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

'Advocates' makes a difference, albeit not to the families.

We got a long, long email from our building management yesterday concerning the upcoming impact on the city during the RNC, which closed with this little tidbit:

• The rumor that there are “Designated Protest Sites” is not true
o Protestors may set up on “any area outside of the secured perimeter”
o [Secret Service] Agent Rowe indicated that they are not expecting any civil disobedience during the event.

Yeah, good luck with that. There are likely to be a lot of white supremacist Trump supporters coming to the city where police shot Tamir Rice in cold blood. I expect everything will be just peachy.

Question: If Trump is such a horrifying nominee that a significant number of Republican voters go for Hillary, will the term "Clinton Republicans" become a thing the way "Reagan Democrats" is still a thing 35 years later?

Heard a fascinating piece on the radio about the evangelical vote and how actual evangelical leaders are perplexed/frustrated that their flocks are breaking for Trump (who I could have sworn one of them actually called a degenerate). Anyway, he curses, he's rude and crass, he's been married three times and he doesn't know shit about the Bible, to they were confused. I guess according to research it turns out that, surprise, lots of people who identify as evangelical really aren't that religious, and certainly don't go to church. But they do gravitate toward authoritarianism and bigotry. The former obviously doesn't bother evangelical leaders that much, but the latter really seemed to get under their skin as un-Christian.

Well, duh, evangelicals. This seems like another case of Frankenstein's monster coming home. Also, another case where a seemingly solid voting block turns out to be a another repository convenience for racists and inchoate far-right radicals. If anything, this election cycle really underscores the inadequacy (or at least lack of clarity) of our two-part system, more than any in recent memory. Not unlike many countries in Europe, there seems to be four parties in the US: the far left, the moderate left, moderate conservatives and far-right neo-fascists.

Mitt just doesn't seem like the evisceratin' type.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/mitt-romney-eviscerate-donald-trump-phony-fraud-n530877

I've been thinking back to a discussion we had in the wake of Ferguson, in which we talked about the rise of "gear culture" (see Bass Pro Shops) and with it a certain re-scripting of American masculinity, a movement away from self-discipline, inner strength, courage, and coolness-under-pressure, and toward sheer ability to project power, and on the equipment with which one repels or destroys external threats. This culture also devalues rational thought and, in a certain sense, a realist epistemology. If you have enough gear, and you're scared (or pissed off) enough, rational inquiry is a hindrance. (The expansion of the Stand your Ground laws seem to me of a piece with all this. Fuck the duty to retreat. It's not just my home that's my castle: if I'm scared enough of you, and you so much as raise your hands, I have a right to shoot you).

In this way, Trump is the ultimate piece of gear, he's the monster truck of candidates: self-propelled, turbocharged, loud, shiny, and willing to wreak havoc left and right. The prospect of his Presidency, from this point of view, must feel irresistible.

― never have i been a blue calm sea (collardio gelatinous), Wednesday, March 2, 2016 10:32 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Thank you for all of that. Great analysis. I'd argue that one of the central things informing this trend is a hard cultural shift from courage to cowardice and the attendant need to dress that cowardice up in masculine finery.

I don't think Ferguson is ground zero for those tendencies. It goes back further to the election of a black president, which forced sociopolitical tendencies that had waxed and waned for years to coalesce. The VOX article Mordy mentioned makes it clear.

Yeah, I think it goes back at least as long as the survivalist movement became popularized. Constructing your life around constant fear of ?????.

McCarthyism is at the very least an antecedent.

The "real American" has always needed an Other.

booming post from collardio

― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Thursday, March 3, 2016 10:30 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

cosign

http://i64.tinypic.com/16jh2c3.jpg

collardio's posts are fantastic in this thread.

the gist of the article is that there are more Trumps coming, presumably with better "people skills"

Trump is already Pat Buchanan 2.0.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/bernie-sanders-on-phish-one-of-the-great-bands-in-this-country-20160302

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/mitt-romney-smash-donald-trump-115853664.html

this seems a little too late, no?

like Trump is just gonna reply with one sentence: "yeah, well you LOST" and his fans will cheer

lol "speech for the ages"

you have to play his game his way

"Trump has a really, really tiny dick, and he cries during Tyler Perry movies"

xpost yeah clickbait headline

s/tiny dick/misshapen dick

Since that really is the level of discourse he's operating on, I just want someone to slip a diuretic in Trump's drink before a debate so that millions of eyes can witness him pissing his pants. Anything that makes him look like a total weak loser baby.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/03/secret-donald-trump-voters-speak-out

quiiiite the rogues gallery here

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

I wish that Vox writer didn't take the weird take of presenting this as some hidden gnosis of obscure folklore or research. Stuff's been around for quite a while.

I think a better introduction is John Dean's _Conservatives without Conscience_, which came out in '06, and is still great if you can stomach the Dubya-era memories. The book is largely based onthe work of Dr Bob Altemeyer, who teaches up in the U of Manitoba and has researched this shit for decades. John Dean's book was so popular Dr Bob wrote his own, and put it online for free: http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

It's helpful in figuring out shit like why any president's approval rating never falls below a certain percentage, no matter what happens. Nixon's was still 19% the day he quit & flew away, for example

My in-laws told me about wealthy friends who support Trump and as far as they can surmise the only real reason is because they think he will lower their taxes, i.e. basically the same reason a lot of rich people support Republicans in general.

I know rich Republicans that think he will 'hire the right people.'

