Il Douché and His Discontents: The 2016 Primary Voting Thread, Part 4

Trump has the old angry desert white vote locked up

there were questions about this last week

http://www.npr.org/2016/02/29/468253626/a-history-of-super-tuesday

The Clintons' plan to combat Trump.

the "Drumpf" meme is so fucking stupid, the family name was changed in the 17th century

“Hope and change, not so much,” said David Plouffe, who managed Mr. Obama’s 2008 campaign, referring to the slogan that defined that race. “More like hate and castrate.”

wtf

xp yeah, i was expecting something so much more devastating based on the reactions today all over the internet. Whole thing was so so stupid. John Oliver remains insufferable.

Not surprised to see Jan Brewer endorse Trump, the AZ Republican Party is basically the harbinger of the national party. Clean election laws here in AZ disempowered the GOP establishment as gatekeepers, and as a result, all manner of noxious crazies run my state's government. Meanwhile liberals in central Phoenix, Tempe, and Tucson pray that demographic changes eventually politically transform the state into Colorado or New Mexico.

I guess Cruz is being written off at this point, but I just saw this video and I have to say there is something impressive about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi5IZ9StVUI&ebc=ANyPxKpXKNnxcbJdckV-z6-uH6cg4MVLYW9IQzCZaXtP5iCip3_63vZjP0VuxuHRSCubidgl-vD2B3c321nqFSXIwf10gzZw1g

I had kind of only known him as (1) hyperconservative ideologue and (2) creepy guy, but damn he knows his shit, and you have to think if he has a range of subjects he can speak about with this depth he could win over a lot of GOP voters.

and yet

total snake, I know

I mean I guess it manages to explain why he's done as well as he has in spite of basically being disgusting

Cruz: "I'd be happy to answer your question if you would stop yelling."

The man wasn't yelling. He was being emphatic, but the level of his voice was exactly as loud as Cruz's voice. This was just a way to put the guy at a disadvantage and disconcert him.

Cruz being this super-smart idiot who everyone hates is definitely the only fun part of the GOP campaign. I mean, this guy was a national debate champion, but when he told his Princeton teammates he planned to run for president of the debate society, they held a secret "anyone-but-Cruz" meeting. That's basically Cruz in a nutshell

cruz was condescending af in that exchange, i mean he knows his policy he's just a huge dick even when trying to play nice guy

nahh fuck cruz but he was nothing if not extremely patient and gracious there

I think there was a subtle way that it came off like he was following a manual on how to win people over instead of being genuine, but he followed the manual very well.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/01/us/politics/donald-trump-supremacists.html

This "earpiece" excuse for the kkk coyness is such weak bullshit. One of the most disturbing things about this race is the normality of brazen, shameless lies

One of my favourite things this whole cycle was Sanders' Sunday-morning reaction to South Carolina: "We got decimated, George, we got decimated." No creative math or anything.

Bernie's a real human being. Pulling for him tomorrow.

Watching that video I'm trying to recall a GOP nominee as policy wonkish as Cruz. Pat Buchanan? Here's one place Trump clearly benefited from such a pileup of candidates, running major interference. Cruz never had a chance to flex his knowledge. It's hard to imagine that in a protracted debate among just two or three candidates he wouldn't have scored more points for his smarts, dickface notwithstanding.

Cruz was really patient there, but he also very patiently redirecting that farmer to talk to someone else. HIs weakness as a candidate isn't related to his wonk-nerd knowledge but more from his extreme culture war views, which have no basis in fact or logic, which in turn undercuts his knowledge. He's a fundamentalist prig, and no one likes them.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/84/Ned_Flanders.png
"Let me tell you, there is no one who respects farmers more than I do, neighbor."

Get ready for this line to come up:

Huckabee also dismissed Trump's comments in a Monday morning interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." When asked about Trump refusing to distance himself from Duke on Sunday, Huckabee balked and instead brought up the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV).

