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

that's the part of Frank's thinking that's always resonated. Unlike the candidate of his choice, he has worked and was in the minority for half his public life using amendment. That's the part of his criticism of Sanders that sounds bat shit .

*amendments

Krugman especially sharp today with his analysis of the deer-in-the-headlights reaction of the Republican establishment to the rise of Trump:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/03/30/the-pathos-of-republican-reformers

that politico franken article was already posted, and some of y'all liked it!

― global tetrahedron, Thursday, March 31, 2016 10:53 AM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh sorry, i know that's a bad habit on these threads

ftr I didn't open it the first time

I missed my window to post this earlier

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/d8/AlFranken_WhyNotMe.jpg/220px-AlFranken_WhyNotMe.jpg

The initial Franken post gave me big LOLs just because I imagined the snit my mother would have if it happened.

Facebook is summarizing that Barney Frank interview as "Barney Frank: Former Congressman Expresses Disinterest in Seeing 'The Big Short' in Interview" for me.

E.J. Dionne is not a statistician, not does he have a perfect track record as an astute observer of the political moment. However I thought this piece was worth some eyeball time:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-great-trump-distortion/2016/03/30/3f93792a-f6a6-11e5-8b23-538270a1ca31_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-f%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

Basically, Trump is currently eating up the airwaves not because he's popular, but because cameras like to follow whatever's in motion. It doesn't mean that Trump or Trumpian ideas are popular. In fact, Obama's popularity eclipses Donald's, yet Obama is widely thought to be an unpopular and failed President.

Obama’s approval rating is at 89 percent with Democrats and 50 percent among independents. But it stands at only 12 percent with Republicans and 9 percent among conservative Republicans. Yet the voices of conservative Republicans are being amplified beyond all reason by the obsession with Trump and the GOP’s struggles.

So the people speaking loudest say Obama sucks, so that attitude gets more headlines. No one is interviewing the people who think he's more or less okay. Got it.

Back to the Hateful Yam:

A March 16-21 Quinnipiac poll found that Trump was viewed favorably by 62 percent of Republicans but only 34 percent of independents and 6 percent of Democrats. His overall favorability rating: 33 percent. In the case of Trump, affection is mostly a Republican phenomenon.... Trumpism is not sweeping the nation. It has a strong foothold only in the Republican Party, and not even all of it.

I don't mean "Democrats, relax because it's in the bag," but rather "Democrats, relax (a little) because this ridiculousness is still a niche phenomenon." The people with the loudest voices still only get one vote each.

The remarks on caucuses are pretty otm, though.

― Frederik B, Thursday, March 31, 2016 1:04 AM (8 hours ago)

The part where he accused participants of having a lot of time on their hands?

yet Obama is widely thought to be an unpopular and failed President.

by GOP rabble maybe

frank is being his usual Good Dem and basically trotting out all of the usual pro-HRC anti-bernie talking points, but his point that caucuses are dumb and less democratic than primaries is definitely right. that said i do think bernie's success in caucuses is heavily confounded by the demographics of states that happen to hold caucuses, something i haven't seen enough people point out

Οὖτις, precisely, see above. To borrow a bit from George Saunders, if you're in a room with ten people and one guy has a megaphone, you're going to remember his opinions more than those of the people quietly speaking in the corner.

Terrific read: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2016_03/how_barack_obama_destroyed_the060108.php

these "'Silent' 'Majority' Stands With Trump" signs are just the best. these idiots are certainly NOT a majority, and for the love of fuck they are not silent - irl or online. i've never seen a group of people so loud and incapable of shutting tfu.

barney frank, barty frack, party hack

though the Bernie superfans certainly give them a run for their money ;)

xpost

trump is only on top because the rest of the GOP field is historically weak and terrible at being politicians/standing strong on their own bonafides/not allowing themselves to be drawn into a knife fight in a voting booth with yam.

From Krugman:

After all, what is the modern GOP? A simple model that accounts for just about everything you see is that it’s an engine designed to harness white resentment on behalf of higher incomes for the donor class.

