Home » Taking Trump seriously

Comments

Taking Trump seriously — 65 Comments

  1. I am one who didn’t take him seriously until pretty recently. My reasoning for not taking him seriously is that over the years I’ve watched candidates jump into the lead, and have a brief moment in the sun, only to fade. I also didn’t take him seriously because I felt that the writing was on the wall for all but a few candidates, and that those people would see that and drop out. Remember, until very recently Trump was lucky to be getting a little over 30% of the vote. It also couldn’t be foreseen that Christi would knife Rubio in the side the way he did, and that Kasich would stick around until the day after Cruz dropped out, in order to deny him the nomination. I think it will be interesting to see what little payoffs are in store for those two. I agree that none of the other candidates took him seriously early on either. I still think that one of the biggest reasons he managed to stay ahead in the early stages of the race is because he sucked all of the oxygen out of the room by saying the most outrageous things he could. It left little air time for anyone else to get their message out. I’m not sure how Coulter, Hannity, Carson etc… can look themselves in the mirror in the morning and still call themselves conservatives. I’m convinced that Trump, if elected president, would do more damage to the country, and more importantly to me, conservatism, than Hillary will. I also think that a Clinton presidency might be a disaster for the Democratic party.

  2. I took him seriously from quite early on. My wife thought he was a joke (she doesn’t follow politics at all) and thought the UK’s debate on whether to allow him into the UK was funny. I told her then that while it wasn’t a done deal there was a very real possibility of him winning the nomination while I hoped that he wouldn’t. She though I was mad.

    I think that it is possible that a lot more people took him seriously than current chatter suggests. After all it is the Trump supporters who are saying you said we couldn’t win and now you’re saying he can’t win the general so why should we believe you. It’s probably a straw man argument.

    On the other hand I do understand Tom’s position. You only have to look at Herman Cain from 2012 to see why that argument also made sense.

  3. I’ll never saw any of this coming, that’s for sure. But I’ll recount this: when the Trump Taj Mahal was opened in Atlantic City, my 70-year-old Philly rowhouse neighbor visited right away. She told me, “Roc, it’s just BYOO-DEE-FULL!” He’s a tycoon who’s never lost his touch with working people and he shares their tastes. His love for America may be vulgar and ill-informed, but I’m hoping at least it’s genuine.

  4. Very early on, there’s a record on my website prior to his announcing, I thought he had a very real chance of winning the nomination. I also thought he’d be an awful candidate and an awfuler President. I based my hunch on H.L Mencken’s brilliant statement: “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.”

    I should have realized it years earllier, but Obama’s success convinced me that enough of the American voting public are eihter ill informed, vote based on who will give them the most largesse from the public treasury or, vote based on immature reasoning. Having a billionaire (or so he claims) TV star famous for being “tough”and firing people perceived as incompetent is an attractive mix to many of our fellow citizens.

    I never understood the Republican party and the other candidates’ conviction that his campaign would go nowhere. He is a genius at self-promotion and is very willing to lie and exaggerate. Are the other politicians really so narcistic that they believe earning a law degree or a degree in political science gives one a leg up on a public stage with a master self-promoter and seasoned entertainer?

    Fools. We get the candidates we deserve and, escuse the coarseness, but we are going to get it deep and hard this election cycle.

    For the better part of a century we have been trying to elect candidates who would save us from ourselves. We keep surrendering our rights in hopes of a more capable, more just ruler who will lead us to contentment.

    We are screwed.

  5. I certainly did not take Trump seriously early on. But I can’t recall discounting his chances either. I think his chances of winning the election are better than fair. And if we suffer another 9/11, a cast iron certainty.

    My best guess is to why Trump was not taken seriously, even after he’d won some primaries is because those dismissing him are out of touch with just how many Americans are fed up with political correctness, accusations of white privilege, etc., etc.

    The majority on the left offer us Lenin (Hillary) or Trotsky (Sanders) and the majority on the right have chosen Caesar.

    More than anything else, this is an indication that a majority of Americans are incapable of wise self-governance. And wisdom is ultimately, the difference between liberty and tyranny.

  6. “My current theory about why so many people wrote him off is that they were imagining that whatever they and their buddies were feeling about him was what nearly everyone had to be feeling about him. [Neo]

    This would be Pauline Kael solipsism, expecting that others see the world as “I” see it, or as we know it more popularly today, “living in a bubble” estranges one from the world. Although to give Kael credit, she knew this was a world of her own making, not THE world.

    Certainly the Dems, who see themselves as morally superior and their enemies evil, the establishment Republicans, who compete for the right to build the Progressive world and others are incapable of understanding the frustration that Trump serves to focus. I live in a blue-collar neighborhood; the frustration with political parties having dicscarded the wishes of the working class is palpable.

    I just read James Capua’s essay at American Thinker. He noted:

    Trump is offering nothing more nuanced than the Marseillaise scene at Rick’s.

    [snip]

    If Trumpismo can spark their [the working class’s] political re-engagement then it creates the opportunity to persuade them to embrace the serious, and potentially painful, policy reforms and personal renewal necessary to begin returning this nation to security and prosperity.

    [snip]

    Trumpismo may turn out to be a better political opportunity than a pathetic Republican leadership class deserves.

    Perhaps it’s high time for the American version of that Marseillaise scene to become topical again.

    Read the entire thing. The link:

    http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/05/is_trumpismo_proving_bismarck_right_again.html#ixzz48Hczb6VB

  7. The donald phenomena has totally caught me by surprise, and has lowered my already low expectations of the American voter.

  8. I thought that Trump’s prospects as the nominee were pretty high.

    1) Hillary WANTED him to be the nominee — and made certain through her minions that the MSM got this message.

    2) He was, and is, a weaponized Democrat running under the GOP label.

    Since Barry — and academe — and the MSM — have taken the Overton window to the Left side, it stood to reason that the GOP would lurch ever Leftwards — ditto for the Socialist-Democrat party.

    I still expect the MSM to round on Trump something fierce — the Tom Oliver piece being merely a foretaste.

    If Hillary continues to ‘run away from the microphone’ — then Donald’s prospects brighten considerably.

    A) e-mail gait will go no-where.

    B) Benghazigate will go no-where — as it aims at the President.

    C) Mexco City will weigh in against Donald — by hook or by crook.

    D) Beijing will weigh in against Trump — by crook.

    E) Donald ins insanely underfunded versus Hillary.

    F) In the final daze, expect the MSM to largely black out Trump. He’ll be getting no free air time.

    G) Donald will continue to provide fresh gaffs — plenty of fodder for the News-Comedies.

    ( The Daily Show, and CNN, MSNBC, et. al.

  9. The underestimation of Trump is understandable since Trump the candidate and the Trump campaign have been a joke by traditional electoral standards.

    However, people who understand that the activist game is the only social cultural/political game there is have understood that Trump’s alliance with ‘jayvee’ Left-mimicking alt-Right activists conferred a significant advantage over the GOP candidates.

    And indeed, the difference that won Trump the GOP nomination has been the Trump-front alt-Right activists that are the creative engine of the Trump phenomenon versus the GOP’s crippling activism deficiency caused by the chronic aversion to activism on the Right.

    So, the electoral observers who evaluated Trump the candidate and the Trump campaign to be a marginal prospect weren’t wrong according to a traditional electoral frame of reference. Rather, the traditional electoral frame of reference has been wrong. While Trump the candidate and the Trump campaign have indeed been a joke, the activist Trump phenomenon has been nothing else but serious.