The best people.

worked great for w

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/03/secret-donald-trump-voters-speak-out

quiiiite the rogues gallery here

― lazy rascals, spending their substance, and more, in riotous living (Merdeyeux), Thursday, March 3, 2016 10:01 AM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

A lot of these almost sound made up. Like I expect one to be The Transgender Undocumented Immigrant Whose Partner Was Murdered By Donald Trump

People need to be told and told and told again: Trump isn't going to do anything as president that doesn't directly benefit Trump. You might get some of those crumbs, sure, but he doesn't give a fuck about you.

This is the one guy from the Guardian article whose mind I really can't imagine

I’m very concerned about radical Muslims, and liked Donald’s idea to stop all Muslim immigration.

I’m also no supporter of Israel and I’m pro the BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] movement.

I’m concerned that some US citizens have a loyalty to their own group over and above their loyalty to America, and will lobby accordingly.

I’m a patriotic socialist, but my strong-borders patriotism wins over my socialism if I have to choose. As Donald says, we either have a country or we don’t.

I really had no idea there was a "pro-BDS keep-Muslims-out" constituency. What does this mean, that he follows Richard Dawkins on Twitter?

paranoia about 'jewish lobby' controlling the gov't maybe?

that guys answer is so well-studied in its language that i'm pretty sure he's a nazi on the low

In the off chance there were actually a Jewish president, even an anti bank president, I have no idea what the crazies will say or do. After all, Obama is only a secret Muslim Communist.

a lot of contemporary Nazis believe that Muslim (and Latin American) immigration is a Jewish plot to water down the white gene pool - they then contrast this with Israel where many Jews have a strong attachment to limiting intermarriage and so they conclude that the Jews want to keep their gene pool clean + pure while dirtying the white ppl. (obv this is insane for many reasons not least of which is that Jewishness is not racially determined and comes in many colors/ethnic groups/races but these are also ppl who believe that calling Jews Khazars is some kind of trump card.)

I’m a patriotic socialist, but my strong-borders patriotism wins over my socialism if I have to choose.

strong borders with ... Austria? Poland?

classic male science academic language and ideas there. worried i may even know him.

and yes i keep thinking that even if trump loses there are going to be more and more trumps (big or small) to contend with in ensuing decades. people are going to take lessons from his success.

― wizzz! (amateurist), Thursday, 3 March 2016 05:27 (9 hours ago) Permalink

so you just think that trump is some kind of once-in-a-lifetime leprechaun and his success says nothing about what many americans believe?

― wizzz! (amateurist), Thursday, March 3, 2016 12:36 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i actually think this is more reasonable than the leprechaun rhetorical device makes it sound!

- trump looks like a success now. but when he loses the general election, and possibly loses it worse than any R in a while, will that still be success that will inspire imitation? is anyone imitating romney's 'success' right now?

- republicans in the primary play a game in two stages, where in the first stage (primaries) they need to be as hostile to black/mexican/women as possible to win the base, then need to backpedal to get the sliver of minority votes (a that gets larger and larger every 4 years) that they need to win the second stage (general). all candidates and their campaign strategists know this. pre-trump candidates were in a relatively cooperative equilibrium, where they would all temper their hostility in the first stage, even though any individual candidate could get a boost from being hostile. Trump said fuck cooperating, went full blast on racial hostility, scooped up the first stage, and will lose the second stage. Republicans are pissed because he did that while eschewing many aspects of their platform, making it an awkward choice for them to support him in the general (even though i'm sure they all will).

- i think what we did learn is that strict adherence to every aspect of the R platform is not a necessary condition to be the nominee. but i think announcements that republicans no longer care about abortion, religion, soc security and will vote for anyone who is anti-immigration, nationalist and racist enough are wrong. Trump's very good at keeping the conversation away from those things and has already pivoted on or distanced himself from the most blasphemous quotes. i don't think we've learned that R voters' policy preferences have changed, they just made decision taking into account a bunch of other things; their expectation that Trump can win (which has a self-fulfilling prophecy component, increasing in when-will-it-end momentum), the weakness of other candidates, his likeability, how strong/credible his claims are on immigration

i think what we did learn is that strict adherence to every aspect of the R platform is not a necessary condition to be the nominee. but i think announcements that republicans no longer care about abortion, religion, soc security and will vote for anyone who is anti-immigration, nationalist and racist enough are wrong.

Aye, but the concern is that 'republicans' is not the appropriate phrase in that sentence as much as 'a bunch of voters, many of whom don't usually vote'.

(or vote dem)

Trump is not really a template one can copy, and if future GOP fields are just a little stronger it will be harder for a personality cult like his to dominate. Even if Marco Rubio comes back in four or eight years looking less like a joke, which I think is probable.

rubio is losing his hair, he's on the clock

there's plenty about trump that people can copy

a combover of that magnitude is not easily done

especially at the state level

Mark Cuban for Pres

Mittens' speech should be in limerick form

holy shit the occupy protestor in that pro-trump article O_O

I work in a liberal arts department. I’ve read the works of Karl Marx, Herbert Marcuse, John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Nietzsche, Plato, Judith Butler, Simone de Beauvoir, Michel Foucault and so on. I am more inclined to listen to what Slavoj Žižek or Noam Chomsky have to say about current affairs than Rachel Maddow or Bill O’Reilly. If one were to take account of my demographics, the smart money would be to peg me for a Bernie Sanders supporter... His candidacy is a happy accident that is currently ripping the soul of America apart, which is something that I think we desperately need (and deserve) at this time in our history, for better or for worse. I support whatever strange gods happen to be behind his candidacy, for, as Martin Heidegger proclaimed in his famous Der Speigel interview, although for slightly different reasons, “Only a God can save us.”

yeah every single on of those people is a mess

they each view trump as the special instrument of their revenge against some element of society that has wronged them

they each view trump as the special instrument of their revenge against some element of society that has wronged them

this is perfect