Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
This post is in: Hail to the Hairpiece, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, Republican Stupidity, Ever Get The Feeling You've Been Cheated?
Want to get Republicans on board with liberal ideas? Attribute them to Trump http://t.co/861aoSv6N2 pic.twitter.com/Okgr13RlTW
— Ariel Edwards-Levy (@aedwardslevy) September 1, 2015
They don’t know much, but they know what they don’t like.
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Apart from the eternal verities, what’s on the agenda for the day?
Wednesday Morning Open Thread: The Common Clay of the New WestPost + Comments (194)
This post is in: Election 2016, Hail to the Hairpiece, JEB! = John Ellis Not-Bush 2016, NANCY SMASH!, Republican Stupidity
Who's the real @realDonaldTrump? He donated to sanctuary city supporting @NancyPelosi and called her “The Greatest.” pic.twitter.com/px89v3TeG5
— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) August 31, 2015
Trump’s real estate empire now includes some prime space inside Jeb’s head https://t.co/BPpTfZ5LSH
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) August 31, 2015
Jeb goes for the tough-on-crime attack vs. Trump in probably the least conducive political environment for it ever: https://t.co/kwdN7TU1pD
— Matt Ford (@fordm) August 31, 2015
Donald Trump goes Willie Horton on Jeb Bush. As sick as this is, Trump and the GOP got this playbook from Jeb's dad. https://t.co/ec7YuwVd3q
— Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) August 31, 2015
Jeb's strategy at the beginning of August was to let the other candidates wrestle with Trump will he rose above.
— Simon Maloy (@SimonMaloy) August 31, 2015
“He attacks me every day with barbarities.” – Jeb Bush on Donald Trump. Speaking the language of the common man.
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) September 1, 2015
Mike Murphy’s “we won’t waste time attacking Trump” strategy going great so far https://t.co/hstpvKHC44
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) August 31, 2015
@daveweigel did not know Mike Murphy was on team Jeb – condolences would have been offered sooner – wasn't he part of Fiorina BAA ads?
— MsLindaB (@schwanderer) August 31, 2015
What, do you suppose Jeb Bush's name recognition is at 10%? pic.twitter.com/MZhQwLtlyq
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) August 31, 2015
My wrist isn’t up to typing a full catalog, but candidate JEB! had a lousy August and it’s looking like September isn’t gonna be much happier for him.
He’s looking more and more like he only got into this poker game because “the family” couldn’t bear to have Dubya as their most enduring representative, and now he’s down to his boxers and socks and fearful of having to limp home in the morning with Trump’s NO CLASS LOSER Sharpie’d on his hairy back.
This post is in: Election 2016, Hail to the Hairpiece, Open Threads, Republican Stupidity, Assholes, Riveted By The Sociological Significance Of It All
Bet Rick Santorum has a room like this, but with Trump clippings. pic.twitter.com/91C5jyg4kX
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) August 30, 2015
Ernie Boch Jr. is a mostly harmless local moke who inherited a used-car empire from his old man and has managed not to run it into the ground. Naturally, he considers Donald Trump — who vastly increased the few millions he inherited into the current showy enterprise — a Great Man, a visionary, a role model for us lower beings. Boch got a certain amount of free media over the weekend by throwing an avowedly nonpartisan, nonprofit “raucus rally” for Trump at Ernie’s bucolic estate.
Ben Jacob’s description, in the Guardian, of “Donald Trump’s Seduction: A Huge Fanbase” is too good not to share…
As Donald Trump left the stage at Ernie Boch’s mansion in suburban Boston on Friday night, attendees clawed at him, shouting for attention, for handshakes and, of course, for selfies.
Despite the requirement for attendees to make out $100 checks to his presidential campaign, the Republican frontrunner insisted the event was not a fundraiser…
Boch brought in what he called “the world’s best cover band” and provided an open bar, a wide range of entrees including lamb shanks and fish tacos, and a cake in the form of Trump’s signature baseball cap – motto: “Make America Great Again”.