    The same fundamentally flawed electoral frame of reference underlies the now-discredited GOP campaign strategists who claimed they had gone to school on the 2012 Obama campaign and armed Cruz, Rubio, et al with state-of-the-art electoral practices such as the early-ballyhooed “data driven ground game”.

    In fact, despite their assurances of lessons learned and superiority over the 2012 Romney campaign, the GOP campaign strategists apparently overlooked that the Obama campaign was only secondarily responsible for the 2012 Obama victory. The Romney campaign didn’t lose to the Obama campaign as such in 2012. Instead, the Romney campaign, disadvantaged by the absence of a competitive GOP-front Right social activist movement, was simply outgunned by the Democrat-front Left social activist movement.

    Left activists were primarily responsible for the 2012 Obama victory, while the Obama campaign, inasmuch it could be isolated from Democrat-front Left activists, was secondary.

    The difference in the 2016 GOP nomination race us due to the Trump recognition and exploitation of the market inefficiency regarding activism that, despite the blatant evidence from the 2012 election, the Right and GOP would not or simply could not evaluate properly and correct.

    Even now, many conservatives focus their analysis on Trump the candidate like they did with Obama rather than on the social activist movements primarily responsible for the 2012 Obama victory and current Trump phenomenon. They seem unable or unwilling to appreciate that participatory politics subsume electoral politics and the necessity for conservatives collectively to crystallize a competitive social activist movement ASAP.

  10. Oops. Fix:
    The difference in the 2016 GOP nomination race uswas due to the Trump recognition and exploitation of the market inefficiency regarding activism that, despite the blatant evidence from the 2012 election, the Right and GOP would not or simply could not evaluate properly and correct.

  11. “Any true understanding of this election requires an appreciation of the one huge political fault line that is driving America into a period of serious political tremors, certain to jolt the political Richter scale,” writes a very insightful Robert W. Merry. “It is nationalists vs. globalists.”

    Merry goes on to explain how the globalists “captured” American society by taking over elitist institutions that included the media, academia, big corporations, big finance, Hollywood, think tanks, NGOs, and charitable foundations. In the process of doing so, the elites who ran these institutions began to believe they were the ultimate arbiters of proper thinking. In turn, Merry explains that worldview led to a “quantum expansion of social and political arrogance on the part of these high-flyers.”

    Enter Trump, who galvanized an American public furious with the elitist idea that national sovereignty has outlived its usefulness in a rapidly “shrinking” world.

    Nowhere have the elites made this plainer than their failure to enforce immigration law. America is on the verge of yet another surge at our southern border. Through the first six months of FY2016, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported a 78% increase from the 15,616 illegals apprehended last year, and only slightly less than the record-setting surge of illegals apprehended in 2014. Illegals the Obama administration purposely dispersed throughout the nation to await immigration hearings, even as the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review remains fully aware that between between July 2014 and January 2016, a whopping 88% of removal orders were issued “in absentia,” because illegals failed to show up for those hearings.
    http://patriotpost.us/articles/42437

  12. I think a series of Tweets by a certain Jim Rose sums it up rather succinctly (see them at Don Surber, link below. Boldface in #6 is mine):

    1/ I think one big reason for he rise of Trump is many long-time Republican voters have finally learned the difference between …

    2/ capitalism and corporatism. They’ve also found out everyone is connected: Media, corporations, GOP, Democrats. …

    3/ They’ve found out that the GOP and Dems are beholden to the same people: the donor class, which wants cheap labor i.e. open borders …

    4/ and their own people in power: Harvard grads, Northeast elites, etc. Trump, however, is a billionaire. How does that make sense? …

    5/ Look at Trump’s enemies: Buffett, Zuckerberg, the Saudis, et al. As a rich bitch, he’s not following parliamentary procedure. …

    6/ Is this a highly intellectual movement as a whole? No. It’s very reactionary and one of an almost kamikaze nature. Many Republican …

    7/ voters, Reagan Democrats, and others have become the new radicals fighting the machine whether they all understand exactly why or not.

    The link:

    http://donsurber.blogspot.com/2016/05/jim-rose-explains-all.html#more

  13. I knew he could make it all the way about a month into his candidacy. I could tell he would win by simply reading my Facebook newsfeed. I saw several “conservatives” (formerly Ted Cruz fans) do an about face and embrace DT – at first gradually and then, when the Lyin’ Ted stuff started – wholeheartedly. They turned on Cruz like vicious wolves in my opinion. I now have this odd gut feeling that if he does not win, it will be a squeaker. The debates should be interesting.

  14. Neo:
    “And then I found this, which settled the question. It was published on August 22, 2015, about two months into the Trump campaign:”

    I give my main comment under that post a B- grade. The comment passes muster, but my commentary did not include the agency of the Trump-front alt-Right insurgency, which is a significant oversight on my part.

    To make up for my oversight in hindsight, I recommend the article linked in the next comment in the thread, from G6loq:
    http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/08/the_quiet_revolution_how_the_new_left_took_over_the_democratic_party_.html

    The article by Scott S. Powell offers an incisive overview of the Left strategy with their Gramscian march, which is equally useful to understand the Left-mimicking Trump-front alt-Right strategy for establishing their own Gramscian long march.

    Powell’s informative article is a recommendation to look at the rest of his stuff (which I haven’t read):
    http://www.discovery.org/p/561

  15. One other note.

    One can not avoid Donald Trump. He imposes himself on the body politic by consistently ignoring its traditional protocol, much in the same way Hillary Clinton consistently ignores laws. He is an anti-Clinton if only in appearance. One cannot avoid him; one can not ignore him. He sucks the oxygen out of any room he enters. Even as Neoneocon has expressed her dislike for and fear of Trump, she writes yet another Trump thread. QED

    I saw an article which mentioned that Clinton has spent ~$276 million on air time while the Donald’s aggregate air time is worth ~$1.3 billion and he hasn’t paid for any of it.

    “the Romney campaign . . . was simply outgunned by the Democrat-front Left social activist movement.” [Eric @ 4:03]
    I agree, and IMO Trump will not let that happen, even if his campaign is Republican or conservative in name only. The Dems wished for Trump as an opponent, but to paraphrase Instapundit I think they may have chosen the form of their own destructor.

  16. Kerry slams Trump’s wall, tells grads to prepare for ‘borderless world’

    http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/kerry-slams-trumps-wall-tells-grads-to-prepare-for-borderless-world/article/2590596

    Secretary of State John Kerry took a shot at Donald Trump during his Friday commencement speech to Northeastern University graduates, by saying no wall is big enough to keep dangerous terrorists out of the United States.

    “Many of you were in elementary school when you learned the toughest lesson of all on 9/11,” he said in his speech at Boston Garden. “There are no walls big enough to stop people from anywhere, tens of thousands of miles away, who are determined to take their own lives while they target others.”

    “So I think that everything that we’ve lived and learn tells us that we will never come out on top if we accept advice from sound-bite salesmen and carnival barkers who pretend the most powerful country on Earth can remain great by looking inward,” Kerry added. “And hiding behind walls at a time that technology has made that impossible to do and unwise to even attempt.”

    there is no door that keeps a burlar out, so kerry, do you take the locks off your house?

    and as you can see… what they are heading for is a european soviet, a soviet block of china and russia, and a north american soviet, which will have over it, an appointed “ruler of the world”…

    the goal is as its always been from alexander the great, to liu baio, to napoleon, to hitler, and tons of others…

    to rule the world…

    and us poor folk who dont want to be slaves screwed that up… (if you think Cruz would have broken up that cabal, your nutters… his left hand was showing you the bonafides, the right hand globalist bs was being ignored)

    People for good or bad is going for the only candidate that even acknowelged this concept of where they have moved us and kept us feeling good about it for over 40 years…

    Mrs. Cruz served as a CFR term member, which expired in 2011 she was one of 31 members assigned to the task force which produced the “Building a North American Community” report.

