There’s a debate tonight
You can talk about it here.
I’m only going to liveblog for a little while, because I’m in another time zone and I’m going out to dinner. Then I’ll come back late, and catch up.
But from the beginning of this, I can say that we’ve reached a new low (at 9:20 Eastern time) with Trump repeatedly calling Rubio “little Marco,” because Rubio made a good point about the fact that Trump makes some of his clothing products abroad.
Schoolyard taunts, not even worthy of junior high level. Grade school taunts. Rubio should be replying: “I may be short, but at least I’m a mature adult who left grade school behind a long time ago.”
Of course, many Americans may think that calling each other names like “little Rubio” represents a fighting alpha male. That may be the point we’ve come to.
9:25 PM: Cruz making some great points about Trump as a crony capitalist, supporting liberals, and therefore part of the DC corruption.
Shorter Kasich: Did you know I balanced a budget?
9:37 PM: Trump doesn’t want to release his off-the-record interview with the NY Times on his immigration “flexibility” because he has too much respect for the off-the-record interview process?? What on earth can anyone take from that except that it’s a nonsensical dodging of the issue?
9:40 PM: Now Trump is reversing his H-1B position; now he’s more in favor of the program. Will his supporters know or care? And Cruz has now positioned himself to the right of Trump on this. I repeat: will anyone know or care?
Guess I have to watch after what happened today. Although I keep telling myself it’s about time to put my interest in politics aside.
I expect another epic beatdown of Trump, but the tone taken by each candidate should be interesting. Also, I’m not sure the shrinking stage will make Kasich look any larger. Instead, it might be unwanted attention.
As an interesting aside, Rubio has cancelled rallies in Louisiana and Kentucky, as mentioned by Ace in the sidebar.
At least three references to Trump skipping out on Vietnam.
We can now rest easy. Trump has assured us that the size of his male appendage is adequate. The republic is safe.
KLSmith: I could win the Godwin Prize for this thread by pointing out what happens when sexually inadequate individuals overcompensate by gunning for high office.
This is a completely grotesque spectacle.
Oh how much nicer it is to stay inside the brightly lit scriptorium telling the Cruz Beads and playing the Glass Bead Game. Who knows what crass vulgarities exist outside in the world of men?
‘Cruz has now positioned himself to the right of Trump on this.
Uh huh. So. Cruz is, was and always has been to the right side of freedom of Rubio on every issue.
Just flipped over for a few seconds. That was long enough. I don’t care who insists that Trump is a smart businessman or a clever politician – the man is an idiot.
Nick….
He’s PREACHING to idiots.
Trust me, they identify with him.
You might gain some insight as to what Donald is doing by reading:
http://polymatharchives.blogspot.in/2015/01/the-inappropriately-excluded.html
Jump down to:
“From a theoretical standpoint, democratic meritocracies should evolve five IQ defined ‘castes’, The Leaders, The Advisors, The Followers, The Clueless and The Excluded. These castes are natural in that they are the result of how people of different intellectual abilities relate to one another. This is based on research done by Leta Hollingworth in the 1930’s and the more recent work of D.K. Simonton.
And:
“Much more recently, D.K. Simonton found that persuasiveness is at its maximum when the IQ differential between speaker and audience is about 20 points. While he has not studied this effect among those with very high IQs, it is assumed that it follows ratio IQs at the high end. This has been corroborated with empirical studies of manager and leader success, which peaks between a 1.0 and 1.2 standard deviation differential.
And:
“In free markets people choose to whom they listen. In other words, in audiences dominated by high school graduates, who average around 105 IQ, the successful leaders will have an average IQ of 105+20=125.
Speakers with R16IQs over 105+30=135 (D15IQ130) will be cancelled from radio, fired from TV and print or not elected because they confuse rather than enlighten their audience.
A college educated audience (115 IQ) will be most convinced by a R16IQ of 115+20=135 and confused by a 115+30=145 R16IQ (140 D15IQ).
The above largely explains Ted’s handicap.
He HAS to keep his oratory as direct and simple as possible.
Read the whole thing…
And come to understand that Donald Trump is DELIBERATELY going after the LIV ( ie < 98 IQ ) vote.
And, yes, those votes carry as much weight as yours — and they so out number all of us.
THAT'S democracy in action.
It’s not so much an IQ thing as a class thing. This is an uprising against the largely unaccountable and bipartisan Managerial Class. And about time too.
