“Don’t vote for a Cuban” seems like a pretty straightforward campaign motto for Donald Trump at this point. True, it’s not his campaign that is making these robocalls. Instead, it is a Super PAC associated with the American Freedom Party, a white nationalist organization that loves them some Donald.
Their message is admirably concise.
“The white race is dying out in America and Europe because we are afraid to be called ‘racist,’” the call said. “I am afraid to be called racist. Donald Trump is not a racist, but Donald Trump is not afraid. Don’t vote for a Cuban. Vote for Donald Trump.”
It’s curious that they don’t want to be called racist. Sounds like they’re afraid to be called racist.
Anyway, these robocalls have been detected in Minnesota and Vermont, and then there is this:
David Duke, a white nationalist and former Klu Klux Klan grand wizard, told his audience Wednesday that voting for anyone besides Donald Trump “is really treason to your heritage.”
“Voting for these people, voting against Donald Trump at this point is really treason to your heritage,” Duke said on the David Duke Radio Program…
…“And I am telling you that it is your job now to get active. Get off your duff. Get off your rear end that’s getting fatter and fatter for many of you everyday on your chairs. When this show’s over, go out, call the Republican Party, but call Donald Trump’s headquarters, volunteer,” he said. “They’re screaming for volunteers. Go in there, you’re gonna meet people who are going to have the same kind of mindset that you have.”
That’s kind of vague, but you can see a closer tie between the robocalls and David Duke here:
In December, Duke told POLITICO that Trump’s candidacy allowed Americans to be more open about their racial animus.
“He’s made it ok to talk about these incredible concerns of European Americans today, because I think European Americans know they are the only group that can’t defend their own essential interests and their point of view,” Duke said. “He’s meant a lot for the human rights of European Americans.”
It’s a good thing that RNC Chairman Reince Priebus has a plan to keep Trump on a leash. Maybe that will work (I doubt it), but a better question might be to ask what the RNC plans to do if the lawsuit over Trump University doesn’t go well.
…the upcoming civil trial could be a much bigger burden on Trump’s time. If it takes place in May, that would put it in the middle of the final phase of the GOP primary schedule: Nebraska and West Virginia vote on May 10, Oregon on May 17, and Washington state on May 24. Then on June 7, the biggest prize of all: the California primary (with 172 delegates at stake). New Jersey, Montana, New Mexico and South Dakota vote the same day.
Trump could easily have the nomination wrapped up before these late primaries and caucuses. (We’ve written about the Trump University scam here, here, and here).
Yeah, it’s going to be a scorched earth campaign for sure.
The unintended consequences of both parties nominating their most unpopular or polarizing figures means we are headed for the most divisive and scorched earth style general election in modern history. When you start with negatives at 50% or above, it means the only way to win is to become the lesser of two evils.
I don’t see Trump becoming more popular. But Reince Priebus has a plan, so I guess things will go swimmingly.
In reality, Priebus won’t be able to control any of this, but he will be able to assist in making Hillary the greater evil. And, considering how difficult that task will be to achieve, we’re all gonna need hazmat suits.
BTW, thanks for reminding us once again that Hillary is the Democratic nominee, though I think you’ve been telling us that for the last two years at least, but with all this primary stuff I almost forgot.
Didn’t want to let all the 2007 pronouncements go to waste.
You’ve got to admire how he slides it in toward the end all casual like.
I have no idea which candidate Booman actually prefers, because he has remarked on what he perceives as both Clinton’s and Sanders’ strengths & weaknesses. But he has indicated that he thinks Clinton is likely to win the nomination, for reasons having to do with how delegates are awarded. So what? I agree with him, although I intend to vote for Sanders anyway if there’s still a competition when the Oregon primary rolls around in May.
If Booman wanted to operate an echo chamber, this blog would look a lot different, and it wouldn’t be nearly as interesting.
From my observation, Booman has generally been leaning Sanders, but he’s not exactly a committed partisan. But the reality is that the contests on both sides might be settled on Super Tuesday.
I want to see turnout on Super Tuesday.
Super Tuesday Republican early voters out pace Socialist voters two to one.
Just saw this.
