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Trump on the ropes

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I think that Trump’s chances of winning the presidency—never very good in the first place—are now vanishingly small. Here’s someone who agrees, and has this observation to make:

When a man whose entire candidacy and public standing is predicated on the myth that he is a winner has to face in every single moment a reminder that he is going to face one of the biggest, most humiliating losses in presidential history on the biggest stage imaginable, you better believe he will lash out. We cannot predict exactly the manner it will play out, but we have seen the embers already and they are ugly.

Well, yes. But that leaves out an important point, which is that this behavior is not new for Trump. And he’s not lashing out because he perceives he’s losing. In fact, I’m not even sure whether he does perceive he’s losing, because his narcissism may protect him from considering that possibility, and he will blame others rather than himself if it does happen.

As will many of his most fervent followers.

However, in addition to basing his candidacy on “being a winner,” he has also based it on his propensity to lash out. So of course, now that he is under greater stress in the stretch, that behavior is increasing. It’s what he knows, what he does, and what has given him his well-deserved reputation as a fighter. Many of his supporters very much like that about him: “He doesn’t play by those Marquess of Queensbury rules.”

No, he doesn’t. And one thing that article didn’t mention is the fact that one of the people Trump is lashing out at most vociferously and most often these days seems to be Paul Ryan. For example, this interview of Trump’s combines his dissing Ryan with an emphasis on knowing or not knowing “how to win,” and an assertion that he—Trump—will win (it was immediately preceded by Trump’s statement “Well, I don’t want to be knocking Paul Ryan…”):

When asked by ABC News’ Tom Llamas before a campaign event tonight in Green Bay, Wisconsin, whether he believed Ryan wanted him to win the race to the White House, Trump responded, “Well, maybe not, because maybe he wants to run in four years or maybe he doesn’t know how to win.”

“Maybe just doesn’t know how to win. I mean, who can really know. But I know I’m in his territory and they are all screaming for Trump,” Trump said, referring to the fact that his campaign event was in Ryan’s home state. “The head of the [state] Republican Party just left me. He shook my hand. He says, ‘You are gonna win Wisconsin.’ And I know one thing, we are gonna do very well here.”

Earlier, Trump “had called Ryan a ‘very weak and ineffective leader’ and claimed ‘there’s a whole sinister deal going on’ with Ryan and the Republican establishment.” It’s been a theme of Trump’s right along to criticize Republicans nearly as much as he has Democrats (maybe, at times, even more), and it’s one of his appeals to many of his supporters angry at the GOP and angry at anyone who doesn’t get on board the Trump train.

But here are my questions: if Trump really expects to become president (and let’s say he does), why would he want to lessen the number of Republicans in Congress? Why would he want to offend and alienate them? Does he not think he will need their help once he got in office? Does he think it would be easier to work with Democrats than Republicans? Or does he plan to circumvent Congress?

Or does he think about any of these things at all?

Comments

Trump on the ropes — 179 Comments

  1. This all could have been so, so different.

    Thank you, Trumptards, for the Hillary Clinton presidency.

  2. “Or does he plan to circumvent Congress?”

    One of the more revealing moments in this election season was, when Trump was asked about the Republicans possibly losing the Senate, he shrugged it off and said that he was OK being a “free agent”.

    I think Trump’s understanding of the checks and balances of the US system is very low, and he intends to rule as an autocrat. Whether he’d get away with it, I don’t know.

    None of the current candidates, except McMullin/Finn, have any appreciation for limited government and executive restraint.

  3. Trump has a lifelong history of quarreling with business partners and investors, while neglecting relations with external parties like mayors, governors or prime ministers.

    It’s well known that he had a potentially staggeringly profitable development deal in NYC that died because he would not schmooze Ed Koch (in fact he criticized Koch in the press). His very recent Scottish Golf Course project resulted in him pursing a long term twitter assault on British PM Cameron. Neither was a smart move.

    So he lashes out at his political partners the GOP, the Press who he needs and could be manipulated in his favor, and goes soft on Democratic Politicians like Reid and Schumer. He needs blue state politicos for his hotel ventures. He cannot break his lifelong habits even when approaching retirement age.

  4. Dissing Ryan is so, so foolish. Politics is a personal services business. If Trump wins, Ryan won’t help him in a pinch orvon the margin. Big mistake. Dems will never help Trump.

  5. The only – and I mean only – way Trump wins this is via blue collar Dems and traditional non-voters in key states.

  7. The Trumpists considered Trump spending most of his time attacking Republicans to be a feature, not a bug. At least among people who traditionally vote, and traditionally vote right-of-center, Trump was all about sticking it to the GOP.

    Yeah, kids, because destroying the only thing that even minimally hampered Democrats, because they weren’t in a position to do much more than hamper, is really going to help the cause of sanity in our country.

    I blame the disaster that is sure to ensue with the virtually certain Clinton presidency equally on people stupid enough to vote for Clinton and people pigheaded enough to vote for Trump back when there were still viable alternatives.

  10. “Democrats, on the other hand, won’t be divided in their opinion of Trump’s historical meaning. They’re already licking their lips in anticipation of the opportunity to replace Bush with Trump as the Republican bogeyman of choice in voters’ minds. Instead of the tired mantra about how Bush wrecked the economy, they’ll be able to hang Trump around the necks of GOP candidates nationwide.”
    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/441155/donald-trump-campaign-loss-will-hurt-gop-2020

  12. “None of the current candidates, except McMullin/Finn, have any appreciation for limited government and executive restraint” – Bill

    Might say that Johnson/Weld do also on this point, and have governing experience we can review, but their platform is a challenge for conservatives to support – still, rather palatable vs trump or clinton.

    Despite experience, McMullin/Finn is a more palatable write in alternative in many states, but to make a difference electorally, they have to win Utah. (one of three pieces that need to come together in some alignment of stars for him to make it to POTUS).

    Not being in Utah, would prefer LP as it has more organization and coverage, to break the oligopoly thinking of a binary choice, which offers up “cr@p sandwiches” to vote for.

    In the end, there are a variety of ways for folks who cannot vote for trump nor clinton to “vote their conscience”, and that is what is important vs the binary choice paradigm.

  13. Steve57 Says: Thank you, Trumptards, for the Hillary Clinton presidency.

    Why are you blaming “The People” when nevertrumpers decided to side with a hillary presidency, and then there are the republicans who decided to fight for a hillary presedency

    i think you miss the point of REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT…. ie. the people get to choose and if your not in the large number of others who are looking for a representative, then your either with the people, or against them!!!!

    You cant blame Trump, because anyone can run as a candidate, and if THE PEOPLE want them, they are in.

    You cant blame the people supporting Trump, its their right to want the candidate they want, good or not in your assesment…

    You CAN blame a party that would rather lose than support the candidate THE PEOPLE want

    You CAN blame the never trumpers for claiming to be on the republican side, but whose actions favor hillary by a large amount

    You CAN blame both of them for siding with the cheating, rather than fighting it…

    and thats that sir..
    grow up and get over it.

    Trump had more votes in the primary than any other republican candidate in history!!!

    at that point, the petulant, the im superior crowd, and all that decided to abandon their own side, and help the international communists… even going so far as to claim that putin wants trump (why? he would act, clinton would dither), and fowarding the same bs that the left has put out.

    your going to find that the number of those people who are republican and wanted trump will vastly outnumber the never trumpers, and others and that this will be laid at THEIR feet, not THE PEOPLE, who have an inalienable right to like the candidate they choose… (not the candidate the party chooses either like dems)

    if you dont like representative government, and are not willing to support your own side against an opposition, then its your issue, not THE PEOPLEs.

    WE THE PEOPLE… REMEMBER THAT?

    YOU EITHER SUPPORT WE THE PEOPLE, OR YOUR AGAINST THE PEOPLE!!!

    there is no middle ground and cant be in a binary choice.

    the petulant LOST..
    and if you want you can blame the past 30-50 years of what kind of bheavior towards education? feinstein laws? constitutionality? standing up for the banks when it was loan your a predator, dont loan your a racist?

    bed
    see bed
    lie in bed of own making
    stop whining…

  14. and for putin…

    THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING Vladimir Putin’s nuclear warships pictured steaming towards the English Channel as Royal Navy prepares to scramble fleet

    The Russian fleet is believed to be planning military drills off Scottish coast before heading towards the Med

    and tons of stuff we just dont discuss here.

    like we didnt discuss the end of the fienstein laws and the current millinals thinking that GWB killed more people than Stalin…

    now, who taught them that? the republicans? no, they are too busy whining that the few of them dont control the masses… thats how the cookie crumbles in a free country… you want the few to decide who wins the elections, then go go china, russia, etc…

  15. “I’ve made no secret of the fact that I think that Trump’s chances of winning the presidency–never very good in the first place–are now vanishingly small. ” [Neo]

    . . . and I’ll characteristically go out on my limb and say IMO Trump’s chances of winning today are no worse than they were several weeks ago (pre- Billy Bush tape). Even post-tape, Trump is running neck and neck with Clinton (please don’t interpret this as if I’m writing that Trump will win).

    Some under the radar numbers. I recently read an article that claimed 250,000 defections from Dem to Repub in PA voting registration since September 2015. Now look at the vote totals from the 2012 election:

    Obama 2,907,448
    Romney 2,619,583

    Take the 250,000 off of the Obama total (because IMO it’s safe to say that very very few of those defectors will vote for Hillary) and the Obama number becomes 2,65,448–in other words, almost equal to Romney’s votes. If GOTV remains the same this cycle, one might assume that all Trump need to do is capture 15+% of those 250,000 defectors to win PA. Now consider the higher degree of Trump enthusiasm vs. the lack of Clinton enthusiasm, and the anti-coal Dem sentiment especially in the coal counties Lackawanna and Luzerne (which Obama did win) and one is tempted to believe that there are other forces which might be at work. If that’s true in PA, then it must be true in other states as well.

    My biggest question goes to last minute undecided voters. As I’ve written before, Dick Morris has made cogent arguments that the majority of undecided voters vote against the incumbent (and make no mistake about it, Hillary represents incumbency). However, has Trump made himself so unpalatable that he will lose too large a majority of those last-minute undecided voters?

    Note I said might be. I am neither a poll analyst nor a statistician, but I’ll say here that FWIT I expect this to be a close election, regardless of who the winner is. I fully expect our next president will be chosen by a plurality rather than a majority, and, speaking of the popular vote not the electoral college, I think that if there is any unexpected “black swan” blowout (say a win by >=10%), I think that blowout will be in Trump’s favor).

    Finally, if Trump does win, given the history of this election cycle, it will be more of an example of a dislike and distrust of Hillary Clinton than any so-called mandate for Trump.

    As Neo, herself, has written, the only way she could trust Trump is if he had a history, as a president, of doing what he said he would do. Well, just like a first job interview, how does one gain the experience without ever being allowed to attempt the job?

  16. those that refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it…

    doesnt seem much like anyone learned much from the past 10 years of bitching about how the left behaves, sides, operates, cheats and is criminal…

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

    SEE IT: Naked statue of Hillary Clinton in downtown Manhattan causes fight during morning commute
    http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/naked-statue-hillary-clinton-sparks-fight-manhattan-article-1.2834970

    Rigging the Election – Video I: Clinton Campaign and DNC Incite Violence at Trump Rallies
    https://d1sb17b1leotpq.cloudfront.net/rigging-election-video-i-clinton-campaign-and-dnc-incite-violence-trump-rallies.html

    Michael Moore Reveals Surprise Donald Trump Film
    http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/michael-moore-reveals-surprise-donald-939227

    and tons and tons of other things..

    if your winning, you dont do that..

    and right now, history is repeating. just before the elections in the past, they reported that the unfavored party would lose, and then what happened?

    and yet, you still beleive the same press you actually railed against for lying for years and years and think you actually have a handle on things. HOW????

    ALL the news agencies, including the not left, are owned by the left… so not left is really very left… it just opposes the very left enough to appear to be something its not… duh.

    i said read munsenberger, and other things that would lay it out and in a way that you did not have to depend on believing lies you like…

    Imagine an establishment-busting presidential candidate rolling up the primaries but polling 20 points behind the presumptive Democratic nominee. The controversial Republican front-runner is considered so radical that the party establishment eyes a brokered convention, perhaps to nominate a failed candidate from the previous election

    and

    In a Gallup poll on October 26th in 1980, two weeks before the election, Gallup had it Jimmy Carter 47, Ronald Reagan 39. That election two weeks later ended up in a landslide that was so big that Carter conceded before California closed.

    REAGAN WHO WON IN A LANDSLIDE, WAS FARTHER DOWN THE POLLS THAN TRUMP IS NOW…
    [edited for length by n-n]

  17. An estimated 15,015,700 people in Texas are registered to vote in the upcoming November elections, which the Secretary of State’s office says is a new state record, according to the Texas Tribune. That number represents 78 percent of Texas’s voting-age population, and a good 1.3 million more registered voters than Texas had in 2012. It’s also an increase of 770,000 since the primary elections in March.

    “Even if Texas matches 2012’s turnout rate of 58.6 percent, that’d still be an addition of 800,000 votes this year compared to the last presidential election.”

    You think that many came out for Hillary?
    Really?

    Here’s why some Jews support Donald Trump for president

    Rabbi Asher Hakakha of Torat Hayim Valley synagogue – an Orthodox congregation of mostly Persian Jews – never bothered to vote in an election.

    But the mild-mannered rabbi from Iran feels so passionate about Donald J. Trump, that he intends to cast his first vote for U.S. president in November for the billionaire real estate mogul.

