiding under their beds in a pool of their own urine because of a terrorist attack on a different continent.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@Amir Khalid: That’s understood. I’m just wondering if anything like this has happened before.
NotMax
@Brachiator
Newly bluenosed FYWP seems to gag only on naked links.
Thoughtful Today
Brachiator, you do realize that you’re advocating an explicitly anti-democratic policy in support of Clinton: Fewer democratic debates and, more bizarrely, a complete failure to understand how “citizen inclusion” helps determine who becomes the Presidential candidate.
And your dismissal of the profoundly (small (d) democratically) popular, feasible, and productive ideas espoused by Sanders … just, wow.
Your comments are usually much more centered.
Germy
@NotMax:
http://catsthatlooklikepinupgirls.tumblr.com
Mike in NC
Trump is like the creature in the movie “The Blob” and the more they attack him the bigger he grows.
Germy
@NotMax: You’re right!
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@efgoldman: Born in ’68. 12 years old in 1980.
So, this isn’t as uncommon as I thought.
NotMax
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
Franklin Pierce and Chester Arthur pop into mind, but not entirely analagous cases.
Germy
A BLM activist was attacked and beaten at a Trump rally. You do NOT heckle the Donald.
Imagine if he’s elected and during his state of the union someone yells “You lie!”?
jl
@Mike in NC:
Better watch out if Trump’s face keeps getting redder.
Trailer – The Blob (1958)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdUsyXQ8Wrs
jl
@Germy:
” Imagine if he’s elected and during his state of the union someone yells “You lie!”? ”
I don’t think anyone would get beat up in the House chamber. Trump might inject some impromptu insult comic schtick directed at the heckler that would preserved for history as part of the address, though.
NotMax
@Germy
What, no wall around the rally?
Welcome to Trumpistan. Please leave your heart with the hatcheck girl by the door before entering.
gogol's wife
I still think we should adopt James Wolcott’s phrase for Trump: “An orange Elvis squirted from a can of Cheez Whiz.”
NotMax
@jl
There’s precedent for physical attack.
Germy
chickens have pretty legs in kansas
chickens have pretty legs in kansas
but it’s really not a joke
when they roll me for my poke
chickens have pretty legs in kansas
– W.C. Fields
Germy
Trump supporters have gone next-level, obsessed with gooney-bird fantasies about “white genocide,” a global plan to exterminate white people by sending waves of third-world immigrants across American and European borders to settle and intermarry.
The white-power nerds pushing this stuff don’t like the term RINO (Republican In Name Only) and prefer “cuckservative,” a term that’s a mix of “cuckold” and “conservative.” Cuck is also a porn term that refers to a white guy who gets off on watching his wife take it from (usually) a black man. A cuck is therefore a kind of desexualized race traitor.
– Matt Taibbi
Thoughtful Today
Amir Khalid, I’ve assumed you’re a Malaysian citizen, if you’re not, please say so.
As you live in Malaysia I’ve pointedly criticized your implicit support of Clinton based on her lifetime support of trade deals that empower slaver nations and dictatorships.
(This goes back to her working for the Billionaire Walton family and how the Clintons’ policies of outsourcing labor and manufacturing to the dictatorship of China, as well as her work on Walmart’s Board of Directors while that company was viciously breaking American workers’ unions).
Apparently the TPP, which Clinton will support with a few tweaks, has aspirational language that condemns slavery. But I don’t see any _teeth_ in those provisions as it largely outsources such labor practices to the member-countries.
So: How will Malaysia, where you live, aggressively police the slavery that’s widely reported being used in Malaysia?
Debbie
@Amir Khalid:
But Trump’s exactly what they deserve! My hope is that when he eventually drops out of the race, just as he’s leaving the room, he turns and says, “I’ll be back.”
Thoughtful Today
Clinton supporter: “Don’t remember 1980, hm? Ted Kennedy running against incumbent Jimmy Carter?”
Yes, how _dare_ the Democratic Party have a democratic primary.
The hubris.
Brachiator
@Thoughtful Today:
You are simply repeating yourself. This is not the same thing as an explanation or an elaboration of your position, which I would really appreciate.
Also, you falsely seem to presume that I am a Clinton supporter. I do think that right now, she has shown herself to be a stronger candidate than the others present so far, but it is very early and she has not necessarily sealed the deal for me.
The debates are largely political kabuki. I remember when the League of Women voters and other groups organized more meaningful debates. Both parties feared this and wrested control from independent non-partisan, truly democratic entities. Sorry, more theater and crappy debate moderators does not increase democracy.