To be fair, most primary voters obtain their information about the candidates and issues from TV — network and cable — or from family or friends that do the TV watching. For Republicans, the race has been on since last July and unlike ’08, it’s been competitive and a strong “vanity/celebrity candidate increases interest and that increases the number that vote. (Not sure about the numbers, but it worked for Schwarzennegger in ’03.)
On the DEM side, there was no contest. Only a coronation and hence, not much TV coverage except for star turns by Hillary. Outside of IA (and that’s questionable) and NH, DEM primary voters by and large didn’t even know that anyone else was running until after the IA caucuses and NH primary. And I’m not sure all that many know even now. That means that principally the regular primary base turns out and that’s good for Clinton (b/c it’s more her turn than ever after losing in ’08).
You’re simply misstating what has been observable in media coverage of the Democratic nomination race in recent weeks. Bernie has gotten tons of sympathetic media, and the coverage of Hillary has been pretty negative. As a Sanders supporter, I’ve been pleased about Bernie’s treatment.
Since the MSM concentrates on horse race and personality narratives above all else, this was predictable since the press has always loved the scandal/distrust angle with their Clinton reporting, and her caving polls and big loss in New Hampshire fed the press’ favorite narratives about Hillary.
With her solidifying polls in most of the Super Tuesday states, her press has improved a bit, again for extremely understandable reasons based on the MSM’s obsessions. But to call the media in the bag for Clinton is quite silly.
You can be very tiresome. What did you think I was implying here:
Of course Sanders received MSM coverage after a tie in IA and landslide in NH? However, compared to what any other, acceptable to the establishment, candidate would have received from performing that well in the IA caucus and NH primary, he only got more than he had in the past. heh–a check on the numbers shows that I got that right:
And 2015 — Clinton – 121 minutes (not including Benghazi or e-mails), non-candidate Biden – 73 minutes, and Sanders 20 minutes.
Carson with ZERO qualifications received 57 minutes.
Go pitch your false equivalence bs to someone more gullible.
You clearly infer that the non-Benghazi or e-mail Clinton campaign coverage before Iowa was entirely positive. It was not, by a long, long shot.
It’s also meaningful to note that the major network nightly news broadcasts have become a fraction of the coverage that television news brings to the Presidential campaign. What I recall happening in the last months of 2015 is that, increasingly, Bernie took interviews on the Sunday shows, multiple MSNBC broadcasts and elsewhere at a time when Clinton’s campaign was making the strategical decision to avoid interviews because she had solid leads in the polls.
I thought that was a mistake, and what it resulted in was the opposite of what you claim here: Sanders gained direct coverage relative to Clinton during those months, particularly November and December. In fact, the Clinton campaign began receiving negative coverage, deservedly so, for not exposing Hillary to direct media interviews.
It’s not over until it’s over. Barack Obama lost the following states in the 2008 Democratic primary: California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Florida, South Dakota, Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Florida, Puerto Rico, and Guam.
Add Rhode Island to the popular vote loss, as well.
Exactly. Have been having a running argument here with a contributor that claims that not having won IA means that Sanders can’t win the nomination. All the prior examples of a candidate not winning IA and getting the nomination don’t seem to count. Nor does the fact that Sanders’ combined IA and NH performance were better than Obama’s.
What others are anticipating is that this time Hillary will retain enough of her ’08 white and Latino voter base and with the addition of the AA voter base that she can’t lose. They may be right. OTOH, it doesn’t require all that many new voters to shift the results to Sanders’ favor.
Hillary people have been pushing several memes that are not accurate. This occurred in 2008, as well.
I know that, but this person claims to have gone to Iowa and worked a caucus for Sanders. I trust people to tell the truth about such matters. That’s why the negativity and reasons why Bernie can’t win are curious.
Look; our best predictions are based on polling. Fivethirtyeight forecasts are not optimistic for Sanders and Sam Wang isn’t even bothering with the primaries anymore.
On the face of it:
Sanders needs to win Massachusetts, Colorado, and Minnesota decisively, and he needs to stay close in the South.
Right now, Clinton is positioned for decisive victories in South Carolina, Arkansas, Georgia, Texas, Tennessee, and Virginia.
She just pulled (slightly) ahead in the polling in Massachusetts.