The Democrats consistently win with the help of their bolted on underclass idiots and are not held to account for it. All’s fair.
Some of you prima donnas need to wake up and realise that it’s not enough to win a presidential election. The incumbent and his appointees then have to take a meat cleaver (Reaching for our Browning would be just so wrong now, wouldn’t it? — see it’s the reverb through the ages again… it’s used against any non-leftist breakout from King Canute Gradualism and half-measures. One hand always tied behind back because, because because NAZI KKK Kiwanis of the Apocalypse…) to large parts of the Federal Government.
Trump’s the man for that.
Funny how it’s acceptable for a magical negro to embody the aspirations of a nation, but not a nasty old white man with bad hair.
And I’m no Roper. I don’t want all the trees cut down. But Thomas More wasn’t above burning the occasional heretic pour encourager les autres.
I think I take back what I said about Kasich. He seemed to grow slightly. He hasn’t been attacked yet because it hasn’t been necessary to attack him. That may change.
Rubio didn’t rise, but he took a lot of shots at Trump. He landed several. I think he may have taken stock of his position and decided to be useful as an attack dog. Both his and Trump’s numbers will go down in that process, but it’s too late for Rubio.
Cruz got in shots as well, and looked more presidential and serious.
Trump was completely destroyed tonight for those willing to look.
Kinch:
Funny how it’s acceptable for a magical negro to embody the aspirations of a nation, but not a nasty old white man with bad hair.
Magical negro? You’ve lost your way my friend. This isn’t stormfront. Or are you just trolling?
Well, thank goodness that’s over. Thought Cruz had a good debate. Interesting that Ann Althouse does not like him; because she sure can pick them, like in 2008.
The farce continues. The ground rules are stacked. If any other candidate mentions Trump by name or implication, Trump gets time to respond. So, Trump indulges in an ad hominem attack triggering a response, which invokes Catch 22. Therefore, he is almost surely guaranteed twice as much time as any one candidate. And of course he uses the time to play the part of the play ground bully. He reminds me of the worst of the grubby little losers I knew in high school. Fortunately, I did not have to associate with them; and hopefully, I won’t have to call this person President.
Of course, as previously noted, if anyone listens to him with an open mind, and evaluates his behavior critically, the more he talks the less Presidential he sounds.
I have yet to actually meet a Trump supporter, so I am in no position to evaluate the typical intelligence level; but, I am curious.
I did watch a few minutes.
For the record, I am FAR from being some kind of Neo-Nazi. You’re talking to a person whose favourite commentators are Spengler / AKA David Goldman and the Diplomad (Also Jewish). Not to mention Thomas Sowell being another idol. It is kind of ridiculous that one has to do all these statements of one’s credentials in order to disagree with the prevailing ‘polite’ consensus.
What I am trying to get across is that the very axiomatic premises of any discussion of Trump and the people who support him have been so corrupted by a century of ‘progressivism’ that it is now virtually impossible to support the notion of a white male expressing the will (oh dear!) of the majority of normal productive Americans for a toilet flush, just once every now and then.
Teddy Roosevelt was lucky to live when he did.
And I state again for the record. Trump is no universal panacea. But all the others are taking knives (and puny ones at that) to a gun fight with an enemy which takes no prisoners.
I’m reminded of a cartoon drawing I once saw. Dead man in ruffles on the ground in a pool of blood. Live man standing holding a smoking duelling pistol, face covered in cream pie. Title of this masterpiece: “A Moral Victory.”
You would have Cruz beat the progressives to death with the Federalist Papers? Better than Rubio’s feather boa, I guess… but not sufficient.
There is a factual dispute about how much money Fred Trump left his children.
Why doesn’t Donald release the federal estate tax return?
The federal estate tax return might not disclose the full amount of money as there would be many tax savings strategies. The effective tax rate would be interesting.
Nebraska has an inheritance tax return that is more accurate re total estate size. If NY has/had something similar, that would be the best document.
NE is one of the few states today with an inheritance tax. It is kept in order to cash in when Warren Buffett dies.
I get your point, Kinch. And my response to it is that Trump is not on the side you think he’s on. He’s not a right-wing s.o.b. who’ll fight the left-wing s.o.b.s. He’s just a free-lance s.ob. Maybe he would burn down Hillary Clinton’s house. Maybe he would burn down yours. It’s just a question of which one is in his way.
Mac: Right now HRC’s house is in his way. For the rest, I’ll take my chances.
