It’s Super Tuesday
[BUMPED UP]
Not so very super in my book.
Here’s a thread for discussing it, including your experiences if you’re voting today.
I fully expect Donald Trump to do very very well. I fully expect his supporters to be ecstatic, vindictive, and mocking of others in their response. I fully expect the MSM to cover the results as though it means Trump is the inevitable nominee.
He’s not inevitable, of course. But all options open to the GOP to stop him are bad, and will create a backlash. The best option, in my opinion, remains the necessity for one of the current leaders (Cruz or Rubio) to swerve in the game of Chicken they are playing, and to do so well before March 15th. I am hoping that one of them does so much better today than the other in so many states that it becomes clear which one must drop out, but I don’t think that will happen. I’ve been wishing it for a long time, and they have continued to be very evenly matched.
If one or the other drops out, Trump still might win the whole thing and become the nominee. But at least we’d have a better gauge of the actual percentage of his support among GOP voters.
Here’s an article on how, although the fat lady is practicing her scales in the wings, she hasn’t started singing yet and won’t today. And here’s one on what the Democrats have in store for a Trump nomination (something I’ve written about many times here):
As Donald Trump seems poised for a huge night Tuesday, Democrats see his stunning ascent and controversial, celebrity-driven business empire as a golden opportunity.
“Those bankruptcies screwed a lot of people — and not just hedge fund yuppies,” said a top strategist aligned with a pro-Clinton super PAC. “His idea of ‘winning’ has involved a lot of bad behavior — and the victims are exactly the profile of Trump voters: blue-collar whites.”
For months, key campaign operatives inside the Republican Party establishment were supremely confident that Trump would implode long before this moment. Instead, the GOP is now facing an existential crisis not seen in more than a generation as much of the party leadership and many of its top figures are in open revolt against Trump’s candidacy heading into Super Tuesday.
The potential liabilities lurking in Trump’s background are hardly a secret. The real estate magnate’s occasional business failings and colorful personal life have filled the pages of New York tabloids for decades.
Storing its ammunition for the general election, one pro-Democratic super PAC, Priorities USA, has taken a few jabs at Trump, choosing instead to portray the businessman as a reflection of the Republican Party.
Indeed, they don’t call the GOP “the stupid party” for nothing.
I’ve been crying in the wilderness for many months, posting articles about it and writing to people trying to galvanize them into these sort of attacks on Trump (including the “Trump vs. blue collar people” that Democrats are said to be planning). But such attacks from the GOP candidates only started quite recently, and way too late IMHO.
I said as much very explicitly in this post from late January:
This information is all in the public domain, and so far his opposition isn’t using it. Perhaps his GOP opponents haven’t used it so far because they thought he’d fade on his own. Or each one of them didn’t want to become his special target. Or they thought they could attack him on his politics. That hasn’t seemed to work so far. But it seems to me that, if a guy is making a lot of promises to you, and telling you what a great negotiator and dealmaker he is, and that’s why you should elect him””he’s a doer who does great things””you’d do well to look at some of his deals that went bad, his behavior during them, and the consequences. If he’s a liar, he might just be lying to you.
One thing I think we can safely say is that the Democrats will use this stuff against Trump if he is the nominee. It makes him look terrible: liar, con man, rich elitist bullying the little guy.
Hey, they don’t read neo-neocon; what can I say?
So, here we are. Fasten your seat belts for Super Tuesday.
Very heavy turnout at my polling place this morning in Georgia. The lines were long and the voters — mostly GOP types at my place — were all very quiet and rather glum looking. I think we all knew that we’re in a “tight spot” in re this election. I voted Cruz FWIW.
Maybe we’ll have a nice surprise tonight.
One can still hope, no?
I think Cruz can win Texas. If that is the case, he will stick around and hopefully some more of the other candidates will drop out. Then things really get interesting…
Ted Cruz is my senator, but I honestly don’t see the qualities associated with him that many have imagined. He’s good at opposing liberal policies, most of the time. But he’s not an idea guy, or somebody who’s going to rescue the economy with imaginative tax packages or do anything about bad trade deals except possibly repeal them. Same goes for Obama Care – as soon as he decrees he wants congress to send him a bill repealing it, they will ask him “and then what?”
I admit it’s a noble cause to oppose all the dumb things that have been implemented, but even a Republican House and Senate will not vote with him to repeal Obama care without something else to replace it. Which will be debated in the media and both Houses ad nauseam. If they dismantle it over night, they will get killed 2 years from now, and half of them are already in bed with insurance companies who helped elect them.
I just don’t see Trump as being any less of disaster in practical terms than Cruz. Nor do I accept the nonsensical conventional wisdom that’s been fed to the public about who will win in a general election, based on pandering to the “moderates” and running nice losers. I don’t need to go through the list, but they’ve been wrong for decades. The argument seems to be that even though they have been, they’re not this time, just trust us. Cruz is a good guy, but he would not be any better or worse than Trump in terms of results. Re Judges: The last time a Republican president correctly picked a conservative judge was Clarence Thomas. I’m sure Ted thinks he knows who to appoint, as did GWB when he picked the knucklehead who passed Obama care. So that’s proved to be a crap shoot too.
I guess I’d rather be positive about what’s probably going to happen, than pretend that we’ve been given a golden opportunity to reap the rewards of another Ronald Reagan, because Ted Cruz isn’t that guy. He’s a good lawyer and a good obstructionist, but he’s not had a career of doing amazing things that people seem to think would be automatic.
I think it will be a mixed result with Cruz and Rubio stay in through March 15. Selfish Ben too.
Only hope is Rubio wins FL and Kasich OH.
I think it will all end in tears with a Trump nomination and then a brutal defeat in November. Trump carrys fewer than 15 small states like NE. President Hillary.