For whatever reason, Colorado and Minnesota have not been polled in forever.
Relevant link.
On the other hand: Clinton is projected to win 80% of the delegates on Super Tuesday.
Trump, for what it’s worth, has comparable standing in the Republican races.
If the results hold up to the polling (and they have so far, for the most part), Trump has the nomination sewed up.
If Hillary wins the nomination through supper delegates and the southern states on Super Tuesday that won’t mean much in the general. Those southern states will vote Republican in the general.
Doesn’t matter. Those wins will allow her team to trumpet that she has the big MO. And voters are like subjects in Asch’s experiments in conformity.
Ah yes. The southern strategy is alive and well. Didn’t the Clintons play that,card once before?
Only blew up on them once — SC ’08. Smart phones/internet/etc. have caught up with them but that’s been limited to voters under the age of 45, but with 99% of the DEM institutional/establishment with them this time, they expect the machine to keep them in the winners circle.
Not as simple as that as you of course know. And Jonf’s point is as salient as yours is (I assume) sarcastic.
How and why our Democratic primaries got front-loaded with so many southern states isn’t a mystery. It was a calendar crafted purposely to eliminate anti-establishment Democratic candidates early in the primary process. Obama was no exception, though, Clinton backers would disagree, insisting that his race was proof enough of his anti-establishment bona-fides. Just like Hillary’s sex proves her anti-establishment cred.
Sanders is on track to win more and more primaries after March madness. Just read this morning, e.g., that he’s pulled ahead of her here in Wisconsin (45-43 IIRC), but our primary isn’t until early April. And even next Tuesday, Sanders is likely to win 5 out of eleven contests, including MA, MN, CO, and OK. More white states so they won’t count in the eyes of the establishment, of course. But he’ll get the delegates and remain in the running through the spring and into summer.
Conformity pressure is a bullshit theory with really almost zero acceptable scientific validity. And even if it’s sometimes true, it just won’t apply this year. There’s too much at stake. Too many Democrats that aren’t in the south (where there are few Democrats anyway) have lost too much and would like to have at least a hope of holding on to the little they have left. Clinton’s Democratic establishment has already told us to lower expectations and give up hope. It’s not a winning message beyond the borders of Clinton’s southern strategy where so many learned to love giving up hope under Obama’s crippled leadership over the past seven years. It’s not his fault! And the fact that none of the states she’s likely to win on Saturday and next Tuesday are states that she’ll carry against the Republican in November is an important factor to Democratic voters in states later on the calendar.
(“Asch’s conformity experiments.” Funny. Please god nobody explain to me about the experiments. I’m familiar with all the odd things people do in controlled, scientific experiments. )
Only semi-sarcastic. Those wins in states that objectively shouldn’t be all that relevant easily demoralize opposition forces. To keep going, Sanders now needs more money than ever, but people tend not to put more money in when they’re not seeing wins. Not completely irrational because in real time it’s not easy to evaluate how effectively a campaign is deploying its cash and human resources.
The Dean campaign was an illustration of poor financial management. So far, Sanders has been impressive. (Interesting that neo-lib type politicians aren’t as financially savvy as a leftie. Something I’ve long known, but nice to see in this campaign.) Yet, it shouldn’t have been so easy for Reid to push the NV outcome by so much at the last minute. That will have an impact on SC. Not changing the outcome because Hillary’s institutional/establishment advantage there is formidable, but cutting her margin to twenty points or less would have been a huge accomplishment. One that we can still hope for, but it’s not looking likely.
Unfortunately, most human beings follow the crowd. The crowd may be family, church, neighbors, or whatever they believe others choose as told to them by the media choices. Plenty of real world examples to see that in operation. Asch’s experiments had the advantage of being able to question the followers after the fact. Some honestly thought they saw the images the way others in the room did (the human mind can be convinced of the authenticity of almost anything). Some didn’t but felt too insecure in their own perceptions not to go along with the others. Those that didn’t doubt themselves and refused to follow were rare. This is new knowledge, “The Emperor’s New Clothes” is an old story.
Conformity has adaptive qualities. It can also be easily manipulated by those with ill-intent or for personal gain. If not for conformity there wouldn’t be stock market booms and busts. Fashion trends all rely on the impulse towards conformity. (Check out what bridal gowns have been selling for the past two decades.)
