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

"see, MacArthur was just trying to scare the North Koreans so he was talking to Truman about nuking them to scare them"
"how would they know he was doing that"
"let's talk about that wall"

MacArthur & Patton? Surprise surprise, Trump reads Dad books.

trump doesn't read books dude

"Hold that book up," Trump told the man. "That's my second favorite book of all time. You know what my favorite is?" he asked. "The Bible!" he said, giving a thumbs-up. "Nothing beats the Bible, not even The Art of the Deal. Not even close."

these are the words of a non-book reading person

the author at the end was like "plus if its franken thatll make this more entertaining and thats what rly matters 4 me" and i was getting some morbsian apoplexy

The fact that this neverending parade of fuckos is being openly presented (once you get past the True Believers) as Entertainment and Nothing Else is the only charming thing about it. You'd all love a Franken-Christie debate.

who all?

The rabble.

Given that there's an American Psycho revival at full steam (there's an imminent Broadway musical), i'd forgotten that Trump is Patrick Bateman's idol.

http://blogs.bookforum.com/review/2015/08/05/will-the-real-american-psycho-please-stand-up-why-donald-trump-was-patrick-batemans-hero/

the final cut is bad, don't bother

usually don't feel like i need vox to explain this to me but in this case it was v helpful

http://www.vox.com/2016/3/28/11318722/trump-foreign-policy

4) Trump sees himself as applying business savvy to foreign policy, but shows profound ignorance of even basic business concepts
5) Trump just does not understand how foreign policy works

also apologies if this was linked earlier on the thread but today trump actually got challenged on his answers by.. some conservative radio guy in wisconsin
the end of the interview is especially bad where trump just gets more and more petulant about 'well, he started it' re cruz and finally the host says, donald, we're not on a playground, we're running for president

how is it that wolf blitzer and anderson cooper and others get the same kind of answers from trump and just let him keep talking unchallenged?

http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/03/trump-charlie-sykes-interview-221289

Anybody see the anti-trump thing his former communications lead posted?

It's blowing up I guess, despite the fact that she seems like a fucking terrible person as well

yeah i read it - i didn't know how seriously to take it given the source (not her, i mean xojane)

xojane is like the adult version of tumblr or something, i don't think they exert any sort of editorial control

how is it that wolf blitzer and anderson cooper and others get the same kind of answers from trump and just let him keep talking unchallenged?

If you lived in Wisconsin you'd know: Charlie Sykes's job is being a dick and he is really good at his job

i read the xojane piece. it was sort of odd. she is saying that trump is a "fraud," that "the presidential candidate" is just a "character" the same way he claims the misogynistic reality show host was. this is basically what ben carson says, except he uses this argument to justify his endorsement of trump

it's also hard not to hate the writer, who seems to have been trump's publicist or whatever. she keeps saying "i wanted to believe." belive in fucking what?

like, the issue is not that he is a fraud. the issue is that he is a lying, irresponsible, racist, piece of shit

Is there any line to be drawn btwn complaints at all the free press ye complain about trump getting and the observable fact that left to yere own devices he's 80% of yere chosen topic, I wonder

he's like that kid in ubik who absorbs people's life energy. he just keeps expanding, dominating our thoughts and conversations, edging out everything else until, one day, there will be nothing else left

we can't do anything about it. this is a metaphysical situation.

It's just called 'UK' fyi, they leave out British & Irish these days at our request, and that guy might tbf be injured for the euros

Trump talks as if he believed MacArthur had the power to order DEFCON 1. At any rate it fascinates me how Trump cites approvingly a general whose defiance of President Harry Truman is legend as if Trump’s leadership style as perceived by his followers wouldn’t demand the drawing and quartering of Douglas MacArthur.

some Senate Dems wanted to publish an 'open letter' calling on Sanders to quit; Schumer and Mikulski reportedly nayed it

@dick_nixon
Meaning Schumer wants something from Clinton and she isn't playing ball.

(or S and M don't want to alienate Sanders supporters in their states who haven't voted in primaries yet)

I don't like giving this guy more pixels than he's already gotten but still, the point buried in here is crucial:

SANGER: General MacArthur wanted to go use them against the Chinese and the North Koreans, not as a last resort.

TRUMP: That’s right. He did. Yes, well you don’t know if he wanted to use them but he certainly said that at least.

SANGER: He certainly asked Harry Truman if he could.

TRUMP: Yeah, well, O.K.. He certainly talked it and was he doing that to negotiate, was he doing that to win? Perhaps. Perhaps. Was he doing that for what reason? I mean, I think he played, he did play the nuclear card but he didn’t use it, he played the nuclear card. He talked the nuclear card, did he do that to win? Maybe, maybe, you know, maybe that’s what got him victory. But in the meantime he didn’t use them. So, you know.