“I voted Cruz FWIW.”
Thanks Carl in Atlanta!
“Maybe we’ll have a nice surprise tonight.
One can still hope, no?”
Yes, there’s hope. Your action alone in voting for Cruz is a sign of hope. Keep the faith!
Listen to the audios of Trump ranking and degrading women with Howard Stern.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/donald-trump-said-a-lot-of-gross-things-about-women-on-howar#.nfJyl9P32E
Did you see conservative foreign policy intellectual Max Boot said he would support Hillary over Trump?
“If you take seriously Donald Trump’s crackpot proposals, if they were implemented, it would leave America impoverished and isolated. He would actually be far more dangerous than that: He has plainly shown that he does not have either the intellect or the character to be commander in chief. I’m frankly terrified at the notion that somebody as bigoted and ignorant as Donald Trump could possibly wind up in command of the most powerful military force in the world.”
Cornhead: If you were a full-fledged supporter of Hillary Clinton; what exactly would you be doing differently?
Voted, and my husband and I unexpectedly ran into our 32 year-old son at the polling center, so as we walked out my son said he voted for Rubio, my husband said he voted for Kasich and I voted for Cruz. My son said our family is why Trump will win. Still have three other adult children – one who is a liberal, one who is in TX and a Cruz supporter and one who’s a libertarian Ron Paul/2nd Amendment single issue voter. I live in a dem-controlled country in GA – light voter turn-out, with not even a line waiting. In and out in just a few minutes.
Aside from that FOX news seemed to be all in for Trump again, but this morning I was listening to Fox and Friends in the background. There’s this huge double-standard that the media and all the Trump sycophants keep selling that bothers me a great deal. Rudy Giuliani did it this morning and I lost all respect for him, even though I had known for quite a while that he was informally advising Trump. The hosts started admonishing Rubio’s attacks on Trump as childish and unacceptable and not working, but they all gave Trump a free pass, as usual. Since last summer they’ve sold this line that Trump is brave and says things no one else will say, as if it’s deserving of some commendation for being the cure for PC. Giuliani airily dismissed Trump’s even more childish attacks as, “that’s just Donald Trump being Donald Trump.” I’ve heard O’Reilly, Hannity, Geraldo, Pirro, and many others in the media repeat this same line. It echoes exactly the same line of reasoning that Clinton sycophants have used for years to dismiss the Clintons being entitled to their own special rules.
If those at the top display the most callous disregard for rules, with both social conduct and respect for the rule of law, we are doomed. Is it an outdated notion to expect leaders to be held to higher standards, as they are supposed to be exemplars, not the lowest common denominator?
Starlord,
Sorry, I am a Texan too and couldn’t disagree with you more on Ted Cruz. Yes, he has been an obstructionist in DC (A Plus In My Mind), but that was mainly due to the circumstances in which he came into and the total lack of leadership in the Republican Party. He has some very good ideas when it comes to the economy, immigration and foreign policy. Just go to his website and read them. Do your homework and stop listening to the Establishment tell you he can’t win. He Can!
Libertybelle
The shilling for Trump on Fox is unbearable. They are all buds with him and a big New York thing. Puke. Thanks for handing the election to Hillary.
I would love to see an analysis of how much air time was spent on polls.
‘ I honestly don’t see the qualities associated with him that many have imagined.’
If our freedom is the goal then the most important quality in a candidate is commitment to freedom and the constitution. Cruz has that in abundance. All else will come with experience.
Wisdom > Intelligence > Knowledge. For a presidential candidate, vision is all important, experience is not (and may actually be a negative under some circumstances)
Over 20,000 democrats have left the Jackass Party in conversion to the GOP. Since last fall.
leave it to the unprincipled liberals to change parties just to vote in the candidate they want Hillary to go up against.
Only to reverse that chameleon change in time for the general election to vote her in.
Pathetic.
And nothing like getting the Gold Standard of endorsements for a GOP candidate than, Jimmy Carter. When he came out and endorsed Trump several weeks ago, it took days for me to extract my face from my palms.
Yeeeeeesh. What a effing Hot Mess…
Starlord, why would you think a President has to be an idea man? He hires idea men and women. They put a lot of ideas in front of him, and he makes judgements. Here are the keys; judgement, courage, integrity, belief in the constitution. And, of course, choosing the right idea staff. (note: I use the pronoun “he” deliberately as there is now only one woman in the contest)
Antonin Scalia summed it up thusly:
“Bear in mind that brains and learning, like muscle and physical skill, are articles of commerce. They are bought and sold. You can hire them by the year or by the hour. The only thing in the world not for sale is character”
Amendment to previous post:
20,000 democrats, in Massachusetts alone, have left the democrat party. To join the GOP.
Starlord…
Me thinks you conflate politicians with god-heads — able to win the fight Alexander the Great style.
Reagan was the greatest President of the 29th Century — and all he did was stick to basics:
We win; they lose.
Lower tax rates.
Don’t hobble the economy.
&&&&&&&&
The LAST thing I want out any President is MORE twiddling with the economy and demographic warfare — which the current tyrant is fully engaged in.
Both must end in a trail of tears.
1) Ted Cruz aims to eliminate the IRS and personal income taxes all together.
A VAT tax on consumption will entirely replace income taxes.
VAT taxes exist in Canada and Europe. Their mistake was to not repeal income taxes.
Ted knows that he’ll need 38 states to amend the Constitution. I think it can be done.
****
Income taxation = AUTOMATIC corruption via Congress and K Street.
VAT taxes have proved to be MUCH tougher to game than income taxes.
VAT taxes are also MUCH smoother.
Sacramento’s budget lives and dies on Wall Street — especially high tech stock trading. Obviously, capital gains on such trades swing wildly with the enthusiasm cycle.