Marie is mostly right. Both parties assign base delegates based (loosely) on population. Both parties add delegates to the base count.
For the Democrats, Superdelegates are DNC members, sitting Governors, sitting congresspeople and sitting Senators. Thus, the Democrats reward loyal “Blue” states by giving them delegates. No delegates are added to other states.
The R’s go quite differently. All members of the RNC are delegates. Ten At-Large delegates are assigned to each state or territory. Bonus delegates are awarded to the state for sitting Governors, congresspeople, Senators. The Republicans penalize large states in exactly the same way the Senate penalized large population states. Further, while sitting politicians are routinely awarded At-Large status, the assigned 10 extras are handed out by the state apparatus
The D scheme tends to back establishment candidates because the sitting elected officials tend to BE establishment. However, these people do have to elected FIRST.
The R scheme tends to back the more extreme wing of the party because the extra votes are more than the sitting statewide elected officials and thus are on the more active side of the non-elected R world.
This is not a perfect world. You can’t ignore the South. Momentum carries its own weight. If it didn’t, Bernie wouldn’t have gotten the push and buzz from IA and NH that he needed (ad got) in NV.
If IA and NH favor insurgent candidates (and they do) then Super Tuesday is designed to throw really cold water on those same insurgents. If the enthusiastic volunteers that meant so much to Bernie in IA, NH and NV gets discouraged by a drubbing in the South (always problematic with people just introduced to political action) his campaign will be just that much farther behind.
Marie is right. It IS designed to do exactly that.
“How and why our Democratic primaries got front-loaded with so many southern states isn’t a mystery. It was a calendar crafted purposely to eliminate anti-establishment Democratic candidates early in the primary process.” That’s what I said above.
Whether “Marie is right” I don’t know, but you’re echoing my point above, not Marie’s.
The question remains whether northern states, midwestern states, will “conform” to the pressure of Clinton’s wins in Republican, southern states over the next two weeks. Democrats across the country, from Washington to Maryland, states that will turn out majorities for the Democratic nominee in November, won’t be counted until April and May. Might California swing anti-conformist late in the primary calendar? We’ll see.
“Unfortunately, most human beings follow the crowd.”
That’s true, when it comes time to go to lunch on a weekday or Sunday dinner with the grandparents. But there’s little proof beyond those common sense conclusions about human social behavior. And what folks report to another person about what they’ve perceived and what the believe to be true because of it is quite different from what they know is true because of their lived experience and the choice they make in the privacy of a voting booth based on it. Regardless, it’s a silly, self-serving thesis, ultimately unprovable, and to say that so much (stock market booms and busts, bridal gown sales!) may be explained by it is sophistic nonsense.
I guess I understand that you are speaking specifically about the AA vote in deep southern states where the theory, were it true, seems to apply. I think it’s just the ignorance of low information voters in general, and in Democratic majority (are we still calling them “blue”) states, unlike the states of the deep south, there’s less ignorance. So it’ll be interesting to see how Democratic states vote further on towards the end of March and into April and May.
you are speaking specifically about the AA vote in deep southern states
No I wasn’t. I was speaking of voters in general. (Really find it offensive that DEM and GOP candidates have recialized this and the ’08 election. On the DEM side and to their credit, neither Obama nor Sanders did that. You could also note that in my diary on “Machines” covering IA, NH, NV, and SC, I didn’t mention any demo in those states based on race/ethnicity.)) And in general, most voters are ignorant/low info. The difference between them and non-voters is that the former exist in some social milieu that informs them that 1) they are supposed to vote and 2) how to or who to vote for. For some it’s merely that adults in their family always vote and always vote D or R. That was so easy to see in the 2014 KY election. People that desperately needed and love KYNECT, trotted down to the polls and voted R because they always vote R and when asked why said that they hated Obamacare.
Confused by your example of KY voters always voting R when the previously elected governor there was Democrat Steve Beshear. Did they forget to conform and vote R like they always do when they elected him in December 2007?