    A Gallup poll published Aug. 31 found that Jews support Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton more than 2-to-1 over Trump – 52 versus 23 percent. Only Muslims had a higher percentage of support for Clinton at 64 percent, according to the poll.

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

    i work in a jewish organization and they basically crow about wanting hillary, then tell me off to the side, they hate her…ie image image image..

    for a guy who will lose it any minute and will fall, he sure doesnt fall easy… in fact, he aint falling..

    and this poor guy, since he is on the wrong side accordig to the press, few are reporting about him THIS TIME

    Professor With Perfect Prediction Record Says Trump Will Win Presidency

    The Keys don’t reflect any of that. They’re not based on the day-to-day events of the campaign. The keys are based on historical analysis of every presidential election going all the way to the election of Lincoln in 1860, and have perspectively called all subsequent elections from 1984 to 2012. And the way they work is by measuring the strengths and performance of the party holding the White House, based on the proposition that elections are primarily judgments on governance of the party in the White House. “Do you want to give them four more years or not?”

    We don’t vote according to the speeches, the debates, the advertising, the tricks. The party doesn’t determine it, issues don’t determine it, personalities don’t determine it. But rather the voter is pragmatic and decides, “Do we want to give the party that now controls the presidency four more years? Have they performed well enough or not?”

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

    AND HERE IS WHY YOU CANT GO WITH POLLS THIS YEAR

    Black mob smashes car with Trump stickers
    you can see the images, but you cant get to the article.

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

    and Clinton supporters have been caught being paid to birdog trump events and cause violence they can use to smear him with… after all, the victim is to blame for the violence on them, which is why women should never wear a mini skirt and go out alone, its always the victims fault… /sarcasm off

  18. Art:

    You CAN blame the never trumpers for claiming to be on the republican side, but whose actions favor hillary by a large amount

    You CAN blame both of them for siding with the cheating, rather than fighting it…

    Not even a little bit.

    and thats that sir..
    grow up and get over it.

    Well, there’s a fresh, winning argument I haven’t heard before.

    This is ridiculous.

    I make no predictions, the lout might still win. But if he doesn’t, Trumpism needs to be in the dustbin of history.

    This is perhaps the dumbest thing a political party has ever done to itself.

  19. T:
    “Even post-tape, Trump is running neck and neck with Clinton (please don’t interpret this as if I’m writing that Trump will win).Even post-tape, Trump is running neck and neck with Clinton (please don’t interpret this as if I’m writing that Trump will win).”

    Do you have a link? Last time I looked he was tanking in the polls.

    “Dick Morris has made cogent arguments that the majority of undecided voters vote against the incumbent (and make no mistake about it, Hillary represents incumbency).”

    He may be right but Dick Morris was completely discredited in 2012 because he predicted a Romney landslide

    “Well, just like a first job interview, how does one gain the experience without ever being allowed to attempt the job?”

    The Presidency of the US (a position with world-shattering power) is not an entry-level job. I’m amazed how many people think that it is.

  20. Bill,

    “Do you have a link?”

    Rasmussen has Trump +1, LA Times has him again up by +2. FWIW.

    Dick Morris, Yes he was discredited and I, too have stopped listening to him, but that doesn’t make his rational argument about undecided any less rational.

    An entry-level job. Actually, I think the presidency is the ultimate entry level job. There is no employment that can prepare one for the unique aspects of this position. Yes, former governors have some experience running political systems, but businessmen have experience running businesses, too. Neither is a corollary (an adequate corollary?) to the presidency.

    Furthermore, I offer the fact that Trump (for better or worse) can come out of nowhere and be at least a successful challenger to the highest office in the land (if nor president) is precisely what the founding fathers intended. Remember, they created a system based upon gridlock — we like to say “checks and balances”. IMO such gridlock is/should be business as usual. If it were, we wouldn’t be looking at 173,000 pages of laws and regulations in the US Code and we awould all be freer for it.

  21. T:

    Regarding polls: the vast majority of polls have Clinton ahead, some by double digits. See the RCP daily averages, for example.

    Of course, the only poll that matters is on Nov 8th, but cherry-picking a couple that have Trump within the margin of error does not mean he’s pulled even in the polls.

    Neither is a corollary (an adequate corollary?) to the presidency.

    Actually, a governor is an excellent corollary – they manage an executive branch, deal with a legislature and a judiciary, and even have an army of sorts (state police forces, and (I think) state national guards – not sure about that last one).

    Even a senator or congressman will have a pretty intimate knowledge, from the other side, of the legislative process.

  22. T:

    . . . and I’ll characteristically go out on my limb and say IMO Trump’s chances of winning today are no worse than they were several weeks ago (pre- Billy Bush tape).

    Whether you drown in five fathoms of water or two feet of water, you’re still drowned.

  23. To me “Trump on the ropes” is as much a MSM narrative as anything.

    No-one I know is changing their votes of late.

    Indeed, I’m shocked that the race is this close.

    I still expect that hacking will prove decisive.

    Google, MSFT and Apple are just not going to let the tabulation pass — ‘untouched.’

    Everywhere the GOP looks, massive fraud is in prospect.

    And it’s pretty plain that the GOPe has done everything possible to toss the election to Hillary. This attitude is ‘spot specific’ being confined to battleground states and districts within those states.

    Further, the Wikileaks dumps are bleeding into the news. From what little I’ve read, hackers claiming direct involvement tell a tale of back loading the damage.

    This may well be true. It would entirely explain the panic phone pressure from SoS Kerry upon Ecuador to shut Assange up.

    I strongly suspect that the dumps are now on automatic pilot, and would become a flood if Assange is ‘taken down.’

    &&

    The Alt-Right is not ever going to change Donald Trump from being a classic New York Liberal.

    Muslim immigration must come to a halt across the Western world.

    Its dogma is just that incompatible with Western culture.

    Further immigration// hijrah will actually trigger a bloodbath.

    That’s where all of our noble tolerance for things Muslim is headed.

  24. T,
    Would you let someone operate on you who ad never opened an anatomy book?

    Art,
    What if Trump had paid attention to the never Trumpers, studied the issues they were raising, and addressed them in a competent manner? I’m pretty sure many would have happily moved to support him. Some are grudgingly moving that way now, but only because Hillary is so bad. Trump’s attack on Ryan is the stupidest thing I can imagine. Ryan understands that subsidiarity is the best way to win voters over to conservative principles in the long run. He also knows that you can’t just cut benefits in one day. You have to give people both the time and incentives to change.

  25. Artfldgr @October 18th, 2016, 11:49 am, I’m blaming the Trumpkins because they’ve made it as hard as possible to vote for Trump. Neo has publicly, and admirably, described her struggles with the idea of voting for Trump. I’ve struggled with the same thing. At the end of the day, I have to vote against Hillary.

    Just on the email issue alone, to lend my support in any way to a Hillary Clinton presidency is a betrayal to my brothers and sisters in arms on so many different levels that I can’t bear it.

    http://www.ussnautilus.org/undersea/cromwell.html

    CAPT Cromwell, alone of the entire Task Group, possessed secret intelligence information of our submarine strategy and tactics, scheduled Fleet movements and specific attack plans. Constantly vigilant and precise in carrying out his secret orders, he moved his underseas flotilla inexorably forward despite savage opposition and established a line of submarines to southeastward of the main Japanese stronghold at Truk. Cool and undaunted as the submarine, rocked and battered by Japanese depth charges, sustained terrific battle damage and sank to an excessive depth, he authorized the Sculpin to surface and engage the enemy in a gunfight, thereby providing an opportunity for the crew to abandon ship. Determined to sacrifice himself rather than risk capture and subsequent danger of revealing plans under Japanese torture or use of drugs, he stoically remained aboard the mortally wounded vessel as she plunged to her death. Preserving the security of his mission, at the cost of his own life, he had served his country as he had served the Navy, with deep integrity and an uncompromising devotion to duty. His great moral courage in the face of certain death adds new luster to the traditions of the US Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

    People, not only John Philipp Cromwell, a man who IS REMEMBERED because (if you’re Navy at least, and I know others as well remember him) when you get a clearance he’s one example of how far you need to go to protect the nation’s secrets. You take them to the grave.

    Hillary Clinton put them out on a personal, private server that even the execrable Comey admitted was less secure than g-mail.

    Then Comey gave her a pass, which sealed the deal for me. Up until that point I was sitting on the fence, hoping for a miracle, but it was pounded home into me that I wasn’t going to get one.

    But that’s not the point right now. The point is Trump is exactly the pig I always thought he was. That’s why it was so hard for people like me to decide to face facts and pull the lever for Trump. And what makes it worse is you Trumpkins who are so in love with the guy and demand absolute loyalty. I have zero loyalty to Trump, and nothing will change that. Did I mention Trump is a pig? Yes, and I’ll be voting for the pig in November because the other option is Lucifer.

    There may be #NeverTrump types. I’ve never met one. I know people like me who despise Trump, and have laid out conditions under which we could support Trump. Conditions he never met, because he and you Trumptards don’t believe he has to do anything to earn our votes. We owe him, you say. Bulls**t. But reality is reality, and despite the fact that Trump hasn’t earned my vote, he’ll get it because the alternative is too awful to contemplate.

    But he’ll lose because you need more than me. And you Trumptards who threw your infantile stompy foot tantrum that the GOP had to nominate Trump or you’d take your ball and go home lost the middle. The people who have been mostly consumed with keeping up with the Kardashians or the American League Championship Series. We freaking warned you how this would play out, how the media would cover for Clinton and destroy Trump. It really is playing out exactly how it was predicted. You could see it a continent away, if you had eyes to see and ears to listen. So when Trump loses in a landslide, and I know Trump and his Trumptards will act according to their natures and blame everyone but themselves, the real culprit is lurking in their mirrors. You all just had to cross the T of this perfect storm, didn’t you?

  26. Bill…

    More than a few of the strong polls for Clinton are laughably corrupt.

    The NBC/WSJ poll was ginned up by one of her True Believers.

    The Clinton’s UP polls consistently show absurd over sampling of Democrats, Independents or both.

    Hillary is just NOT pulling the enthusiasm that Barry achieved.

    And she’s a TERRIBLE public speaker… almost as bad as Jimmy Carter.

    &&&&

    I’m active in a blue collar forum that used to be larded with Clintonistas.

    Only two or three hold overs remain. They’ve all run off.

    MANY Hillary supporters have flipped away to the Greens or the Libertarians. Her tie-in with Wall Street just was too much to bear.

    As long as Wikileaks keeps dripping acid on her rep, she will continue to shed support.

    I’ve read more than a few anecdotal reports from the ‘hood that Blacks favoring Trump are not rare — but none are foolish enough to admit their feelings to pollsters or their kin.

    Because Donald is a natural Democrat, he really is pulling votes from that quarter, especially on pocket book issues.

    There are millions without proper jobs who buy Trump’s position on immigration, trade, etc.

    Such souls are unlikely to be moved by sappy allegations from sluts. Yes, all of the babes that Trump purportedly chased — have bona fide reps as sluts chasing HIM, and many another man.

    Again, the emails ( from the sluts to Trump ) are damning.

  27. expat @2:10pm, spot on. Your comment hadn’t appeared before I started composing my epic rant. Too bad, it could have saved us all the trouble of me writing it and the pain of people who may read it.

    Insults just don’t win many converts. Despite the insults I’ve endured, I’ll vote for Trump. But it’s in my DNA to vote against Clinton. We need a certain amount of people who don’t share my DNA to defeat Clinton, and they all ran away in horror.

    Thanks, Trumptards.

  28. Steve57:

    Actually, Trump needed—and his early followers claimed he would get—a lot of Democrats and Independents to vote for him, in order to win. The number of conservatives who have turned away from him is small compared to those who will hold their noses and vote for him, but the number of people in the middle he has turned off is very large, people who were otherwise prepared to consider a GOP candidate this year because of their dislike of Hillary Clinton.

    Remember the days when it was claimed by his followers that Trump could “turn” New York, and would? That was the promise on which his campaign was built, and that was necessary for the win. It sure doesn’t look like it will happen.

    PS: And now I see, taking a look towards the end of your earlier comment on this thread, that you actually address all of this in it.

  29. Artfldgr:

    That’s a misleading oversimplification of what happened with Reagan and the polls. I’ve discussed this before, but see these links: this and this.

  30. neo, I’m not surprised you didn’t see it at first. As I mentioned to expat, slogging through one of my wordy comments must be a pain for all normal people.

  33. Seems to be a bit of a lull.

    Wherein, I had expected, on the basis of their self-expressed desires, to see a couple of the commenters here by now happily whiling away the hours with proactive strategizing for that bright and shining post-Hillary future sure to come following her presumably inevitable election.

    Certainly no one is stopping it. Surely they have invited others to engage with them in this happy task. Undoubtedly they already have a quorum … for whatever that is worth. What better time than the present?

    Yet the righteous continue to complain about Trump, when they should by their own stipulations be here and now discussing plans for emerging from a post Clinton future.

    So Maq and Bill, (just to name a couple of the protagonists) start that future-train of yours rolling. Maybe you can inspire others with your vision, and cause them to hop aboard. Let’s see what the promise amounts to in cash value.

    With Neo’s permission: The floor is yours, gentlemen.

  34. DNW:

    Your sarcasm AND your snark here is not only annoying and condescending—it’s inappropriate, because you are mischaracterizing people and picking fights with them.

    Over and over. I request that you stop. As I said to you in another thread, your message would be heard much better that way.

