Buttload of Faith: the 2016 Presidential Primary Thread (Pt 2)

yeah how trump support translates to trump votes is the big question. i do wonder if he's tapping into this segment of the population that didn't bother to vote cuz 'they're all the same' or whatever and now someone's finally saying what needs to be said

it's been funny seeing some of the shitheads that a couple of weeks ago were saying 'we will not accept syrian refugees unless maybe they're christians (not even orphans - it's in the blood!)' now backpeddling and going 'o that was totally different from what trump is saying'

I still wonder how many Trump supporters are Trump voters. I think a statistically significant number of them are fans of Donald Trump, the guy from TV, and go to his rallies in the same spirit one might attend a Nickelback concert.

― the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Tuesday, December 8, 2015 3:28 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Probably also people that have waited their entire lives for a chance to vote against Hillary Clinton.

well they can do that without voting for trump though

Probably also people that have waited their entire lives for a chance to vote against Hillary Clinton.

― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, December 8, 2015

I know these people!

uh well that's why i voted for Obama in the 2008 NY primary and for any minor-party lefty in her Senate races

a charmed life but hoping maybe just once more and not twice

kinda reassuring to see "Trump is a fascist" entering mainstream political lexicon

From what I heard on the radio, Cruz was the one prominent Republican who was basically "None of my business" with regards to Trump today. While I realize a lot of the condemnation is theatrical and purely out of self-interest, I'm glad that was Cruz's reaction--that will surely be a problem for him at some point (i.e., his path to the nomination is different than Trump's, and what Trump is able to glide past won't necessarily help him).

I find Cruz creepier and smarmier than anyone involved in this.

Cruz is definitely positioning himself as the "sane" choice once Trump flames out

hard to say who the GOP Establishment hates more though, him or Trump

Okay, he did say this: "I do not agree with his proposals. I do not think it is the right solution. The right solution I believe is the legislation that I've introduced."

I guess that's okay. But then, hoping to thread the needle and weasel up the middle: "I recognize that a great many folks in the media would prefer that anybody running for president engage as an ongoing theater critic criticizing the proposals of others. I do not believe the world needs my voice added to that chorus of critics."

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/08/politics/ted-cruz-donald-trump-disagreed/index.html

http://esq.h-cdn.co/assets/15/50/980x490/landscape-1449585483-jebby.jpg

^Hopefully this was taken mere second before Jeb! began his Church Lady impression

Jeb... i guess... or whatever you want really it's your call.

xp

jeb's eyes: so flat, blank.

faint ghost of oscar the grouch there

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--sYRxFrhl--/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/hhta5biswz48ky314z8w.jpg

hahaha

"Are you there, God? It's me, Jeb! No, no, not Junior, nor Poppy..."

is that Jeb being lowered into his grave

the ghost of bushes past

http://hyperbole.es/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/jimmy-stewart-vertigo.jpg

he chose

poorly

I really think Trump or Cruz will cause massive downticket damage. You'll get the infamous 27% but "moderates" / "right-leaning independents" will end up staying home - no amount of nose pinching or this so-callled "waiting their whole lives to vote against Hillary" impulse is going to get them to the polls for those dudes.

I definitely fear Cruz more than Trump.

I suspect in the case of a third party run by Trump you'll get a lot of aggrieved and unhelpful complaining from him that the Republicans are stupid sissy men (particularly if they lose their minds and pick Bush). If you're looking for monetisation, perhaps "other than these very good friends of mine".

"Another Republican strategist in Ohio replied to an email asking about Mr. Trump’s effect in the state by sending a link to a Wikipedia page on the 1964 congressional elections, when Barry Goldwater’s presence atop the Republican ticket led the party to lose 36 House seats."

I came across a tidbit that Goldwater's wife Susan was from my hometown and then found out that Susan Goldwater was the founder of Planned Parenthood in Arizona. Considering the politics of the past few months, I found this to be an interesting fact.

barry was prochoice and managed to arrange an abortion for his daughter when they were still illegal. abortion politics don't really line up along party lines until the 80s when the christian coalition really becomes a force. i'm not sure it really became a liability to be pro-life as a democrat until the 90s.

You will still see talking heads mention Goldwater as a father of the modern conservative movement, but this side of his politics seems to be completely forgotten now.

I interviewed Rob Halford of Judas Priest once - he lives in Phoenix, and has served as Grand Marshal of the city's Gay Pride Parade in the past - and he mentioned that Goldwater was his neighbor for quite a while and that they got along very well.

http://i.imgur.com/D5EZ98g.jpg

I would love to see this as a moment where Trump is lambasting Jeb! off-screen, tearing him apart for being the one Bush who lost in '94, for losing Elian and letting Teri die, for not being able to say whether he would approve the war in Iraq now or not....

