It’s pretty bad when Newt Gingrich thinks your political pitch is too tinged with racism. With Gingrich, you can be assured that this is a political objection rather than a moral or principled one. But that’s why it’s interesting. I don’t think Trump is bashing Judge Gonzalo Curiel because he thinks it will help him politically to piss off every decent person in the country. He doesn’t think that deeply. All he knows is that he’s taking heat for running a fraudulent scheme and he wants to turn it around so that he becomes the victim.
I mean, the court case has already been delayed beyond the election, so spinning against the ultimate outcome of the case is beside the point. What he’s trying to preempt is any actual discussion of the evidence of fraud that the judge ordered released to the public. But this is like throwing a hand grenade in your own kitchen to ward off an intruder. You can’t fix the problem by blowing yourself up.
Rank-and-file Republicans would have been willing to spin away a couple of fraud cases that are still being litigated, but they aren’t willing to back Trump on his racist attacks on this judge. So, he’s really created a much bigger problem for himself even if he succeeded in changing the focus of the story a bit.
It’s useful, really, to see this so early in the campaign. After all, if Donald Trump gives this little of a shit about his fellow Republicans, he definitely doesn’t give a shit about you.
Not just racially attacking a judge that has previously been under death threats.
A judge born in the USA
Whose father immigrated before Trump’s mother.
And, then, this clown, had the nerve, when they tried to help dig him out the hole by suggesting that maybe a Muslim judge could oversee the trial, that, the MUSLIM is also suspect.
uh huh
uh huh
If Trump really goes off the rails, the GOP will have to stick the knife in him and Plan B this whole disaster. They all hate him anyway.
What’s amazing is how quickly Trumpenstein is going off the rails. It’s so ridiculous, it’s as if he doesn’t really want the job (I have believed for some time is that Trump is the dog that caught the car).
Cleveland is gonna be huge.
But what is the GOP Plan B? (We know what the Dem Plan B is.) Return to one of the fifteen Plan Bs that were box office bombs?
They can’t stick a fork in him. The entire base of the party will become unglued. They’re the ones who consider it entirely reasonable to object to a judge of Mexican descent. Trump claimed he could commit murder on 5th Ave in Manhattan and not lose votes. Among his voters, that’s true.
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I genuinely believe that Trump knows that the job of President is beyond his ken and he’s gonna implode before the convention so that the party will have to pick someone else. For the country that would be a good thing, but personally I hope that he doesn’t until after the convention. I want our side to win big and run the table on the R’s.
I used to think something like this would happen. But now he wants his name up there on that stage more than anything, with all the big republican poobas cheering him.
He’s made it to the REALLY big time.
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I don’t know if it’s self-assured destruction, frankly. Gingrich is just as responsible for Trump, as all the rest of the PTB on the right, including the media barons who continue to give Blowhard Racist Trump incessant air time, hanging out for his every bigoted utterance.
There’s some hand-wringing happening over Trump’s wild & crazy bigotry vis Judge Curiel and all Muslims, but it plays well with Trump’s base, including women & minorities, who apparently only want WHITE supposedly “Christian” males to run the show here.
I’m not sure that what Trump’s doing will assure his destruction. It seems to me that a lot of citizens are being trained to hang out to watch the Trump Reality show, and they’re enjoying it. I can’t stand it, myself, but… whadda I know?
Gingrich can stick a sock in it. He created this monster, and he has no notion of how to deal with it. Figures.
There is an important idea, that Trump supporters don’t understand…and, more important, Trump himself doesn’t understand.
The idea is this: Trump supporters are a very small group.
They’re a larger group than were Cruz primary supportersJeb Bush primary supporters, Rubio primary supporters, etc. But that’s really not saying much at all. (All those candidates were lightweights except for Cruz, who would have been the Bob Dole or John McCain of 2016 anyway.) The anti-Trump primary voters, regarded as a bloc, vastly outnumber the Trump primary supporters — they just lost out because they were scrambling incoherently around, unable to attach themselves to any one candidate until way too late.
So Trump has this little group he’s successful with. Add a bunch of dubious general-election Republican voters who hate Hillary, and a post-convention bounce, and you see some competitive polls, but that’s meaningless and fleeting.