(Sorry, don’t mean to go on about this. I don’t know why these idiotic theories that are presented by political wonks infuriate me. I suppose it’s because they sound authoritative as if the evidence is persuasive on its face; as if its conclusions were valid in a context where they were never meant to apply. See it, hear it often enough, and I begin to understand why reactionary political movements form and rise.)
Agreed.
Early voted today for Sanders in DeKalb Co., GA.
Pretty much assume HRC wins Georgia, and the nomination.
Will, of course, vote for HRC in the general, because I’m neither a lunatic, nor a masochist.
Why tip your hand on the only power you have during the primary? Announcing in advance that you’ll vote for Clinton in the general election regardless of anything Clinton/DWS/DNC do in the primary to secure her nomination gives them license to lie, cheat, steal, etc.
I’ve already voted for Sanders in the primary. I do not have money or time to donate to the Sanders campaign here in Georgia, or elsewhere. That’s all I can do for Sanders.
I can sit back and bray that if I don’t get Sanders that I’m going to vote Trump, because fuck it, let’s just burn this fucker down, but I really, really doubt anyone but me and the people who agree with me give one shit about me saying it.
I will continue voting for the lesser evil. I’d rather get kicked in the balls than stabbed in the heart. Again, if that makes me a shitty progressive, then so be it. That said, I don’t believe that HRC is even remotely as bad as people make her out to be. She’s a typical center-right Democrat, like Obama and Clinton and Carter.
Stick Sanders in the General Election and I’ll vote for him and do whatever I can to get him elected. But just threatening to take my ball and go home accomplishes nothing.
You’ve done for the Sanders’ campaign what you were able to do. Nobody asks or expects more than that from anyone. (OK maybe talking him up and suggesting that others check him out.)
With the primary over for you, why not silently wait for the process to come to completion? The only time I declare during primary season who I’ll vote for in the general election is the candidate I’m supporting for the nomination. If he/she doesn’t win the nomination, I’ll consider my options at that time. Had Hillary won the nomination in ’08, it would have been extremely difficult for me to vote for her in the general because I was repulsed by so much of what she and her team did during the primary. But what I would have done is unknown even to me because I never had to face that decision.
I’ve increased the voting population of socialists by 1, and reduced the voting population of conservatives by 1, as well as being an advocate, to close family and friends to vote, when they typically say they don’t care and that it doesn’t matter.
That’s ridiculous. I make no bones of the fact that I will vote for the Democratic candidate in the fall, too. And if you ask Sanders, he’ll tell you exactly the same thing!
I got the resentful “there’s no difference between the D and R candidates” nonsense out of my system when I voted for Nader in 2000. (I hate to admit this.)
Hey, give yourself some credit, man — there are still Nader fans out there self-justifying that vote.
Nothing like the self-righteousness of a reformed sinner. I, OTOH, while not disagreeing with much of Nader’s critique wasn’t in the least tempted to vote for him. Not being a resident of FL or NH, how I voted didn’t effect the outcome, but that didn’t inform my decision. I just don’t much care for inexperienced third party candidates. Have yet to do so, but I reserve the right to do so in the future.
I did once vote for a Republican for a lower level state office. The man was qualified and had no taint of corruption. His opponent was a thoroughly corrupt DEM. The DEM won (not surprising because more often than not I vote for the loser) and thankfully lasted only one term.
I understand that. It’s really a matter of phrasing. Whether you think it’s likely or not, don’t talk about something as if it’s a done deal, because it has a propagandist effect even if that wasn’t the intention.
Perhaps all of this will be cathartic for the nation. More likely it will be another period of one step forward followed by two steps back followed by fifty more years to secure that one step forward.
You think we can finesse climate change for 50 yrs?
NO. Frankly I think were f*cked as far as climate change is concerned. Really, I do.
I’ll do whatever I can conceivably do to avoid disaster, but I think we’ve screwed the pooch. So be it. The world may go down in flames, but we can rely on future Rience Pribus’s to adjure everyone that it’s the total fault of BOTH SIDES.
I guess being smugly self-superior and self-righteous in the face of global climate disaster is viewed sort of like a glove of garlic against the vampires.
Go garlic!
Agreed.
Any climate change we’re experiencing today was initiated like 80-100 years ago.
What the human species has been doing for the past 50 years probably won’t kick in for another 20 years, and by then, there’s pretty much nothing we can do to prevent it, nevermind reverse it.