In the same way their children would paw at One Direction or Taylor Swift, the mostly upper-middle-class New Englanders who made up the crowd could not hide their delight at the chance to meet the man who has upended the race for the White House.
Three days before, on a hot Tuesday afternoon in the heavily Catholic town of Dubuque, Iowa, the atmosphere was markedly less fancy. The venue, a convention center, looked nothing like Bosh’s ornate lawn party, as a largely blue-collar crowd lined up for hours to see and hear Trump speak…
In Dubuque, Bob Cooksley, a retired veteran from Sherrard, Illinois, told the Guardian: “I just like that he hasn’t been a politician, and doesn’t try to get re-elected as representative or senator or governor. He doesn’t have none of that.”…
Carl Semrow, 16, of Brodhead, Wisconsin, agreed: “He has very good American ideals to turn this country around, such as capitalism.”
On top of his business success, Trump’s bold persona steals hearts. Dino Rossi, of Newton, Massachusetts, envied what he saw as Trump’s fearlessness.
“Oh, I wish I had big nuts like him,” said Rossi. “He’s not afraid of anybody or anything. That’s pretty cool.”…
Sandra Murray, from Dubuque, told the Guardian: “We’ve definitely got a problem with immigration. I’ve heard there are 11 million illegal immigrants here, but I’ve also heard there are 30 million. Whether it’s 11 or 30, one million is too many.” …
“That’s just one scenario that got brought up on the news,” Murray said, adding that while she had not personally seen any negative effects stemming from illegal immigration in her community, she “did her research, and [knows] what’s out there”.
Clay Diciaula, a 21-year-old from Dodgeville, Wisconsin, shared such concerns. “Something needs to be done,” he said. “Can’t have people come in killing people like they have.”
Diciaula also criticised what he saw as a media distortion of Trump’s plan to deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants. He thought journalists neglected to mention the fact that Trump plans on repatriating those migrants who have been law-abiding and well behaved – “the good ones”, Dicaula called them.
“Bringing them out is gonna make it easier to bring them back in,” he mused…
In Norwood, most guests were conservative Republican voters. A typical attendee was David Levesque of Warwick, Rhode Island, who had singlehandedly built a local chain of coffee houses, Brewed Awakenings. While Levesque told the Guardian he had voted for politicians in both parties, he said only two had previously excited him like Trump: Ronald Reagan and Sarah Palin, who interviewed Trump for her show this weekend…
In Iowa, the crowd was far less politically engaged. When asked whom they had supported in the 2012 Republican primary, many Trump supporters answered: “George W Bush.” He last appeared on a ballot in 2004…
The common clay of the new West…
Late Night Open Thread: Bonfires of the Vanity CandidatePost + Comments (139)
This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Election 2016, Hail to the Hairpiece, Open Threads, Republican Venality, Assholes
Sarah Palin Will Interview Donald Trump Tonight http://t.co/cmpSJiqL2u pic.twitter.com/UiRQKBctpE
— Mediaite (@Mediaite) August 28, 2015
Somewhere, Molly Ivins and Hunter Thompson are sharing a beer, shaking their heads about how easy the current crop of political humorists has it…
Sam Clovis called Trump "cancer on conservatism." Then endorsed: http://t.co/FLh88VaCRV But won't say "how much he would be paid" by Trump.
— Walter Shapiro (@MrWalterShapiro) August 28, 2015
Jennifer Jacobs, in the Des Moines Register article:
… “(Trump) left me with questions about his moral center and his foundational beliefs. … His comments reveal no foundation in Christ, which is a big deal,” evangelical conservative activist Sam Clovis said in an email just 35 days before he quit his job as Republican Rick Perry’s Iowa chairman and signed on with Trump’s campaign.
In the emails, shared by Perry backers Wednesday with The Des Moines Register, Clovis castigated Trump for his past liberal positions and admission that he has never asked for God’s forgiveness for any wrongdoing.
In an interview Wednesday, Clovis verified that he’d written the sharply worded criticisms of Trump, including one email in which he praises Perry for calling Trump a “cancer on conservatism.”…
Clovis defected from Perry’s team at a time when the former Texas governor has been struggling to cover his campaign aides’ salaries.