The point is, Trump is so ignorant about presidential politics (and, really, about the rudiments of how the government or elections work) that he thinks the “techniques” that got him to the nomination are going to work going forward, in the same way, if he just continues them. He sees those big cheering crowds and thinks that’s the entire electorate rather than some ugly, retrograde fringe group.
It’s a serious, probably fatal mistake. But it’s [i]de rigueur[/i] for a man like Trump who’s got such a consistent track record of screwing things up because he doesn’t understand how they work beyond the self-aggrandizement, which is all he’s ever cared about anyway.
hey you used the wrong brackets for italics or really any html stuff you need this ones <>
so it works for anything in your post
You know, what I’m about to say may stun or shock you, but, believe it or not, I actually realize this.
Generally I get it right, but I was just over at Ars Technica where they have a different system and you have to use the square brackets. So I got it wrong and by the time I realized it, it was too late, since the anachronistic system here doesn’t let you edit a comment after you’ve posted it.
yeah it’s a pain in the ass, wish you could just highlight and pick what you want instead of having to know how to type it out in html
because it echoes my view for a long time.
It’s weird (unless maybe you factor in the effect of the clueless Corporate Media with their horse-race obsessions) the extent to which people don’t get that even 40-50% (roughly where Trump topped out) of the GOP primary electorate does not translate to winning a general election.
Basic stuff.
Quite apart from alienating every conservative and moderate who believes in (and relies on) the rule of law; further alarming Latinos who have been in the country for generations; casting doubt on his own personal integrity – whether he is in it for himself or for the country; – why on earth would Trump want to highlight this issue and bring it up front and centre in his campaign? The trial isn’t until after the election, so he could simply have ignored it and fobbed off critics by saying he will win the case – believe me.
Not only does this raise the suspicion he is more interested in making more money by dubious means than he is in governing for the common good, it raises the issue of his temperament: Why fly into a rage over something that won’t even be litigated until after the election? It shows him to be a short tempered bully and a brat – without even a modicum of common, never mind political, sense.
Just in case any drunk white racists forgot that Trump really, really hates those fucking Mexicans.
It’s what he always does When he thinks he’s been hit, he hits back. I don’t think he can help it. Remember when Romney made fun of Trump steaks and water, and so Trump had to bring them along to his victory speech to show they were to for real?
So what is going to happen Friday at the Ali funeral? Does The Donald go or hide out in his tower? Looks like the elites of the Muslim world plan to attend.
Trump is just not very smart. Period.
Trying to fit what he says within a context of ‘this is what I would have said’ or other personal references is a waste of time.
If you are stupid, he can sound smart.
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Let’s not get distracted from the real issue which is definitely not the ethnicity of Judge Curiel.
The real issue is that Trump is facing RICO charges for running a criminal enterprise otherwise known as Trump U. This is not just a run of the mill tort case– this is a real criminal complaint that is going to go to trial.
All of his ranting about the judge is his inner 2 year old trying to get you to look away from the real issue. Trump is in serious legal trouble.
Examine all the particulars here: http://www.trumpuniversitylitigation.com/
And, by the way, the AG offices in both Texas and Florida were told to stand down on their investigations by the republican AGs of those states. Lo and behold, Trump donations appeared as an obvious quid pro quo. This thing stinks to high heaven.
This part is just amazing.
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LOL In Texas, that is just bidness.
It gets worse. TPM reports that as the investigation was ongoing, the Florida AG contacted Trump, and after receiving a $25,000 donation, deep-sixed the investigation. To top it off, the donation was made illegally from a charity.
Gonna shimmy slightly out onto a limb here to predict na ga ha pen (and not because of corruption, but because it’s been pretty obvious all along that there’s little if any “there” there).
If the Presidential campaign is turning out that rosy, are Democrats prepared to take the fight downticket in every state?
Democrats blow it if this is another minimalist campaign because they perceive that there is so much low-hanging fruit with Trump as the GOP nominee.
It’s only this rosy within Democratic circles, including center right blogs that used to view themselves as progressives. Not so rosy in the polls because the majority of American voters tune out all the rhetoric and detailed critiques. They briefly check out the conventions and then not bother to listen until the week before the general. They’ll vote in accordance with their church, friends, families, or gut. Although that last one may interfere with voting at all as both candidates induce a certain level of nausea.
