Trump vs. the Pope.
Who wins?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
38 Comments
Recent Comments
Trump wins, of course.
Are you kidding? He’s already “won.” Look at Limbaugh getting his back; look at the supporters on Twitter.
The whole idea that there’s some final Sacred Cow that Trump can’t go near without self-destructing is proving to be nonsense; and for the scariest possible reason (as you, BooMan, have been pointing out brilliantly and relentlessly, along with Digby):
It’s not that Trump’s followers adhere or reject whatever doctrine that will or won’t take them into taboo territory or not. It’s that they just don’t care about any abstractions at all. These are not reasonable people (in the strict sense of “those who reason”). Maybe many of them (or most of them) could be under better circumstances, but these aren’t those circumstances.
We’re looking at a mob.
a mob, maybe, but the white Catholic vote overlaps so strong with the Reagan Democrat vote that it’s suicide for a white-only party to go after the pope.
In the general, anyway.
In South Carolina?
Like I said elsewhere, I’m waiting for Donald to offer South Carolinians 40 acres and a slave.
I’m not so sure. When Pope Francis was here recently, there were many sternly worded Editorials by Ross Douthat, who took it upon himself to lecture the Pope about what RC was all about.
Fox, and most especially, Bill O’Reilly piled on, as did Limbaugh. I’m pretty sure there were others, but I don’t want to infest my PC searching out rightwingers who dissed the Pope. There was definitely a lot of chatter, most of it boiling down to: the Pope doesn’t know what he’s talking about (to put it politely).
So I’m not so sure that rightwing white Catholics will be that upset over Trump’s viewpoint. Just saying…
What Ross Douthat writes has significant impact for maybe one, two dozen people in this country.
Hasn’t this gang been attacking this Pope for years, though? He “should stay out of politics” etc.?
When will people get it? Trump ALWAYS wins … with his fans. With everybody else, he loses. And as wild as some people are about him, a lot more people are anything but. News coverage is disproportionate.
Who wins? Well, Trump of course.
Trump has already stated flat out the he can say anything, and his supporters will only love and support him more.
When Pope Francis came to the USA recently, quite a few of the usual punditry suspects wrote “editorials” spanking Frankie for his horrible, DFH, leftist ways, as IF Pope Frankie had the nerve to suggest that those who call themselves “Christians” should – heaven forfend!!!!11! – actually act like the prophet Jesus is meant to have behaved. Didn’t Pope Frankie get the memo that an “originalist interpretation” of the US Constitution proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Founding Fathers determined that white blonde Jeebus was a reichwingnut azzhole who hates taxes, minorities, women and gubmint handouts to the proles, and not necessarily in that order.
I think the Donald’s fans will be thrilled to the marrow of their bones with Donald giving Frankie a big old spanking over the yuuuuge Mexican wall that the Mexicans will pay for. And the Pope’ll regret when ISIS comes a-knocking at his door!!11!! The Donald won’t come to the Pope’s aid, either. F*** him!
Doesn’t hurt Trump with the 25-30% of voters who might support him. But it has huge potential to hurt him with the next 20-25% that he needs to get to 50.
Who wins?
At least among his followers.
AG
damn that is a great cartoon.
YOU’RE ONE FUNNY GUY!
Best thing you’ve ever posted, man!
Hell, lots of Republicans are already deciding this Pope is as illegitimate as a Dem president.
Trump wins, of course.
“Trump wins, of course.”
What exactly can he lose? The rest of the world will be horrified, but they already see Trump as the final, irrefutable evidence that the America they once looked up to has, for much of our population, completely abandoned those inspiring ideals in favor of ignorance, fundamentalism, and neo-fascism. Trump is just the next horrific step.
Latino/a and other immigrant Catholics certainly aren’t voting for them. In its US manifestation, Pope Francis’ greatest popularity is among exactly the people Trump would round up and deport (or worse), citizen or not.
And among the white Republican primary electorate in South Carolina and elsewhere, Catholic or not, they’ll love him for it. It marries bashing a pope that, as noted above, Wingnuttistan already thinks of as totally illegitimate and dangerous – if not a manifestation of Satan on Earth (not joking here), with some good old-fashioned xenophobia and immigrant-bashing. And the pope, of course, is a foreigner, which isn’t a concern when he’s also a neo-Nazi, but definitely alarming when he’s trying to remind people about the New Testament.
The grifter sewer that Trump has crawled out of makes a lot more money selling fear, and as such, selected bits of the Old Testament.
Have I mentioned lately that the self-styled “conservative movement” in this country makes me sick to my stomach? And all because I was naive enough to think people took seriously the ideals spoken of in those civics textbooks back in the day. How quaint.
While Trump spits his rhetoric in the eye of the head of the Catholic Church, the world looks on in horror.
Remembering the adoration Americans showed the Pope last Fall upon his visit to US soil and how good it felt to live those moments in unity and peace…
I’m not so sure that it’s not the Pope who wins this one. We will know soon enough.
I think people are underestimating Pope Francis as a politician. My money is on him knowing what he’s doing here.