    [the terms changed it used to be UNION not Community]

    That 2005 report by the Task Force on the Future of North America was co-authored by task force vice chairman Robert A. Pastor, then the director of the Center for North American Studies at American University in Washington, D.C. Dr. Pastor, in the 2007 bestselling book “The Late Great USA: The Coming Merger with Mexico and Canada,” was dubbed “the father of the North American Union” for his influence on the CFR report having had on a tripartite summit meeting between heads of state of the U.S., Mexico and Canada culminating in President George W. Bush illegally declaring without congressional approval the formation of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America.

    and yes, she would marry the man who would tear her and her associates world plans to nothing… cause thats what people do… marry people to destroy their dreams… right?

    Sen. Cruz attacked the CFR as “a pernicious nest of vipers” that is “working to undermine our sovereignty”

    so he married a viper…

    he owes his texas election to goldman sachs that loaned him the money questionably… and he also has them as the biggest donors, and elliote abrams the man who created the crack cocaine and a lifetime CFR member, on his team

    if they are a nest of vipers, why let one in your house?

    the earliest i have ever read of this was from the soviet era with the idea of a european soviet, or rather what became the european union… (there was another point that fed into this making it sound like big conspiracy was russias tiny map that divided the US between russia and china)

    I make the argument that just as in Europe, it was a 50-year stealth plan by the intellectual elites and government officials planning to create a European Union, to go from originally a trade agreement, the coal and steel agreement, the original agreement, step by step incrementally building an argument and getting the votes needed to end up with the European Union. They went through a European common market, a European customs union, European community, finally European Union with its own currency, the euro. I’m saying the plan here is the same. Multinational corporations and elites pushing to have NAFTA advance into what it is now, the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, ultimately a North American community

    this is why the UK leaving the union is bad bad bad
    and their desire to spread people around using the open borders (a stalinist thing actually), to create strif for the people to beg the state to fix it.. and more

    and a wall, that prevents free open borders for mexico to the US, well, that would do what to their idea of a north american union?

    if you dont believe in such a union, why not?
    if you do, then why do you?

    The United States could remain as a country in a North American Union the same way Italy, France and Germany remain as countries in the European Union, but there’s a significant loss of sovereignty so that now the European Union dictates from the nameless bureaucrats in the working groups in Brussels, in Luxembourg, the laws which the legislatures in the various countries – Germany, France, Italy, etc. – can pass. And if it’s not approved they can’t pass the law. So you basically have a European Union regional government becoming supreme and the governments of the individual countries becoming secondary in sovereignty to the regional government’s dictates and rulings. http://www.salon.com/2007/07/16/jerome_corsi_2/

    So what’s the motive on the part of the American government and American corporations in forming this North American Union? That wasn’t much discussed in your book.

    pointed out very clearly that the motive here is a multinational corporate model, that our multinational corporations largely are beyond borders already. I pointed this out extensively when I discussed how the North American Competitiveness Council, which is an advisory group under the Security and Prosperity Partnership, was constituted almost entirely of multinational business groups that are constituted to advise SPP. The agenda there is that, you know, American labor is too expensive for the multinational corporations. Our manufacturing jobs are increasingly going to China and our high-skill jobs – I mean take a look at Bill Gates and Microsoft: He’s one of the top billionaires in the world, yet evidently he does not have enough billions. Rather than being thankful to U.S. citizens for buying Microsoft products over decades … he’s pushing for another billion dollars. He wants unlimited H-1B visas to get computer scientists in an unlimited capacity from India and he’s threatening that if he can’t get that here in the United States, he’ll form a subsidiary in Canada and get his Indian computer scientists through Canada. As opposed to – evidently the sons and daughters of American citizens graduating from colleges in computer science are too expensive for Bill Gates. And it’s that type of an agenda that is already beyond borders, which is pushing for global profits at the expense of the U.S. manufacturing or the U.S. middle class.

    which is why Cruz decided to tag Fiorina, under HP she was one of the first large companies to start the flight of labor to China!!! a long time globalist..

    and even funnier… you think his 500% increase in h1B visas was a fluke, you can bet that when he got to office he would have a conciousness raising and reverse himself… after all, we yell flip flop which is stupid, but what does it actually do post yelling? nada

  17. the most important element of Trump’s appeal has nothing to do with political ideology at all. The Donald has taken a wrecking ball to the elite-driven political correctness that routinely ridicules and marginalizes ordinary Americans. And despite his multitudinous faults and foibles, Trump embodies the one thing most Republican politicians avoid like Ebola: a take-no-prisoners willingness to employ the very same street-fighter tactics Democrats and their media allies have successfully used for decades.

    Krauthammer, et al, rightly rue the loss of dignity Trump represents. But a conservative electorate tired of milquetoast, GOP politicians willing to lose – as long as they do it nobly? Not so much. Thus they gravitate to a so-called Alpha Male they perceive as willing to defend American interests above all.

    [and if they had a better choice that was not connevcted to this globalization stuff, which is not the same as doing business in other places, the public would have swarmed to it. the idea that most want to discount the clues that would tell you where cruz would have ended up after his raised conciousness in office, was to have the new boss same as the old bosses]

    be it by accident or design, Trump may signify the emergence of a new paradigm. “Make America Great Again” is hardly a cutting edge slogan (he “borrowed” it from Ronald Reagan), but it certainly resonates among millions of Americans who see Trump as their last chance to preserve national sovereignty, even if that preservation requires a level of ideological compromise that gives GOP/conservative gatekeepers fits. The very same gatekeepers who whine about the demise of conservatism and the GOP, while they apparently fail to see the steady march towards globalism will lead to the virtual extinction of both.

    what would happen to the GOP in a globalist north american union? while people would preserve the ideas and such, they would be worthless as all diktat would come from the people akin to the dems super delegates.. the supreme soviet… the brussels marxists…

    reminds me of the bible quote:
    For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

    but in this case.. what would it mean to preserve the soul of the GOP as an ideology, if one loses it all to a leader of the world?

    a pyric victory at best..
    If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever. George Orwell

    but since taking over countries one by one didnt work, transferring their power upwards to a extra national body is a lot easier and cost efficient than trying to take the country.

    besides, you cant take nuclear states by war, but like feminsits exterminating their own selves so that their group ends up so small it cant defend itself, the same is what would happen to a state in a nation that is a state in world ruled by a few…

    and the funniest thing is that the leftists are fighting for a globalist world.. in which they become even less than the man sent to the gulag… completely disposable and without any rights, and all under a select group of permanent powerful people

    the end of the freedom of self governance ends on the world scale and then what? Rulers of the world become the norm…

    are you ready for that?

  18. Last post on this and it pertains to everyone here in the blog…

    introduction from John Jay Ray (a friend that runs Dissecting Leftism blog)

    The rise of the Donald has got the Left scratching their heads. They need some explanation that will save them from admitting that a lot of what he says is right. Out of that has come the essay below by academic Eitan D. Hersh. He provides the explanation that Trump supporters are “hobbyists”.

    I think Hersh does have a point in general and I think that “hobbyism” may well be part of the explanation for Trump support — but I see the enthusiasm for Trump as too great to be explained fully that way. I think a lot of Americans really are fed up with a GOP that repeatedly kow-tows to Leftist thinking, with all its double standards and lack of reality contact.

