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

Doc Casino, you care about that shit more than I do.

guess i don't understand why anyone would be angling for GOP [s]vice[s] president -- warm piss and that

Paul Ryan does not want to lose to HRC.

(S@rge broke the story for Gawker too!)

xxxpost

kasich to me always had the right look-and-feel for an "establishment" candidate (though "moderate" has been an interesting sell). on paper, in a 'typical' year, he's got it all - oldish white guy, been in the party forever, can talk about working with reagan, governor of a swing state that is not utterly sick of him. balanced budget, blah blah, business as usual, and just count on the base getting out to vote against hillary being enough to cancel out your really really unappealing swing-state positions on abortion, etc. hindsight's 20/20 but he just seems more obviously a 'real' candidate than most of the clown car.

frankly he might have been a passable establishment front-runner in a world without jeb! getting much of the big big donor class to buy into him before he was road-tested (or before anyone thought through the general appeal of another bush running), and hanging on to them for so, so long. and rubio convincing another swath of that crowd that he was the fresh-faced GOP Obama they'd been looking for. who knows, without either of those factors and the larger clown car problem, this might have looked like a pretty conventional race. (in other words, assuming that trump's dominance wasn't just due to his fame, free press, or anti-establishment anger, but specifically due to jeb and rubio actually being terrible candidates that didn't excite anybody and couldn't think on their feet.) imagine if you will, folksy establishment midwestern conservative kasich as front-runner, trump as a pat buchanan channeling right-wing anger but crushed once the winner-take-all states kick in. kasich was probably thinking of something like that (and considering his own age) when he first considered running; by the time he was actually in, the car was full and he suddenly appeared to be playing for VP or to be considered the heir apparent in 2020. it's swung back around where there's a very faint glimmer of a chance he could actually be the nominee. weird.

@ alfred ha, yeah, i can get going. time to walk away from the computer and think about frank lloyd wright for a while.

Kasich would have been a perfect GOP nominee in 2000.

he's abhorrent and gross but is polite and won't call for a stoning if gays on Medicaid make out in front of him

Meanwhile, in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program, Mr. Drumpf described himself as the person he listens to most on foreign policy.

“I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things,” Mr. Drumpf said.

He went on, “My primary consultant is myself and I have — you know, I have a good instinct for this stuff.”

"I have a very good brain and I've said a lot of things"!

"I just wanted to say that I have been otm in this election"

Basically, Jeb! cockblocked everyone and let Trump sneak in. Between Jeb's name and money, other hopefuls seemed hopeless, but he was so terrible the losers stayed at the party hoping to get lucky.

"i have a very good brain and i've said a lot of things" instantly on the shortlist for part 5 thread title

and Reagan could've said it

will you and Reagan's corpse get a room already

ugh, stop with the drumpf shit

Drumpf was one of the many phrases input into FB purity this morning

will you and Reagan's corpse get a room already

― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius),

you mean you and Bill Clinton

so who still thinks inherited privilege doesn't dominate every facet of contemporary society?

lol "Here's what I surmise about some movies I didn't see" xp

― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Wednesday, March 16, 2016 2:43 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

LOL indeed. who said internet criticism wasn't rigorous?

i wonder if any of these conservative PACs currently running broadsides against trump on the TV will keep it up after he becomes the nominee. are there some wealthy/influential conservatives who believe that trump will be more damaging (to the GOP and the nation) than Clinton? and will they put their money (and mouths) where their principles are?

i'm pretty cynical about the GOP establishment failing to get in line behind a trump candidacy. they've essentially enabled the fascist so far, I don't think they have enough principles and good sense to really stop now even if they'll whine about it until kingdom come. history will not judge them kindly, of course.

Ugh imagining a post-trump history curriculum

those brave GOP paladins.

oops: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/the-final-stage-of-republican-grief/473970/?utm_source=SFTwitter

Republicans being honest about drawing conclusions irrespective of facts. Sad!

love "unstuffy"

there's no way the gop doesn't nominate trump. he deserves the nomination! the gop deserves it too. as for the rest of us, when did any of these people ever care about that. also, the bourgeois parties always fall in line eventually.

If it weren’t for all the idiotic and racist comments, he would be kind of a breath of fresh air ... I don’t think he is George Wallace in his heart of hearts ... He’s just a buffoon and a political opportunist

The bourgeoisie does not like the 'plebeian' method of resolving its tasks. It was always hostile to Jacobinism, which cleared the road for the development of bourgeois society with its blood ... The sober bourgeoisie does not look very favorably even upon the Fascist mode of resolving its tasks, for the concussions, although they are brought forth in the interests of bourgeois society, are linked up with dangers to it ... The big bourgeoisie likes Fascism as little as a man with aching molars likes to have his teeth pulled ... but in the last analysis they have become reconciled to the inevitable, though with threats, with horse-trades and all sorts of bargaining. Thus the petty bourgeoisie's idol of yesterday becomes transformed into the gendarme of capital.

i had a guinness

i can see a few establishment GOP pols with little to lose coming out against trump decisively (like mccain, who trump has personally insulted). but most will fall in line, which in some ways will be helpful b/c we'll know their true colors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPn0KFlbqX8

i had a guinness

― denies the existence of dark matter (difficult listening hour),

I don't believe you

“In the end, whoever the nominee is, the party will, to one degree or another, rally around him,” predicted Ron Kaufman, the longtime lobbyist and Republican National Committee stalwart.