This is like the ninetieth time this has come up in discussion of the Donaldigensian philosophy: part of his vaunted mad dealmaking skillz is to stake out an extreme position, then negotiate down to where you actually want to be.

"45-percent tariffs [or whatever] on Chinese goods" could be seen as an initial position on the way to a slightly altered trade deficit. "Deport 'em all," then, may just be an initial position on the way to strengthened use of e-Verify and, I guess, streamlined deportation of violent offenders. "Mexico's gonna pay to build a 25-foot goldplated wall" is an initial position on the way to, I dunno, slightly more areas with an eight-foot chain-link fence. "I'm gonna nuke your cities into glowing rubble" is an initial position on the way to "stop shooting at people I like." "Your face is ugly and you suck hobo cock in urine-soaked alleyways" is an initial position on the way to "You're not the right choice for the country, and anyways I'm leading in the polls ha ha! Sad."

On one level, this stuff makes a certain kind of twisted self-consistent sense. Trump's willingness to nudge and wink while giving away the game might even be appealing if he weren't such a horrible human being.

What makes it mind-fuckingly strange is that many of his supporters have heard all this, and they like it: yeah, that's what we need, a dealmaker! That's what we need, someone who fights and fights dirty and is devious with our enemies (both foreign and domestic).

But they have weirdly failed to internalize the lesson. They're somehow mystically certain that he's only bluffing OTHER people, not THEM. When his spew involves stuff they like, they assume THAT is the bit that is sincere; he's only bullshitting the people we don't like. This odd blind spot is, dare I say, yuge.

At any rate it fascinates me how Trump cites approvingly a general whose defiance of President Harry Truman is legend as if Trump’s leadership style as perceived by his followers wouldn’t demand the drawing and quartering of Douglas MacArthur.

trump's leadership style would demand the forcible retirement of harry truman to some missouri dacha

that's all?

looks like paul ryan is getting primary'd.

he is a traitor to the right

well he'll have to be drafted at the convention, then

part of his vaunted mad dealmaking skillz is to stake out an extreme position, then negotiate down to where you actually want to be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azZr1cSu9-4&sns=em

So I spent Easter with some Republican Trump-hating relatives (4 Kasich, 1 Cruz) and gleaned some things. One, Trump is drawing heavily from the "Patriot" population. These people are xenophobic, but how "patriotic" is someone so reckless. He doesn't strike me as particularly patriotic. Makes me wonder what the future is for the right in terms of claiming "America hate" by anyone who doesn't think like them. It's not convincing coming from Trump. So that may be one good thing coming out of this - he's poisoning the jingoism these people engage in. This could be the beginning of the end for that stuff.

read that as "Trump hunting relatives" at first and then my contact lens slid back in place :(

I spent Easter with a League of Shadows

I spent Easter watching my kids on an Easter egg hunt, which was awesome.

Later that evening I had a horrifying neverending gastrointestinal incident so it feels like I spent the day talking about Trump.

huffington post has a fun chart

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-rallies-arrests-and-violence_us_56f17b5ce4b09bf44a9ea5f1

Later that evening I had a horrifying neverending gastrointestinal incident

they're called Cadbury Creme Eggs iirc

Trump aide charged with misdemeanor battery vs. ex-Breitbart reporter

vat a cantry

they're called Cadbury Creme Eggs iirc

Oh man I wish, those things are delicious

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CeuX_ouWwAMDXnK.jpg:large

What am i looking at fred?

I think that's a still shot of Lewandowski grabbing Fields

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/pftdgemefsuratthrerp.gif

btw the comments on that article are a sewer

you should all read them and consider that this may be more than just "trolling" and what that actually means about the country we live in

Robert >>>>>>>> Corey

@ggreenwald
Add George W. Bush's former NSA & CIA Chief - a true pro-torture extremist - to the "Clinton over Trump" club

Alexandra Jaffe
‏@ajjaffe
On @Morning_Joe Gen. Hayden asked to choose btw Trump & Clinton, says "Secretary Clinton is better prepared to handle" national security.

I saw Fran Lebowitz on a Bill Maher clip a few weeks ago talking about she's never liked the Clintons from the get-go ("I knew 'that guy' in high school and didn't like him then") but is voting for Hil anyway, but i couldn't watch more because Gen. Hayden was hogging the panel and i didn't have my Winky Dink crayons to draw [redacted] on his fucking asshole forehead.

Is Greenwald implying that he supports Trump over Clinton there?

no

I wonder what the bigger factor in his support is - that he thinks Hillary is more pro torture than Trump (clearly not) or not wanting Japan to start building nukes.