  36. “Would you let someone operate on you who ad never opened an anatomy book?” [Expat @ 2:10]

    Politics may not be beanbag, but it ain’t “rocket surgery” either.

  37. If past is prelude to the present and the polls are to be believed, then the shrew queen will be our new Monarch. On the other hand, if this is a repeat of 1948, I won’t be particularly surprised.

    Either way, we are headed into “interesting times” cause “I Think We’re All Bozos On This Bus” The Firesign Theater

    “I got the feeling that something ain’t right,
    I’m so scared in case I fall off my chair,
    And I’m wondering how I’ll get down the stairs,
    Clowns to the left of me,
    Jokers to the right, here I am,
    Stuck in the middle with you,
    Yes I’m stuck in the middle with you,
    Stuck in the middle with you…”

    Stuck in the Middle With You – Stealers Wheel “Reservoir Dogs” soundtrack

  38. T:

    “Politics may not be beanbag, but it ain’t “rocket surgery” either.”

    But being the President isn’t solely politics. It’s mostly governing.

    Trump has zero experience governing. He has presided over businesses, but that’s a much different animal.

  39. Some interesting observations (well, maybe interesting)

    In 2012 I remember lots of yard signs – mostly Romney, some Obama (I live in a red state).

    I literally have yet to see a Hillary or Trump yard sign. Shows the discontent in the voting public

    I was in Michigan last weekend, in a small town. Didn’t cover the whole town, of course, but saw maybe two Trump signs and six or seven Hillary signs.

    To give hope to the Trump voters here – this is a very special year when you consider that a large proportion of enthusiastic voters are enthusiastically voting against someone, not for someone. Who knows, maybe the polls are all wrong, or maybe the only ones that are right are the ones showing a Trump surge.

    I walked past two older white guys (I’m an older white guy myself) at work and heard one of them saying something to the effect: “She’s done. LA Times, Rasmussen, and [two other poll names] have Trump up from 2 to 6 points”.

    Who knows? I’ve been pretty reticent to question the polls because I did that in 2012 and felt foolish afterwards. The liberals I knew (at least online) were pretty merciless in mocking the hope the conservatives had put into “the polls must be wrong”

    My expectation is the polls are right. For me, it hardly matters – I will be depressed no matter who wins (I’m not voting for either of the major candidates. So, my vote for McMuffin is either a vote for HRC or a vote for DJT, depending on which side you’re on)

  41. OM said:

    Inconceivable!

    Who to blame?

    There’s plenty of blame to go around. I’m willing to accept my share of it. But no more than my share.

  42. blert:

    I saw that Enquirer story, and I have a very different take on it.

    I think it will help her, if it moves the needle at all. It humanizes her. And since most people think Hillary is a lesbian anyway, the idea that she sometimes has had sex with men (other than Bill, long ago) might be a plus for her.

    I’m somewhat joking, but I’m somewhat serious.

  43. “Trump has zero experience governing. He has presided over businesses, but that’s a much different animal.” [Bill @ 4:12]

    You are correct. Businesses are held accountable, unlike government.

  44. GB:

    Stuck in the Middle With You — Stealers Wheel “Reservoir Dogs” soundtrack

    …and we”re the ones getting our ear cut off.

  45. Neocon wrote:

    But here are my questions: if Trump really expects to become president (and let’s say he does), why would he want to lessen the number of Republicans in Congress? Why would he want to offend and alienate them? Does he not think he will need their help once he got in office? Does he think it would be easier to work with Democrats than Republicans? Or does he plan to circumvent Congress?

    Donald Trump has been a strong supporter of Democrat politicians (Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton) and Left-wing causes (Socialized Medicine, President Obama’s economic stimulus plan, Assault Weapons Ban, Partial Birth Abortion) for his entire adult life.

    During the primaries Trump said that he has a good relationship with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and said the “we need to make deals.”

    So, if Trump were elected, Trump would work with for a Left-wing Democrat agenda. That’s why Trump doesn’t care if Ryan and the Republicans lose their majority in the US House.

    Trump says that he would nominate conservatives to the US Supreme Court, but he actually prefers a Schumer-Democrat majority in the US Senate so he can put people on the US Supreme Court who agree with him on the issues of the 1st Amendment (clamping down on speech/press that is critical of Trump) and the 5th Amendment takings clause (allowing the government to take property to build limo parking lots.

    Trump is a New York leftist. That’s why claiming that President George W. Bush lied to get us into the Iraq war came so naturally to Trump. That’s why Trump says that the US is in no position to judge Putin when Putin kills journalists or when Erdogan in jails dissenters in Turkey. It also explains why Trump called the pro-democracy protests in China in 1989 “a riot.”

    A vote for Trump is a vote for socialism.

  47. My “Oversensititive Gag Reflex for Bullshit” is buttressing for the soon-to-arrive Trump As Victim weeping, wailing, bleating, high chair pounding, blaming, lashing out that he and his infantile chorus will be unleashing on steroids. NO personal responsibility. NO reflection. NO adult behavior. ONLY BLAME & WRATH at Republicans.

    Donald has never tried on a pair of Big Boy Pants that he didn’t soil immediately.

    Getting my earplugs ready.

  49. My fit to the 538 data is now a 4th order polynomial, putting the odds of Clinton winning at near 90% by Nov 8. I would really like to have the 538 model analysis be wrong, but I assume the election is over. I’ll still vote, but will consider it a waste of time.

  50. T Says:

    “Even post-tape, Trump is running neck and neck with Clinton (please don’t interpret this as if I’m writing that Trump will win).Even post-tape, Trump is running neck and neck with Clinton (please don’t interpret this as if I’m writing that Trump will win).”

    LOL
    RCP averages: Hillary +7.0%.

  51. Spiral, how many do have to say I don’t like my choices in 2016. Basically, my choices add up to do I stab myself in an eye, knowing I have a spare, or do I stab myself in the, you know (pointing down at the only one I have). I have concluded, unfortunately for the country, that I will not die peacefully in my bed. My enemies, Mao’s Red Guards, fill their hearts with hate. But I have to fend off the inevitable as long as possible. My fellow targets don’t know it yet. The poor idiots.

  53. physicsguy said:

    “My fit to the 538 data is now a 4th order polynomial, putting the odds of Clinton winning at near 90% by Nov 8. I would really like to have the 538 model analysis be wrong, but I assume the election is over. I’ll still vote, but will consider it a waste of time.

    Thanks to the Trumptards, what should have been a rout for the Republicans has turned into the suicidal charge of the Light Brigade. As general Pierre

  54. Steve57:

    I empathize. I am still not sure what I will do, but I no longer think it matters much, because I believe Clinton will win handily.

    But I have a question for you, and everyone who agrees with the sentiment you wrote that you have to fend off the inevitable (I assume that’s the triumph of the left, or something like that?) as long as possible: did you vote for Romney in 2012? I don’t believe you had yet arrived as a commenter on this blog at the time, so I don’t know.

    And this isn’t really about you in particular, either. I remember many commenters here who argued in 2012 that they wouldn’t vote for Romney because it was a question of driving the car slowly off the cliff with Romney and quickly with Obama, and they preferred quickly. I have no idea who most of those same people are supporting now, but I’m wondering. Do they support Trump? Do they think he’ll stop the car from driving off the cliff? Or just postpone it? And if so, why would they care now when they didn’t care with Romney? Do they think Trump is a better choice than Romney, and that Trump is more conservative? Do they think Hillary is worse than Obama?

    This doesn’t necessarily fit you, as I said, but it’s a bunch of questions engendered by what you wrote about fending off the inevitable as long as possible.

  55. …as general Pierre Bosquet put it, before Skynet seized control of my laptop, “C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre: c’est de la folie” (“It is magnificent, but it is not war: it is madness”).

    If Patton could quote Lafayette, I can quote frenchmen, too, so shove it.

  57. The circular firing squads will muster on 11/9 at 8AM. Trump will give the order that seems to fit his personality so well, “Ready, shoot, aim.” Some skirmishing is already under way, as evidenced by this thread.

    Trump may pull this out; although I don’t see how at the moment. For starters, ignoring everything else, there has been so little effort to construct a ground game. I don’t know how you win national elections without one.

    Still, Trump is so very fortunate to have Hillary as his opponent (and vice versa of course). So, you can not write either of them off until all of the hanging chads are counted. If he does prevail, he will be the most divisive President since–oh, Barack Hussein Obama. Only his opponent could compete for that title. It takes a special person to think that he can egregiously insult people repeatedly, then turn to them for love–and get it. (Maybe it works when he holds their jobs, or their investments, hostage–but not in politics).

    If he loses, he will loudly sing that old song, “I looked over Jordan and what did I see? The GOPe Undercut Me.” His (small) remaining choir will join him on the chorus, “Burn it down,oh yes, burn it down”.

  59. Steve 57,

    Parler francais est a encourager.

    blert,

    Angelina left Brad because she has been having hot sex with Hillary and Huma. Menage et trois oooh la la!

  60. Oldflyer,

    A Trump regime would be as divisive as bho, as would be a Hillary regime. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

  61. Neo:
    “Many of his supporters very much like that about him: “He doesn’t play by those Marquess of Queensbury rules.””

    NeverTrump and NeverHillary are both right.

    Trump is egregiously unfit for the Presidency of the United States. (So is Clinton.)

    At the same time, if by “Marquess of Queensbury rules”, they mean traditional electoral campaign-politicking, then Trump’s supporters are correct.

    The competitive need for conservatives is play the activist game by activist rules.

    The GOP can’t structurally play the activist game for its own sake. The GOP has depended on the Right to compete in the activist game in the same way the Democrats structurally depend on the Left for the necessary full-spectrum social activism.

    Lacking the necessary activism from the Right, the Trump-front alt-Right exploited the same competitive gap that’s been brightly marked by a Democrats-front Left running up the score across the arena on a virtually unopposed playing field.

    The Democrat-front Left’s way of playing the activist game is the best known way, more so since the Trump-front alt-Right has mimicked the Democrat-Front Left to usurp the same fundamental competitive deficiencies in the GOP caused by activism-averse conservatives.

    That being said, while activist rules are more or less consistent across the arena, sociological conditions being what they are, just like in any other kind of human competition, there’s more than one way to compete in the activist game.

    The Ivy League civil-military ROTC advocates, for example, grappled head on with elite Ivy League SJWs on campus – supposedly the Left’s home turf – and won their game with counter-Left activism that didn’t mimic Left activism.

    I conjecture that the Ivy ROTC advocates not cargo-cult mimicking the Left while smartly formulating and sharply executing a distinctive counter-Left activist strategy was instrumental in their success versus the elite yet out-maneuvered anti-US military Ivy SJWs.

    Meanwhile, the jayvee Left-mimicking Trump-front alt-Right is finding that competing head on versus the varsity version of their crude copy of Left activism is a lot tougher than usurping the activism-deficient GOP.

    Contra NeverHillary, Trump winning next month is not the right answer. Contra NeverTrump, neither is Trump losing.

    The right answer is conservatives becoming full activists in a collective full-spectrum social movement that competes for and wins the necessary social dominance with honest competition in the arena of the only social cultural/political game there is, in order to reify their preferred social paradigm.

  62. Oops. Fix:

    The Democrat-front Left’s way of playing the activist game is the best known way, more so since the Trump-front alt-Right has mimicked the Democrat-Front Left to usurp exploit the same fundamental competitive deficiencies in the GOP caused by activism-averse conservatives.

  63. The amount of negativity against Trump I read here is really depressing. As a generalization, it seems that most of the assumptions regarding his motives for doing things predominately favor the most base or stupid. No where do I see him given the benefit of the doubt about what he’s doing.

    Maybe he isn’t trying to reduce the size of the republican party, maybe he’s simply trying to reduce the power of the weak-willed ones who have been in control and who run from every fight.

    Maybe he’s fighting back against Ryan who undercut his victory in the last debate by taking over the news the next day saying he refused to defend Trump.

    Maybe he’s trying to prove to the electorate that he isn’t a politician who says one thing and then it’s business as usual after the election.

    Thank goodness for Artfldgr and T and Blert who managed to show me that not everyone is convinced that the election is over and we lost and it’s Trump’s fault for everything.

  64. Neo, I voted for Romney in 2012. The only Democrat who has declared his or her candidacy in my entire life is James Webb. Because he gave the only right answer when asked what enemies he’s most proud of having. The VietCong who tried to kill him.

    That’s it for me.

    It’s also why it was a struggle for to vote Trump. Trump said the only reason McCain was a hero was because he was captured. It’s true, McCain served heroically as a POW. I won’t get into all the reasons why that is. But McCain was a hero before he was captured. From his citation for his Distinguished Flying Cross:

    http://valor.militarytimes.com/recipient.php?recipientid=23680

    Awarded for actions during the Vietnam War

    The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Flying Cross to Commander [then Lieutenant Commander] John Sidney McCain, III (NSN: 0-624787), United States Navy, for heroism while participating in aerial flight on 26 October 1967 in North Vietnam. While attacking the thermal power plant at Hanoi, Commander McCain, despite extremely heavy and accurate anti-aircraft fire and more than fifteen surface-to-air missiles in the air, pursued the attack until his aircraft was hit by enemy anti-aircraft fire. Although his aircraft was severely damaged, he continued his bomb delivery pass and released his bombs on the target. When the aircraft would not recover from the dive, Commander McCain was forced to eject over the target. By his exceptional courage, superb airmanship, and total devotion to duty, Commander McCain reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.
    Action Date: October 26, 1967

    Service: Navy

    Rank: Commander

    I don’t like him. I wish he would go away. But there is no slack in light attack, and McCain more than carried his end of the log back in the sixties.