I call bullshit. There’s a lot of things we can do. Doing those thing is better than not doing them. The real issue is whether we do them or we don’t.
You can call bullshit as much as you want.
Just thinking that we “can do something”, when clearly the US populace doesn’t give one measly fuck, and US politicians clearly aren’t going to do anything of substance, means that even if I’m wrong and the warming we’re experiencing now wasn’t caused 100 years ago…it doesn’t matter one bit.
You’re part of the US population, pal. Believe me, what you’re saying is music to the polluters’ ears.
Yeah, I’m a part of the problem, because I acknowledge that man made global warming is real, that what we’re experiencing now was probably caused decades earlier, and that it’s possible that regardless of what we talk about on blog commenting boards, there is almost zero desire among the populace or the governments they make up to do anything about it.
Want to know what the polluters love?
When individuals blame themselves and their fellow citizens for global warming, and then people turn off and tune out from any remaining discussions.
” there is almost zero desire among the populace or the governments they make up to do anything about it” — No, you said nothing CAN be done about it, so if that’s true, why should the populace or governments bother, it’s too much trouble? Basically it’s a political problem, which is what I said — not a scientific impossibility, which is what you said.
Here’s the relevant quote:
What the human species has been doing for the past 50 years probably won’t kick in for another 20 years, and by then, there’s pretty much nothing we can do to prevent it, nevermind reverse it.
I pretty much believe that what we’re experiencing now is related to the massive bump in fossil fuel burning post WWII, 65 years ago.
If so, that means that what we’ve been doing since then is only going to make the weather and climate even more odd. Another 20 years of what we’re doing today, and there’s essentially no way you can even prevent climate change from happening…especially since the climate change occurring today was from half a century before.
Throw another 20 years on there…and yeah, by 2100 the climate is going to be fucked.
Or it won’t, and we’ll be able to solve the problem.
But, saying that my having an opinion on it, hence it’s my and everyone else’s fault, is what turns people off to begin with. They turn off and tune out, because most of us realize there isn’t a god damn thing we can do about it, because we don’t have the money or the power to do anything about it.
I see I did not read you the way you intended. But I also see that my reading hinged on the previous by saying “Agreed” to what RUKidding had said:
“Frankly I think were f*cked as far as climate change is concerned. Really, I do.
.. I think we’ve screwed the pooch. So be it. The world may go down in flames, but we can rely on future Rience Pribus’s to adjure everyone that it’s the total fault of BOTH SIDES.
I guess being smugly self-superior and self-righteous … ” Thus RUKidding.
So when you said “Agreed” and “What the human species has been doing for the past 50 years probably won’t kick in for another 20 years,” I thought you meant — what the human species has been doing to MITIGATE THE DAMAGE won’t kick in for another 20 years and by then it will be too late.”
That’s how I read it and that’s what I was responding too. If it’s not what you meant, I apologize.
He’s right about future Rance Priebus’s, but there’s always people like that. What counts is not the people who are going in the wrong direction, or the people who do nothing, but the people who do something — of which there are plenty. I have worked on successful environmental campaigns, and that’s all that counts — the prople who do something — you can’t worry about the people who do nothing, and you have to fight the people who are going in the wrong direction.
No reason to apologize. I wasn’t offended.
If I were Emperor, or President Trump, I would immediately start working to reduce carbon emissions, unilaterally, while dropping hundreds of billions of dollars into every type of clean/renewable energy: Thorium nuclear, wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, and of course cold fusion, which should be here right around the time SS goes bankrupt, if the yearly “20 years from now” predictions regarding both come to fruition.
That said, probably 50% of the US electorate doesn’t care about global warming, and as long as the US isn’t doing anything, the rest of the world has an out.
I believe, even though I don’t want to, that maybe the world will get its shit together in 20-30 years, when climates around the world are all kinds of fucked. But, by then, I think its more a matter of adaptation and outright survival, than it is mitigation, nevermind prevention or reversal.