We’ve all been boiled very very slowly like the frog in the pot. Nicely conditioned to believe that the water is just pleasantly warm and that anybody farting in the water (that would be me) must be nuts and that anyone talking about tipping over or smashing, or otherwise remodelling the pot must be an arsonist.
Mac: Right now HRC’s house is in his way. For the rest, I’ll take my chances.
We’ve all been boiled very very slowly like the frog in the pot. Nicely conditioned to believe that the water is just pleasantly warm and that anybody farting in the water (that would be me) must by definition be nuts or evil and that anyone talking about tipping over or smashing, or otherwise remodelling the pot must be an arsonist.
Kinch:
“But all the others are taking knives (and puny ones at that) to a gun fight with an enemy which takes no prisoners.
…You would have Cruz beat the progressives to death with the Federalist Papers? Better than Rubio’s feather boa, I guess… but not sufficient.”
The Trump campaign is leftist style, which makes for a fitness test for the general election.
If the GOP campaigns can’t figure out counter-activism for the Trump campaign’s “jayvee” Left-mimicking activism, it’s difficult to foresee a GOP campaign countering ‘varsity’ Democrat-front Left activism in the general election.
Eric:
Bingo.
The other thing is that the chattering classes get worked up about the idea that Trump Has No Shame.
Hasn’t anyone yet figured out that Shame is how they tilt the board and tip the scales? Shame no longer regulates day-to-day life.. there are virtually zero taboos left. The only people who are supposed to possess this valuable commodity are Republican candidates and appointees. A certain Chief Justice and his Road to Damascus Conversion springs to mind.
Clintons got shame? Bernie got shame? Don’t make me laugh!
(Personally I think shame and taboos serve useful purposes in a healthy functioning society. Which we don’t have just right now, so leave that for another day.)
All you other smart people would have been backing Bukharin against Stalin in 1928.
That’s it: This blog should be renamed “The House on the Embankment”.
Interestingly, the most important anti-Trump moment for me was when he said he’d order the military to do stuff, and he expected them to obey (even if illegal).
To some other Trump supporters, the worst part tonight was Trump’s seeming reversal on H1-B visas. Trump tweeted out a backtrack, and the proles were satisfied.
Funny: I think Trump might have been floating this H1-B visa thing as a way to stoke class warfare, since it mostly affects professionals. But his supporters just saw it as another part of immigration, so he had to back down.
Just another issue that Trump has taken both sides of.
The Inimitable Dodger will certainly get the House on the Embankment reference and hopefully Trump it 😀
Re: class warfare
Someone else said in respect to the David Duke thing that it showed that Trump thought his followers might be racist, and so was sensitive to denouncing Duke.
If he was trying to stoke class warfare but it didn’t work, that may mean that Trump’s supporters are middle class, but he thinks they’re lower class.
In other words, he is a man without a real connection to his followers, he’s just trying to sell them something.
“Interestingly, the most important anti-Trump moment for me was when he said he’d order the military to do stuff, and he expected them to obey (even if illegal).”
If you look into what the JAG types are sticking their noses into these days, it’s practically illegal to shoot a guy until the instant he points his RPG directly at you.
There. Are. Too. Many. Laws. And Lawyers.
Again, Assembled Light Bearers, this does not mean I support Nacht und Nebel Orders. And I suspect nor does Trump.
The debate was appalling. The moderators continue to enable the vapidity with the one minute, 30-second call and response rule and the 8th grade girl questions. There’s only four left. Put them in chairs, permit no crosstalk, ask each the same questions, and give five minutes or more to answer. The Donald is exposed as knave and/or fool.
The assembled here have a Frog, and now a Limey. Personally, the Frog is my favorite, or is that favourite, old chap.
Oldflyer made a very interesting observation that almost passed me by:
“I have yet to actually meet a Trump supporter,….”
Me neither. Of course they don’t exist in academia, so I don’t meet them at work. But I live in a rural farming community and know a lot of people in this town of 6000. A place one, would suspect, that contains Trumpets. Yet I have not met one, and in fact all I hear is disgust expressed about him. So my questions are: Who are these people? Where are they? Where do they live? How are they dominating the polls and the voting?
They all inhabit the conservativetreehouse.com
“I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them.”
Farmers and those who sell stuff and services to them live and die by protectionism and farm subsidies. They’re agrarian socialists. Rather more patriotic than your faculty lounge, no doubt. But still socialists.