    I hope this clarifies things for you. My ‘tude is that if I was willing to throw myself on a grenade for my country, to risk capture, dismemberment and death, then I can hold my nose and vote for Trump. But I will not say I like it. Not for anything.

    You might think, BTW, that I’m being hyperbolic or theatrical when I mention risking death or capture. But I was a Coast Guard brat, who grew up in the sixties and seventies. Coasties get Navy retirement benefits. The passageways of my naval regional medical center were lined with wheelchairs filled with the horribly burned and dismembered.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=t0eHWOVjDSw

    Cable Snap

    That cable, when it breaks, will take your legs off.

    http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/bt1-andrew-gallagher-risked-his-life-to-save-others-aboard-uss-belknap/

    I saw the shaft stop, and I said, “What the hell’s going on?” So I told the guys, “Everybody pay attention. Something’s going on.” And then they called “Captain to the bridge! Captain to the bridge!” on the 1MC general announcing system. I knew they would normally pass the word, “Commanding Officer, your presence is requested on the bridge,” and only if they couldn’t reach him on the phone, or send the messenger to find him in time. But I knew from when I was on Blandy, going to Viet Nam, that “If you hear this terminology, you know there’s a serious problem.” So, I said, “Okay, everybody, get up. Get up. Get ready. Something’s gonna happen.” And then all of a sudden the ship started to shudder, and I thought, “What’s going on?” And I looked over to the stack periscope. With the periscope, you can look out to see whether you’re smoking or not. And usually, if you were smoking it gets black at the bottom and it goes up to the top. What we didn’t know down in the fire room at that time was that when we hit, JP-5 fuel lines were cut up on the carrier, and fuel poured down onto our ship, and into the air supply for ventilating the engineering spaces. We had combination stacks and masts, called macks. All that fuel came down into the after mack. The forward mack never got any oil on it. All that fuel came down MY mack, and they estimated like 18 hundred gallons.

    …Lundquist: It was your guardian angel.

    Gallagher: It had to have been. I can’t explain it, I’m not a very religious person, but it was, there was an entity there that helped me get out of that real thick, thick smoke. And I started to walk up the steps, the ladder going into the ward room, and then I went to make a turn, there was a door that went out to the quarter deck, but there was a guy there standing and, again, I couldn’t see him but he was wearing khakis and he was saying, “You can’t get out this way. You can’t get out this way,” and he had the door opened about this far and you could see a river of flames. So I walked athwartships through the ward room, and something came through the ward room ceiling and landed on top of the ward room table. The table flipped, and then I got outside. I’m amidships, on the starboard side. I felt the cold air…

    As say, read the whole thing. But the point is, as a child, I knew what business I was getting into. I had no illusions.

    The USS Monssen (DD436) rendered assistance to a detachment of Marines on Guadalcanal. As is typical in such situations, the crew of the Monssen provided every available courtesy to the Marines, such as providing them with clothes while they laundered their fatigues, let them use the showers, and of course serving them the best food they had available, before letting them leave refreshed with clean clothes and all the cookies or smokes or whatever from the ship’s store they could carry.

    This detachment of Marines was commanded by Chesty Puller, the finest Marine who ever lived. And as he was departing he said to skipper of the Monssen, Roland Smoot, “You know, I wouldn’t have your job for anything.” That set Smoot on hiis back foot, he told Puller, you’ve just seen how I live. I just fed you a steak dinner, and now you’re going back to your tropical hell of mud and rain and dust and scorpions and c-rats. And Puller said, “When I get hit at least I know where I am.”

    Smoot recognized the truth in that statement. None of us who serve in the Navy really know where we are when we get hit. Or, if we do have a general idea, we’ll drift for miles if we survive the blast or subsequent rain of debris as what used to be our ships and our shipmates impact around us. Winds and current will see to that.

    So, yes, I voted Romney. And I’ll vote Trump. God damn it. Because Hillary leaves people to die. I would move heaven and earth but the odds of me running for President are next to nothing.

  65. Irv:

    Trump loosing is Tump’s doing. He isn’t to blame for everything, but he deserves the “blame” for his loss if that does happen.

    I find it less than appealing that the National Enquirer is viewed as legitimate for the defense of Trump. The same publication that smeared Cruz not so long ago; means and ends once again. BTW, not all lesbians are Democrats or so I’ve heard, just sayin.

  66. If you really believe that Hillary will be worse than Trump, how about trying to explain his actions in the most positive light possible so as to help him defeat her. If you don’t really believe that she will be worse then say so and vote for her.

    All this anti-Trump vitriol could just as well wait until after the election. It furthers no good cause right now. He is the republican candidate and she is the democratic candidate and until the election we should help the one of our choice until the election. There will be plenty of time for recriminations and blame in the analysis after the election.

    The most difficult decisions in life aren’t between good choices and bad ones. The most difficult decisions are when there are no good choices, only bad ones.

  68. neo-neocon @October 18th, 2016, 5:17 pm, I was responding to physicsguy. But my computer escaped into the wild while I was attempting to do so.

  69. The “so shove it” bit, I thought, was aimed at the “Trumptards” to whom we owe what you’re characterizing as the suicidal charge Steve57, n‘est pas, and not physicsguy?

  70. “I’ll still vote, but will consider it a waste of time.” – physicsguy

    Absolutely the wrong take.

    We need strength in the down ballot races.

    It is NOT a waste of time to vote, if only to retain a majority in the House and Senate.

    Well, you might, indeed, be talking about your particular locale, or only about voting for POTUS, in general, but I think it sends the wrong message without that context.

  71. Irv Greenberg said:

    …All this anti-Trump vitriol could just as well wait until after the election. It furthers no good cause right now.

    I disagree. I think it would help the cause to be able to say to centrists that we agree Trump is a miserable human being, but he’s less of a criminal than Clinton, and if needs be we’ll get rid of him. As it is, the uncommitted can be forgiven for the impression they’re locked between two sets of rigid, uncompromising ideologues.

  72. sdferr, yes, I suppose so.

    I take no pleasure in any of this, BTW. It’s just my impulse to refuse the blindfold when facing my firing squad. I prefer to see death coming for me with eyes wide open.

  73. “I literally have yet to see a Hillary or Trump yard sign *in my area of town*” – Bill

    Same here, especially compared to prior elections, but this is a not a swing state, so perhaps both sides are being smarter with their money.

    Correction: the clinton campaign are being smarter, the trump campaign don’t have enough funds.

  74. David French at National Review has written No, God Doesn’t Want You To Vote For Trump

    http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/441179/no-god-doesnt-want-you-vote-donald-trump

    Let me break this down very simply. I’m not voting for Trump because I believe he is unfit for the presidency. I’m not voting for Hillary because she is unfit for the presidency. I’m not choosing the “lesser of two evils” not because I’m “fussy” but in part because I don’t want to contribute to either person’s power but rather to their ultimate removal four years from now. Moreover, no one has explained to me with any particularity or sufficiency which one of the candidates is, in fact, the “lesser” evil.

  75. This is a tedious election cycle, and it is difficult for me to decide who is more mendacious: Trump or Hillary.I will vote for Trump if necessary, but I see him as only .01% less dangerous as the Shrew Queen. But what I find most tedious of all is the sanctimonious attitude of the trumpian horde. (Not talking about the releuctant Trump voters, but you Trump day dream believers know who you are.)

  76. ” I remember many commenters here who argued in 2012 that they wouldn’t vote for Romney because it was a question of driving the car slowly off the cliff with Romney and quickly with Obama, and they preferred quickly. I have no idea who most of those same people are supporting now, but I’m wondering. Do they support Trump? Do they think he’ll stop the car from driving off the cliff? Or just postpone it?” – Neo

    Interesting question and one I don’t get with the Romney = Obama crowd who vowed never to vote Romney – yelling RINO!!!

    One of the many problems I have with trump is that he is very likely a huge step in that same direction as clinton would take us (expansive big government with huge additional debt load, and aggressive use of executive powers while loosening of Congress’).

    I very much doubt the unsteady red team dominoes we have in Congress would do much to oppose trump whatsoever – all simply based on how fast so many fell in line this year and twist themselves to publicly justify, forgive and ignore all the problems with trump.

    clinton they will oppose.

    trump, only those who can survive trump’s politics while being opposed – if Cruz cannot, can any?

    Another of the many problems, that the recent weeks have demonstrated, is the man cannot think and behave strategically – he reacts, even against his OWN interests.

    The implications of, and risk from, this is breathtaking, just in the realm of foreign affairs and our foes, without yet contemplating economic impacts, etc. of this, coupled with his policies (depending on the day we choose to believe him).

    I don’t see even a “slightly better” something here to go with, worthy of exchanging for the risk and nonsense / chaos trump represents.

  77. “If you really believe that Hillary will be worse than Trump, how about trying to explain his actions in the most positive light possible so as to help him defeat her.” – Irv

    That is trump’s campaign’s job.

    Trouble is, trump won’t even back things his closest surrogates say (e.g. VP candidate Pence comments during his debate).

    If they cannot explain / be consistent on the “positive”, how can you expect folks here to be doing so? – to say nothing of trump’s mutability.

    It is a HUGE question just if trump really is “better”.

  78. “A vote for Trump is a vote for socialism.” Spiral

    Since it is a near certainty that we will have either Hillary or Trump, implicit to that assertion is that we will have socialism. Consequential and inherent to the politically correct socialism that the left seeks is the societal result of civilizational suicide. Which we are witnessing in Europe today.

    If so, what does it matter which of the two we vote for? In either case, government of the People, by the People and for the People is over.

    Big Maq,

    “I don’t see even a “slightly better” something here to go with, worthy of exchanging for the risk and nonsense / chaos trump represents.”

    In rejecting, “the risk and nonsense / chaos trump represents” you are hoping that recovery after Hillary will be possible.

    To do so, one must declare the certainty of the Left’s intent to be noncritical. While also denigrating; the progress they’ve made, the momentum they possess and the permanent future demographic reality we will face.

    You must dismiss the future impact of a leftist/liberal SCOTUS majority.

    You must imagine that America can continue on its fiscal course of skyrocketing indebtedness at the altar of entitlement.

    You must deny that there will be no fatal consequence for an America ‘defended’ by a hollowed out, feminized, politically correct military.

    Finally, you must dismiss the possibility that the continued fundamental transformation of America is close to a tipping point after which recovery is not possible because the societal infrastructure necessary to recovery has been damaged beyond repair.

  79. ” you are mischaracterizing people and picking fights with them.”

    On reflection I probably have to agree with latter clause.

    There is no way that I can force anyone to follow through on their earlier expressed desire or challenge; and a taunt is hardly likely to do so any more than an argument.

    If I have learned anything in all this, it is that whatever sociopolitical sensitivity or altruistic sensibility it is that makes a conservative of the kind I have been butting heads with here a conservative, it isn’t a trait I share, or, obviously, especially value.

    You are quite right to say that arguments of the kind I have been making will be found unpersuasive by the persons I have been engaging here.

    However, I am now utterly convinced by the last months that when it is a choice between liberty on the one hand, and community sensibility on the other, there is no argument that will persuade anyone to change their position, one for the other.

    It is an expression of an innate taste, and the price one is willing to pay in terms of the freedom for one’s self and others, either for that experience of freedom from collective coercion, or that feeling of emotional comfort and moral solidarity.

    This argument is not only going nowhere, it can in principle go nowhere.

    Catch you down the trail …

  80. Catch you down the trail, indeed. Or as we used to put it, see you in the fleet. What the hell do you think you’re doing here, DNW? Improving the situation.

  81. Big Maq – “That is Trump’s campaing’s job.”

    It is the job of every person who thinks that a Hillary presidency would be worse for America than a Trump presidency.

    To the statements that Trump would do this or that as president I say: I don’t think even Trump knows what he would do in most cases. Businessmen make long range plans; that’s true. But, businessmen make decisions every day based on the current conditions and their judgment on the best course of action. To me, I would rather trust Trump’s instincts/judgment rather than Hillary’s monomaniacal quest for power and money.

    Trump’s ego demands that he make a success of the job if for no other reason than bragging rights. If America doesn’t succeed then Trump doesn’t. Hillary’s goal has nothing to do with the success of the country. She’s after personal wealth and power and she can get that even if the country fails as long as she can sell the country out and lay the blame on others.

    Trump may fail but it won’t be for want of trying to succeed, no matter how flawed his judgment or methods.

  82. @GB – I disagree with you largely on the scale of impact you ascribe to clinton, not with the direction of the impact.

    I also disagree with you that trump would even likely address any of those concerns to our satisfaction (e.g. SCOTUS, skyrocketing indebtedness, hollowed out military that is misused and misaligned strategically), and I go a step further – I think it likely he will take us as far as clinton down that road – perhaps even further than clinton could accomplish, should the GOP hold Congress.

    This says nothing about the chaotic consequences of his statements on trade, NATO, middle east, China, Russia, libel suites for the media, etc., if we are to believe any one of them, how he is given to tossing around ideas in his stream of consciousness.
    .

    His only consistent keystone, differentiating issue is immigration, and even with that he’s had differing explanations, and not at all clear on any of it, but for a wall.

    Half expect him to “deal” whatever everyone thinks he will do there away too, and trumpian crowds will cheer, because it was trump, after all, who will have authorized the “touch back” program – nobody else could have gotten this done, they will declare (and all will be forgotten of the similar “amnesty” proposals by other GOP candidates).
    .

    trump promises to also be a harbinger of transformation – expanding the powers of the executive like nobody’s business – making obama look like a chump.