That makes for bad policy, as during the boom years Sacramento goes spending crazy. Then when the lean times arrive, Sacramento hits the skids.
&&&&&
2) Ted Cruz wants to enforce our immigration laws as written.
That’s all that would be necessary to halt illegal immigration and systematic ejection of illegal aliens.
There will be no tales of great woe. Families will not split up — which our current President is encouraging — instead they’ll leave the same way they came — together.
No Latin American nation is going to stop their citizens from keeping their family together.
Get real.
“Shilling on Fox” for Trump? LOL. For months they were making fun of him–go back and watch broadcasts from summer and fall of 2015. Then when Rubio got 3rd in Iowa, they were crowning him the victor. Their ‘shilling’ changes with the wind.
As for Rubio being ‘treated differently’ it is because he suddenly changed who he is as a candidate right in the middle of the race. He was supposed to be the guy who could talk policy and such, now he talking about penis size? It just comes across as sad and desperate.
BTW, they HAVE been hammering Trump about his language since the beginning. At this point, it is nothing new. It is how he runs his campaign.
“20,000 democrats, in Massachusetts alone, have left the democrat party. To join the GOP.”
I saw that too. I was wondering whether they were doing so, so that they could vote in the GOP primary in Massachusetts for Donald Trump. And then in November go back to voting for Hillary or Bernie or Biden.
The Age of Madness is upon us.
LDC, I’ve seen him speak before he ran for President, and also before he ran for Senate here in TX. I didn’t say he couldn’t win, I just don’t believe his chances are any better than Trump when it comes to the general. The media will hammer either one without mercy. I voted for him anyway,but if Trump is the nominee, I’ve got no problem supporting him.
Mainly because I get frustrated when I hear the parroting about protectionism that Trump is supposedly promoting, which I hear almost unanimously by conservative pundits and blogs.
The nonsense is not coming from Trump, it’s coming from the conservative pundits who haven’t got a clue about what our trade policies are, or ever had to deal with actual exporting anything into China or Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, you name it.
But I have. And when Trump says that we’re getting screwed, he’s putting it mildly. We’re getting bent over and it’s being broken off, if you can excuse the language. It drives me insane listening to the likes of Krauthammer and Will insist on Trump’s ignorance. He is absolutely correct when he says you cannot export manufactured goods into China without a tariff being slapped on it. And when he says “you want to do business with China, you build a factory in China”, he is 100% accurate. That is exactly the kind of free trade we have. On top of building the factory, if you want to use some imported goods for the finished product – from anywhere but China, you will pay a tariff on those too, unless the end consumer insists on specific parts be made elsewhere, or you have proven to the Chinese government that it cannot be obtained in China. And then there is the pirating of the technology. China has made sure they are the sole supplier of all the products that are sourced for the finished product as well. And sadly, this is the same model that other countries have adopted. US companies build factories in other countries in order to do business with them. The biggest beneficiaries are the countries where the factory goes, and the shareholders in the companies.
I have been responsible for engineering and designing products for the oil drilling business and getting them exported into the Chinese market for years. This is how it’s done. You build a factory there and set up shop. This is how every company does business there also, whether it’s American or European. We don’t have free trade, or any semblance of it. China allows import of chicken, soybeans, mostly food, and what they need. That’s it.
We freely import almost anything from them that meets the FDA or UL or other standard regulations, which China insists are the same as a tariff.
This model is also true of many of our “free trade partners”. I won’t list them, but suffice it to say, the reason we’ve been to appreciated this by the GOP and the Dems is lower prices to the consumer. Which is true, but it wasn’t done for that or our benefit, it was done so the margins that companies want to make can stay the same or increase. And to some extent, increase market share. So the investors and shareholders do well, and it looks like a win win. But it’s destroyed our manufacturing sectors, and we have become more dependent on importing the fundamental things needed to sustain ourselves as a country. Between our government and corporate taxes, the EPA, and stupid trade agreements, we’re killing ourselves.
I would love to hear the Krauthammers and the Wills and the rest of the experts who like to define what is and isn’t conservative, tell me about their own experiences trading with these countries before informing fellow conservatives what’s good for them and what isn’t. Or to explain how our trade policies are free, or fair. They aren’t, and their ignorance is infuriating, and all the more so when they call Trump and idiot for calling out these ridiculous agreements that both parties sign up for.
Much to my surprise, Cruz was for the TPA 2 months before he voted against it. I have no idea where he really stands, but I don’t know what he really knows about trade. He’s been a lawyer all his life.
From Politifact: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/jul/08/ted-cruz/ted-cruz-changed-position-trade-promotion-authorit/
“We strongly urge our colleagues in Congress to vote for trade-promotion authority,” Cruz stated, along with co-author Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on April 21.
Who can you trust ? Trump has taken both sides of every issue too.
At the end of the day, I don’t think Hillary wins over Trump or Cruz, as the national polls now say. She’s got issues that aren’t going to go away, and she’s hardly a charming individual herself. She’s disliked and distrusted, and the turnout if it happens, will be due to fear mongering from the media. So far, dem turnout is lite at best because she’s failed to interest anyone. Republicans turnout has been much higher and that trend will continue in the general. It’s hardly a done deal that we lose this one against Hillary, especially since the media and polls have not been right about anything this cycle yet. Not a single thing.
Oldflyer – because there aren’t any ideas, nor have there been any ideas, come out of the Senate or House for 8 years.
I’ve noticed something about most GOP people who’ve endorsed Trump: they’re self promoters whose best years are behind them. This is their second (and maybe last) chance.
In light of that, it makes Kasich staying in the race clearer.
starlord, who said anything about Senate or the House? The White House is overflowing with idea people; the departments are as well. There is no shortage of ideas, there is a plethora, an over abundance. Of course so many of them are bad ideas.