Iowa Republicans said Wednesday that Clovis’ move raises questions about how he reconciles endorsing Trump with his previous stances and statements, and whether he was motivated less by ideology and more by the promise of a big paycheck from a business mogul who has said he is willing to spend as much as a billion dollars to get elected…
Sarah Palin would really wish you would stop asking about her being a possible Trump running mate. And start treating it like it's a fact.
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) August 28, 2015
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Apart from wishing confusion upon our enemies (who are pretty confused already!), what’s on the agenda for the start of the weekend?
Friday Evening Open Thread: WingularityPost + Comments (120)
This post is in: Cruz-ifiction, Foreign Affairs, Hail to the Hairpiece, Open Threads, Republican Stupidity, Republican Venality, Assholes
Mort Klein of ZOA says the Cruz-Trump anti-Iran deal rally tentatively set for Sept. 9 at the Capitol (ZOA a co-host) http://t.co/C3UZUyMwB1
— Katie Glueck (@katieglueck) August 27, 2015
Pressed here about political bromance, @tedcruz hints he may be willing to draw contrasts with Trump down the line: http://t.co/wFhFeHZg20
— Patrick Svitek (@PatrickSvitek) August 27, 2015
Donald Trump on Ted Cruz: "I can't hit him. Well, I may have to if he starts, like, getting really close."
— Carrie Dann (@CarrieNBCNews) August 27, 2015
NR's @elianayjohnson on tactical Ted Cruz, who is "unwilling to make a move that would alienate the populist Right" http://t.co/2FrD9wEcUx
— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) August 27, 2015
I frankly suspect this “rally” will never happen — the Trump and Cruz camps will never be able to agree on top billing, dais placement, who gets to bloviate first, etc. But I doubt it’s only Democrats gleefully imagining the Clash of the Titanic Egos…
#ThrowbackThursday: "John Boehner, Ted Cruz and a One-Finger Salute" http://t.co/ZdpuMIvydT https://t.co/I2aJtiYWU2
— Patrick Svitek (@PatrickSvitek) August 27, 2015
This post is in: Election 2016, Excellent Links, Hail to the Hairpiece, Immigration, Post-racial America, Republican Venality
The overlap between People Condemned by SPLC and People Supporting Trump continues http://t.co/8EToQVzsRO
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) August 25, 2015
Evan Osnos, at the New Yorker, on how “Donald Trump’s nationalist coalition takes shape—for now“:
On July 23rd, Donald Trump’s red-white-and-navy-blue Boeing 757 touched down in Laredo, Texas, where the temperature was climbing to a hundred and four degrees. In 1976, the Times introduced Trump, then a little-known builder, to readers as a “publicity shy” wunderkind who “looks ever so much like Robert Redford,” and quoted an admiring observation from the architect Der Scutt: “That Donald, he could sell sand to the Arabs.” Over the years, Trump honed a performer’s ear for the needs of his audience. He starred in “The Apprentice” for fourteen seasons, cultivating a lordly persona and a squint that combined Clint Eastwood on the high plains and Derek Zoolander on the runway. Once he emerged as the early front-runner for the Republican Presidential nomination, this summer, his airport comings and goings posed a delicate staging issue: a rogue wind off the tarmac could render his comb-over fully erect in front of the campaign paparazzi. So, in Laredo, Trump débuted a protective innovation: a baseball hat adorned with a campaign slogan that he recycled from Ronald Reagan’s 1980 run for the White House—“Make America Great Again!” The headwear, which had the rigid façade and the braided rope of a cruise-ship giveaway, added an expeditionary element to the day’s outfit, of blazer, pale slacks, golf shoes—well suited for a mission that he was describing as one of great personal risk. “I may never see you again, but we’re going to do it,” he told Fox News on the eve of the Texas visit…
Trump’s fans project onto him a vast range of imaginings—about toughness, business acumen, honesty—from a continuum that ranges from economic and libertarian conservatives to the far-right fringe. In partisan terms, his ideas are riven by contradiction—he calls for mass deportations but opposes cuts to Medicare and Social Security; he vows to expand the military but criticizes free trade—and yet that is a reflection of voters’ often incoherent sets of convictions. The biggest surprise in Trump’s following? He “made an incredible surge among the Tea Party supporters,” according to Patrick Murray, who runs polling for Monmouth University. Before Trump announced his candidacy, only twenty per cent of Tea Partiers had a favorable view of him; a month later, that figure had risen to fifty-six per cent. Trump became the top choice among Tea Party voters, supplanting (and opening a large lead over) Senator Ted Cruz, of Texas, and Governor Scott Walker, of Wisconsin, both Tea Party stalwarts. According to a Washington Post /ABC News poll conducted last month, the “broad majority” of Trump’s supporters hailed from two groups: voters with no college degree, and voters who say that immigrants weaken America. By mid-August, Trump was even closing in on Hillary Clinton. CNN reported that, when voters were asked to choose between the two, Clinton was leading fifty-one per cent to forty-five…