    If he doesn’t abuse it for himself, it only lays the precedential ground work for a future leftist authoritarian (a trump presidency would surely summon a strong leftist reaction for 2020).
    .

    We are not talking about a radical reduction of the size and scope of government here between these two candidates.

    We are not talking about preserving the balance of powers between Congress and the Executive, and about preserving the Constitution between either of these two candidates.

    Both carry the ball in the same direction, regardless of what label, what team colors, they wear.

    It is not liberty vs tyranny, it is chaotic and risky G-March vs slow but sure G-March.
    .

    It is time to recognize that enough folks in this country no longer are buying what trump and co are selling.

    Through his own hand, and his own incompetency, trump has all but lost.

    The question is, where to from here?

    Do you (addressing all trump supporters) want to be part of the solution, or agitate?

  83. I think you can appreciate the story of Bill Overstreet. Who chased a Nazi pilot under he Eifel Tower. Which wasn’t enough to loose Bill Oversreet from his tail.

    http://www.npr.org/2014/01/03/259432775/bill-overstreet-famed-wwii-fighter-pilot-dies-at-92

    World War II fighter pilot William Overstreet Jr. passed away Sunday. He was 92. Overstreet gained fame for flying beneath the Eiffel Tower’s arches during the war in pursuit of a German aircraft.

    Not even the New York Times or NPR could deny him the truth.

  85. “To the statements that Trump would do this or that as president I say: I don’t think even Trump knows what he would do in most cases. Businessmen make long range plans; that’s true. But, businessmen make decisions every day based on the current conditions and their judgment on the best course of action. To me, I would rather trust Trump’s instincts/judgment rather than Hillary’s monomaniacal quest for power and money.” – Irv

    Makes my case for me.

    It should be rather disturbing to not have a clear picture on what trump will do.
    .

    Furthermore, haven’t we seen what his “instincts/judgement” have been in running this campaign?

    He seems ill prepared, he remains unprepared, he is ill-advised, he rejects advice, he lacks strategy, and he is easily strategically foiled at every turn.

    His attacks have not been earning him voter support towards a win. His shoot from the hip campaign has hardly had the focus needed to get to a win.

    Couldn’t find a candidate with worst “instincts / judgement”.
    .

    He’s hardly shown a “businessman’s” savvy in handling the long range, mid-range, and day to day issues of running a campaign.

    And don’t excuse him with “he’s not a typical and well practiced politician”.

    If he cannot come up to speed and handle a presidential campaign, how can he come up to speed and handle the greater and much further reaching complexities of POTUS???
    .

    Are you so sure that trump’s isn’t also a “monomaniacal quest for power and money”?

  86. Big Maq thinks Hillary will bring on disaster slowly though surely.
    I think him wrong on the “slowly”.
    Implicit his “slowly” is the hope of recovery.
    That is the triumph of hope over reality.

  87. “Big Maq — “That is Trump’s campaing’s job.”

    It is the job of every person who thinks that a Hillary presidency would be worse for America than a Trump presidency.” – Irv

    What if we think BOTH are awful for America?

    That’s the problem.

    There will be a 2020 election, and 2024, and 2028…

    It was a huge mistake to tie ourselves to a man like trump to “save” this Republic.

    The albatrump.

    For the next four elections we will all have to live down the left’s caricature of conservatives that has become “real” with trump.

    The ironic part is that trump’s supporters were so against clinton that they backed a man who has single handedly made the job much easier for dems to win future elections.

  88. Back in the late 1800s, when socialism was new and cool yet a fair number of people wanted to blame the Jews for everything — how things haven’t changed! — there was a saying:

    Anti-semitism is the socialism for fools.

    Today I would say:

    Trumpism is the conservatism for fools. And often damned unpleasant ones.

    Normally I avoid epithets, but the pro-Trump forces, early or late I don’t care, have called those of us reluctant to jump aboard the doomed Trump bandwagon, quislings, roaches and the like.

    So have a little of that back.

  89. @Frog – with clinton, the future is looking more like Europe or Canada, not the Peoples Republic of United States, you and pubis decievious would have us belieber.

  90. Steve57-

    Thank you for your “rant” at 2:18 which expresses my thoughts exactly.

    As a veteran and the son of a veteran and the father of a veteran I will vote for Trump because a vote for Hillary “is a betrayal to my brothers and sisters in arms that I
    just can’t bear it”.

    But to “artflgr” and all of the other Trumptard out there, if Hiiary wins this will be on you, not the “nevertrumpers” whoever they are.

  92. Where to begin?

    DNW and Vanderluen, and a few others,

    You are your own enemy, as is your overlord.. Take a good, long look in a mirror. Vitriol and pissing up the donald rope will not persuade anyone, but it may earn you pats on the back from the horde. Ok go ahead and piss up the rope, it just dribbles down on your shoes.

    OM and others, you also need to tone it down. I get it, but nothing will bring them to your POV. Might as well be talking to a fence post.

  93. “I’m not choosing the “lesser of two evils” not because I’m “fussy” but in part because I don’t want to contribute to either person’s power but rather to their ultimate removal four years from now.” [David French as quoted by Spiral @ 6:47]

    What absurd logic. It’s like saying “I’m sorry.” It makes one feel better but the problem still remains for everyone.

    ” . . . the sanctimonious attitude of the trumpian horde.” [Parker @ 6:49]

    . . . and the sanctimony of the many #Never Trumpers.

    “clinton they will oppose” [Big Maq @ 7:06]

    You are entitled to your own opinion, but how anyone can make that claim after the Republicans were as passive as they were with Obama is beyond me. If the Dems have the EPA, DOJ, IRS, the Chief Justice, etc. in their pocket, and if Congress has abrogated it’s legislative power to Obama’s multiple executive orders, just what basis is there for believing that they will oppose Clinton?

    “Implicit his “slowly” is the hope of recovery.
    That is the triumph of hope over reality.” [Frog @ 9:50]

    What you say is true, but in all fairness to the anti-Trump crowd, I “hope” that Trump will surprise us all and prove himself better suited to the task than his critics expect. There seems to be a lot of “hope” going around of both sides of this discussion, which points out that we are all speculating. None of us will really know until after Jan 20th, 2017.

  94. “I hope Trump will surprise us all…”

    That is a YUGE! dump truck of wishing and hoping. BTW, Dusty is dead so don’t hold your breath for the swan song.

  95. So running a campaign is the sole test as to Trump’s possible performance as President? Forget about him making billions after multiple failures. Forget about him making a success in TV. Forget about him getting more primary votes than any previous republican. Forget about the list of conservatives he said were his Supreme Court picks. And his promises to improve the military, give school choice, repeal Obamacare, support police, stop TPP, repeal NAFTA! Hillary’s position is the opposite on all of these and a myriad of other important issues. How can you say he’d be as bad as her? I just don’t get it.

  96. For the sake of reason, I think it’s time to repeat my comment from the Oct 12 “The Burn it down crowd . . . ” thread [My post Oct 13, @ 2:17]:

    ” It’ the stupid and destructive conclusions people come to when in the grip of that emotion. I’ve been tracking that for many years, too.” [Neo @ 1:59]

    Yes, we are emotional and rationalizing rather than intellectual and logical beings. IMO that’s what makes it difficult for most of us as we comment at this site. We try to reason through a position, we reach a conclusion that appears to us as logical, and it still bothers us, or mystifies us that others dissent that path that logical path that we blazed for ourselves.

    In truth, again IMO, all of us (myself included), have at the base and the core of our “rational” positions some deep-seated emotional response from which we simply cannot break free.

    One of the things that attracted me to this site years ago was the ability to agree to disagree and to use that disagreement to sharpen and refine my own thinking on a topic. Quite frankly, this seems to have all gone to Hell as proponents of either side just can’t seem to get away from snark attacks.

    The two schools of thought seem to be A) Hillary is death warmed over and will lead the country to perdition. Trump may not. And B) Trump will lead the country to perdition and discredit conservatives. Hillary is bad, but not end-of times bad. Is it possible that the truth may lie somewhere in between?

    We have allowed these two faulty Pied Pipers to lead us to vehemence on a site known for its considered discussion. To quote Walt Kelly: “We have met the enemy and he is us!”

  98. “What absurd logic. It’s like saying “I’m sorry.” It makes one feel better but the problem still remains for everyone.”

    I’m not a binary-choice vote zombie.

    Votes are currency. Does anyone think the product the Democrats and Republicans delivered this year is good? But you’ll keep rewarding them with your votes, and keep getting more of the same. Kanye/Kardashian 2020

    No. No. No.

    A vote is precious. Don’t waste it on someone who doesn’t deserve it.

    And – Trump voters and even reluctant Trump voters don’t get this: It’s not the slam-dunk you think it is that he’s better than her. I’ve heard all the arguments

    – “We don’t know what he will do, but we definitely know what SHE will do”. You’re losing me on the “don’t know what he will do”. Someone upthread (probably Maq) made the comment that Trump’s reaction to criticism, his non-strategic emotional self-destructive reactions, are terrifying in a President with world-shaking power.

    – “It’s a binary choice. Put on your big boy pants and choose!”. Very well, I choose Evan McMullin and Mindy Finn. I didn’t realize it was against the law to not vote Democrat or Republican.

    – “All she wants is money and power” – still trying to figure out why anyone thinks he wants anything different. And – BOTH of them want to be good presidents, for ego and legacy’s sake as much as anything else. The idea that she doesn’t care if she ends up being hated by the entire country is nonsense.

    Neither one will be a good president, unfortunately

    – “He beat all the other Republican candidates” – yep. A plurality of Republican voters forced him down our throat. Even though what’s happening now was predicted.

    I’m no longer a Republican, btw.

    – “The wanted it, deserved it, they’re all sluts” or whatever else you want to say

    I don’t vote for sexual predators. You will need to explain to your daughters why you do.

    On another thread on this blog, someone suggested that maybe some people on the “right” could make liberal journalists “disappear”.

    Trumpism poisons everything.

  99. What absurd logic. It’s like saying “I’m sorry.” It makes one feel better but the problem still remains for everyone.

    T: But supporting Trump who will surely lose worse to Hillary than Romney to Obama, or maybe even McCain to Obama, is the right thing to do.

    It may make Trumpers feel better to be true to a vain, vicious, lying, incompetent con man, but the terrible Hillary future is upon us and that is on Trump folk, particularly the Big Orange Guy himself.

    There was never any reason other than blind angry hope to suppose that Trump would do better than he has.

  100. Bill -if you plan to sit this election out why argue so vehemently? Examine the candidates more closely and decide who is the worst and vote to keep that candidate out. Also, what Hillary did to WJC’s accusers was much worse than calling them liars. I’ll be happy to explain to anyone’s daughters why Trump is a better person than Hillary in my opinion. Trumpism doesn’t poison anything that I’ve seen.

  101. Huxley – Trump didn’t nominate himself. An awful lot of people believe in him. There are a lot of good reasons for disagreeing with you. Just calling Trump names doesn’t convince anyone.

  102. huxley
    Although it’s ex post facto in a sense, the votes the other republicans got in the primaries seem to me to indicate they’d have had less of a chance. I mean, if a guy like Cruz, with the possibility of Fiorina for VP, can’t put together a coalition of repubs larger than he did, it looks as if the others’ supporters would have stayed home and no dam is going to change anyway.
    This is because nobody else was going to take on the role the voters were looking for. Too bad. Trump was left over and here we are.

  103. If Trump had been a decent, sane person and a patriot, he could have been our Churchill. God knows we need a Churchill.

    Instead at a crucial moment in his campaign, he was up at 2 AM tweeting mean-spirited attacks on an ex-beauty queen for her weight because she had attacked him.

    Cornhead tells us it’s Trump’s nature to defend when he is attacked, but that’s such a disingenuous rationalistion of Trump’s behavior. It doesn’t cover how nasty Trump was or how self-destructive he was. Or the reality that presidents and presidential candidate are always under hundreds of attacks. The internet proverb, “Don’t punch down,” applies.

    That was where Trump sank his last chance, slim though it was, to catch up with Hillary. But Trump had better things to do.

    Like the scorpion in “The Scorpion and the Frog” fable, Trump couldn’t help himself. It was his nature, just as Cornhead said.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog

  104. Although it’s ex post facto in a sense, the votes the other republicans got in the primaries seem to me to indicate they’d have had less of a chance

    Richard A: That’s your opinion and apparently based on nothing but gut feel.

    The polls just about always showed Trump worse than Hillary and showed other Republican candidates doing better than Trump and often better than Hillary.

  105. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in 74 years it’s that you deal with things the way they are with what you have. Complaining that they shouldn’t be that way or about how they got that way is something you do AFTER the work is done, not while you’re working. It’s counterproductive to just complain about the problem when you need to be finding the best way to respond to it.

  106. T:

    You write:

    One of the things that attracted me to this site years ago was the ability to agree to disagree and to use that disagreement to sharpen and refine my own thinking on a topic. Quite frankly, this seems to have all gone to Hell as proponents of either side just can’t seem to get away from snark attacks.

    You may not believe it, but this site is a million times better than the vitriol at most other sites. The Trump candidacy and the 2016 Trump vs. Clinton election has effectively poisoned discourse all around the right side of the blogosphere, while the left celebrates. People are exceedingly upset and emotional, and the viciousness is incredible at most other sites (except blogs that have become complete Trumpian echo chambers). This blog is a case of lions lying down with lambs in the Peaceable Kingdom, comparatively speaking.