    The way both sides of politics describe Islam as a “religion of peace” is truly astonishing. What do Muslims have to do in the name of their religion for it to be described as a religion of hate? And The Donald is the only one who has said anything negative about Muslims.

    But I do think that the Obamamania of 2008 was a prize example of the “hobbyism” that Hersh describes

    The most dangerous hobby
    http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2016/05/03/hersh/obFdHkl4Ksm4taXESSaQ0L/story.html

    Something troubling has emerged on the American scene: Political activity has become a hobby. Voting, petitioning, partisan cheering, donating, watching infotainment news: The chief purpose for participating in politics seems to be self-gratification.

    We are accustomed to thinking about participation in politics as motivated by civic duty or self-interest, not gratification. That has changed due to a combination of factors related to the nature of free time, the openness of the political process to mass participation, and a recent period of relative peace.

    For Americans who are far enough removed from military service, economic hardship, and discrimination, political stakes can seem pretty low, especially in the quarter-century since the end of the Cold War when foreign threats seem less immediate. And so politics has become an erudite way to spend leisure time. But unlike softball or beekeeping, the stakes are actually high.

    Donald Trump’s surprising rise sheds light on the perils of political hobbyism. It is clear that far too many people have been treating a high-stakes affair like a low-stakes one. That’s why they never saw Trump coming. When politics is treated like an unserious game, unserious candidates emerge.

    TO UNDERSTAND POLITICAL hobbyism, consider three important forms of political participation: campaign contributing, activism, and voting. Today, all three activities are dominated by hobbyists.

    More at the link
    enjoy!!

  19. Art,

    Your slander of Heidi Cruz is NOT supported by the facts.

    Your accusations of Ted Cruz are conjecture.

    Apparently facts mean little to you. Conjecture evidently equates for you, to certainty.

    Just out of curiousity, have you ever been wrong about anything? Have you ever publicly admitted it? When proven wrong, have you ever publicly apologized?

    It’s interesting that the man you vociferously champion, shares the very characteristics that I’ve just questioned in you…

  20. I confess that I did not take him seriously for quite awhile. When he was just getting a rather small plurality in several primaries, and continuing to act like a sullen teenager, I simply did not think he would sell. Then, of course there was his checkered history on issues that matter to most conservatives.

    As others have stated, I was guilty of over estimating the American electorate despite past evidence. Now, I am waiting to see the promised new Trump, or at least the other one who allegedly stayed hidden for strategic reasons.

  21. Artfulldodger…

    We’ve detailed margin loan lending against securities.

    Goldman Sachs is NOT set up to make bank loans like the commercial bank down the street.

    As a highly regulated firm, it is prohibited from making the kind of loan you think occurred.

    ALL Goldman Sachs loans would have to be fully secured by securities positions on deposit.

    The reason that Cruz overlooked his draft from Goldman — was because such margin accounts are now ROUTINELY used by the wealthy — as mere checking accounts.

    This gambit goes all the way back to Merrill Lynch and its Cash Management Account — circa 1978-80, IIRC.

    These accounts took the wealthy by storm.

    They permitted Hollywood big spenders the ability to pay for Rolls Royce automobiles — with their CMA (VISA) ‘credit card.’

    This card was directly linked to their margin account — and a money market fund — such that they could spend whatever their ‘SMA’ permitted.

    ( SMA = Special Margin Account — I’m not going to go into the ins and outs of its history — it’s a figure only of interest to margin clerks and stock brokers. It devolves down to the legally permitted borrowing capacity of any margin account holder. )

    ART — GIVE IT UP.

  22. The reasons the wealthy would MUCH prefer to borrow against their securities positions:

    Lowest interest rates available to civilians. Period.

    Can execute by way of a draft (write a check) or credit card draw.

    Can repay at ANY tempo — no penalties for early pay off of the loan.

    The above beats liquidating securities — which would trigger a Tax Event — and require Schedule D filing with one’s 1040.

    That would just kill you if your holding was short term — but soon to be deemed long term — taxed at a MUCH lower rate.

    Selling such positions is the LAST thing anyone would want to do.

    &&&&&

    These days virtually EVERY wealthy American has their portfolio held in ‘Street Name’ and tied to such ‘sweep accounts.’

    It’s gotten to the point that these accounts are deemed their deep pockets. They see more activity (spending) than most bank accounts.

  23. What was really foolish was people like Cruz who played nice with Trump all the while Trump was saying vile things – all for the hope that Trump would have to drop out and he (Cruz) would get all of Trump’s voters. Also Jeb! wasting all that money on ads attacking Rubio, and the less said about the odious Chris Christie the better. Finally – what the hell was Ben Carson doing on that stage???

  24. I still don’t know one person in real life who would vote for Trump by choice. Voting reluctantly, as the anti-(overt) D vote, yes. Voting happily, no. Not one.

  25. I don’t know when exactly I decided that Trump might very well get the nomination, but I think it was by the time I finished Noonan’s second WSJ column on Trump – the one in which she talks about how many Hispanics are Trumps supporters (contrary to CW, of course). I think that column was published last August.

    I think Noonan at least sort of got it, as well.

  26. I did not take Trump seriously and still don’t. His claim that he was going to deport all the illegals was shown to be undoable in any short period of time, yet he stood by it. When he blew the question about the Nuclear Triad in one of the debates, I figured that even his supporters would see how thin his knowledge of the issues was and begin to switch allegiances. It didn’t happen. Knowledge of the issues has been proven by the GOP primary race to be a “nice to have” but not really something that appeals to the emotions of so many voters.

    When Donald stands at the podium and avers that he’s going to create so many new jobs, make outstanding trade agreements, make this country rich again, and make this country GREAT again, my tendency is to ask for the some details of his plans. Obviously, I’m out of step with a lot of the voters. Emotions and hope are in charge. It is AMAZING to watch!

    I spent 38 years earning my living pushing throttles on airplanes. One of the first things I learned in ground school was that successful flights required a plan and the ability to quickly revise or adjust the plan. That flying by the seat of your pants was great fun but could lead to an early demise. I guess it’s no wonder that I always want to see the plan. Depth of knowledge in aviation is also a way to prevent an early demise. I guess that’s why I am alarmed when a candidate’s depth of knowledge of the issues is an inch deep. I recognize that I don’t read people well. Most of my adult life was spent dealing with airplanes and well-trained co-workers who shared most of my values. Unlike a salesman, or politician I never had to sell someone on my plans. It was only when Trump won Indiana that I accepted he was going to be the nominee. Because of my bias against his lack of knowledge and apparent lack of a coherent plan, I don’t think he has much chance in the general. For the reasons just listed I’ve been wrong about Trump. Anything is possible. What has already happened has shown that. It amazes me and frightens me because I see this as a sea change election.

  27. T; granted the attitudes that you enumerate, it is still a mystery why a thinking person would turn to Trump. He embodies many of the very attributes and practices that so frustrate people. Crony Capitalism thy name is Trump. And he brags about it.

    Brooklynboy. Don’t you think that Cruz was simply trying to play on the high ground until he realized that there was no high ground? I expect that he thought that the party that glorifies Reagan would reject the man who tramples the 11th commandment in the muck. Turns out that many only pay lip service to Reagan.

    J.J., I have often thought, and commented, that if we had conducted our business in the same manner as our government functionaries, and many corporate ones as well, we would have been smoking holes in the ground. Or maybe providence simply smiled on us. May she continue to protect the United States from its follies.

  28. Had conversations way back in August of Trump’s potential and why he would be a terrible nominee.

    I was rather hopeful this round with plenty of competent candidates in play, so didn’t understand at the time just how divided that would make the field for an end run by Trump. I had given him high to middle of the pack odds, just based on his name recognition.

