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

it's coded language

when I read that response, especially the last sentence, I thought, "Name names, Greil."

noted political social scientist greil marcus

This will get ridiculed

this man knows ilx

a vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton as nominee is a vote for irrationality and fear, by the way.

greil marcus' record speaks for itself

For weeks, all of the indicators, measurements, polls and calculations have pointed to an Obama victory, even an overwhelming rout. But while I read the polls many times a day and half believe them — believe them all, the poll that has Obama leading by 15 as much as I believe the poll on the same day that has him leading by 2 — I also believe absolutely none of it. My whole life, my upbringing, education, travel and talk, from working in Congress as an intern at the height of the civil rights movement in the mid-1960s to every election in which I’ve ever voted, makes it all but impossible for me to believe that, on Tuesday, a single state will turn its face toward the face of a black man and name him president of the United States.

lol

For personal reasons, I promised myself I wasn't going to defend Marcus anymore, so I think I'll sit this one out.

Curious, Οὖτις--what was your own prognosis early on for Trump's chances of winning the nomination?

that reminds me of the guy who told me with absolute confidence in 2007 that giuliani would be our next president.

xpost

In re: Obama, I think Marcus' point was that he was in a state of disbelief, not that the polls were wrong.

Curious, Οὖτις--what was your own prognosis early on for Trump's chances of winning the nomination?

as is well documented on these threads, I thought he would flame out for any number of reasons - saying something beyond the pale, refusing to reveal his finances, some other kind of scandal/criminal charges. Will happily admit I was totally wrong and underestimated how much free media time + weak/uncoordinated establishment response + popularity of demagoguery would work in his favor. In retrospect greater credence should have been given to how well Trump polled w primary audience, right from the day he announced.

Primaries, however, are not the general election where a lot of other factors are in play, and none of them favor Trump.

not a lot of minority voters in GOP primaries, for one thing

Don't disagree with any of that, and don't disagree that Trump's chances of winning a general are miniscule, barring unforeseen events. But miniscule and impossible aren't the same thing, and unforeseen events do happen.

Okay, I'll break my rule--I don't think it's fair to remove that 2008 Marcus quote from its context (starting right with the headline, which in this case may have been Marcus's suggestion) and treat it like a Real Clear Politics prediction.

http://www.salon.com/2008/11/03/obama_71/

even ignoring his extreme politics, most people just really don't like Donald Trump and the Americans who loathe the guy aren't gonna suddenly stop loathing him. we're kinda lucky he *is* Donald Trump and not a more affable extremist politician.

guess Palin's out as potential VP: https://www.yahoo.com/tv/sarah-palin-daytime-court-tv-show-development-200702957.html

Unlike other court television personalities, Palin does not hold a law degree...she has a “telegenic personality, wide appeal and common sense wisdom make her a natural for this kind of format.”

You don't need to reword that much to imagine an identical conversation among McCain people in 2008--the format was VP there.

I feel like I'm in an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm here

MARCUS: You told us in the debate that you guaranteed there was not another problem. Was that presidential? And why did you decide to do that?
TRUMP: I don’t know if it was presidential, honestly, whether it is or not. He said, ‘Donald Trump has small hands and therefore he has small something else.’ I didn’t say that. And all I did is when he failed, when he was failing, when he was, when Christie made him look bad, I gave him the– a little recap and I said, and I said, and I had this big strong powerful hand ready to grab him, because I thought he was going to faint. And everybody took it fine. Whether it was presidential or not I can’t tell you. I can just say that what he said was a lie. And everybody, they wanted to do stories on my hands; after I said that, they never did. And then I held up the hand, I showed people the hand. You know, when I’ve got a big audience.

imagine if Ruth Marcus had asked those questions.

I feel like Trump will probably be annihilated in the general but the media will try SO FUCKING HARD to make it look as close as possible for $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ purposes

His will be a campaign that never ends, even after it's ended.

i read marcus's state-of-disbelief article at the time and got what he meant but i can't help reading it a little differently since he said on his website a while back that he was a clinton supporter that year

why are people reading greil marcus on the presidential election anyway? i wouldn't read charlies pierce on the latest postpunk throwback girl band from the pacific northwest.

if i recall the last time charles pierce wrote about music it was to complain that country music just ain't what it used to be

Maybe someone else would be kind enough to field that very strange question.

That Charles Pierce article btw: http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a19774/affordable-care-act-country-music-awards-110713/

GOP establishment's gonna get behind Trump for the most part, and then the party's gonna get crushed in the election, and the war between the rank and file and the "establishment" will revert to prior status - the establishment saying "see? we told you he was a loser!" and the base saying "you sold us out!" Rinse and repeat

Way late, but fwiw I think this is right. Tru-con Cruzophiles are going to say "you should have gone with the real deal conservative, not the ersatz latecomer with the ridiculous hair, who only speaks conservatism as a second language." Trumpers are going to say, "Trump would have won if you tru-cons hadn't thrown a snit fit and sabotaged him because he was insufficiently establishment-friendly." Rinse and repeat for basically ever as the grecian entity says.

One might have have preferred the Cruz v. Sanders election, both for its clarifying fire, and to put at least some woulda-coulda arguments out of business, but it's doubtful that will happen at this point.