"Look, I know it's an incredible overwhelming fascination — I've been watching this morning. But, look, let me ask you this, do you think Hillary Clinton is going to have to answer for her relationship with Sen. Robert Byrd who was an actual member of the KKK?" Huckabee asked.

one line is all it takes

The Robert Byrd analogy came up on CNN last night, brought up by one of Trump's higher-ups (as Alfred suggests, sounds like a coordinated response). I know everyone here hates David Gergen, but the way he called the woman on that--his visible disgust--was pretty compelling.

I saw the clip this morning. I'd never known Gergen was capable of contempt.

It must be interesting to go through life without being able to make meaningful distinctions between anything. This seems to be a common quality among Trump defenders.

"What about Robert Byrd?" has been the favorite tu quoque comeback from the GOP re: racism for at least a decade now.

Yeah, that and "southern democrats formed the KKK."

"party of lincoln"

lbj on the phone a week after dallas btw: "look, yer either the party of lincoln or you ain't!"

lol @ people itt last nite calling out cruz for tone policing

i love the KKK = Dems claim and the inference that NOTHING has happened in the intervening 150 years that might suggest a ideological evolution/ migration. yeah jackohole everyone in the KKK voted for Obama in '08 and '12

not so long of a timeline, maybe, when many of these people are still stuck on the founding fathers

and i used to think it was just profoundly stupid/ ignorant people on the internet who stood by this, but it looks like it's becoming a sanctioned talking point for the right.

another PA politician coming out for Trump was questioned about his refusal to denounce David Duke:

"Trump’s daughter, who converted to Judaism in 2009,” M@rin0 began. “I don’t think Trump has any feeling and concerns about the KKK, other than he doesn’t like them. He renounces them and given the fact that he supported his daughter in that move shows that.”

some of my best friends are

Retaliatory deep dipping for tenuous ties between Clinton and anyone with a racist past is just fucking sad. Don't pretend that this is in any way equivalent to Trump's "KK-what now? David who?" bullshit. I knew who David Duke was and what he was about when I was ten and pretty much only interested in Garfield and the WWF.

Hey, now Trump's got David Duke and Louis Farrakhan on his side! What a winner, right?

Black students ejected from Trump rally in Ga

the drumpf thing has an element of the mythic to it- you assert power over a thing by calling it by its True Name. see also, of course, "schicklgruber".

http://theweek.com/speedreads/609311/time-reporter-choked-slammed-ground-donald-trump-rally

xpost Huh, this might be the first time I've seen Farrakhan in the news for years. Has he totally sat out the Black Lives Matter stuff?

too busy secretly running Obama admin

The notion that Trump and Sanders are pulling different ends of the same troubled American heartstring is not new, but over the disparate strains of Muse tunes and “Mustang Sally” at the Cox Convention Center in downtown Oklahoma City on Sunday, Paul and Sherelle Bowermann were living proof of this theory. They, along with over 4,000 other Oklahomans, had come to hear Sanders speak at an event that included Native American dancing and the obligatory rendition of “This Land Is Your Land” (Woody Guthrie was from Oklahoma, after all). The Bowermanns were supporting the Vermont senator, but “believe it or not, our second choice is Trump,” said Sherelle, 73. In a general election, given the choice between the Manhattan businessman and Clinton, they would vote for Trump. Paul, 68, who characterized his political outlook as “eclectic,” liked that Sanders seemed “more compassionate to people who are down and out” and that Trump seemed to be “protesting the powers that be, the billionaires that run the country.”

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/if-you-want-to-understand-whats-roiling-the-2016-election-go-to-oklahoma/

Trump is like that SNL skit where the Broadway hypnotist hypnotizes all of his audiences into saying his show was much better than "Cats."

He renounces them and given the fact that he supported his daughter in that move shows that.”

ban use of "that"

OMG, I forgot all about people Trumping their cats!
http://theawesomedaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/donald-trump-funny-look-alike-201__700.jpg

The stupidity of Peter Beinart.