    I think Cornhead hits this right – divided field and media. I definitely don’t attribute any “brilliance” to Trump’s win, as opposed to being at the right place at the right time, with a field that both underestimated him, and had a prisoner’s dilemma choice of attacking Trump vs attacking the others.

    And, nobody (not even Trump) could have predicted the media’s singular frenzy for Trump, virtually locking everyone else out of any airtime.

    And, that was practically the only card he had to play.

    With Brooklyn Boy on “playing nice”. By October, took many derisive darts from Cruz supporters for saying that he/they were foolish to be “drafting” behind Trump, and that all should be firing at Trump. At that time, Cruz seemed to be the candidate with the most credibility to take on Trump.

    Have been beating the drum ever since.

    It’s been like watching a car crash about to happen and you are on the roadside jumping, waving, and yelling to get the passing driver to stop, only to be ignored.

    “I had no idea so many “conservatives” would abandon their ideals so readily.” – Ed

    This has been particularly astonishing/exasperating.

    As parker said, it vastly lowers my expectations about the public, and more especially the thought, media, and political leaders we may have been listening to (though I already started down the path of shifting away from much of “conservative” media after the 2008 election, accelerating after 2012).

    Kyndyll – you must be in a rather uniform locale, workplace, etc. Round here, there are Trump signs, Clinton signs, Obama bumper stickers from 2012, etc.. Personally know people from all camps, though this district was big for Cruz.

    blert has it right above in his A-G list. Particularly, we can expect that Trump will no longer have the free $2B of donated airtime from the MSM. What will Trump have then if they virtually shut him out other than to focus on gaffes, and inconsistencies, etc.?

    This will be a whole different dynamic, without a divided field for his opposition. And, the Dems won’t be hanging back to see what happens with Trump, they will be guns ablazing as soon as Clinton locks the nomination.

    The ONLY wildcards are events. Anything that stokes security concerns close to election day will swing voters toward Trump.

    I don’t think anyone should treat this election as a sure loss for Trump. They/we need to make sure it is the most embarrassing loss for him ever. His “brand” should carry no weight after this election – politically, and commercially.

  29. “Trump is a clown” is not a reflection of his electoral success or failure. It is a reflection of his character and probably intellect. Trump is a clown, and he will always be a clown.

  30. Matt_SE,
    Why would you attack clowns so viciously? All they try to do is make people laugh!

  31. Just to clarify—

    When I spoke of taking Trump seriously, I didn’t mean I believed him or trusted him. I specifically meant I took his chances of being nominated seriously.

  32. I wouldn’t be so sure that Trump won’t still get plenty of free air time. He’s sure to keep saying politically incorrect things and the mass media will continue to find the temptation to ‘expose’ his intolerant political incorrectness irresistable*. They think by doing this, Americans will reject him, just as all of his republican competitors did and, it will be just as ineffective. In ‘exposing’ Trump, they have to cover what he says, so for instance ABC also had to expose Trump’s truthful accusation that Hillary frequently protected Bill Clinton by intimidating into silence his victims. In response, Hillary stopped accusing Trump of being a sexist.

    *ABC, CBS, NBC, etc. have coverage of Trump every night…

    People are “fed up to here” and Trump represents a big F.U. with both hands raised up in the middle finger salute. It’s not intellectual, they’re far past that initial stage, it’s not even primarily emotional anymore. It’s reached the visceral stage. And every criticism of Trump just adds fuel to the fire.

    I’m beginning to suspect that Limbaugh is right, Trump is going to win in a landslide. God help us all.

    But Caesar is better than Lenin because Caesar didn’t kill millions. He just finished the Republic’s own self-destruction.

  33. From a 4:35 post by Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit:

    FLOATS LIKE A BUTTERFLY, STINGS LIKE AN ELECTRIC EEL: Trump Paralyzed Hilary’s Campaign.

    This boilerplate Democratic campaign strategy would be fine – perhaps even compelling — if deployed against a vanilla Republican candidate. Trump is, however, no Republican cast in the same mold as George W. Bush, John McCain, or Mitt Romney. In fact, as Team Clinton was revealing its intention to attack Trump for his proposal to ease the tax burden on the rich, the news cycle was already dominated by Trump’s decision to buck Republican orthodoxy on taxes in an interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd.

    [snip]

    Despite Trump warning the Clintons for weeks that he intends to borrow heavily from self-described socialist Senator Bernie Sanders’ playbook, Team Clinton was unable, or unwilling, to preemptively reform their message and tailor it to Trump’s populist progressivism. Nor could they adapt and respond to a news cycle dominated by Trump’s remarks on taxes and the stunning departure they represent from typical Republican economic philosophy. If Democrats fear that Clinton’s team has ossified and grown complacent, this episode should confirm those suspicions.

    It’s hard to get inside the decision loop of a guy who doesn’t know what he’ll do next himself.

    The link to the Noah Rothman article from which this is excerpted:

    https://www.commentarymagazine.com/politics-ideas/campaigns-elections/trump-paralyzed-hilarys-campaign/

  34. <b<" it is still a mystery why a thinking person would turn to Trump. [Oldflyer @7:28 above]

    IMO it has nothing to do with thinking. As Geoffrey Britain states: “. . . it’s not even primarily emotional anymore. It’s reached the visceral stage.” Remember Howard Beal: “I’m mad as Hell and I’m not gonna take anymore.”‘ Open your windows, yell it out into the street! Let “them” know that you will be heard!

    As for those who think, their choice will be to vote for the un-Hillary or repeat the mistake of voting for an incompetent and evinced and enemy of the country.

  35. If Trump gets clearly ahead over the summer the media will make lemonade by getting on the Trump Train. Yeah, they’re all in on the Democrats but Trump will be a celebrity President with huge ‘love’ and ‘hate’ constituencies. Ka ching! Won’t we all be surprised when for the first time in our lives the media is fair to favorable to the Republican.

  36. This post at American Digest tells a story that many may not be aware of. I certainly wasn’t.
    “In 2012, almost five out of ten eligible citizens did not vote. That means 66 million voted for Obama, 61 million for Romney, and a whopping 100 million eligible citizens did not vote. Ironically these 100 million citizens, who typically do not vote, represent the largest voting bloc in America. They can elect any one they want to be their President….”
    http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/5minute_arguments/the_monster_vote_citizen.php

  37. EBJ,

    If is a big word.

    JJ,

    Are you assuming this “largest voting bloc” will get off their butts to vote for djt or hrc?

  38. “Events” as in the October surprise will not magically put djt over the top in November. The dja and the federal reserve will not ride to the rescue. And the jihadists, while being fanatical murders, are not stupid. The likelihood of a significant jihad attack on home soil prior to November is not odds I will bet on. Dream on.

    I am willing to bet on djt with an Electoral College ceiling of 100, and if anyone is willing to give me 50 to 1, I will bet on a ceiling of 50 plus or minus 5.

  39. The purpose of LIVs falling for con artists is for them to learn in the dear school of experience. As they crash and burn, our test is to witness and endure with grace.
    The LIV’s penchant for folly has given us a bad feeling about what lies ahead. The mess that they and their empty slogan-spouting nothing of a president have made of our country begs for an angry irrational Daddy to come home and rain vengeance upon them.
    As the karmic lash falls upon them in the form of a floundering economy and a failing health system, I expect and await their cries of anguish. The wages of stupidity must be paid.
    So let it be done.