I thought of you when I saw this at Steve Benen’s place:
“And though it may seem like a modest accomplishment, the Kansas Democratic Party will run a candidate in every State Senate district this year. This is the first time the state party has done this in three decades.”
Thanks for bringing this. That’s outstanding and telling. Especially since Kansas did have Kathleen Sibelius as governor only eight years ago.
Three decades! Since 1986. That is the political malpractice that delivered Kansans to suffer under Brownback.
All he knows is that he’s taking heat for running a fraudulent scheme and he wants to turn it around so that he becomes the victim. I think the explanation is more basic. The man is melting down. Hillary’s speech trolled him deeply. What’s worked for him to this point isn’t working anymore. The press, the public is desensitized. The smug provocateur was nowhere to be found this weekend. Just a screaming drunk on a bar stool. I see no strategy here. He’s an entitled bully who suddenly finds himself in a position of weakness to his inferiors. We see an experienced senator/Sec state. We see a federal judge and brilliant attorney (Curiel). Trump sees himself getting slapped by a chick and the guy who sleeps under a big sombrero next to a cactus. This frightens and confuses The Donald. My question is, If the meme of incompetence holds, grows, If Trump were to even break down mentally before the convention, can his delegates be turned by establishment Repubs to pick a guy like Ryan?
Doubling down
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-instructs-surrogates-go-at-reporters
presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump reportedly told his surrogates Monday to intensify their comebacks to reporters who inquire about a lawsuit against Trump University and the judge presiding over it, Bloomberg News reported.
Bloomberg spoke with two people on the call who spoke on anonymity and said Trump instructed his surrogates to let what he portrayed as hypocritical TV reporters “have it.”
“The people asking the questions–those are the racists,” Trump reportedly said, seeming irritated. “I would go at ’em.”
Trump had said that U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is presiding over cases against Trump University in California, has a conflict of interest because of his “Mexican heritage.” The businessman has railed against Hispanics since he launched his campaign, when he infamously stated that some undocumented immigrants were “rapists” and “criminals.”
“The call was scheduled in order for Mr. Trump to thank his supporters and congratulate everyone as the primaries officially come to an end,” Trump’s spokeswoman Hope Hicks told Bloomberg. “Many topics were discussed and it was a productive call for all parties.”
On the call with his surrogates, the real estate mogul also reportedly contradicted instructions distributed to surrogates by his own staff member. A memo sent Sunday by a staff member and obtained by Bloomberg told surrogates that they were not at liberty to discuss the Trump University lawsuit publicly.
“Are there any other stupid letters that were sent to you folks?” Trump said, as quoted by Bloomberg. “That’s one of the reasons I want to have this call, because you guys are getting sometimes stupid information from people that aren’t so smart.”
The memo was distributed to some of Trump’s campaign staffers, including Hicks, campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and a top aide to Paul Manafort, who is Trump’s top strategist.
“Take that order and throw it the hell out,” Trump said, as quoted by Bloomberg
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AP & NBC are projecting Hilary Clinton to be the Presumptive Democratic Nominee
And just screwed a bunch of downticket races in New Jersey and California. Not to mention some items of partisan note (judges and local boards of education if those are like most states) or ballot initiatives that got dropped in the primary election.
Hope Sanders has a loud “not so fast” to restore some of the turnout. Campaign staffs can get bad cases of tunnel vision, and media can meddle.
Not the first time California voters have been made irrelevant. Carter did it by conceding too early in 1980.
seems like neither campaign wanted or expected this today, I doubt it will affect anything
here in CA the mail-in vote is likely to be enormous (60% at least), reducing the impact of anything said today.
Democrats have an interesting Senate race and at least in my district a good House race. My ballot is sitting on the table marked and I will still turn it in tomorrow. To the extent that Bernie has driven the recent surge in registrations, I think those voters will show up to make their statement.
Over many decades, Donald Trump has honed his skills at doing whatever you want to call what he does to make a living.
He’s got a repertoire of gimmicks and shtiklakh that seem to work for him in his line of business. It’s long since become second nature.
Now he’s just transferring it into politics. It worked out for him in the primaries, against any number of very weak candidates. The point is, he really can’t do anything else, it’s all he knows. Now he’s moving into the general, he’s going to find it’s not a very good fit.