  107. Parker:

    To put things in a better frame of mind and look towards the longer term I’ve been listening to Andrew Klavan’s new book “A Great Good Thing” on my walk to and from work. 1/3 through it and it is very enjoyable.

    Mark Levin will still be there after the election is over. Limbaugh, Hannity, Inghram are dead air to me; no integrity in that trio.

  109. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in 74 years it’s that you deal with things the way they are with what you have. Complaining that they shouldn’t be that way or about how they got that way is something you do AFTER the work is done, not while you’re working. It’s counterproductive to just complain about the problem when you need to be finding the best way to respond to it.

    Irv: And what I learned at a far younger age was that you learn from your mistakes or you repeat them.

    I’d also like to be proactive and head off all the “stab in the back” BS that pro-Trumpers have handed out and will no doubt continue to hand out.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth

  110. Steve57 Says:
    October 18th, 2016 at 6:26 pm

    … I think it would help the cause to be able to say to centrists that we agree Trump is a miserable human being, but he’s less of a criminal than Clinton, and if needs be we’ll get rid of him. As it is, the uncommitted can be forgiven for the impression they’re locked between two sets of rigid, uncompromising ideologues.

    %%%

    The WHOLE point with Trump is that he is NOT an ideologue.

    That’s why he’s all over the lot, which irritates so many.

    He’s an extreme pragmatist. We haven’t seen that type of national leader since, perhaps, Gerald Ford.

    Shutting down Muslim immigration is NOT a pogrom.

    Shutting down illegal immigration is not a pogrom.

    Hillary’s policy suite — on the economics — is a disaster for minorities. They must inevitably lead to those factions remaining confined to the voting plantation. (the ‘hood)

    2020 will be far too late to turn the ship of state.

    DEMOGRAPHICS are being changed that fast, especially Muslim demographics.

    With enough Muslims, there can be no 1st, 2nd, or 4th Amendments.

    Muslim society REQUIRES a police state. Something that you might note if you ever trapsed through the ummah.

    Islam SPECIFIES despotism as the only lawful form of government. That’s Mohammed’s dogma that survives to this day.

    This explains why dictatorships are pandemic in the Muslim world.

    You don’t have to guess what America will look like in another generation. You can see that future right now — in Europe and South America.

    The Classic American Dynasty will be over… gone like the Ming, I should say.

    Many parallels, BTW.

  111. Irving Greenberg Says:
    October 18th, 2016 at 10:56 pm

    So running a campaign is the sole test as to Trump’s possible performance as President? Forget about him making billions after multiple failures. Forget about him making a success in TV. Forget about him getting more primary votes than any previous republican. Forget about the list of conservatives he said were his Supreme Court picks. And his promises to improve the military, give school choice, repeal Obamacare, support police, stop TPP, repeal NAFTA! Hillary’s position is the opposite on all of these and a myriad of other important issues. How can you say he’d be as bad as her? I just don’t get it.

    &&&

    Critics of Trump think that ‘the system’ should’ve produced a nominee that meets their standards.

    But, Trump does not meet their standards. They objectively don’t admit that their views are in the minority — indeed, probably a pretty small minority. ( Yes the nation has been perverted to the Left an astounding degree.)

    They can’t accept that the center of our ever changing body politic has shifted to the Left.

    So they, out of principle or spite, are taking their votes entirely off the table.

    Their anger is so great that they are willing to sit on their hands and let Stalin in a pants suit cruise into the Oval Office.

    It will be then that they really discover pain.

    One must never let perfection, the ideal, become the enemy of the good-enough-will-do.

    Inventors of perfect inventions — never invent ANYTHING.

    Ideals are to pray for. They are not on the ballot.

    When I read of posters conflating Donald Trump with an ideologue — I gasp. Such a ‘take’ is 180 degrees removed from reality.

    Additionally:

    RCP poll averages are CONTAMINATED by HRC sponsored shills. ( NBC// WSJ )

    As you pull up the covers, you find that Reuters KEEPS changing their polling scheme — every time Trump pulls into the lead.

    These abuses are PROFOUND.

    The infamous NBC//WSJ poll over sampled Democrats and Independents to such a degree that 9% changed hands !

    Similar, if not so blatant, distortions exist in EVERY Clinton’s UP poll I’ve seen.

    In contrast, the Clinton Campaign is in full on PANIC MODE.

    THEY don’t act at all like they believe the RCP numbers.

    Actions speak louder than spin machines.

    The Assange gambit evidences TOTAL PANIC. Period.

    Yes, they know what’s coming, hence the panic.

  112. blert: Another enumeration of the problems posed by Hillary and Islam does not demonstrate how Trump would be the solution, especially if he is unelectable in the general.

    Unless Trump is just a complete Hail-Mary desperation move…. One of my friends justified his support for Trump that way.

    If so, like most desperate moves, Trump is a longshot and a loser. The worst will come to pass. Hillary will be elected. Now what?

    My friend didn’t have any thoughts on that. For him Trump was the last chance. If Trump failed, nothing mattered. America would just go down the tubes. He didn’t care anymore.

    Such a shame that Trump turned out to be unelectable. If only somebody had noticed and spoken up months ago.

  113. I just don’t understand the rush to admit defeat. What is the point of it 3 weeks out from the election? If I were a Hillary troll that’s exactly what I’d be telling republicans to do, admit defeat and quit trying.

    Well, I’ve seen too many contests of all kinds turn around at the last minute. The history of this country is to fight against the odds and turn defeat into victory.

    In my own life I have experienced many last minute turnarounds. I was an Air Force pilot for 20 years and I can’t tell you how many times I would have died if I had quit when the going got rough or the odds were against me.

    I live by the adage ‘If I fight I MIGHT lose, but if I give up I WILL lose!’

    “Damn the torpedoes; full speed ahead!”

  115. Chris, your kind words @October 18th, 2016, 10:09 pm, are an inspiration and a life ring. I can’t speak for all veterans, naturally, but it’s a blessing to know many of you are not ashamed of what I have to say.

    It’s from the heart. You wouldn’t get the impression I come from a military/naval family if you visited. I used to have an “I love me” wall but when I moved from Sandy Eggo to Tejas about ten years back I never bothered to unpack the boxes of plaques and certificates. I was Navy for twenty years, my dad was a Coastie for twenty years, my uncle on my father’s side was a WWII veteran in the Mediterranean, but the only indication my family served this country ever since they got off the boat from Italy is the framed discharge certificate of my Great Uncle, who was a Marine at Belleau Wood.

    The thing is this. When we got here, my dago wop greasy olive-picking family finally had a country worth sacrificing for. I served with some distinction; I have the plaques and certificates to prove it. My father served this country with distinction. My uncles served this country with distinction. I still bow my head when I pass the Basilone road exit at Camp Pendleton on I-5.

    But if I let this country slip away it was all for nothing.

  116. Irv: Go ahead and vote for Trump.

    My point is that Trump’s candidacy has been a longshot from the beginning and an irresponsible choice all along — assuming all that shrieking about Hillary was true.

    I doubt you live the rest of your life playing imprudent longshots if you have a choice.

    Trump’s candidacy is not a situation in which we suddenly find ourselves.

    I would argue your “Damn the torpedoes” attitude would have better served the country if you had been a voice for Trump to step down at any number of junctures when it was obvious how hopeless it was for Trump to reform himself or be elected.

    From my point of view it’s as though you gave up and said, “I can’t do anything about it. Trump’s on track to lose and all the horrible Hillary stuff will happen, but I can’t do anything about it.”

  117. Huxley – I meant exactly what I said. Playing a longshot is not what I’m doing. What I’m doing is making the best of the situation I find myself in. What I should have done, in your opinion, is completely irrelevant to the discussion. Where do we go from here and what can we do to make the situation better. I’ll save analysis of the past and recriminations for after the election.

    And for the record, I didn’t then and I don’t now give up.

  118. I live by the adage ‘If I fight I MIGHT lose, but if I give up I WILL lose!’

    “Damn the torpedoes; full speed ahead!”

    And since when have I admitted defeat? The odds aren’t good, I’ve admitted that. And I’ll join the suicidal charge if that’s what it takes.

    But my spirit tells me this, in case you haven’t noticed by my reminiscing about Taffy Three at Samar 72 years ago this month.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCnPJ6HISNI

    “Three Proud Warships: USS Samuel B. Roberts”

    Since I don’t have children the only thing I have to offer my brothers, sister, nieces, nephews, and cousins is this. I picked myself up and didn’t quit.

    I would very much like to pick myself up and not quit with somebody not Trump, though. Apparently that’s too much to hope for. But I’ll still do it.

  119. …I was an Air Force pilot for 20 years and I can’t tell you how many times I would have died if I had quit when the going got rough or the odds were against me.

    As an Air Force Pilot, did you saddle yourself with an OV-10 Bronco when you knew you’d be facing the best jet fighters the Soviets had to offer?

  120. Like in most of life, there are not absolutes. I have a great deal of respect for the capabilities of the OV-10 Bronco and the men who flew them.

    http://www.usni.org/store/books/aviation/flying-black-ponies

    “The tragic, the comic, the terrifying, the poignant are all part of the story of the Black Pony pilots who distinguished themselves in the Mekong Delta during the Vietnam War. Flying their turboprop Broncos “down and dirty, low and slow,” they killed more of the enemy and saved more allied lives with close-air support than all the other naval squadrons combined during the three years they saw action. Author Kit Lavell was part of this squadron of “black sheep” given a chance to make something of themselves flying these dangerous missions. The U.S. Navy’s only land-based attack squadron, Light Attack Squadron… ”

    H3ll, the groundpounders wondered how the “Able Dog” Skyraider pilots could even close their legs enough to fit into the cockpit, given the size of the stones they were obviously endowed with.

    I’m only qualified to fly in the back seat of an F-14. I was intel, never in a paid flight status. It was a TARPS squadron. I know a little about aviation. Clearly I can only know a little, but still undoubtedly more tha than the average visitor here. If you’d pick a piston or turboprop aircraft to go against a Flanker, I’ll start the collection for your funeral.

    That’s basically the situation we find ourselves in now. And, tell me again, we put ourselves into this situation, purposefully, why?

  121. Irving – you wrote: “Bill -if you plan to sit this election out why argue so vehemently? “

    I am not sitting out the election. I am voting.

    To your point later in the thread – we can’t give up the fight. You’re fighting for the future Trump would bring. I’m fighting for the future a third party candidate (not HRC, not Trump) would bring.

    The only argument you can make is that my odds are worse than yours. But then that gets into craven probabilities and loses some of the “fight against all odds” ethic that you have honorably espoused.

    We’re both fighting. My odds are worse. But I’m not going to surrender my convictions just to get better odds. I’m in the long game.

  122. Also – it needs to be said to those of you in this thread who have served our country bravely and honorably.

    Regardless of our political differences, thank you for your service. It is most certainly appreciated and honored.

  123. “The Trump phenomenon is better understood as a colossal F U to all of the lies and broken promises politicians have hoisted upon the masses over the years. It is the savage blowback to the money-sucking rules and regulations and taxes that heavily burden a broad range of the middle and upper middle classes. It is a YUGE “suck it” to the self-aggrandizement and pocket lining that goes on within the Beltway. It is a swift backlash against the swarm of Beltway wannabees who want in on DC action in order to enrich themselves on the backs of the people, to the detriment of the country. … The only fix is a virus and it just so happens, Trump is the virus.” – from Irv’s must read article

    Irv says this article explains “why so many of us conservatives are Trump supporters, despite his many flaws”.

    It is “a colossal F U”.

    trump is the “virus”, or, as I’d say the “arsonist” for the “burn it all down” crowd.

    Whoever wrote that piece, they could have ripped it from one of pubis deceivious’ pieces.
    .

    Someone above said something about people being motivated by their emotions. If there is any evidence of that, it is this article, and people’s admission that this kind of thing “explains” their position.

    I categorically and vehemently reject that argument.
    .

    There is much wrong with our Republic and to how people like the clintons can survive and thrive in it.

    But, to destroy it to save it is foolish. It is bound to go awry, and deliver something very opposite of what is wished for.
    .

    At least if you were going to go for that kind of gambit, the one leading it ought to have some coherent set of principles to apply in the aftermath, and have some of the character of a George Washington who, as an example, would resist temptation and set a precedent by stepping away from power.

    While the MSM is biased, they are not merely “dangling distractions” when they highlight trump’s own words and women come forward to say those words are true. It says something vital about what we need to know about trump.

    It is awful that trump’s own flaws crowd out the news cycle on any of the awful stuff on clinton and even on obama. But, that’s been the case since he announced his run. Now is not a time to complain about the 24/7 coverage.

    Bottom Line: trump’s “many flaws” are fatal flaws for this to have any chance at working out anywhere close, to where “us conservatives” would like it to be (very possibly opposite).

  124. Bill, all I can say is this. It has been a pleasure and and honor to serve this country. If I can keep it, maybe there are few boxes of memorabilia I’ll unpack.

  125. ” Where do we go from here and what can we do to make the situation better. I’ll save analysis of the past and recriminations for after the election.

    And for the record, I didn’t then and I don’t now give up.”

    We disagree on trump, but since trump is very likely to lose, the question I’ve been looking to discuss is, indeed, “Where do we go from here?”.

    I don’t believe this is our last election to win. We oughtn’t give up now.

  126. Regarding honor, courage, sacrifice, and duty to country when odds and circumstances were very bad:

    “The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors” by J. D. Hornfischer. The battle of Samar 10/25/44. referred to in Steve57’s youtube reference.