  40. I’m with Cornhead on the large candidate field and the media. Thinking voters wanted to look at the candidates and see who had the best ideas and could sell them. The media didn’t let anyone but Trump get much say. The others had to pare down their ideas to soundbites, which were nowhere near as attractive as Trump’s. Had a few of the others gotten together to make a ticket in which each person could sell the idea they knew best, it might have worked. That would have had the advantage of bringing the party and the “true conservative” branch together. But the egos of losers like Huckabee wouldn’t allow that. And now Huckabee has jumped on Trump’s train so he can pretend he is still relevant.

    I also fault Gingrich. For LIVs, Gingrich is the great intellectual, so he made them feel smart when they voted with their feelings. I am still waiting for the clash of the big egos. I am also waiting for Sarah Palin to start putting people to sleep.

  41. Hillary and Chelsea are sitting around the table having a mother/daughter talk. “So, Chelsea,” says her mother, “you’ve been going to college for awhile now. Have you had sex yet?” “Well,” says Chelsea, “Not according to Dad.”

  42. Does RACISM explain the rise of Donald Trump?

    An amusing lack of thought below. The study concerned is methodologically weak (many more females than males; no representative sampling etc.) but I believe its conclusions are mostly right.

    Support for Trump IS mediated by racism: Leftist racism.

    Mainstream whites are discriminated against all the time by America’s elites. “Affirmative action” is nothing if not racist. Leftist are the racists, not conservatives. And American whites don’t like being discriminated against any more than blacks do. It’s only the brain-dead Left who think that the cure for discrimination is more discrimination.

    And whites know that all sorts of minorities are privileged over them: Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, homosexuals, the sexually confused, Greenies, welfare parasites etc. So when reminded about the discrimination that they suffer, they become more favourable to those who are against favoritism: The Donald and the Tea Party. And that is exactly what the researchers found.

    Being Leftists, the researchers seem to think that they have discredited Tea Party and Trump supporters in some way. They fail to see that mainstream whites have real grievances and that the Left is to blame for those grievances. White males in particular are both badly treated by government and often mocked, condemned and even demonized. The researchers seem to think that they should not be aware of all that. Trumpism is protest — protest by ordinary decent people, nothing more. It is the Left who are responsible for the rise of Trump – John Jay Ray commenting on the article at the link

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3583550/Does-RACISM-explain-rise-Donald-Trump-Stanford-academic-claims-supporters-want-stop-decline-whiteness-controversial-new-study.html

  43. I’m curious how any poster here missed the fact that the MSM was pulling Trump across the finish line.

    Their goal was to defeat the GOP… and … above all … to keep open borders.

    The fella that was certain to shut that game down, Ted Cruz, was their unifying fixation.

    Rupert Murdoch wants open borders. ( WSJ, Fox News )

    He waffled a bit, and then threw his media behind Trump — four square.

    Because Trump is very, very, likely to merely go through the motions — and one should suspect — merely stop Muslim immigration. ( cf Europe. )

    Since Trump is a Democrat running as the GOP nominee, he HAD to be the MSM favorite right out of the box.

    Donald Trump is going to run — IF he’s installed — an administration as ‘swinging for the fences’ as FDR’s.

    He’s a plunger.

    Hillary’s a shew, with countless class enemies to hector, lecture, and scold.

    ‘Tis a fright.

    %%

    It’s notable that FDR slammed Hoover’s policy suite — and then double downed — triple downed — on Hooverisms.

    ( Big dam construction and rural electrification, classic Hooverism. )

    By which one might conclude that the empty policy mind of Trump will end up being filled, largely, by Ted Cruz’s template.

    As it’s the only policy template that un-0bamas our economy.

    Trump is well nigh certain to 180 anything that Hillary proposes.

    Which is our only hope.

    Do I expect Trump to win. Not really. The MSM has yet to wheel on him. They are waiting for the convention to pass.

    Anything aired at this time would mean nothing by the Fall.

  44. Neo-neocon, you were WAY AHEAD of me in taking Trump’s candidacy seriously.

    Neo-neocon wrote:

    As time went on, my focus was on hoping/encouraging/urging enough of the remaining candidates to drop out so that the non-Trump voters could solidify support around one or two alternatives and might manage to stop Trump’s momentum.

    Unfortunately, that seemed to take forever, and by the time it happened the primaries were practically finished and Trump had amassed a nearly insurmountable lead. A bandwagon effect also seemed to take over at the very end.

    ***

    I don’t think the candidates themselves took Trump quite seriously enough for a long long time. Certainly not enough to get together and unite behind one or two of the strongest. Self-interest plus denial did them in.

    Cornhead wrote:

    The large field and his celebrity really helped Trump early.

    Those of us who hardly, if ever (such as me), watched The Apprentice, just had no idea of how well known Trump actually was.

    I have a friend who is a big fan of “establishment” Republicanism. He thought his favorite candidates (you know, the type that the NY Times might approve) were the ones that should have been supported, with the other candidates dropping out. He accused the much more conservative of us Republicans of having a litmus test for who is a conservative. Here is what I wrote to my friend (let’s call him “Walt”), with emphasis in the original:

    There was no litmus test, Walt. And neither of your favorites, Jeb Bush and John (Did You Know His Father Was a Mailman) Kasich, was particularly likable or good at national campaigning. Heck, but for Kasich’s having hung in for 10 more primaries than Rubio, Kasich would have been fourth in popular votes. See,

    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/republican_vote_count.html

    In fact, Cruz and Rubio together received more popular votes than Trump. Again, see,
    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/republican_vote_count.html
    Or, see,
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_Republican_Party_presidential_primaries,_2016

    So, one could reasonably argue that Jeb Bush and John (Did You Know His Father Was a Mailman) Kasich contributed quite largely to the Trump success because they did not get behind, early on, demonstrably more electable candidates.

    As one of our mutual friends wrote in a different email chain:

    The add’l obvious comment that I would make is that The Donald took all the oxygen out of the room from the jump so that good,viable candidates(Walker,Fiorina,Cruz)never could get their message above the bombast circus! The result was a dilution of the vote among many and the appearance of dominance for The Donald!

    The electable,qualified candidates were facing a guy who is an accident of history and timing–exactly the wrong candidate at the the wrong time for the good of the country,but exactly right as a vehicle of expression of angst and resentment for those feeling powerless and disenfranchised!

    Any other time,this clown couldn’t get elected to a small town’s village council!

    To decry the lack of support for Jeb Bush and John (Did You Know His Father Was a Mailman) Kasich is, in my opinion, turning facts upside down. This year, the folks who might have preferred Bush or Kasich should have gotten behind one or more of the candidates who appear to be more conservative – e.g., Cruz or Rubio. (As much as I like Cruz’s sentiments, I think Rubio would have been more electable.)

    Stated another way, this was not the year to use as a litmus test what the N.Y. Times might find acceptable in a Republican candidate.

    I’m aware of no one who could mount a serious third party challenge to Hillary and Trump, so I am left with hoping that Trump beats Hillary.

  45. J.J’s 100 million who didn’t vote, most will again not vote.
    BUT, of those who didn’t vote in 2012 but do this year, which will be some millions, most will vote Trump.
    I’d guess some 10-20 million eligible non-2016 voters are really “in play” for this 2016 election.

    Similarly, many Dems who voted Obama will … not quite vote for Hillary, after her treatment of Bernie. They’ll

    Thousands of Rep elites will #NeverTump, rather purity than victory. Thousands in the minus column … but Millions in the plus column.