It's not like Trump's fooling the whole country or anything--maybe 40% of his party ("of his party" not exactly accurate) believes everything he says, the other 60% doesn't, a large part of that 60% is scrambling around to prevent him from getting the nomination, and most of the rest of the country sees him as the buffoon he is.

Ah but rather it is not so much people believing what he says. Rather, they don't care - I mean literally you can see people saying "he may not mean it, but it's a better lie than I've heard from any other politician. And if it turns out that he was full of shit, well, then, I'm no worse off than I was with the last several GOP nominees." This is a real position and you can see it on display here http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=362284. Another form of this is "He's crude but he's what we need. He may not mean what he says, but if he's a catalyst for destroying the country-club Republican set, great. If he gets lucky and also destroys the media and Democrats (but I repeat myself), so much the better."

No, they don't think he's genuine, but they also don't care, because he has the right enemies. And he's doing god's good work by destroying the establishment GOP - which is hated only SLIGHTLY less than the MSM and liberal democrats (which are assumed to be the same thing).

http://gawker.com/word-trump-written-in-chalk-terrifies-harms-emory-st-1766477207

believe me, believe me, it's very true

i'm relieved too, except whatshername will be the most goddamn right-wing Democratic prez of your lifetime

an antiphonal chant addressed to University administration, led by College sophomore Jonathan Peraza, resounded “You are not listening! Come speak to us, we are in pain!” throughout the Quad.

ah, college

YMP: After I posted that, I was thinking the same thing--that even a lot of the 40% who support Trump probably don't believe a lot of what he says, they instead like him for some of the reasons you cite. Which is in keeping with my main point: after months of watching Trump being interviewed, I think that trying to pin him down, or get him to explain anything, or (the idea's laughable) catch him in a contradiction, is utterly pointless. People react to him, pro and con, on a whole other plane.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CeMpdcsW8AAXbeT.jpg

um

^_^

he hasn't done nearly as much actual damage as plenty of actual presidents but I hate him like you'd hate somebody who directly did you wrong

we should have stopped him back when he was just a charismatically awful real-estate tycoon making cameos in mainstream comedies

http://40.media.tumblr.com/aee5ccdcf03b2505e6627a1205e660ae/tumblr_n6k2h3nHA91sj2zr4o1_1280.jpg

http://www.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx

so.. trump gets 80 or so percent of republicans but republicans are only 26% of registered voters.. add in the registered independents who are basically republicans and you only have 40% of voters

so far i'm still trusting those who are looking at the math and finding the path for trump in the general is almost impossible. was reading some GOP strategists (who are against trump and not involved in this race and pontificating on tv and twitter mostly).. there aren't enough angry white guys/hidden reagan democrats for trump to win. romney got a higher share of that vote than reagan did, it's not enough

i guess i do worry about some wild card prior to the election like the fall 2008 market crash but.. well, who was going to trust mccain in a crisis once he picked palin to be second in line to the presidency.. and who's going to trust trump in a crisis? not enough people for him to benefit

wow that's a seriously low down threat from trump there

poor lady is married to ted cruz, leave her alone

i don't think a trump presidency is impossible. i can think of numerous scenarios where he beats hillary in the general. but i think it's really improbable and being as how there are probable things to feel anxiety over i'm not going to budget for the chance that a bigger than 9/11 attack propels trump to the wh. (on that note - i was thinking today that hillary's hawk-ish rhetoric may actually soften that. it's reasonable to vote for hillary and believe she would rigorously defend the nation in whatever reptilian portion of the brain americans use to evaluate threats.)

Wow--it's gotta be something Goldman-Sachs related with Cruz's wife. Maybe he can tie her to Hillary and wrap it all up in one neat bundle, addressed to oblivion. (I don't really mean that, I just like to quote Sweet Smell of Success.)

yeah trying to run to hillary's right on foreign policy is probably not the most efficient way to exploit a weakness in her xp

esp when it's not easy to do convincingly

let's say there's a huge domestic incident next feb and americans are just insanely demanding whoever is in the wh respond with a significant show of military force (no opinion about whether such a response would be wise or not). i'd feel safer with hillary in the wh than trump - not just in terms of not being as hawkish, but just in terms of picking intelligent responses, developing strategies, leading the armed forces with some sense of discipline + insight.

Trump causing pain to Emory undergrads

and an antiphonal chant addressed to University administration, led by College sophomore Jonathan Peraza, resounded “You are not listening! Come speak to us, we are in pain!” throughout the Quad. Peraza opened the door to the Administration Building and students moved forward towards the door, shouting “It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”

omg i was thinking about posting that in the creepy liberal free speech thread. administration is reviewing tape and going to discipline the students who did it.

trump on chalk so scary it causes pain to kids paying $63k a year for four years of overnight camp

have we talked about how disgusting cruz + trump's responses to brussels has been or do we already feel they're so repulsive it's not worth mentioning

he hasn't done nearly as much actual damage as plenty of actual presidents but I hate him like you'd hate somebody who directly did you wrong

― tremendous crime wave and killing wave (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Tuesday, March 22, 2016 9:12 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

So supremely OTM. There are garbage people, sure, but then there are garbage people who inspire other garbage people to be more garbagey and who aspire to spread their garbage as far as their garbage minds can conceive and to make everything just a little more garbagey and who then whine about being treated very, very badly by the sick people who deign to call them out for being pretty much the living embodiment of garbage and for not giving a shit about anything or anyone that isn't similarly garbagey.