Without going on a long rant on topics that are almost off-topic (too late!), I bet that climate change has been a problem for most intelligent life in the universe. We’re simply replicating molecules, and complexity in essence means we’re just using more and more molecules to make more and more complex environments friendly to our own particular molecular replication. But, given a finite planet and no twin planet to easily escape to and start over, we, like other intelligent life forms, have destroyed (will destroy?) our environment to such a degree that we make our own existence impossible, or at least much less likely to advance beyond our current technology, into a Type I civilization ( http://futurism.com/the-kardashev-scale-type-i-ii-iii-iv-v-civilization/ ).
The way we’re acting, climate change either gets us or doesn’t all on its own. A crap shoot but that’s the only game being played. Human beings aren’t well designed for long-term thinking.
We’re not able to think clearly about rare events that occur only once in multiple human lifetimes, say. Natural hazards like really big floods or volcanic eruptions fall in that category. Try telling people that they can’t build their dream house on a piece of property because the data indicate it’s likely to be inundated once every hundred years on average.
Years ago I had a neighbor who was the manager of the local TV station in a fairly populated area. He said the average “viewer memory” for significant events is 6 months.
Wonder if Trump supporters were given a choice of Jefferson Davis or Franklin Roosevelt as president today, just which one they would choose, inside that voting booth.
Isn’t Trump trying to be both to them? Quite a balancing act.
No. He’ll be George Wallace and thus, no contradictions to deal with. (Must remember that Wallace won the 1972 DEM MI primary with 51% of the vote.)
Yeah, that works. Those Yurpean choices don’t have historical roots in USian fables, I think.
Mussolini
SATSQ
Eh? I say go full Godwin or GTFO!
Why should the Germans get all the
creditblame?Because the Italians didn’t build the furnaces?
Good answer!
I remember a PBS program about the Italian Generals and Croatia. Early on, the Generals considered what would happen if they might lose the war and decided they didn’t want any part of the mass murder. So they deliberately stalled German requests to round up Croatian Jews. They told Mussolini that they would comply after the civilian bureaucrats investigated to be sure they weren’t Italian citizens. The show claimed that at every meeting Hitler would ask Mussolini when he was going to deliver the Croatian Jews and Mussolini would shrug and say “it’s the Italian bureaucracy” and Hitler understood the excuse.
If only Trump could just buy the votes like Thaksin would.
Priebus, along with all of the smugly superior self-righteous rightwing pundits are in the game of selling Both Sides Do It, and ergo, it’s the blame is to be apportioned 50-50, if not even, say, 30 R v 70 D.
That’s all they do in the echo chamber. Constant both siderisms.
It’s why they continuously – daily, hourly, every minute – blame Obama for being so incredibly divisive.
How DARE that Blah think he can appoint a SC Justice? WHO does he think he is??? HOW DIVISIVE!
Lather rience repeat
I saw what you did there. lol
What’s ironic is that the candidate whom the majority of Republican voters would find most acceptable — from a pure, policy-based vantage point — is Hillary Clinton.
If you just took away the “D” next to her name, you’d have a standard, “Centrist,” warmongering, Israel-appeasing, bank-friendly, disingenuous, entrenched Washington insider who pays lip-service to social issues when it’s expedient to do so — in other words, a standard Republican President.
The only problem is that they’ve spent so many decades in this crazed, bloodshot rage, ensuring that anyone with a television loathes her, so the competent-but-unremarkable candidate with the best resume might actually be defeated by a grotesque, ignorant fascist clown.
Considering how some of the GOP “establishment” is hand wringing over the Frankenstein’s monster that they so carefully and expensively created, I’m inclined to believe that many of them are now supporting Clinton’s run.
It may be more secretive, but that’s what I’m speculating. Because, at the end of the day, Clinton is a Wall St/MIC friend NeoCon/NeoLib War Hawk. The end.
And the PTB know that, for all the chatter about Clinton being “better” for minorities, all THAT is talk… cheap talk that’s meaningless. There’s loads of article abounding on the ‘net about how Clinton is most definitely not some savior of the minorities, but of course the MSM will tout that line.
I’m putting my bet on HRC to get in bc at the end of the day, I’m thinking that the PTB will, if not openly at least secretly, be doing everything in their power to ensure that happens. I think the rightwing establishment will be giving up on Cruz, Rubio and Kasich soon (Carson has only been in it to make money for himself).