    And, this will be a horse race / football game “Who is leading? Who is going to win?” Those who criticize Trump will face similar, more factual criticisms of Clinton and Obama-Clinton.
    Americans love a “winner”, and like most Reps, I sure want a winning Rep candidate — even if he’s a lying unpredictable RINO.
    I’d guess most Reps running for Congress get on board the Trump Train, willing to give up the support of the thousands, or maybe only hundreds, of Rep elite purists, in order to maybe get a million new Rep votes.

    And the Dem Media was always going to smear the Rep, Fiorina (my first choice), Cruz (second), and of course The Donald. But it’s clear that Trump is gonna mostly ignore the Dem attacks, and in reply, always attack the Dems.

    Fighting the Dems — YA!
    Fighting to Make America Great – YA!

    A terrible man? I think his ex wives like him more than Bill Clinton’s ex lovers like Bill, and Trump has the common touch. (Trump: “My ex-wives support me — does Monica support you? How about Juanita, the Clinton supporter that Bill raped? Gennifer Flowers? Paula Jones?)
    http://www.ranker.com/list/bill-clinton_s-loves-and-hookups/celebrityhookups?format=SLIDESHOW&page=3

    I took him a bit seriously but did think the 30% top meant somebody else would win — up thru the Cruz loss in the South.

    Trump plus Reps in Congress — that’s now the goal that reasonable Reps should support, including building a Wall & deporting the illegals.

  46. I didn’t take Trump seriously until the attacks in Paris, and that was reinforced by the reactions to San Bernadino in December- after those, I realized just how wide the gap Trump had between himself and the rest of the fields in both parties on the immigration issue. That issue alone demonstrated to me how powerful Trump’s refusal to bend to political correctness in all areas could be with the electorate. Trump is the middle finger to the media and all the nattering nabobs on the coasts. Democrats are worried that Clinton can’t beat him- I fully expect Clinton to get dumped before her convention, and that might not save the election for their party anyway.

  47. parker: “Are you assuming this “largest voting bloc” will get off their butts to vote for djt or hrc?”

    The linked post opines it to be possible. The theory is that many Trump fans are from this group who had given up on voting. Let us suppose that 10 million of the 100 million are in this group. That could be very big, especially if many of them are in the nine swing states.

    Here are some figures that have some bearing on the numbers:
    http://www.statisticbrain.com/voting-statistics/

    The theory is based on the idea that a large number of people quit voting in the 90s because they became disgusted with the candidates and their empty promises. I have no idea if it is valid. I put it out there for people to ponder and as an explanation for the Trump support, which for you and I makes no sense, no sense whatsoever.

  48. J.J. and parker:

    For a long, long time I’ve been aware that a huge percentage of Americans of voting age don’t vote, and the math has been clear: if they ever could be roused to do so, they would constitute an enormous influence on elections.

    However, I don’t think we know all that much about them. For example, I don’t think they are politically of one mind; they probably are leftish and rightish and everywhere in between. Some are lazy, some disinterested, some defiant, some crazy—who knows what else.

    Every now and then some are more motivated and they get out and vote. I’m pretty sure that I remember reading that some of Obama’s 2008 support was from such people (particularly minorities). Does Trump motivate some of them? Probably, but I haven’t seen any reliable proof of it so far. How many? I don’t know.

  49. I read VoxDay and other Alt Right/Red Pill blogs. So I knew pretty early on that something had changed if they were promoting an American political platform.

  50. Others have mentioned things like the terrorist attacks in Paris, the Tsarnaev clan, sanctuary cities, job losses to illegal immigrants. ICE releasing criminals.
    Then there’s the VA, the EPA, the IRS.
    There’s Benghazi. Many of the Trump supporters come from the classes that fight our wars. Veteran or not, they KNOW you don’t leave a man behind. Except Hillary.
    No matter how much you like Cruz–my fave–and Fiorina, they promise to fix the situation the old-fashioned way.
    It’s a hard sell that the way to fix the results of doing things the usual way is to do things the usual way. Whatever your particular complaint about DC, turning the whole thing upside down has a certain charm. Can’t be worse. Trump is so all-over-the-place that there’s no way to tell what he’ll do. We do know what Hillary will do, and perhaps Trump’s randomness will, in the aggregate, be better.

  51. Ymarsakar:
    “I read VoxDay and other Alt Right/Red Pill blogs. So I knew pretty early on that something had changed if they were promoting an American political platform.”

    An indicator for me was VoxDay’s foci on countering Left activism and employment of Left activist techniques.

    At the same time that the alt-Right was gearing up for the activist game, conservatives one th Right continued to limit their relationship with activism to denouncement, rejection, and willful ignorance. That self-induced, critical competitive gap rendered the GOP nomination race vulnerable to the Trump-front alt-Right insurgency.

  52. Oops. Fix:
    At the same time that the alt-Right was gearing up for the activist game, conservatives one thon the Right continued to limit their relationship with activism to denouncement, rejection, and willful ignorance.

  53. Whatever your particular complaint about DC, turning the whole thing upside down has a certain charm.

    Of course, but people who need a Divine King to do it for them, are weaklings. Not courageous independent Americans in the home of the brave. If people want freedom, perhaps they should stop selling themselves as slaves first.

  54. An indicator for me was VoxDay’s foci on countering Left activism and employment of Left activist techniques.

    VoxDay wasn’t political though. He was a Leftist nerd geek on the Science Fiction Writers of America with Scalzi and the other child molestor trash. They kicked him out, and then he started figuring out what the Red Pill was about.

    Before that, VoxDay’s background is game developer or coder. So that environment is kind of… light progressive.

    Of course VD would pick it up, he is smart enough to deconstruct attacks used against him once his neck is on the line. Like most people, being hanged tomorrow concentrates their minds.

    conservatives one thon the Right continued to limit their relationship with activism to denouncement, rejection, and willful ignorance.

    DC Republicans had successfully knee capped the Tea Party, so that was not unexpected. They thought it would be back to the Status quo as usual.

    Oh yea, to be fair to VoxDay, he also trains in athletics and plays soccer with the young generation. Not quite as good as internal martial arts, but it gets him closer to the Greek philosopher/warrior ethos than most modern Westerners.

    Which is, perhaps what people are missing. The Alternative Right are the new generation raised online. People who have evolved into their niches, away from social conformity. And there’s some very weird individuals online as a result of that. That 3% mutation factor even.

  55. “The 3% mutation factor” will not carry djt across the finish line. He needs the 20% mutation factor. Don’t hold your breath.

  56. Ymar. Good point. However, in our current situation, we can have only one president at a time. The rest of the issue must be taken care of downticket. Perhaps it will.

  57. “The 3% mutation factor” will not carry djt across the finish line. He needs the 20% mutation factor. Don’t hold your breath.

    It’s not about DJT’s success or not in power. It’s about America’s ability to survive evil in the Long War. And a Long War sometimes necessitates being reduced to a minor insurgency everyone craps on for some odd years, but if you can survive that, victory might be feasible. A sort of reverse Vietnam.

  58. Ymarsakar:
    “It’s not about DJT’s success or not in power. It’s about America’s ability to survive evil in the Long War.”

    See my comment at May 10th, 2016 at 4:20 pm, especially the suggested Powell article (h/t G6loq). Excerpt:

    The article by Scott S. Powell offers an incisive overview of the Left strategy with their Gramscian march, which is equally useful to understand the Left-mimicking Trump-front alt-Right strategy for establishing their own Gramscian long march.

    Comments here by Neo stalwarts exemplify that even now, when the alt-Right’s Left-mimicking activist game is readily apparent, many conservatives can still only bring themselves to interpret the Trump phenomenon through a traditional electoral frame of reference. I take it that highlighting that critical flaw of perspective on the Right is one of Neo’s purposes for this post.