When the Trump storm broke this summer, it touched off smaller tempests that stirred up American politics in ways that were easy to miss from afar. At the time, I happened to be reporting on extremist white-rights groups, and observed at first hand their reactions to his candidacy. Trump was advancing a dire portrait of immigration that partly overlapped with their own. On June 28th, twelve days after Trump’s announcement, the Daily Stormer, America’s most popular neo-Nazi news site, endorsed him for President: “Trump is willing to say what most Americans think: it’s time to deport these people.” The Daily Stormer urged white men to “vote for the first time in our lives for the one man who actually represents our interests.”
Ever since the Tea Party’s peak, in 2010, and its fade, citizens on the American far right—Patriot militias, border vigilantes, white supremacists—have searched for a standard-bearer, and now they’d found him. In the past, “white nationalists,” as they call themselves, had described Trump as a “Jew-lover,” but the new tone of his campaign was a revelation. Richard Spencer is a self-described “identitarian” who lives in Whitefish, Montana, and promotes “white racial consciousness.” At thirty-six, Spencer is trim and preppy, with degrees from the University of Virginia and the University of Chicago. He is the president and director of the National Policy Institute, a think tank, co-founded by William Regnery, a member of the conservative publishing family, that is “dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of European people in the United States and around the world.” The Southern Poverty Law Center calls Spencer “a suit-and-tie version of the white supremacists of old.” Spencer told me that he had expected the Presidential campaign to be an “amusing freak show,” but that Trump was “refreshing.” He went on, “Trump, on a gut level, kind of senses that this is about demographics, ultimately. We’re moving into a new America.” He said, “I don’t think Trump is a white nationalist,” but he did believe that Trump reflected “an unconscious vision that white people have—that their grandchildren might be a hated minority in their own country. I think that scares us. They probably aren’t able to articulate it. I think it’s there. I think that, to a great degree, explains the Trump phenomenon. I think he is the one person who can tap into it.”…
Ordinarily, the white-nationalist Web sites mock Republicans as Zionist stooges and corporate puppets who have opened the borders in order to keep wages low. But, on July 9th, VDARE, an opinion site founded to “push back the plans of pro-Amnesty/Immigration Surge politicians, ethnic activists and corrupt Big Business,” hailed Trump as “the first figure with the financial, cultural, and economic resources to openly defy elite consensus. If he can mobilize Republicans behind him and make a credible run for the Presidency, he can create a whole new media environment for patriots to openly speak their mind without fear of losing their jobs.” The piece was headlined “WE ARE ALL DONALD TRUMP NOW.”…
If you can stomach it, do read the whole thing. “We” — i.e., the mainstream media, the Conventional Wisdom leaders — don’t want to look too closely at the far-right White Nationalists and their fellows, because it feels like giving them attention is what they want. But turning our faces away in disgust doesn’t make them disappear…
… Trump’s candidacy has already left a durable mark, expanding the discourse of hate such that, in the midst of his feuds and provocations, we barely even registered that Senator Ted Cruz had called the sitting President “the world’s leading financier of radical Islamic terrorism,” or that Senator Marco Rubio had redoubled his opposition to abortion in cases of rape, incest, or a mortal threat to the mother. Trump has bequeathed a concoction of celebrity, wealth, and alienation that is more potent than any we’ve seen before. If, as the Republican establishment hopes, the stargazers eventually defect, Trump will be left with the hardest core—the portion of the electorate that is drifting deeper into unreality, with no reconciliation in sight.