Yes re Pope Francis, but imo, the issue is whether US rightwingers will side with the Pope or side with Trump in this fight. Pope Francis will continue to do his thing and prevail on many levels, I’m sure.
Just saying, though, that I doubt that ANY of Trump’s supporters will be turned off by this inflamed rhetoric coming from Trump attacking the Pope, including rightwing white Catholics.
Minority Catholics, esp Hispanics, may not be amused, but they were mostly not supporters of Trump to begin with.
Absolutely correct in fact, wrong in reality (I hope).
RW Catholics will not give a damn about what Trump says about the Pope and indeed, will cheer him on. But there are more Catholics in this country than just RWNJ and Hispanics.
59% of American Catholics are identified as white. Assuming that TeaParty influence is generalized across all whites this would imply that roughly 24% of the white Catholic population will be cheering. Strongly implying that 76% will NOT be cheering. That 70+% happens to live in several purple states (% of pop catholic [% of pop catholic not RWNJ]: Wisconsin (25% [16%]), Pennsylvania (28% [21%]), New Hampshire (31% [22%]). And to cap it off, New Jersey (38% [24%]) … AG thinks NJ could (or was capable of ) easily go Trump.
Political inexperience, narcissistic thin skin and no immediate impulse control have potentially pissed off a very significant and important voting bloc. FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER.
Besides, if the damn POPE can’t comment on someone’s faith, who can?
You get it.
Doesn’t this back and forth with the Pope remind you of Bush talking tough to Mullah Omar and then a year later his tough talk with Saddam. Bush accomplished nothing. Mullah Omar never gave up Osama and Saddam never had WMD. The Donald is just burning bridges with over a billion catholics….many who are hispanics.
It depends on what you mean by “win.”
Pope Francis certainly loses nothing. He has a worldwide following. It’s not like the farmers of Guatemala are going to turn on him because Trump.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/02/18/donald-trump-white-working-class-rust-belt-voters-e
lections-2016-column/80422422/ .
My emphasis added
“Trump’s voters loathe Jeb Bush because their lives are falling apart, and they blame people like him.”
Hey they finally got something right! Now what?
Pope Francis will win and Trump will get his rewards but not in Heaven but where he has been working very hard to go and it aint upwards.
Great irony is that the other contenders stand with Trump on building the wall so they can’t leverage the Pope’s argument very well against Trump. They’re all in the same boat.
I thought Trump was going to have some problems in South Carolina for saying that he’d be even-handed between Israel and the Arabs. But I think the people that were going to be furious about that are going to LOVE this.
Now a vote for Trump is a vote against Pope Francis, too! It’s a two-fer!
Give the win to Pope Frankie!
The Pope’s intended audience is global; Trump’s is more-or-less a third of eligible US Republicans.
If it causes further discord between the Catholics and the GOP, we all win.
I count as friends some fairly pugnacious conservative Catholics. I endure their flare ups from time to time, like when they describe Democrats as “Baby Killing Hate Mongers,” which makes me ponder, “And Fox News is…?” One thing they do have in common though is this “defend the Pope no matter who he is,” mindset. It’s reflexive, dogmatic, and Odd God StuffTM. I think the Trumpster just consigned a nice big chunk of Catholic support to the dung heap. Nice work Trumpeting Ass Fart.
In a sense they both win. The Donald wins with the morons who still vote in Republican primaries. The Pope wins with everyone else. That’s a win, win. Until general election time. Then Trump is fucked. Between this and deportation/rapist/wall talk, good luck winning Florida, asshole!
Sanders pulls ahead for first time in a national poll. Fox polls are bad because reasons, but there it is:
Sanders 47%. Clinton 44%. (497 likely Democratic voters, MOE ±3%).
HuffPo aggregate still has it at 49% Hillary, 42% Bernie and this is all before Pope Francis endorsed Sanders, so this is OT.
Still looks rather bleak for Bernie.
Nate Silver is now projecting a 75% likely win for Hillary in Nevada now, as the latest poll has her up by 6.
Moreover, the latest South Carolina poll has Hillary up by 28.
As far as Super Tuesday states go the latest polls have Hillary up in:
Arkansas- +25
Georgia- +34
Tennessee- +26
Virginia- +22
Oklahoma- +2
Bernie is up in Mass, by 7.
As far as National polls Silver has the average as:
Hillary: 50.5
Bernie: 38.8
Also the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll from just two days ago has Hillary up by 11.
But, the interesting thing is that Sanders just came out on top for the first time ever this campaign nationally by 3 points. Doubtless it’s too little, too late and he can’t win anyway so no big deal.
yeah, he should give up
Pollsters like Gallup, Rasmussen and Fox have been known to play games in cost-free (i.e., non-accountability)situations, so that poll might be a bit hinky.
http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2016/02/theres-something-hinky-about-that-fox.html
I don’t think anyone realizes how liked this Pope is among the Latino community. Just watch the coverage he gets on Telemundo or Univision.
If Trump is the nominee he will now loose at least 70% of the Latino vote from just this alone.
Yes, Trunp, and the Republican party just lost BIG on this one.