    “Neptune’s Inferno” also by J. D. Hornfischer. The U.S. navy at Guadalcanal. U.S, Navy KIA 5,041. U.S. Marines/Army KIA 1,592

  127. It doesn’t matter what Trump thinks. Even as president, he’s just one person.

    What matters is what the public thinks of Trump, particularly those that have the power to remove him from office. They all HATE him, and both Republicans and Democrats will jump all over him the first time he gets out of line.

    Hillary, on the other hand, could hang Obama from a gibbet at her inauguration ceremony, and the media, FBI, and Supreme Court would insist she was acting in self defense.

    Let’s Make American Presidents Accountable Again. Vote Trump.

  129. @Tatter – even Cruz endorsed trump!!!

    Dominoes for trump this year.

    Hard to envision that so-called “HATE” translating into administrative / policy discipline on the part of the GOP.

  130. Trumps mouth will be his fall in this election whether it’s out of narcissism or his lack of specifics in policies.

    With that said unlike the emails and Benghazi with Clinton were committees said it was much ado about nothing his “locker room talk” has had the effect that was suppose to be given to Clinton. Now I find that awfully strange. Clinton is protected; the naive will say and believe she’s innocent but the audio of Trump will be the silver bullet.

  131. @Frog – read that yesterday.

    He tries to tie Bill Maher with those conservatives who think trump awful, when we may do so from very different places. Rather deceptive.
    .

    “Mr. Ryan understands that losing the Congress would give President Hillary Clinton two years to push through the progressive wish list”

    The writer lacks self / situational awareness when saying this.

    Is it not trump attacking Congressional GOP candidates?

    Does trump have this same understanding, or does he find retaliation (for a distancing from trump’s own words, and disinvite from stumping alongside) more worthy?
    .

    Really, where does it end?

    What is the step too far for trump to lose our support?

    Can trump shoot someone on 5th Avenue and all are supposed to go along with that, simply because trump is the lead GOP candidate?

    This is where that writer’s argument fails.

    He calls it “cheap moralizing”.

    I call it a “win at all costs” attitude, as there is no wrong that trump can cross that we shouldn’t be behind him in opposition to clinton.

  132. “Trumps mouth will be his fall in this election whether it’s out of narcissism or his lack of specifics in policies.” – GRA

    It is the why this is true that overwhelms the obvious awfulness of clinton.

  134. “I’m not convinced we will ever know if Trump won or not.”

    And this may be the most damaging legacy of Trump’s awful campaign – casting doubt about the US election process itself.

    “Rigged election” is his current mantra. This is incredibly irresponsible.

    Make no mistake, Trump is doing this because he knows he’s going to lose, and the only person he cares about is himself (and possibly his kids, although he obviously values Ivanka above DTJr and DTJr above Eric and Eric above Tiffany. Not sure where Barron sits in the pecking order). Convincing his followers that if he wins it’s because he won and if he loses it’s because our entire election process was false and rigged against him is a really reckless thing to do.

    MSM press bias is not a “rigged” election. Need actual evidence of widespread fraud before we can conclude that the election is rigged.

    This is another reason I’m convinced that he needs to really lose badly (although his most ardent supporters will still never believe he lost) – really badly, like losing 40-45 states badly, so that these arguments go away.

    If he does lose, my fervent hope is that he will graciously concede and not stir up the flames the way he’s accustomed to doing. But I’m not counting on that – it’s a thin hope.

  135. @Bill – agree.

    Saw trump on the news today saying he doesn’t believe the polls, as they are all rigged.

    WTHey?!

    Wasn’t he the one bragging about how he was tops in all the polls, proving that he is a “winner” and should be nominated to lead the GOP?

    Truth is so malleable with this guy it’s beyond sickening to point that stuff out.

    Yet, it’s true, and this is how clinton gets to be our next POTUS.

  137. Here are two reasons I’m banging on the Trump’s Going to Lose idea:

    1) to discourage the false Binary Choice argument
    2) to think beyond the election to the overwhelmingly likely world where Hillary is President and the GOP has to pick up the pieces.

    Like Bill I think if Trump is going to lose, the bigger his loss the better. The more votes Trump gets, the more of a base he has to continue disrupting the GOP and the nation with his talk of rigged elections and ongoing character assassinations of Republican leaders.

    Of course, voting solid R down-ticket is a must.

  138. What are Trump supporters going to do when Trump loses?

    Will they, like my friend, just give up because Trump was the last shot America had?

    “Damn the torpedoes” sounds like a great way to die nobly but I’m more of the “live to fight another day” type when I see the torpedoes ae going to win overwhelmingly.

  139. It occurred to me today that when Trump loses, as he so richly deserves to do, he will not go away quietly with a classy concession (ala Jeb Bush). Trump will continue to haunt the GOP, not to mention the rest of us, indefinitely … from the airwaves of his Trump TV network, by calling in to the morning shows, and by continuing to vomit tweets at all hours of the day and night. He’ll continue to be covered by the MSM because it’s always been a win-win to cover him (gets ratings and helps Clinton). And since he has now been anointed by the GOP with the nomination, he will continue to be trotted
    out and quoted as a “conservative” and/or GOP voice ad nauseum (literally).

    He will be defeated in this election, but we will never be rid of him. Thanks for everything, Trumpsters.

  140. It occurred to me today that when Trump loses, as he so richly deserves to do, he will not go away quietly with a classy concession (ala Jeb Bush). Trump will continue to haunt the GOP, not to mention the rest of us, indefinitely … from the airwaves of his Trump TV network, by calling in to the morning shows, and by continuing to vomit tweets at all hours of the day and night.

    CV: Exactly. This is why I think it’s important if you vote with your eyes open not to vote for Trump unless you really are someone who thinks Trump is a great man with an important contribution to make.

    The alternative is to vote with your eyes shut, hoping Trump will win — Damn the torpedoes! — in spite of all indications.

  141. “It is “a colossal F U”.

    trump is the “virus”, or, as I’d say the “arsonist” for the “burn it all down” crowd.” – myself paraphrasing sections of the article Irv pointed to

    It strikes me as remarkably like the reaction of a segment of society that cheered when OJ Simpson was acquitted.

    They all felt they got their “colossal F U” to the rest of society at the price of letting a murderer off, as if that somehow “evened things up”.

    No doubt many who are so hell bent on supporting trump now saw that as a travesty, and likely didn’t buy the excuses behind the “F U” crowd then, but now somehow give themselves blank check for the same.

    So much wrong with thinking trump is necessary just to give an “colossal F U” message.

  142. When fundamental transformation is at issue, ask Americans a fundamental question: Why elections, Americans?

    A few (a very few) may even be capable to explain the whys and wherefores. And yet, so far from thinking that it does not matter what Trump thinks (and it does remain a serious question whether he does think at all, as the evidence is extremely scarce on the ground), or what Mrs. Clinton thinks, or what PresidentPseudonym thinks, it is a heavy difficulty when Americans themselves cannot explain the basis of their own former political order.

    And what do we witness today? That Americans, all too often, too terribly often, cannot explain themselves, let alone the regime they have lost without notice. The Americans too often have very little idea to no idea at all where their former political order, now fully overthrown, had come from. Yet was it not pleasant then? And blessed to be content to ignore?

    Worse, perhaps, Americans wouldn’t even be pleased today to learn the basis of that order. It’s boring, y’see. Politics, taken all-in-all, isn’t their idea of an interesting subject. Distinguishing country from nation from people from regime or political power from political right isn’t remotely interesting — politics is, in its altogether, far more often judged to be one big pain in the ass, and hence, appropriately to be ignored.

    So sometimes anyhow, one feels a bit of empathy for that nasty piece of work H.L. Mencken: let ’em have it; let ’em have it good and hard if that’s what they say they want — maybe they’ll even learn something about their choices one day.

  143. “Here are two reasons I’m banging on the Trump’s Going to Lose idea:

    1) to discourage the false Binary Choice argument
    2) to think beyond the election to the overwhelmingly likely world where Hillary is President and the GOP has to pick up the pieces.”     – huxley

    You missed one other reason, which I’m sure is also part of your and others’ (we the minorities’) thinking…

    There is an audience beyond the commenters here being responded to. They read the back and forth.

    This is probably one of the few places they will get a fairly honest discussion about both (all?) sides of the “conservative” / Republican view wrt trump.

    It has definitely NOT been all trump or all nevertrump here.

    Sites that have catered exclusively to one of those views seem to have less discussion, valuing the pithy (or not so much) snarky attack instead.

    Folks don’t get much “informational value” out of reading those comments, if they were ever seeking that by going to those sites.

    Thanks to Neo for clearing a space in the “conservative” blogverse for this.

  144. “Thanks to Neo for clearing a space in the “conservative” blogverse for this.”

    Hear hear!

  145. @sdfer – can agree with a good portion of McCarthy’s article, but it is about Congressional powers and preserving the Constitution. These are still important.

    Can agree with your statement / sentiment that “it is a heavy difficulty when Americans themselves cannot explain the basis of their own former political order.”

    Very much in line with the expression I’ve been using… “Liberty is a Responsibility”.

    It is not a “Right” that happens on its own, to be taken for granted. Too many (incl. many of us) have left it to others to shape. Heck, several, no doubt, thought doing their civic duty once every four years was the fullest extent of their “Responsibility”.

    Yet, I have to disagree that the “former political order, (is) now fully overthrown”. We are far from that point.

    We will have another election in 2020, and beyond.

    How do we prepare for a clinton presidency and for that election?

    How do we overcome the division that trump has sparked, so we can maintain an effective opposition in Congress?

    Do we let all those trump voters stay home, with the message that “all is lost” already, or do we tell them to make sure to vote GOP down-ticket?

  146. I believe I agree that someone might properly describe election voting as a veil pulled down over their own eyes by many voters so as to escape personal responsibility for their desires, demands and executions of government. Human beings, after all, it has been said, are those animals which wish to have their cake and eat it. Who demand justice when they are wronged, but refrain from submitting themselves to justice when they have done wrong.

    .

    So apart from this, ought we to discuss this area of difference between us, which you express as “we are far from that point”, Big Maq? Or simply leave it unsettled as a question? Would the answer necessarily entail agreement between us as to the kernel of that “former political order” — as I expressed it — and therefore as to each of our understandings as to the substance of what the framed Constitution intended? And would that be a long discussion, or a short?

  147. It seems the real problem is the different analysis the pro and con Trump folks have made about where we are now and where we’ll be if Hillary wins vs. if Trump wins.

    Folks like me think that the present condition is reaching a crisis point and that it cannot be sustained for 4 more years of Obama policies implemented by a criminal with no conscience. We feel that if this election is lost either there won’t be another one or it will be so crooked that they will retain power until the revolution or the collapse, whichever happens first.

    Also, we are convinced that after this election, if Trump loses, the republican party is almost certain to split which will guarantee future losses. We don’t want it to split but see no other way. It’s not Trump’s fault if it splits. It’s the fault of genuinely different philosophical outlooks. I’m not sure any party with any principles at all could contain these differences. The democrats do it by being willing to compromise any principles in the name of power.

    This is what we think will happen, not what we wish for. Therefore, in our opinion, no matter how flawed Trump is, he is our only chance for the country to continue as a democratic republic.

    We might be wrong, but that is our sincere analysis of the situation. That’s why we don’t understand all the anti-Trumpster commentary from people who obviously love this country. And also why we don’t understand all the vitriol directed at us and Trump who also love this country and want it to continue.

    And personally, I will never understand those who persist in saying the election is lost 3 weeks ahead of time. You can say it’s your opinion Trump will lose but you can’t say he’s lost yet. We may lose but you and we won’t know for sure until November 9th when the votes are counted.

  148. I’m not convinced we will ever know if Trump won or not.

    I think it will be a pretty good clue if Trump loses worse than Romney in 2012.

    And I’m pretty sure he will.

  149. Irv,

    “We feel that if this election is lost either there won’t be another one or it will be so crooked that they will retain power until the revolution or the collapse, whichever happens first.”

    Emphasis mine.

    Do you know any Democrat voters? I do – even though I have voted R in every election since 1984.

    One mistake I’ve seen in those defending Trump is the idea that everyone who, say, voted for Obama is a far left operative.

    We live in a (now) center-left country, still full of a lot of reasonable people.

    I can’t think of anyone I know on either side who would be OK with no more elections by 2020. I can’t imagine our military, our congress, our Supreme court being OK with no more elections by 2020. The vast majority of the population?

    I don’t think I’m whistling through the graveyard here.

    I’ve said this many times. HRC will be an awful President but she simply doesn’t have the political skills to sway the masses to THAT kind of change.

  150. Bill – I think what you have is a failure of imagination. You think she doesn’t have the skills whereas I think she does. Like I said, even if there is an election, with her in charge, it will be as crooked as she is. You obviously don’t think things are as bad as I think they are. I hope you’re right but I fear I am.

  152. Also – had very much the same argument with people in 2008 and 2012 who claimed the very same thing… there won’t be another election, because… (fill in the blank).

  153. Heh. The current political question, it seems to me, is far less about future elections than future Federal Continuing Resolution Appropriations Bills, 10 of which the United States has seen in the last ten years.

  154. “I will never understand those who persist in saying the election is lost 3 weeks ahead of time.” – Irv

    Learned our lesson from 2012, where we were told by “conservative” media that there was this silent majority who will show up and give Romney a landslide.

    Maybe the polls are not rigged. Maybe the average of them is reflecting a reality that some of us don’t want to face.

    If you go to 538, they will not say the election is over, as they will give trump a ~10% shot, iirc.

    However, the conditions to parlay that 10% chance into a winning hand requires something out of trump and his campaign that he / they have failed miserably at thus far.