Defend Sanders, if you can. But “just wow” is an exclamation, and just as incoherent as much of Sanders’ debate performance. For example, I was astounded that he would refer to the high marginal tax rates of the Eisenhower era. I would think that someone running for president would understand the difference between a marginal tax rate and an effective tax rate, which was significantly lower at that time. I also don’t recall that the Eisenhower era was an oasis of income redistribution. So, Sanders was little more than empty platitude and historical era on an area that was supposedly his sweet spot.
Your comments are usually much more centered.
piratedan7
@pamelabrown53: really? Most of us can? Have you seen the national polls on things like the acceptance of Syrian refugees? The numbers that candidates Trump and Carson keep posting despite what they state/proclaim and how those claims borders on outright fascism?
The shows are fine in themselves, just using them as the illustration of what the majority of the oldsters watch (or used to watch) and how that reinforces those tried and true tropes of old and experienced always know what is best or what’s right and that most problems can be solved in an hour, which is roughly 6 times the attention span that they devote to anything else that doesn’t affect them personally.
Mike J
@rikyrah: By hand. I have a hard time getting onions sliced the right way in the foodpro. I love it for actual chopping, but for the kind of slices onion soup needs it just won’t do.
Brachiator
@Germy:
There was a Fresh Air story not too long ago about how white nationalists love Trump. And apparently one organization gave him a formal endorsement.
And unlike white supremacists, with their fantasies of being better than anyone else, this bunch of rubes is obsessed with the notion that the government increasingly is against them and is too much for, you know, all them other peoples. It just ain’t right or natural. They wuz promised that white folks would always be on top and never have to share.
RepubAnon
@Chris: – To heck with Satan, Cthulu, or Dick Cheney – Black Adder for President! If nothing else, Baldrick as the head of the Tea Party seems such a good fit. Perhaps Hugh Laurie as the establishment GOP candidate and Miranda Richardson playing Michelle Bachman…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfTdnWLMLDA
Germy
Ivanka
https://vimeo.com/14540086
grishaxxx
Liz Mair, already – wow, they zombify fast, don’t they? As much as I would delight in their eating each other alive, they will still show up at the polls, ’cause they’re hungry…. If only our team was so robust in midterms and down-ballot.
Amir Khalid
@Thoughtful Today:
You seem to think that the existence of labour abuses in Malaysia, which I deplore like anyone else, somehow disqualifies me from engaging in conversation with Americans about American politics. Well, similar labour abuses exist in America, as other commenters here have pointed out. Does that disqualify you?
If anything can disqualify a person from commenting on a topic, which is a judgement I am loath to make about anyone, it is surely evasiveness when asked a simple and pertinent question. That seems to be the common complaint about you here.
Thoughtful Today
“she has shown herself to be a stronger candidate”
Based on style, perhaps, but certainly not because of the substance of her policies.
Clinton is quick to play (and misplay) the gender card. But look at her policies:
Clinton implicitly tells women they aren’t worth $15 an hour, they’re not worth providing a free State college education (crucial in the context of Clinton’s right-wing economic outsourcing of labor that puts those women in competition to the oppressive labor of China’s dictatorship and slavery riddled Malaysia), and they’re not going to get free health-care (though they can pay a corporate insurer and _hope_ they get appropriate care).
Bobby Thomson
@dmsilev: I would be much less surprised to learn that the establishment is really ok with Trump and is pretending to be horrified to build up his street cred.
Thoughtful Today
Clinton supporter: “I also don’t recall that the Eisenhower era was an oasis of income redistribution.”
It was. There are graphs that show that it did. Clearly we’re reading different sources. I’m sorry I don’t have anything at my fingertips to point to but it’s readily researchable.
Since Reagan, and through both the Clinton and Obama administration, there’s been a direct correlation between their right-wing economic policies and the explosion of economic inequality.
Thoughtful Today
The second graph illustrates the last ~100 years of what the top 1 percent owned:
Inequality _increased_ under President Clinton and Obama.
Math.
Brachiator
@Thoughtful Today:
You’re just wrong here. If you think you have something to demonstrate otherwise, it is up to you to supply it.
And again, high marginal tax rate is not the same thing as high effective tax rate, and yet Sanders rambled on about this as though it was meaningful. One of the reasons why a minimum tax was introduced in 1969 was to address the fact that there were some wealthy folk who were paying zero in taxes.
Again, some love that Bernie wants to break up the banks and do wonderful things, but this is not the same thing as coherent economic policy.