We need a President who can choose the right people to screen all of the ideas that float around DC, and who then can make decisions with a good attitude and good judgement. One who will then demand that good ideas are pursued, and bad ideas abandoned, despite the obstructionist efforts of the Congress and the bureaucracy.
And, as I say in almost every post on the subject of Presidents, we need one who reveres the constitution, and will fight off all attempts to subvert it.
libertybelle’s family is why Carson and Kasich need to drop out. They can’t win, but give false hope to people who otherwise might be forced to choose someone who can beat Trump.
blert –
Ted Cruz was not against illegal immigration until Trump brought it up. It wasn’t something he mentioned in his bid for senate here. He wouldn’t have been elected to the Senate if he had; a massive amount of Texas businesses rely on illegal labor. Ted’s landscaping crew is illegal aliens. Enforcing the laws on the books would require dealing with the people who are here illegally, including parents of those who have kids born here. What’s Ted going to do? either he takes Trump’s infamous position, or he makes another deal that looks like amnesty. He’s painted himself into the same corner as Trump, but somehow it sounds more believable. Get real is good advice.
I would love to get rid of the income tax and go with a VAT tax. I paid $90k in taxes last year, and it sucked. VAT tax would save me a fortune. But he’s not going to get that done either. There’s never been a tax that went away, not ever. He might try really hard, and grandstand and make all kinds of noise, but it’s not going away. At best, he would end up with some compromise, where income taxes went down a lot and the VAT tax would make up the difference. And then they will both go up as soon as he was out of office and the next congress and president needed to buy more votes. I’d be happy if he managed a flat tax instead of introducing a VAT tax, because as you’ve pointed out, nobody did away with the income tax. (Europeans fell into the same trap with VAT taxes – “we promise we will do away with the income tax once the VAT tax is up and running”. Now they have 15-20% VAT + income tax)
Again, getting real is good advice. Ted was despised by almost everyone in his own party. That’s not helpful when you claim you’re going to make sweeping transformations, unless you don’t care about the constitution. Which everyone agrees is Ted’s Holy Grail. So realistically, he either goes against the constitutional underpinning everyone believes he is bound to, or he deals with the realities of Washington, which aren’t going to move because he snaps his fingers.
These are some of the reasons I’m not hyperventilating about Ted staying my senator. I don’t think he would have any better success than any other non-establishment candidate, doing what he claims he will, nor do I think the media and the Clintons have a harder time ripping him apart in the general. It’s just not as cut and dried to me that he is a clear winner and Trump is a clear loser. The establishment hates them both. If we get Rubio, we get most everything Hillary would do anyway. He’s just a small time crook when you check into his Florida experience.
StarLord: “Again, getting real is good advice.”
Okay.
“Ted was despised by almost everyone in his own party.”
Getting real here: The GOP is justifiably known as the Stupid Party.
Ergo, being despised by stupid people is not a bad thing.
Cruz has always been against illegal immigration BECAUSE IT’S ILLEGAL. The guy who argued 9 cases before SCOTUS is not going to wink and look the other way.
He did support LEGAL immigration increases until recently, but has now reversed his position:
“…he is now advocating a freeze on legal immigration levels because labor participation rates in the United States are ‘below historic averages.'”
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/immigration/item/21973-ted-cruz-flips-on-h-1b-visas
That was from November, 2015 and represents his current position. Glad I could clear that up for you.
I’m in despair. We has a layup election hijacked by angry morons.
StarLord:
Thank you for your information about the reality of our trade with China. I trust the information I get from people who have been there and done it, far more that the information I get from the MsM or the government.
i am commenting somewhere else, but i wanted to put this here first.
“its easy to grasp the trump phenomenon if you realize that trump is the blue collar man with the white collar wallet…” – arfldgr
Trump is a kind of Thornton Melon… Pragmatic, but disliked by the common elitist and most others… We want him to be what we want him to be for what we think we need, but we are not willing to accept him as he is and realize that that is good enough and that probably works better than our desire would
America misses the characters that used to exist. that had strong opinions, did what they thought was right, rubbed some the wrong way, and were FREE to be so, and made us free to be so.
are we so programmed that we need a cut out for a leader who wont do a thing because doing things requires someone who will take the bull by the horns and we are afraid anyone like that
you cant have it both ways though. you cant have a person strong enough to act, and weak enough not to scare you. the only ones like that are liars who do one thing but portray what you need to give them permission.
There was a time when americans were more afraid of the person who was living a life of design for a political end than they feared a rough person or such that rose to the occasion
All through history, but not as a rule, people have despite all ideas of them, rose to the occasion and are greatly valued today, to the point we forget how disliked or assumed they were to be by the public before their taking up some baton. Those have rarely come from the sources of banal cut outs that serve politics today.
no one could guess what Alvin Cullum York would end up as, or even Audie Murphy later on… they are two of the greatest examples of how bad we are at preconceiving what people would or would not be like (Sans ideology). Just read the stories of what people thought of some amazing people prior to their success.
Listen to the audios of Trump ranking and degrading women with Howard Stern.
finally someone who can stand up to the feminists and not be cowed into pretending to be something they are not… who cares… next you will tell me that andrew dice clay sucked… or do you think you should pay for tampons, you know, to make it fair and equal? not to mention affirmative action, and other things like women rangers lowering standards… cant fight abortion unless you can tell them off.. nor most of the other things that are part of the march through the institutions…
🙂
I’m finding myself in Pauline Kael territory lately. I know one person who’s supporting Trump (a longtime anti-immigration zealot). All of the websites I frequent, all of the columnists I follow have come out passionately against Trump. I’ve seen non-political co-workers spontaneously launch into anti-Trump tirades. Who are these people who support him? Is it only message board cranks? Are there that many of such people? Are these snarky little comments they leave really the best arguments on his behalf?