Come to think of it, depending on the region and the crops grown, farmers can be maximum bullish on illegal immigration of unskilled workers too.
Messy old thing, the real world.
But in the House on the Embankment, the glass beads clicked and clacked, others danced to the other-worldly sound of the Theremin, and the Vile Trumpsky was ritually cursed at the rising and the setting of the sun, and at times in-between. This would ward off the shadow of the Unmentionable. Yes it would.
“Trump is reversing his H-1B position”
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/705624889282068480
Janetoo Says:
They all inhabit the conservativetreehouse.com
Or as I like to call it, the conservativeouthouse or the conservativenuthouse.
I have traced some from Breitbart back; one to Stormfront.org (white supremacists), a few others to infowars.com (Alex Jones, conspiracy nut), and many to the treehouse.
The most prolific and abusive all have private disqus profiles. I asked this late on a previous post and didn’t get any response. So, to make sure everyone saw it – does anyone have any idea how to get past the private profiles or know any hackers that might?
I’d like to expose at least those Marxist trolls and the anarchists, Nazis and white supremacists helping to drive the alt-right swarms for Trump, if any.
Well, I’ll tell you what Kinch – I don’t live in academia or agraria, I live in a metro area of a red state – and I don’t ONE single person in real life who has stated support of Trump. I have one friend of hundreds on Facebook (people I know in real life, but who now live across the country so we don’t speak on frequent basis) who has supported Trump. My lefty-left friends think he’s a buffoon and make fun of conservatives even more than they used to, and my conservative friends are horrified by him. I have no idea who is supporting this nutjob. But my irritation at having spent the last month or so resisting the urge to say over and over, “NO, he is not conservative, that is not what I or conservatives I know believe or act like,” to my lefty friends is stretching my patience.
It’s such an obvious bill of goods that I’m embarrassed to be witness to it, and am flatly astonished that anyone with a mind above LIV level buys into it.
Kinch:
And in the House of Kinch, the flurry of sarcastic words obfuscated and smoothed, while Trump-supporters danced in a ring, and the Vile Establishment was ritually cursed at the rising and the setting of the sun, and at times in-between. This would ward off the shadow of the Truth of what Trump is. Yes it would.
I’m doubtless wasting my time here and will do you all a favour and shut up after this post.
But try, try very hard to get your head around some simple ideas which you are apparently too well educated to understand.
Do you really believe that I’m a moron or a LIV or some kind of evil Nazi or mindless Trumpbot?
My idea of a charity is PizzaIDF.org — I’m interested in results, not in pretending I’m William Friggin Buckley. If you smite Arabs and write great software and make the desert bloom, well I’ll buy you a pizza even if you are rude and abrasive and ‘the wrong sort of people’ in the eyes of many. I’ll do it even if I’m not one of you and can never be. Just out of sheer bloody-mindedness and because I am still naive enough to believe in Good and Evil and that some battle lines are so clear cut that only an Intellectual could manage to fuzz them.
What I care about is saving what is good and can be saved and what might be recovered.
Here are some things I see with varying degrees of clarity after considerable rumination over the past several years:
(1) There is no more Republic. It’s dead and gone. I have a pretty good notion of the necessary pre-conditions for a well-functioning republic. And so should you. Very few or none of these conditions now pertain. Sad. Also true.
(2) Arguing finer points of decorum or logical consistency simply don’t matter. This election isn’t going to be won on logic. It’s going to be won by stimulating lower brain stems. Sad. Also true. Wasn’t me who debased the culture and the electorate. So why would you support candidates who are disembodied pre-frontal cortexes and expect them to stand a chance?
(3a) It’s not about what we would like. If the electorate consisted entirely of yeomen farmers, hard-working mechanics, and Boston Brahmins, plus a few pesky Transcendentalists, then sure… bring on the strict constitutionalists… none of this wanky Leaves of Grass stuff. Have you turned on the TV lately and looked at what the Great Unwashed are watching and doing and thinking? Let alone what passes for analysis amongst the Chattering Classes? Jaysus Wept!
(3b) Pick your Pied Piper and hang on for the ride. Best do it now, whilst some memories of the Old Ways still linger. Miss this bus and the next one in 8 or 16 or 32 years will be Juggernaut. Maybe, just maybe if the circuit breaker is flipped in 2016 it’ll all come good after a long hard slog.