Heliopause
Why in the world would you need to hire some pricey consultants to come up with “oppo” on Trump? An intern with an internet connection could come up with an OED’s worth in an afternoon. The man’s lived a rather, uh, colorful life and not a lot of it has been hidden. He says something offensive or hare-brained before breakfast every day.
The more I think about it, seems like the only thing that could dissuade Trump’s admirers would be if a video surfaced of him weeping inconsolably over some lame-ass thing. So if that’s out there anywhere send it along to me and I’ll forward it to GOPCentral for $100,000 and a pallet of M&Ms.
Brachiator
@Thoughtful Today: One of the graphs show wages steadily rising from 1947 to 1972. This was not due to income redistribution arising from high tax rates.
You can say that Democrats have not cured wage stagnation since, but it would be absurd to hold them responsible for it. Nor does Sanders or anyone else demonstrated that they have an answer for this.
Thoughtful Today
Brachiator, since you missed it:
The second graph illustrates the last ~100 years of what the top 1 percent owned:
Inequality _increased_ under President Clinton and Obama.
Math and _history_.
Peale
Since this will just cement Trump in voters minds as the underdog candidate bucking the odds against the cuckservatives, I’m thinking that Trump is behind his own guerrilla strategy. Seriously. Who leaks this stuff if they want to win?
Thoughtful Today
False: “One of the graphs show wages steadily rising from 1947 to 1972. This was not due to income redistribution arising from high tax rates.”
Inequality decreased principally because of those high tax rates. Not exclusively, no, but it was a major factor.
One of the other major factors that decreased inequality was high Union membership.
Clinton’s Walmart days, as their BOARD MEMBER, while the Walmart corporation was viciously attacking Unions and Union members, is directly associated with the increase of inequality.
President Clinton’s subsequent support of trade with the dictatorship of China, which allowed Walmart to push their suppliers into using increasingly repressive and oppressive labor tactics, also is directly associated with the increase in inequality. It simultaneously accelerated the evisceration of America’s middle class while Billionaire inheritors like the Waltons benefited.
Walton’s investment in the Clintons paid off. Handsomely.
p.a.
@Brachiator:
Correlation does not equal causality, and I don’t know of any regression analyses, but the decline in unionization, private and public, mirrors the change in income inequality and the separation between productivity growth and wage growth beginning in the 1970’s.
Sadly, what we see now is the norm in US history. Post WWII is the anomaly; the industrial world outside the US was in shambles, and (this is a pet theory of mine, like all my theories no proof) the US powers-that-be needed a strong middle and working class to support the Cold and not-so-cold war against the USSR.
Bitter Scribe
Didn’t Pat Buchanan win New Hampshire?
Mike G
@efgoldman:
Rolling in money laughing their asses off, taking no responsibility and sleeping like babies.
You don’t get to that level in Repuke politics if you’re burdened with a conscience.
Mike J
@p.a.:
It’s usually the best place to start looking, at least if you believe in the concept of causality.
David Koch
Liz Mair is a frequent quest on Hardball.
She’s moronic. Truly. She’s Mark Penn moronic.
David Koch
Old saying: Washington is Hollywood for ugly people.
And just like Hollywood, campaigns produce a lot of bombs.
This memo has “Howard the Duck” & “Hudson Hawk” written all over it.
Emma
Stop arguing with the troll. He’s an anti-Clinton plant. I thought y’all had gotten wise at spotting them.
David Koch
Why Trump will win the nomination in one short 60 second video.
Karen
Printing info about this plan is as bad as the villain always talking about their evil plan before they’re captured by the hero. If they’re terrified that Trump will win the GOP candidacy (which he will), they should really be terrified if he runs as an Independent candidate in the general. I’M terrified that the Dems who wanted Sanders won’t vote when he loses. Then Trump will be President and will make W look like a RINO.
Thoughtful Today
Clinton supporter, before a single vote has been cast: “I’M terrified that the Dems who wanted Sanders won’t vote when he loses.”
Here’s a thought:
Encourage Clinton to stop devaluing women: encourage Clinton to champion $15 an hour (at minimum), explain to Clinton that free State colleges for the poorest amongst us is crucial to compete in the internationalized-right-wing-neoliberal world the Clintons enabled, explain to Clinton that free healthcare for the least amongst is more than just _humane_, it’s explicitly Christian.
^ That’ll keep those curiously democratically inclined Democratic voters in her camp.
Karen
@Thoughtful Today:
Oh please you’ll just find another excuse.
Thoughtful Today
What is it with Clinton supporters demands for fealty?
It’s very … Republican….