This analysis sums it up pretty well. And it ain’t good.
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/politics-ideas/campaigns-elections/donald-trump-goldwater-mondale-candidate/
starlord:
“From Politifact: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/jul/08/ted-cruz/ted-cruz-changed-position-trade-promotion-authorit/
… Who can you trust ?”
Based on an issue I caught Politifact egregiously misrepresenting, I would be wary about trusting Politifact.
starlord:
Here is a video from Ted Cruz’s Senate campaign in 2011 that disproves what you say about Cruz. You wrote:
Watch me prove that statement wrong, wrong, wrong with this video of Cruz from his Senate campaign:
I am tired of the constant spread of disinformation. I’m not talking about you in particular; I’m speaking in general. This particular election cycle it seems worse than ever.
And you know what? This is the third time (I think that’s the count) so far that I’ve posted that video here. I did an entire post on it, for example.
It’s like trying to bail out the ocean with a teaspoon. Again, I’m not directing that towards you, but in general towards the entire internet, news media, campaign ads, etc.
When this campaign cycle started, Republicans were rather excited that they had several young(er), smart(er) candidates from which to choose. Walker, Cruz, Rubio. Who knew this would all come down to Trump?
jimmy958:
That’s why I called it “tragic.” I’m not sure whether it’s a Greek tragedy or a Shakespearean tragedy or just a plain old human tragedy, but that’s the word that comes to mind, as well as “ironic.”
“I fully expect the MSM to cover the results as though it means Trump is the inevitable nominee.
He’s not inevitable, of course. But all options open to the GOP to stop him are bad, and will create a backlash. The best option, in my opinion, remains the necessity for one of the current leaders (Cruz or Rubio) to swerve in the game of Chicken they are playing, and to do so well before March 15th.” neo
That is the best option, unfortunately it’s not going to happen but not IMO because Cruz and Rubio are playing a game of chicken. Cruz can’t drop out because he’s the only viable candidate actually committed to the Constitution. Cruz is trying to save the country from itself.
Rubio won’t drop out both because of personal ambition and because his GOPe backers are not about to leave the field to Cruz, whom they see as a mortal threat.
“One thing I think we can safely say is that the Democrats will use this stuff against Trump if he is the nominee. It makes him look terrible: liar, con man, rich elitist bullying the little guy.”
Yup, it does look terrible… until you compare Trump to Hillary. Both reprehensible human beings but only one is dedicated to America’s “fundamental transformation”.
“I think it will all end in tears with a Trump nomination and then a brutal defeat in November.” Cornhead
I’m not so certain that Trump will be beaten by Hillary in a political cage match to the death. I am certain that if enough conservatives refuse to vote for Trump that it could throw the election to Hillary.
MDL,
Max Boot’s labeling Trump as “bigoted” destroys any pretense upon his part of having an objective, considered opinion.
“Is it an outdated notion to expect leaders to be held to higher standards, as they are supposed to be exemplars, not the lowest common denominator?” libertybelle
Leaders always reflect the aggregate wisdom or lack, of those they seek to lead. Leaders reflect the standard to which the public, in the aggregate, aspires to… the American public has been ‘dumbed down’ to far below what we once attained.
“A VAT tax on consumption will entirely replace income taxes. VAT taxes exist in Canada and Europe. Their mistake was to not repeal income taxes.” blert
It wasn’t a ‘mistake’, Canada and Europe added the VAT tax as a backdoor means of raising additional income for the State, so as to expand the entitlement State.
Socialistic societies cannot sustain themselves solely on a consumption tax like a VAT tax. Even our semi-socialistic society cannot do so. Repealing the income tax and replacing it with a VAT tax can only prove sufficient, if… wedded to a balanced budget amendment without loopholes. Which shall only happen after a long period of utter fiscal collapse.
starlord,
Thank you for the informative insights into our trade policies. I agree that if Cruz did gain the nomination and won the election he’d be hamstrung by the “Potomac two-step” from day one. Tragically, the only way a Cruz could be truly effective at leading America to a transformative return to Constitutional principles is if the American public first went though a few decades of disastrous tragedy. Far too many people don’t want what he’s selling. Marxism disguised as ‘progressivism’ on the left and crony capitalism on the right is what the majority of the public want. The founder’s vision of America, humanity and the world is viewed as archaic and obsolete by far too many Americans.
Only tragedy that entirely swept away the old guard could prove sufficient. But even that is problematic, as historically, desperate people turn to the demagogue who promises surcease from their circumstances in exchange for tyrannical power.
Brooklyn Boy has the right of it, “The Age of Madness is upon us.”
Cheers for a Clinton/Sanders presidency! ¡Viva America!
neo-neocon at 8:50 pm,
Thank you, somehow I had missed that clip. Cruz could not be more plain spoken. No equivocation, no hedging, no avoiding the issue. It reaffirms my faith in the man.
It is a tragedy, at least Greek, even Shakespearean and perhaps even Biblical, that America may be turning its back on the one candidate who can lead it “out of the ditch”.
Cruz did win Texas however, so hope for the best outcome is not yet lost.
>>The founder’s vision of America, humanity and the world is viewed as archaic and obsolete by far too many Americans.
And this is why I don’t have much hope for the Average Americans. Though honest and hardworking, most are sheep, most are politically lazy. The Left salivates over the lazy minds because it can dictate a secular moral code. The Right needs to the average American to be oblivious to economics 101 and the Constitution (as with The Left).
Nick Says:
“Who are these people who support him? Is it only message board cranks?”