The PTB may pay some homage to Trump bc they feel they have to. But Hillary’s their candidate now.
JMHO, of course. That’s how I see it.
Neolibs and neocons really belong in a single party. But who would provide the majorities? Maybe after they solve that whole voting issue…
But can she beat Trump?
Wrong question, Shaun.
The real question (AG disagrees but he’s not really hitting on all cylinders regarding Trump, IMHO) is can anyone LOSE to Trump?.
The answer is: I don’t know. If I knew the answer to that question I’d be a helluva more sanguine about Bernie.
We underestimate Trump at our peril. There is a disturbance in the force; can you feel it?
Booman Tribune ~ The Ugliest Campaign Ever
Claiming boldly not to be racists, while spouting rascist rethoric, has been a popular and effective strategy for the far right in Europe to gets its views accepted into the mainstream. On one hand, a rascist scumbag claiming not to be a racist and on the other someone claiming that the rascist is rascist. How can media handle this but claim that views are divided on the subject of what rascism is?
I think they genuinely believe they’re not racists.
It’s a semantic problem at heart. Every racist I’ve ever talked to over the years presents him- or herself in the same way: they don’t want to make generalizations, but they’re forced to by the reality they see; the characteristics they observe.
That’s how you get “reverse racism” charges and “political correctness” and all that. They don’t think they’re doing anything wrong; they don’t think they’re applying blanket judgments (“pre-judging” literally); they think they have the courage and insight to see what’s “actually” going on and how white people are being systematically oppressed.
It depends on who you mean. David Duke doesn’t mind being called a racist. His ideology is explicitly racist, he knows that and so does everybody else, whether friend or foe.
Not so, Priscianus. David Duke denies being racist. He embraces the term Racialist. He doesn’t dislike Black people, he LOVES white people. He has, in the past, bragged about sending $$ to the NOI.
You can say that that is irrelevant (and it is in an absolute sense), but it allows him and others to work around the cognitive dissonance caused by reality.
Whether or not you agree is of no matter. Its what THEY believe that counts in this.
Otherwise known as “race realist”. They like to go by many different names. They try to use “science” to back up their claims.
That’s interesting, but nothing new. There’s a vast thematic of racists loving black people, as long as they stay “in their place”. It has always been widespread in the South. They claim that liberals are cruel by forcing them to act beyond their capacities, like Scalia when he said blacks belong at “slower” colleges. The real hatred of minorities is probably more typical of the urban north, where they have often been seen as a threat to jobs.
Hey guys, check out my piece in Slate about the FBI, Apple, Scalia, 21st century jurisprudence and the death of originalism:
The FBI’s fight with Apple will be the case of the century
Question, didn’t the FBI mess up the ability of Apple to open just this one (San Bernardino killers) phone? If so, that’s no different than authorities spoiling/contaminating evidence in any case.
Rubio just launched a searing attack on Trump. Here’s why it may fail.
At a rally late yesterday, Rubio called out Trump by name and faulted him for being insufficiently hostile to Obamacare and insufficiently supportive of Israel. “He thinks parts of Obamacare are pretty good,” Rubio scoffed, before casting himself as the only true scourge of the law. Rubio noted that Trump “has said he’s not going to take sides on Israel versus the Palestinians because he wants to be an honest broker.”
Rubio also hit Trump for being inexperienced and ignorant on foreign policy, arguing that he’d be tougher and more knowledgeable.
“Rubio also hit Trump for being inexperienced and ignorant on foreign policy, arguing that he’d be…more knowledgeable.”
Bet that comes back to bite him.
It sounds so pre-programmed. Maybe Trump can get him to repeat it a few times tonight.
Ha ha ha. You know Rubio has his reponse memorized. The game is to see if he repeats it word for word. He wouldn’t dare would he?
The real Q is whether anyone can get Rubiobot to stop repeating it endlessly. Hope his programmers have fixed that glitch.
Trump will say “super predator”, someone will say both sides do it, and having the white hoods in his corner will become a minor distraction.
That clueless twit from Wisconsin,(no not scotty walker) has never seen a hostile takeover in action, and he will be wondering WTF till from June till November.
GOtPer central is about to get t-Rumped royally.