David Duke On Trump: He’s “Certainly The Best Of The Lot” Running For President http://t.co/jhbxTLhUPl
— Katherine Miller (@katherinemiller) August 25, 2015
Donald Trump: I Don't Want David Duke's Endorsement http://t.co/nMwg0iGF8I
— Andrew Kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) August 27, 2015
Long Read: “The Fearful and the Frustrated”Post + Comments (85)
This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Election 2016, Hail to the Hairpiece, Immigration, Open Threads, Republican Stupidity, Republican Venality, Ever Get The Feeling You've Been Cheated?
"I'm excited about the opportunity to change the status quo," Sam Clovis says – Trump's new national co-chair pic.twitter.com/cmmLxWRvqV
— Betsy Klein (@betsy_klein) August 25, 2015
Sam Clovis is the Perry campaign defector I wrote about Monday evening. Spoiler alert, he went for the quick dollar. In his defense, there’s some question whether there will be a Republican party once Trump gets through entertaining himself, so collecting one last fat fee might be the smart move right now.
Top Iowa state R said yesterday that Clovis announcing he was for sale "exactly the kind of thing that's bad for Iowa caucuses"
— Trip Gabriel (@tripgabriel) August 25, 2015
What, just because The Donald is setting up his Iowa committee using the same highly successful methods that made Celebrity Apprentice such a money-spinner?
How Trump recruits staff in Iowa. "A stopwatch is involved." Pure gold from @tripgabriel: http://t.co/4kIcWtF97C
— Michael Barbaro (@mikiebarb) August 25, 2015
In related Everybody’s Talking About It mediatainment…
Donald Trump to Jorge Ramos: "Go back to Univision” http://t.co/TgDew3XpvJ pic.twitter.com/cZYLSKLXjr
— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 26, 2015
"This is the first time in my life, anywhere in the world, I've been escorted out of a press conf" —@jorgeramosnews http://t.co/3cS5IJCe9l
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) August 26, 2015
Yoooogely popular move, very classy, according to the Trump supporters in the audience and elsewhere. Go back to Mexico Univision, loser! The Donald knows his people, and they don’t want “facts,” they want bombast. From the Fusion article:
… Later, Ramos was let back in to the press conference, and the two started to engage in a discussion, finally asking his question about how feasible Trump’s plan actually is. “Here’s the problem with your immigration plan: it’s full of empty promises,” Ramos said. “You cannot deport 11 million undocumented immigrants, you cannot deny citizenship to the children in this country.”
Specifically addressing his comments on “anchor babies,” Trump said, “there are great legal scholars, the top, who say that’s absolutely wrong.”
Trump also responded to Ramos’ comments that building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border is impossible. “Very easy, I’m a builder… What’s more complicated [than building a wall] is building a building that’s 95 stories tall. Okay?”
Trump responded that he planned to deal with immigration problems “in a very humane fashion.”
“I have a bigger heart than you do,” he told Ramos. “I can’t deal with this,” he added after Ramos spoke back…
Jorge Ramos returns to Trump presser, asks about birthright citizenship. Are you going to deport babies?
— Trip Gabriel (@tripgabriel) August 25, 2015
Ramos: 40 pct of immigrants come by plane. Trump: I don't believe that
— Trip Gabriel (@tripgabriel) August 25, 2015
How are you going to deport 11 million? Trump: very humanely
— Trip Gabriel (@tripgabriel) August 25, 2015
Not “It isn’t true” but “I don’t believe that”. When you’re Donald Trump, you can choose your own facts, amirite?!?
Open Thread: Follow the Money, GOP StylePost + Comments (142)