Nick, by way of preface, I’m retired, and have plenty of free time, much of which I spend on the computer reading and researching politics. I’m fairly active as a disqus commenter with 4,500 and around 14,000 upvotes mostly on Breitbart. To get to that level has taken a great deal of time and effort, over a 4-5 year period.
With that perspective, there are a significant number of the Trump supporters that have swamped Breitbart that have 70,000-100,000 comments and many hundred thousands of upvotes. One with 15,000 comments has nearly 400,000 upvotes, 1:270. I comment on a lot of sites that use disqus and have never seen anything like it. (Oh, and a majority have private disqus profiles, making it almost impossible to tell where they came from.)
I really can’t understand how you get to those levels without making commenting a full time job. (Unless they’ve figured out how to automatically cross-post comments to multiple sites at once) And, yes, many of their comments are little snarkies.
The ones that showed up first were the ones with these YUUUGGE totals.
I have a feeling that this is mainly how they communicate, if you can call it that. Their hatred of Cruz is visceral and unrelenting, their comments about him all revolve around the Trump talking points, “LIAR”, “CANADIAN”, “VOTE FRAUD” and “NASTY”, et al.
Geoffrey Britain:
Cruz is poised to win Oklahoma, too, I believe.
The trouble is that both Cruz and Rubio are doing sort of well. Which might keep them both in the race. That’s one of my big fears. If only one would do much better than the other I would be more hopeful.
I almost don’t care which of them it is. I favor Cruz’s policies, but I think Rubio is more “electable,” but I think either could beat Hillary, and both are infinitely preferable to Trump.
geokstr:
It IS their full time job.
I mean that in all seriousness. They may be paid or they may be volunteers, but they are dedicated activists. I noticed it quite some time ago and came to the conclusion that some were activists of the right (alt-right) but some are leftists out to destroy the GOP. I am convinced of that. The style is unmistakable.
They are bold, nasty, determined, and completely dedicated. To what are they dedicated? Various things, but it’s not necessarily Donald Trump—who they freely admit (or used to freely admit; I don’t see them saying it too much anymore) that Trump is merely their “tool” and/or their “weapon.”
From what I see of the results so far, it isn’t likely that Rubio or Cruz are going to drop out. It does look like Cruz is going to take Oklahoma in addition to Texas and Rubio is going to get a goose egg.
With the split, it isn’t over yet, even if Trump wins all but those two states tonight, but the fat lady is clearing her throat.
If things hold the way they’re currently going, the night will end with:
Trump: 9 wins, 2 2nd place.
Cruz: 2 wins, maybe 5 2nd place, 2 3rd
Rubio: 3 2nd, 8 3rd place.
Kasich: 1 2nd, 1 3rd.
It’s clearly Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Kasich in that order.
It’s also clear that Carson and Kasich campaigns are vanity projects. Trump will not be stopped unless most other candidates drop out.
I have read neo’s 3/1 posts and all the comments to those posts. I will single out starlord as disingenuous. He is portraying himself as a well informed, prosperous Texan who knows so much about Cruz. BS, he has an unstated agenda.
Anecdote:
My father, a long-term Republican voter, says he voted for Sanders today in the TN primary, while my mother, a long-term Democrat until 2012 voted for Trump.
P.S. The thought has crossed my mind, given the statements by Dole et. al., that Rubio will never drop out because the establishment will only tolerate either a Trump or Rubio win.
If you see the establishment hanging on even when there’s no hope, you’ll know that they’re playing both sides of the street again.
Actually, 3 sides of the street since they would take Rubio, Trump, or Hillary in that order. I don’t think they actually care about “winning,” just like they didn’t in Virginia.
I’m not so sure Trump will be the instrument of the establishment’s destruction.
Nick:
“Who are these people who support him? Is it only message board cranks? ”
The people most vigorously supporting Trump are Left-mimicking alt-Right activists, who possibly also are Left activists, with some portion possibly also foreign operatives who shift wherever they can best multiply anti-establishment effect.
However, the people moved by the Trump-front activist movement to vote for Trump are less supporters of Trump himself and more opponents, in one way or another, of the status quo and the GOP.
Trump-front activists cultivate voters with a variety of ressentiment, alienation, and anomic themes. It’s Marxist (not just the method) activist playbook.
Which is why the Rubio, Cruz strategic shift to barbed insults and highlighting of Trump’s shortcomings – the adjustment that Neo and Cornhead have advocated – will bear less fruit than they hope, because Trump’s person is not the main basis of his voter appeal. The main basis of Trump’s voter appeal is (the cultivated) opposition to the status quo and the GOP.
That is the narrative contest the GOP candidates need to win in order to overcome Trump.
Deeper, on a gut level, the Republican base is being repelled by the perception of GOP-character fecklessness, impotence, weakness.
Which is why it was critical when Jeb Bush and the other GOP candidates were challenged last May by the Megyn Kelly ‘knowing what we know now’ hypothetical that they respond by vigorously re-litigating the decision for OIF in order to set the record straight. For the sake of their candidacies and the GOP, they absolutely needed to uphold the Iraq intervention in the political discourse. The Kelly hypothetical amounted to a character-fitness test.
However, instead of standing fast, almost all of them did the opposite and tried to skirt the controversy, and effectively conceded the OIF opponents’ demonstrably false narrative. They failed the character-fitness test.
9 months later, Trump either fortuitously or opportunistically repeated the ‘Bush lied, people died’ leftist meme and re-purposed the character-fitness test against his GOP opponents. Gifted a 2nd bite at the apple, they didn’t fare better.
The Iraq issue is about more than OIF, although OIF is plenty big enough of an issue in its own right. The Iraq issue, more than any other issue, is an essential representation of modern American leadership and American leadership under Republican presidency.