    So now, it is really about having something devastating to be revealed about clinton that hasn’t already. If trump has it, he hasn’t played it yet. If wikileaks has it, they haven’t played it yet. It is getting rather late.

    The thing with being < four weeks out is that decisions are far more hardened than they were four months ago.

    Folks are already submitting mail in ballots, for G0d sakes.

  155. Once again we have come to an impasse so we wil have tol agree to disagree. I think your assumptions are unrealistic and you think mine are. Like I said, I hope you’re right but I fear and I think that I am. Good luck to all of us. Either way we’ll need it.

  156. Oh, I think there will always be elections. I just think we are moving to elections that will eventually be left vs. left like we have never known before. I said to my hubby the other day that I hope I am alive when this comes to pass because, much like the eating their own that is beginning to happen in the academy, it will begin in the press. For instance, I think once the right is pretty much squelched and it is left vs. far, far left, the news will begin to publish stories like those they publish about Trump, only about one or the other leftie. The future fight will be between those reasonable democrats referred to above (like my sister, son-in-law and nieces) and the fire breathing SJW’s who want to control our very thoughts. It will be interesting. But, there will always be elections. The reasonable democrats won’t know what hit them!

  157. “The current political question, it seems to me, is far less about future elections than future Federal Continuing Resolution Appropriations Bills, 10 of which the United States has seen in the last ten years.” – sdferr

    Excellent point, but I’d point to the unfunded liabilities as being the much larger Sword of Damocoles hanging over us.
    .

    I say excellent because it hits at a huge beef of mine with the interplay of the GOP and the dems.

    This seems rather under the radar even on “conservative” media, but it is a fundamental issue of how the deliberative process is supposed to work.

    Early on reid refused to allow the budget to come before the Senate for a vote. Hence, there was no negotiation for what the next year’s budget was to be (even though there are laws that require the Senate to pass one – there are no consequences).

    Let that sink in – no deliberation, no horse trading, no official discussion between our elected representatives whatsoever – something which is a critical part of the Checks and Balances designed into the system.

    Since the prior budget had an emergency authorization to run a deficit of $1T, a CR would effectively lock it in.

    The GOP never really made much hay of this aspect of the issue, until it became time to authorize the CR (in part or in whole). Without that groundwork there would never be public support for a shutdown showdown.
    .

    The GOP had been strategically outplayed and failed to make the case to the public in a way that gave them the backing they needed for action.

    Not sure where we will be after this election, if we are in a fight between hard core trump supporters and the rest of us.
    .

    Still, hope that folks go to the booth and vote GOP down-ticket so we retain some ability to block clinton. And keep antics like the above from happening.

  158. In 1838, Mr. Lincoln, at the age of 29, gave an address to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield Illinois. The subject of his address he says is “the perpetuation of our political institutions”. Read him. He doesn’t look to luck for the accomplishment of that task.

  159. @sdferr – you might think that supports your case for trump. Hardly.

    “(Lincoln) doesn’t look to luck for the accomplishment of that task”

    Yet, that is precisely what folks are asking of us to wish for in trump – that he “might be better” than clinton.

    It is either that, or the argument that we need to “burn it all down” and depend on G0d’s Grace to have things turn out “better” on the other side.

  160. @Irv – we do disagree on those things, but I hope we can be on the same team dealing with clinton going forward.

  161. And then again, maybe, just maybe Trump will do the things he has said he will do. He does have a history of success. Hillary has said she will do the opposite and has a history of deceit and venality. That’s enough for me.

  162. Wait, why would I think Lincoln would support “[your] my” case for Trump? Are you mad (no, I know you are not mad)? I make no case for Trump. Never have, never will. Nor does Lincoln. But Lincoln does make a case for the perpetuation of our political institutions, which is something for which Trump cannot be bothered to care at all.

  163. The comments about Trump here amaze me. “But Lincoln does make a case for the perpetuation our political institutions, which is something for which Trump cannot be bothered to care at all.” He is accused of being willing to do so many bad things, none of which has he even spoken to. When you assume what he will do, why is it always the worst possible thing? Isn’t it at least possible that he would do what he has said he would do, or is everything he says a lie automatically just because he’s a braggard, a blowhard and a male chauvinist pig. Isn’t it at least possible that a person whose personal qualities offend you could do the right thing sometimes? Is there no positive area in which you would give him the benefit of the doubt? And the thing that surprises me the most is that you find his personal qualities more troubling in a president than Hillary’s criminality and personal enrichment at the expense of the country.

  164. Trump so little speaks of our political institutions, their origins, their antecedents, their political philosophical particulars, that we may as well say he never does. Or to modify that bold statement, that he never does speak of them as of a matter of his deep and abiding love for them, and therefore of his study of them — or as Lincoln would have had it, his quasi-religious or civil-religious devotion to them.

    Nope, whenever he speaks we recognize lip-service, pure and simple. Who else makes lip-service to our Constitution, even while either violating it, or seeking to end its hold on America? How about PresidentPseudonym, or for that matter, Mrs. Clinton? Ah, yes, them.

    How fine that Donald Trump is nearly indistinguishable from his most ardent opponents? So fine that he has thought even less about the American political order and its defense than even his greatest current antagonists.

    But of himself, he can speak without pause for days on end.

  165. Irv, a lot of what he has proposed is very bad. Abandoning NATO, Allowing nuclear proliferation, committing war crimes, isolationist/protectionist economic policies. This isn’t just about Trump’s character. And no one here is defending Hillary.

  166. You assume the worst about his policies. He hasn’t said abandon NATO; he said make them pay their fair share or else NATO is just another name for American protectorates. His nuclear proliferation refers to the fact that all the bad actors are getting nukes and only our allies are not. Isolationist/protectionist economic policies only refer making sure we get a fair deal in international trade. If you don’t have credibility that you can walk away from the deal then they have no reason to make even reasonable concessions in the bargain. That’s what I mean by assuming the worst possible definitions for what he means. When put the way I did they sound a whole lot more reasonable than you make them sound. He is a hard headed businessman but in the end he is a businessman who knows how to make deals.

  167. Irv,

    Of course, people of good faith can differ on the value of what Trump has promised, but what you wrote doesn’t make me feel much better. NATO is not a protection racket, but I would not be as alarmed by Trump’s comments if he hadn’t shown so much favoritism toward Putin/Russia and actively been denying things that everyone knows is true (Russia hacking the DNC – his misdirection was his “400 pound hacker” comment in the debate).

    Regarding nukes – what you describe above is what I call “nuclear proliferation” – more nations getting Nukes. Based on my skittishness about Trump’s obvious admiration of dictators/etc, it’s not very comforting..

    His economic talk has been really reckless – protectionist trade policies are generally really bad, and seeing everything as winners/losers rather than win/win (when you buy something at the store are you thinking “I won/The store lost!”)

    The deal he needs to sell right now is why the USA should elect him as President. He’s not looking that great at the moment.

    Not trying to nit-pick, though I know it probably sounds like I am. Just pushing against the oft-repeated assumption that it’s a slam-dunk that Trump is a good choice for President because of his policies. I beg to differ.

    People have accused me of being a Hillary troll here because I don’t see the goodness of Trump’s proposals. Not voting for her either.

  168. Hillary is the effective incumbent and Trump is the usurper; not voting is a vote for her. Please at least admit that what you propose will cause her to be elected.

  169. “Hillary is the effective incumbent and Trump is the usurper; not voting is a vote for her. Please at least admit that what you propose will cause her to be elected.”

    If I don’t vote for Hillary and don’t vote for Trump they each get 0 votes from me.

    I’m absolutely impervious to Trump blackmail. This isn’t my fault. It’s the fault of all the GOP voters in the primaries (a plurality, not a majority) and their enablers in the “conservative” media who insisted on him even though many, many people knew and warned, loudly, that he would be a really bad candidate and have a hard time winning. He’s actually been a worst candidate in the general than I would have thought.

    I have been neverTrump from the beginning and this election season has moved me out of the GOP column. Elections have consequences – Republicans nominated Trump

    Consequences. Shouldn’t have done that.

  170. If you seriously think Hillary will be better then you’re doing the right thing. If not then you aren’t.

  172. Sorry Big Maq, it’s likely my fault for not spelling out a bit better. Initially, I was reacting to Irv’s invocation of luck [“Good luck to all of us. Either way we’ll need it.”], thinking to myself that Lincoln would not, and did not, depend on luck to accomplish what he understood was needful: instead, he went hard to work to think about the problem, and so to come up with a plan of attack.

    This work and these ideas stood him in great stead when later he was called upon to act in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief with a mission to preserve the Union.

  173. @Irv – I recall a response to GB on the issue of “fair share” in NATO to correct that vast over simplification.

    I asked folks to think about what our expenditure might look like if it was every country for themselves rather than this alliance.

    For the same level of protection, in the NATO realm, for US interests, it might well be more than what current “contributions” are from the rest of the alliance, as we’d have to cover risks that are reduced or eliminated by our cooperation.

    IOW, it may likely cost us more to maintain the same level of security we want than today’s NATO budget / cumulative contributions of its members – vastly more than our current expenditures.

  175. Irv G,

    I think you have misinterpreted the comments of many who see little difference between POTUS HRC or DJT. Some commenters are truly never trump, perhaps they live in states where HRC will automatically win their state’s EC votes. If so, why should they vote for Trump just to assuage your anguish? Personally, I will vote for the deplorable one if its close in my state. Otherwise I will vote 3rd party or might even write in (allowable in my state) Noble winner Bob Dylan.

    “Ease off Ripley, you’re just grinding metal.” 😉

  176. For the record, I did not ask anyone to do anything for me and my anguish doesn’t need assuaging. My opinion is it’s in yours and the country’s best interest to vote against Hillary, which in my book means a vote for Trump. If you agree that a vote against her is appropriate then do so. If you believe that Trump would be worse then vote against him. We’ll all have to live with the results no matter what but if she wins I would at least like to be able to tell my grandkids that I did not contribute to the disaster that I believe will inevitably follow. And if Trump wins I will gladly accept my part of the responsibility for what will follow, good or bad. It won’t be the first time I’ve had to admit being wrong. As my wife says “Irv is not always right but he’s always positive.”

  178. Many of his supporters very much like that about him: “He doesn’t play by those Marquess of Queensbury rules.”

    Neither do I, which is why I can see his weakness compared to the strength found in other’s internal fortitude.

    He’s an extreme pragmatist. We haven’t seen that type of national leader since, perhaps, Gerald Ford.

    Extreme pragmatists don’t provoke themselves due to their own narcissism, when they are lacking provocation from Cruz and other opponents. That would be like Art self declaring he’s an “extreme pragmatist”. Art isn’t, because Art is easily provoked by feminists, even when Neo talks about feminism and Art gets provoked by it not because Neo provoked him or said something pro feminist, but because Art perceived it in his imagination. And Art also blames his sister for having a better life than him. All traits that are not consistent with pragmatism, nor are Trum’s trait consistent with pragmatism. It’s consistent with tribal warriors that don’t know any better, yes, but not with statesmen, cold realists, or calculated pragmatists.

    Yet, I have to disagree that the “former political order, (is) now fully overthrown”. We are far from that point.

    Indeed we are far from that point, since FDR killed the last system of checks and balances. But then again, you didn’t mean it that way.

  179. Irv Says:
    October 19th, 2016 at 1:40 pm

    It seems the real problem is the different analysis the pro and con Trump folks have made about where we are now and where we’ll be if Hillary wins vs. if Trump wins.

    Folks like me think that the present condition is reaching a crisis point and that it cannot be sustained for 4 more years of Obama policies implemented by a criminal with no conscience. We feel that if this election is lost either there won’t be another one or it will be so crooked that they will retain power until the revolution or the collapse, whichever happens first.

    &&&&

    Some posters can’t fathom that the election of 2020 will be a simulacrum. The Democrats will have 220 electoral votes locked in before the campaigns even start.

    THAT’S how fast and far the demographics are being changed.

    Over the next four years the TOTALLY politized IRS will defund the GOP// Tea Party more effectively than ever.

    Google is, de facto, a part of the Clinton Machine.

    They are now the Ministry of Truth.

    This peril is denied by the never Trumpers, who are living in a dreamscape of optimism.

    The White American dynasty is being destroyed.

    That’s what the culture wars are all about.

    The never Trumpers are also spewing out — almost verbatim — MSM-Clinton Machine talking points — the vast bulk of which are nothing but ad hominem.

    His hair style, his personal faults have not stopped him from being a staggering success at most of the stuff he touches.

    Obviously, lending his brand name to some hucksters ( Trump University ) was foolish.

    Losing money running a casino in Atlantic City — is an art form universally practiced by those attempting it. Absolutely NO-ONE has not lost their shirt in Atlantic City. It’s THAT mobbed up. It was Lucky Luciano’s playground eighty-years ago — and the MAFIA is still doing business at the same old stand.

    The sluts allegations aren’t worth the electrons used to repeat them. The ONLY tabloid to publish them was the NY Times. All other publications soon found them wholly fake, absurd, libellous.

    With 220 Electoral Votes in the pocket, the Democrats will end up owning the White House — FOREVER.

    Ever more brown people will be imported so as to change the voting demographic into Brazil. America will become a sea of LIV — FOREVER.

    Rome lost its Republic very much in this manner.

    Europe is showing what America will look like in ONLY eight-years.

    If Romney had Reagan’s demographics — he’d have won the White House with a larger EV than Ronald !

    That’s how significant demographic replacement shifts policy.

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