    I agree that alt-Right activists are not subordinate to Trump. His presidency is not their end game. They’ll invest in their alliance with the Trump campaign as long as it serves the purpose of furthering their Gramscian long march. In that regard, they’ve already met their proximate objectives. The general election is a bonus round. They’ll travel with Trump as long as the association is profitable … and Trump understands that.

    Right now, conservatives and Republicans are furiously speculating, What does a Trump presidency portend, while rationalizing themselves into supporting Trump versus #NeverHillary. As both salesmen like Trump and activists like VoxDay understand, “The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.”

    The answer to their furious speculation is, a Trump presidency portends the rise of the alt-Right in the cultural, political zeitgeist.

    With all the mystery about the Trump agenda, what’s clear is Trump’s alliance and, more significantly, his reliance on the alt-Right creative engine of the Trump phenomenon.

    If the alt-Right social activist movement elevates Trump to the Presidency, which assumes a concurrent accelerated alt-Right encroachment of the GOP, he will continue to rely on the alt-Right to advance the Trump agenda like the Obama presidency has relied on the Left social activist movement that took over the Democrats and was responsible for Obama’s rise. So, while the agenda for a Trump presidency is murky yet, what’s clear is that it will be negotiated with the alt-Right.

    Neo has posted about the Trump-alt-Right eventuality, too.

    Participatory politics subsume electoral politics, and the 2016 GOP nomination race has been a setting for the alt-Right’s activist game. The alt-Right is establishing – has established – a social activist movement, a Gramscian long march, whose first act in this election cycle has been to displace politically-evolutionarily compromised conservatives and take over their social space in the American political landscape, following the model of the Left’s displacement of liberals.

    Like the Left took over the Democrats within their greater Gramscian march, the alt-Right is following the Left model to take over the GOP within their greater Gramscian long march. A Trump presidency will accelerate that process, but a Trump defeat in the general election will not curtail that process.

    Based on the merit of ideas and principles alone, the conservative ethic is better for America than the Left and alt-Right (who are moving to drop the ‘alt-‘ and take over the Right from displaced conservatives like leftists appropriated the ‘liberal’ identity label from displaced liberals).

    But in the Narrative contest for the zeitgeist of the activist game, narrative is elective truth while the actual truth is just a narrative that must be competed for like any other in the arena.

    Instead, conservatives, including in this election cycle, have a bad habit of approaching the activist game as though they’re entitled to social dominance based solely on the superior merit of their ideas and principles. But the activist game is not HS debate club based on merit, though the Narrative contest for the zeitgeist looks like it. The activist game is maneuver contest based on mass.

    Conservatives have to earn the power to reify their preferred social condition just like every other team in the activist arena.

    For the conservative ethic to become the dominant ethic for American social culture and politics, conservatives must compete for the necessary social dominance to reify their preferred social condition, just like any other team in the arena.

    No doubt, conservatives are the good guys. But so were liberals. Being good guys didn’t protect liberals from their displacement for the sake of the Left social activist movement’s Gramscian march. Being good guys won’t protect conservatives from being displaced via the same process by the Left-mimicking alt-Right.

    Yet despite the decades-long warning provided by Left versus liberals and Left versus Right, despite even the ready lessons from their own tentative foray into competitive activism with the Tea Party, in the 2016 GOP nomination race, conservatives proved utterly unable to counter the Left-mimicking alt-Right insurgency.

    The Trump phenomenon that usurped the GOP nomination race has been nothing less than a fitness test for conservatives, which they failed.

    “Necessitates being reduced to a minor insurgency everyone craps on for some odd years” involves retiring the conservatives who are irredeemably averse to activism, and even now only seem capable of (mis)evaluating the Trump phenomenon through a traditional electoral frame of reference. They’re the political-evolutionary liabilities that long rendered the Right vulnerable to the Left and now to the Left-mimicking Trump-front alt-Right insurgency.

    Whether conservatives “can survive that” as a viable social cultural/political entity so that “victory might be feasible” someday depends on whether there exists a kernel of conservatives who are naturally activist or will adopt the activist mindset necessary to compete for real. And if there is such a kernel, whether they will coalesce as a critical mass to form a new politically-evolutionarily sound center of gravity for a social activist movement that will compete for real in the only social cultural/political game there is.

    The opportunity is available right now with the 2016 general election for conservatives to steal a march towards establishing their own Gramscian march.

    Like the alt-Right insurgency has used the Trump phenomenon to catalyze their social activist movement for their Gramscian long march, conservatives could use a 3rd party insurgent campaign in the 2016 general election to jumpstart their social activist movement. But conservative activists will need to join together and organize quickly and move with a purpose, aggressively, intelligently, and opportunistically, ASAP.

  59. Parker – is your bet still open? If so, I’ll take your 50 to 1 on Trump getting fewer than 50 +/- 5 electoral votes for $50.

    I won’t mind if you withdraw the bet — I think it was made before the West Virginia votes and exit polls came in.

    BTW — I never bet, except on sure things. Last time I bet on anything was in 1981, when some fool bet me $5 that the Beatles never recorded anything but their own songs.

  60. I’m disappointed reading these posts.

    First, I’m disappointed that many of the folks on this list are just like most other humans — they only learn through pain, not through listening to other’s experiences. They wouldn’t listen to me when I told them that I learned in 1964 that America would never elect a “true conservative,” that what we needed to do was pick “the most conservative ELECTABLE candidate.”

    I’m disappointed that most of neo’s readers don’t know that we live in the McLuhan Age, that the medium is the message, and that Trump is a master of the media.

    I’m disappointed that many of neo’s readers still think we don’t know Trump is an assh*le. We do. As Kyndyll G said, we’re holding our nose while voting for him.

    I’m disappointed that many people on this list don’t look at other countries with multiple, ideologically-driven parties and thank God we don’t have them. If Teddy Roosevelt couldn’t win on a third-party ticket, no one living today could.

    I’m disappointed that many people on this list don’t really give a damn about small businesses, about coal miners, about the unemployed. Yes, they are “Mad as hell, and they’re not going to take it any more!” Is there something wrong with that? Oh, they don’t want a “true conservative,” so therefore their concerns are not valid? How is that different from Barry O or Hillary’s attitude?

    I’m disappointed that anyone could possibly believe that the Evil Empress could be better than the Assh*le. On the Supreme Court alone, there’s already one vacancy, if Hillary is elected Ginsberg and maybe others will resign — and that will mean a leftist court for the next 30 years. Do you actually believe the Donald would nominate lefties of RBG’s ilk, even if only for the reason that they’re anti-business? Do you really conceive that in some area, any area, she would be better? After the Reset Button? After Libya? After the Iran deal? After Benghazi? After the server? After the Clinton Foundation? After the government-provided child care? (They’re called “cré¨ches” in Communist countries.)

    I’m disappointed that many people don’t see that Donald’s ego is actually a positive factor in having at least some of our ideas adopted — he will build a wall, he will build up the military, he will take care of veterans. If it’s only because his ego is now wrapped up in those promises, I’ll take it! Remember that Churchill, when asked why, as an old anti-Communist, he could speak positively about Stalin, said “If Hitler invaded Hell, I would at least rise in the House of Commons and make a few complimentary remarks about the Devil.” Anyone who’s running against Hillary will get at least a few complimentary remarks from me. Anybody who’s running against Hillary on the Republican ticket will at least get my vote.

    I don’t have any illusions about the Donald’s character. But I don’t have any illusions about Hillary’s, either.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>