As such, standing up for OIF is a litmus test for Republicans. If any Republican candidate for President can’t or won’t vigorously re-litigate the decision for OIF in order to set the record straight against a demonstrably false narrative, despite being armed with a straightforward set of law, policy, and facts, then he’s revealed himself to lack the character to lead the American nation.
Starting with Jeb Bush’s mystifying pratfalls with the Kelly hypothetical that spread repellant weakness like a virus to the other GOP candidates, Trump’s competition have by and large failed the character-fitness test. And here we are.
Nick,
They may be full-time, but I doubt it. I am also a long-time Disqus user, and I suspect you are like me and avoid threads with more than a 50-100 comments.
15,000 comments isn’t really all that much (3 x what I have made in about 6-7 years, and the upvote totals are surely a reflection of two things- commenting early and often in threads with 1000+ comments.
parker:
“I will single out starlord as disingenuous.”
Neo’s correction, plus citing to Politifact is a tell.
It’s more insidious than just full-time commenters, I believe. Back in 1998 I experienced it on the Excite message boards when the impeachment scandal took hold, where I had been posting comments for a while and there were a lot of regular commenters – like here most of y’all seem to be familiar with each other. On those boards, as the impeachment scandal got more serious, those boards changed dramatically – new names showed up and they seemed to work in coordinated attacks to shut down all the people who weren’t Clinton apologists. I despise bullies, so I spent a good bit of time arguing against their talking points and mocking some of the more ridiculous arguments and citing sources for my arguments.
That swarming technique was used on the cable news pundit shows daily with a Clinton spinmeister on one side and an angry Republican pundit on the other side, yelling back and forth. But the Clinton forces had almost perfect message control with their talking points and buzz words – the Carville, “it’s Starr and his dirty mind and sex, sex, sex’, but also endless repetition of the right-wing witch hunt and that President Clinton is popular in every poll, so the American people don’t care about his personal sex life. The messaging stayed on track and it was relentless. The Republicans saw those polls too and polls spook politicians.
As they move in teams, they’re very organized and they use pressure to keep all dems in line with the message – for instance that last Benghazi hearing with Hillary that lasted all day – the dems on that committee were given their talking points and none of them deviated all day. When done like this it creates a message barrier – they control it, because it’s a swarming technique and all the other voices sound much weaker and diffused. When they do this – their buzz words and talking points phrases are what is remembered by most people. The press declared her the winner, just as they’ve declared Trump winning for 8 months. I think of it as taking the military battlefield strategy of swarming and transposing it to a mass media battlefield.
The Trump mass media blitz has been the same type of mass media swarming technique- his message and the memes get repeated by him and the mass media and certain pundits – “Trump defies all the rules”, “Trump the insurgent”, “Trump winning in all the polls” – day in, day out for 8 months. Notice how now he talks slower and it’s not that frenetic repetition – that’s because the opinion cascade was successful – he successfully manufactured the polls through his swarming – none of the other candidates could even break through the barrier – the media pundits aided and abetted him all along, just like they keep the Clintons alive politically, time after time.
I suspect foreign intelligence has teams operating on popular American news sites too and with the internet it’s much easier than decades ago where they had to train or recruit agents to infiltrate the journalism cadre. If my memory serves, from reading decades ago, I think the Czech intelligence service, as a Soviet puppet service, was noted for their ability to infiltrate the French media, but also for being a premier forger service of fake documents – they made up official fake documents, personal letters and stuff of various European leaders to foment political drama and disruption.
libertybelle…
I suspect foreign intelligence has teams operating on popular American news sites too and with the internet it’s much easier than decades ago where they had to train or recruit agents to infiltrate the journalism cadre. If my memory serves, from reading decades ago, I think the Czech intelligence service, as a Soviet puppet service, was noted for their ability to infiltrate the French media, but also for being a premier forger service of fake documents — they made up official fake documents, personal letters and stuff of various European leaders to foment political drama and disruption
&&&
Famously the KGB and CIA fought INTENSE campaigns during French, Italian and West German elections rig and counter-rig the vote.
There is NO WAY that Putin is not putting his finger on the scale of our votes.
Bezmenov went over such measures in explicit detail.
The KGB had him under a death sentence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZnkULuWFDg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3qkf3bajd4
If the SVR// KGB failed to muck up our election — Putin would execute its First Directorate leadership. — In Soviet-speak — “the vertical stroke.”
This referred to the fact that the executions would proceed straight down through the ranks.
NO level was safe.
Eric…
Everything about this election smells of KGB Active Measures.
AND…
Look at how Putin and Trump ‘groove.’
If my guess is right — they usually are — to a bizarre extreme — Putin can’t STAND Hillary.
He’s not so wild about Cruz, either.
Putin wants Trump… President Trump.
&&&&&&
Wait, come to think of it, they have a LOT in common.
Lucre.
Babes.
Ego-centric to the extreme.
And …
Self-proclaimed superb negotiators.
Putin has a vendetta against the nation that destroyed the Soviet tyranny.
That vendetta is Putin’s ‘center.’
He orbits its black hole.
&&&&&
What the Left — Barry Soetoro — can’t comprehend is that America is the absolute center of the human economic-galaxy.
In astronomical terms, America is a black hole.
Since we are at the center, it’s a practical impossibility for Americans to comprehend how central America is.
There are NO Western mass publications that don’t have a sub-section IN EVERY ISSUE — dedicated STRICTLY to America.
It’s not uncommon for this section to expand into a White Paper. The Economist (mag) does this at least once a year.
Absolutely no American publication for our mass market reciprocates.
You could routinely read cover to cover — mag after mag — and never read about Europe, Japan, China, India, Russia, …
Heck, the New Yorker (mag) has a hard time getting west of the Hudson.
&&&&&
Ted Cruz intends to dissolve 0-care.