It’s almost as if the Democratic Party was secretly infiltrated by College Republicans….
Corner Stone
@Thoughtful Today: Alternatively, you may just be a certain kind of kook.
Just saying.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Thoughtful Today:
@Thoughtful Today:
As a sanders supporter, I’d like to point out that you are a goddamned pain in the ass
Momus
@pamelabrown53: Miss Manners? Could you possibly mean Miss Marple, one of Agatha Christie’s characters, who does, like the Jessica Fletcher character, solve murders seemingly by the score? I believe Miss Manners only advises on appropriate behaviour in social situations.
Thoughtful Today
Make your voice heard.
When Clinton supporters hear what you’re saying … you’ll fast discover I’m the least of the PITA’s here.
mj
Couldn’t we see that GOP politics was heading in this direction after Schwarzenegger was elected Govenator? Remind me again of how he sold himself to the public. Was it intelligent and forthright or was it gaudy and stupid?
Applejinx
@Brachiator:
I’ll be happy to. The reference to Eisenhower is spot-on: Eisenhower ran as a Republican out of frustration with Democrat policies. He had Nixon as his Vice President (who’d later go on to more effectively promote environmentalist issues than current-day establishment Democrats) and he sent in the National Guard to Little Rock to fight racism. And yes, he supported a high marginal tax rate, though due to years of conflation between marginal and base taxes even Politifact calls Sanders’ claim that Ike had taxes of over 90% ‘true’.
I just started working for Bernie’s New Hampshire campaign. Hope some of you do likewise, especially ‘dedicated forum posters’. We’re unusually in touch with all the facts and policy details, and that’s consonant with how Bernie does things.
The Ike reference is a historical perspective. It says, loudly, “How did we let things get THIS FAR out of control? Our country’s gone nuts!” And so it has, and it’s unsustainable, and if we don’t stop it through democratic, organized political revolution we’ll just see it flame out in less productive ways.
I admit as blog posters it’s fun to see the crazy proliferate but we’ve had enough fun. When the mainstream media starts making crazy farms too, it’s gone far enough and crazy is out of fashion.
Go organize and get off your couch. You’ll meet people who are not panicked and demoralized lunatics (for that’s largely another media creation), though ‘disoriented’ is a fair description, thanks MSM, thanks Trump etc.
The only way out is through patient, determined work and simple clear messages, like Bernie calling to break up the banks, tax the rich (not as much as Ike) and as for Hillary? What Bernie said about her policies was “Not good enough”. That’s the word. Hillary is NOT a monster, just a smart and capable establishment pol, currently busy doing Republican tricks and trying to paint Bernistas as marginalized flakes… despite massive grassroots support and Bernie inheriting the real spirit of the two-time winner Obama movement.
She’d be way better than any of the Republicans as they currently stand, but that’s still not good enough and we stil get to choose. The primary is the real election, because the Dem’s gonna win (especially if they force Trump out and he runs third-party). It’s fair enough to have Hillary’s people going ballistic and full ratfuck just to win the primary, proves they’re smart, kudos for that. But still not good enough.
This is clearly the message-sending election. Let Hillary go back and represent New York (and, quite legitimately, Wall Street) again. There’s bigger game afoot.
Applejinx
As for ‘refusing to support Hillary when Bernie loses’: technically, this is now the only time to make that threat without serious risk. If you pledge to automatically support Hillary should she win, she immediately no longer has to pay attention to Bernie or the policies that motivate his voters, and can immediately start tacking right to triangulate, most likely in a hawky direction to capitalize on anti-Muslim rhetoric on the other side.
This is a really shitty time to have a history of triangulating and politicking. Conversely, this is a good time to stake out positions and say, no ground will I give towards these assholes.
Anti-Muslim assholery CREATES Isis.
Deferential behavior towards Wall Street CREATES the climate of austerity and the plague of economic injustice.
Climate change CREATES social upheaval and tides of refugees.
We have no more time to triangulate or craft media statements and hire PR hacks. And we’re supporting Hillary conditionally, not unconditionally. I’ve said it before. Want my support? Correctly read the grassroots pressure, and become more Bernie than Bernie. That’s what he was originally there for, but he didn’t know how successful his movement would be, and now here we are.
Fuck ‘electable’. Against who, Bush? Go for ‘correct’, go for ‘real’. This is not the ‘stall-for-time’ election. It’s clearly go for broke, and if Hillary tries to tie herself to all possible voting blocs she’s gonna get quartered and could lose us the damn election. Bernie is more electable because he’s consistent, civilized and reasoned. Hillary is more risky, in several ways.