ZOOM IN REAL QUICK into the pupil of Jeb!'s eye and ZOOM OUT REAL QUICK, and he's still standing there with the same expression - except it's 1970, he's chubby with long hair, and it's Dubya who's offscreen, tearing him apart with swagger about how he fucked up at Yale, disappointed Poppy by getting caught with weed, and Mom's still not sure about this Mexican chick he's just ~~so in love~~ with, right Jebb? Right? Voices start getting echo-y....

Trump coyly tweeting independent-run poll numbers

(which suggest he might get 10% in November)

I would love to see this as a moment where Trump is lambasting Jeb! off-screen, tearing him apart for being the one Bush who lost in '94, for losing Elian and letting Teri die, for not being able to say whether he would approve the war in Iraq now or not....

ZOOM IN REAL QUICK into the pupil of Jeb!'s eye and ZOOM OUT REAL QUICK, and he's still standing there with the same expression - except it's 1970, he's chubby with long hair, and it's Dubya who's offscreen, tearing him apart with swagger about how he fucked up at Yale, disappointed Poppy by getting caught with weed, and Mom's still not sure about this Mexican chick he's just ~~so in love~~ with, right Jebb? Right? Voices start getting echo-y....

― pplains, Tuesday, December 8, 2015 8:56 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

A++++

Cruz w/ his denial mania on NPR

http://www.npr.org/2015/12/09/459026242/scientific-evidence-doesn-t-support-global-warming-sen-ted-cruz-says

does anybody seriously think trump won't run as an independent if he doesn't get the nom? the republicans lost the election the second he entered the race.

Time for Jeb to seize the initiative by announcing Trump as his VP pick.

I have just had a vision of a Cruz Presidency with Trump as the Secretary of State - it was mostly a mushroom cloud in the shape of a combover.

cruz has said he'll have job in his administration, maybe as a trade negotiator because he's a master negotiator doncha know, but tellingly kinda sidestepped any veep or actual cabinet position possibility

This may be a total duh question, but is it safe to assume that, in many cases, conservative climate change denial goes hand-in-hand with a desire to hasten the end times? I know it's also heavily informed by the need to MAKE ALL OF THE MONEY NOW BY ANY MEANS, but it's starting to seem less like greed-induced myopia than an active desire to commit slow suicide.

Like, plugging your ears and laughing at the tree-hugging liberal hippies stopped making any sense once we started regularly breaking weather records.

Man, I thought I was joking.

I can't think that Trump was take a subservient position though?

This may be a total duh question, but is it safe to assume that, in many cases, conservative climate change denial goes hand-in-hand with a desire to hasten the end times?

Only in the US.

Almost seems to be little more than desire to troll people in the UK, that and money of course.

I heard that argument made during the Bush years. Not all conservatives are Christians though.

The US is the only large country where a major party has climate change denial as a policy plank, though?

I don't think most climate change denial is weirdo religious Rapture-hunger. That's a pretty fringe view even on the right. I also don't think that pure money-making greed is realistically in play for most right-wing people. Only a tiny fraction of them are actual Captains of Extractive Industry. Most people work in boring office jobs, the service sector, etc.

It's more the inchoate perceived conceptual threat posed by "Pussies" (hippies, metrosexuals, liberals, vegetarians, socialists, latte-drinkers, academics, government bureaucrats, geeks, the media) who want to curtail their precious manly FREEDOM.

This perceived curtailment of FREEDOM may mean anything from driving a big-ass F150 with single-digit gas mileage, to eating a three-pound steak for dinner every night, to shooting defenseless bunnies for fun.

Climate change denial is primarily motivated by "Them damn pansies want to ruin my fun, and I'm gonna resist those panty-waist fun-ruiners at every turn." It is misguided machismo transmuted into political policy.

I listened to a Cruz interview in NPR this morning. His climate change denial, which I assume is pretty much GOP boilerplate, is a combination of:

1. It wasn't that long ago scientists were predicting a new ice age
2. It's an attempt to control the economy by Dems and their cronies
3. Solyndra

Yeah, right-wing climate denialism has always seemed to me to be a pretty transparent combo of its standard anti-intellectualism plus red-baiting/pro-capitalism dogma.

There is also a desire to resist change, both any further change and reversing existing changes - the GOP are the "Everything was better in the old days" party - ironically this is the one aspect they're right about.

puffin otm. there's money (for a very few), there's randian makers/takers bullshit about government interference, there's no-knothingism directed at 'so-called experts', but mainly it's that if obama and al gore are for it then it must be stopped because Team

Mookie: yep.

Oddly, I have more ability to understand/empathize with a climate change denier who actually stands to lose something tangible due to environmental laws/regulations. I mean, as opposed to Generic Exurban Red-State Frontiersman. His climate change denial is more about knee-jerk hatred of liberals and what liberals are presumed to stand for. He may be an ammosexual with a boner for Palin, but it's unlikely that climate change denial helps him in any real economic way.

Yr actual farmer, fisherman, oilman, rancher, coal miner, fracker? Or people who work in those industries? They're still wrong, but at least they're overtly pursuing an agenda that relates to recognizable vested self-interest (however short-sighted it may be).