...

Kaufman waved off concerns that Trump’s rhetoric has reached a dangerous and unprecedented level. “Lots of folks say lots of things that probably they don’t mean,” he said. “I’m not in any way, shape or form defending things these candidates have said, including Donald Trump, but in the end, this is about governing.”

well "lots of folks say lots of things that probably they don't mean" just jumped the whole aforementioned shortlist

play fuckin loud xp

When Trump started in on Cruz's citizenship, McCain made it clear he (improbably, after the POW stuff) loathes Cruz even more than Trump--he publically sided with Trump.

i could also see one or two elected officials changing their party affiliation to "Independent" although obviously there are very, very few if any Jim Jeffordses still hanging around this party.

there's two separate questions though really, which is: will 'the establishment' take available measures to try and keep trump from getting the nomination, and will it back trump as nominee if he gets it. the latter seems like, yeah, most of them probably will for a variety of reasons. technocratic and business types (your jebs and bloombergs) will sit it out or vote for hillary but probably not campaign for her.

WAIT. I seriously thought this was a joke at first, but these are legitimate Trump quotes?!?

“I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things."

“My primary consultant is myself and I have — you know, I have a good instinct for this stuff.”

It's not shocking that he says these things because there are a lot of stupid people in the world and he's most definitely one of them. What's shocking is he says these things and no one laughs in his face and tells him to just shut the fuck up already. What a ludicrous garbage person who is completely unworthy of respect or being taken at all seriously.

yes, if this election cycle has proven anything it's that there are far more idiots in america than i had previously imagined. even the intelligent glosses of trump's appeal by the likes of matt taibbi and thomas frank can't gloss over this fact.

left-wing folks like me have said that the GOP was essentially an authoritarian party for a while, they're just proving us right these days. not that i get any satisfaction out of it.

haha I don't think Taibbi has once glossed over that fact

right, but he's explained the various reasons why people support him under than "dur, dur, dur"

but "dur, dur, dur" is a big part of it; it's not as if people have come to a rational decision that electing trump will improve their lot in life

(well, i guess it might improve their self-image, if rejecting the "other" has that effect)

will 'the establishment' take available measures to try and keep trump from getting the nomination

They might, but I agree with the one CNN guy tonight: there is no conceivable scenario under which the Republicans get a two-person election with Clinton against a not-Trump. It's either Trump or Trump runs independently.

also:

in college, i took a seminar on right-wing movements in american history (starting post-civil war but largely focusing on 20th century).

one day we did a thought experiment: if somehow a fascist gov't or fascist puppet gov't were to have come to power in the 1930s/early 1940s, which folks would fall in line support it, and which would speak out against it? father coughlin? charles lindbergh? herbert hoover? etc.

i feel like this is that thought experiment come true. we're witnessing how seriously that various "mainstream" "conservative" politicians take their stated (or presumed) commitment to deliberative democracy and civil discourse. the results are pretty grim.

i always expected that the likes of sarah palin would be fifth columnists. wasn't so sure about newt gingrich, paul ryan, and so forth.

xpost well, maybe, but the counterargument would be: lose with trump or lose with a republican that doesn't just totally trash (what's left of) the brand name?

Its too late for trump to run third party in a bunch of states, isnt it?

Hadn't thought about that, you might be right. One thing I don't think will matter a bit is all these pledges of support the two sides have taken at various points. Anyone will turn on anyone at a moment's notice, and rationalizing it will be easy. Trump can go right back to his initial pledge, that he'll support a nominee other than himself provided he's not "treated unfairly"--lots of wiggle room there.

why is kasich not attending the debate after trump cancelled? it would just be him and cruz. surely that would be good for him?

I like this photo from the New Republic:

http://i1059.photobucket.com/albums/t427/sayhey1/cruz_zpsnayqcluz.jpeg

Lots of folks say lots of things that probably they don’t mean

I keep hearing this again and again re: Trump, from supporters, from GOP folks, from commentators. Like, why wouldn't he say what he means? He's not promising some incremental shit he can sweep under the rug. And like Chait noted in one of those columns, Trump's been praising totalitarian action since Tiananmen Square. He's been pretty consistent. Which, of course, is why all the pollsters say he's getting a lot of his support. Evangelicals, rich people, poor people, dumbasses - the one trait his people apparently all have in common is a love of authoritarianism.

it's that probably that's sublime

@mtaibbi
Trump will name himself to all cabinet posts. He'll jump back and forth between chairs a la Woody Allen in "Bananas"

Donald Trump winning the US presidency is considered one of the top 10 risks facing the world, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit.

He is rated as riskier than Britain leaving the European Union or an armed clash in the South China Sea.

It's a start, but he won't stop until he's number one. Number one!
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2016/02/09/us/09live-trumpfoam/09live-trumpfoam-tmagArticle.jpg