(4) Electing a strict constitutionalist isn’t going to make one iota of difference down at (say) the DMV or (say) inside the Deep Security State which knows everything you have ever said online or in phone calls or within range of any phone for any individual likely to be elected to high office. Sorting this one out is going to take someone who simply doesn’t give a Rat’s Ass about his sexual peccadilloes becoming public. It will also require someone willing to fire and otherwise terrorise several million unelected Federal employees who lord it over the general public via Administrative Law into mending their ways.
(5) Browse over to American Digest and watch the video of Trump being interviewed about Citizen Kane and come back and tell me that his true nature is that of a bombastic dick lacking introspection.
(6) I don’t know where it will all end if Trump is elected President. I would like to live in a world where someone else stood a chance of defeating the Left. But we don’t. This is what we have.
Neo: Tell that to Vasily Blokhin. He works for the Clintons.
I bear you no ill will. You are clearly a person of good will.
I think you, and many of your fellow commenters are fixating on minor details like internal consistency and ‘character’ because to acknowledge fully that it’s no-longer even “business”, let alone business as usual is very frightening and depressing.
I like this new world no more than you do. It’s just bad luck that history has re-awakened in our time. I believe that Trump is very much the Lesser of the Two Weevils. You do not.
I’ll continue to read your blog (have done so since ca. 2005 and am grateful for all the insight you have provided into many things), but will refrain from commenting further. Pax out.
Kinch:
It all comes down to what you judge to be the state of the country and what you are willing to risk, and the person you best think can reverse things and/or change them for the better.
You assume that people here don’t think the situation is dire, but many people do. They merely have a very different solution than you, and think yours is at least as dangerous if not more so than the situation as it stands now, and worse than some possible alternative approaches. Insulting people here en masse is not really a great approach, nor is assuming things not in evidence about what they think of the state of the country and the world. Neither persuade in the least.
In addition, I have never called Trump unintelligent; in fact, if you have read much here, I repeatedly and explicitly say he is intelligent. As for “bombastic dick lacking introspection,” Trump is actually kind of the opposite of “bombastic” (see the definition of the word here. And Trump himself speaks of his dick although he didn’t use the word (nor did I). As for his lacking introspection, I don’t think I’ve ever made such an accusation either. However, now that you mention it, Trump has said the following in a Playboy interview from 1990:
Whether that indicates introspection or not I leave to you to decide.
Trump’s remarks about “Citizen Kane” from 2002 have no bearing on anything I’ve said about him or his statements or possible intentions as president. Trump has many faces, and I have stated many times that he is intelligent. That he can speak intelligently about a film is no surprise.
As I’ve said before, if Trump is nominated and elected (I don’t think the latter will occur, but if it does) I hope that I’m wrong about Trump and that he’s much better than his words and behavior have so far led me to expect. On that, I think we can agree.
JurassiCon Rex – The H-1B program is for highly-skilled workers.
“Farmers and those who sell stuff and services to them live and die by protectionism and farm subsidies. They’re agrarian socialists. Rather more patriotic than your faculty lounge, no doubt. But still socialists.”
Kinch: A rather ridiculous statement about people you have never met. I know these people personally, and you are so far off base, well you’re not even in the ball park.
Nick Says:
March 4th, 2016 at 11:15 am
JurassiCon Rex — The H-1B program is for highly-skilled workers.
It doesn’t quite pan out that way.
It’s the highly-skilled schtick that does not stick.
A LOT of the H1b work is coding software — at the skill level of sophomores.
The law firms involved in these indentures boast about perverting the H1b program.
As applied it’s a mockery.
Kinch,
I am a farm boy from Iowa. I am not a farmer, but I have a brother, several 1st cousins, and extended family who still till the earth. They want open markets, and deplore ethanol subsidies because it makes them bound by an economical reality that makes it difficult for them to diversify.
Until you have spent 20 hour days during planting and haresting, balancing budgets during the ups and downs of the commidity markets, or labored in100 degree heat and 80% humity to put hay in the barn, and until you have gone out on a cold February or early March morning to pull a lamb or a calf out during a troubled birth; you should STFU about we real conservatives in flyover country. And as an act of sincerity, fold it 5 ways, get a flashlight and a mirror, and stuff it where the sun never shines.
I was listening to sports talk radio this morning. They were laughing about how badly Trump got stomped in the debate. I’ve never heard them talk politics before. I’ve got a feeling that this all-in against Trump could change a lot of minds in the next couple of weeks.