That would be EASY to do.
Zap it AND expand Medicaid.
Done.
&&&&&&&
Social Security is blowing up because of ILLEGAL ALIENS.
Cubans are the latest grifters.
Do to Kennedy era laws ( Could be LBJ ) Cuban refugees from Castro’s tyranny INSTANTLY qualify for Social Security benefits — citizenship — the WHOLE works.
What had been a trickle of Cubans has turned into a hustle.
Most Americans are not aware that since Barry has ‘recognized’ the Cuban tyrants as legitimate — there has been a FLOOD of ‘LOTTO winners’ from Havana.
Unlike Rubio or Cruz — these are Cubans that will SURELY vote (D).
Open Borders = the implosion of the Western welfare state.
It’s in the MATH.
Yancey Ward Says:
They may be full-time, but I doubt it. I am also a long-time Disqus user, and I suspect you are like me and avoid threads with more than a 50-100 comments.
15,000 comments isn’t really all that much (3 x what I have made in about 6-7 years, and the upvote totals are surely a reflection of two things- commenting early and often in threads with 1000+ comments.
I assume you’re responding to me, Yancy, not Nick.
Did you not see my mention of the ones with 70,000-100,000 comments? That’s 20X more than both you and have made in similar time frames. Did you not also catch the fact that most of them have private profiles?
Does anyone have any idea, or know any hackers who might, how to discover anything about cracking the origins of private disqus profiles? I don’t like the idea of allowing people to get away with crap like this.
Yancey, I saw a commenter at National Review last night and when I clicked on his name, which is Blackjack6, with the US Army seal as his profile photo, he had 73,627 comments and 159 followers, so I started clicking on the followers. I couldn’t find any sort of political alignment with his postings and theirs and some of his followers had no comments at all – looked pretty fake to me.
He’s in the comments on George Will’s piece:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/432062/donald-trump-republican-party-2016-chris-christie
I’ve been just watching this stuff since 1998 – it went through every public forum online – message boards, social media, comment venues on news and political punditry sites and several years ago I did some chatting on some politics sites – same thing – there were some names there no matter what time of the day or night you went on there and they worked in groups to keep repeating the Dem talking points.
blert, you are most certainly right that Putin despises Hillary. His dismissal of her with that comment that at a minimum a head of state should have a head said it all.
After the wall came down, I didn’t pay as much attention to the Russian espionage, but kept worrying about the Chinese and their close ties to the Clintons, their buying up US real estate and businesses, the endless front companies and their cyber theft and cyber warfare. Guess “eternal vigilance” really must remain our motto.
“Rubio will never drop out because the establishment will only tolerate either a Trump or Rubio win. If you see the establishment hanging on even when there’s no hope, you’ll know that they’re playing both sides of the street again. Actually, 3 sides of the street since they would take Rubio, Trump, or Hillary in that order.” Matt SE
The GOPe strategy is to push Rubio in the hope that he can overcome Trump. Their fallback strategy is for Trump to fall short of the delegates needed, throwing it into a brokered convention. The GOPe’s agents will then seek to reach a private ‘understanding’ with Trump in exchange for Rubio throwing his support behind Trump. If Trump gains the delegates needed before the convention, the GOPe will still seek to reach a private accommodation with Trump, making the GOP’s support for Trump as the party’s nominee, dependent upon reaching an ‘understanding’.
“Trump’s person [character] is not the main basis of his voter appeal. The main basis of Trump’s voter appeal is (the cultivated) opposition to the status quo and the GOP.
That is the narrative contest the GOP candidates need to win in order to overcome Trump.” Eric
A very perceptive insight. Unfortunately, the other candidates have little to no basis upon which to convince voters that they are opposed to the status quo and the GOP. Certainly Rubio is in their pocket and, while Cruz most definitely is not, he has been successfully painted as secretly being in the pocket of the crony capitalist GOPe. Not enough to erode Cruz’s support but arguably enough to keep Cruz from gaining more support.
Geoffrey, there’s a Lindsey Graham interview yesterday, which I’ll try to locate, where he said he hates to say it, but he would back Cruz, if comes down to it, to beat Trump. There’s a # No Trump movement brewing. Trump burned a lot of bridges during his first few months and Trump’s attacks on John McCain obviously make Graham loathe Trump more than Cruz at this point. You may see the so-called establishment pull together to support Cruz, if they think Cruz can take out The Donald.
Dana Perino said something interesting too, about how you can’t embark on a scorched earth war to burn down the party, then try to pretend you’re want to unite the party. She said there’s going to be a counterrevolution to Trump, so the usual political paradigms of everyone falling in line behind Trump to defeat Hillary might not pan out.
Here’s the link:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/lindsey-graham-were-gonna-lose-to-hillary-clinton-with-donald-trump/
libertybelle,
I just can’t see the GOPe supporting Cruz to stop Trump. Regardless of what Graham says, Cruz won’t compromise with the GOP leadership, while Trump is all about the deal.
My perception is that the GOPe will adopt Jimmy Carter’s view rather than Graham’s. It’s important to keep in mind that the GOPe is not monolithic, they are a loosely aligned elite who share common interests but who may well disagree as to how to best achieve those common interests.
Who is this GOP Establishment we’ve been hearing about? What power do they have? Is Jeb Bush going to be the nominee? Lindsay Graham? Chris Christie? No, the nominee is going to be an asshat non-Republican, an outcaste senator, or a boy. Great! Those GOPe-ers really put the make on this nomination, didn’t they? So, again, who are they and why should I be worried about them?
Oh, wait! I get it! They’re the vast right-wing conspiracy!
Interesting intel analysis about internet operators and various covert intel election rigging services.
Not sure who is right, but that can be solved in time via simultaneous simulation tracks.