Of course, ilx says roughly the same thing on a near-daily basis, but this formulation is exceptionally pithy. A bit of paring down and it's a tweet.

nomar - but Huckabee told me this was the A Team!

will - yes, but let's not tell them just yet. This is juvenile and spiteful but perhaps it's okay to have them think they are an uncounted legion until circumstances force them to realize they are not so.

he's usually not that memorable a writer so I'm especially impressed

the A Team with nothing but murdocks

i know you all love the markets so...

trump down from 81 to 66 for the gop nom this week

Terrific read

will dig into this and looks like good reportage at first glance but ugh that headline

A good read.

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/the-only-thing-that-matters/

The new map, as you will see, does not show a close and competitive general election. The Republicans now find themselves in a deep hole.

... and >1 vote at the convention has gone from 40% to 70% in the same time

are the rapid polling shifts mostly based on his poor wisconsin numbers?

are the polling shifts based on polling shifts?

or do you mean the betting markets? if so, who knows what they are based on, but they do not usually move this quickly absent an actual election reporting a result

i meant the betting markets. it's hard to imagine it moving bc of something he said - you'd think if all the other things he said didn't sink him the latest thing wouldn't either.

Punishing women for abortions does seem to have had an impact that the other enormities didn't, coming in the same week as the lewandowski thing and the cruz's wife stuff.

Ps I think this is the first time in my life I used the word "enormity" correctly and I realise this post is valueless punditry but I didn't want to pass up the opportunity.

Potential Trump supporters have quite possibly never interacted with members of the other groups that Trump has slagged off but chances are pretty good that they've been acquainted with a woman or two. And, yeah, he's always been a misogynist but the past week has been an impressively-sustained assault on that front.

People just need to keep calling him on it so that, unlike most other human beings who would eventually back down and possibly even apologize, he'll keep doubling down with his mealy mouthed "who knows, that pen could've been a bayonet" bullshit and dig the hole deeper.

(I just found within myself a deep desire to stage a faux production of Waiting For Godot with all of Beckett's dialogue replaced with Trump quotes.)

The amazing thing about his abortion comments is that he managed to piss off both pro- and anti-choice people in equal measure.

(I just found within myself a deep desire to stage a faux production of Waiting For Godot with all of Beckett's dialogue replaced with Trump quotes.)

it would be amazing if you got the script off your shelf and realized that trump had been exclusively quoting beckett's dialogue all along

He's like soft porn. People who don't like porn find him offensive and people who do like porn can tell he doesn't really mean what he's saying.

@HillaryClinton
Some folks may have the luxury to hold out for “the perfect.” But a lot of Americans are hurting right now and they can’t wait for that.

@dick_nixon
"What the hell else are you going to do?" At least they came out and said it.

He's like soft porn. People who don't like porn find him offensive and people who do like porn can tell he doesn't really mean what he's saying.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Thursday, March 31, 2016 2:37 PM (46 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

However, watching shit emerge from a orifice surrounded by weird looking skin is more hardcore porn.

The amazing thing about his abortion comments is that he managed to piss off both pro- and anti-choice people in equal measure.

― Check Yr Scrobbles (Moodles), Thursday, March 31, 2016 1:20 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he's just punctured their bullshit smokescreen that they are interested in protecting the "wellbeing of women" like those fake ass "pregnancy health counceling" centers they put in vacant corner store locations in the city.

cruz will be much worse on women's right to choose because unlike trump he actually gives a fuck about his horrific "principles" where as trump might see a shiny quarter on the ground get distracted and forget he ever said that, then deny he ever did if it comes up again

that last point is why Cruz is scarier/more dangerous across the board

yep

and why in no way in fucking hell he can be elected, along with being disliked by his party and being physically repellent

also yep

barring some catastrophe or people being so relieved that the Republicans bait/switched at the convention to a candidate less blatantly crazy that the reward their strongarming with votes, the Democratic primary is the actual election this time

obv IMO and I make no guesses about congressional races but unless the country is a lot more shameless than I think it is, whoever wins the Democratic nomination will be the next President

would cruz or trump yield a bigger democratic win? who would have the bigger down-ticket effect?

i instinctively thought Trump, a lot of people don't know/care about Cruz and he wouldn't inspire as much anti-turnout
but then how many Republicans/"independents" will just stay home if Trump isn't the nominee, either...

I have no idea tbh. I never thought DT would make it this far in the first place so I can't feel comfortable making bold predictions about anything other than "he has already secured 90% of the votes he would get in a general election"; Cruz is, as has been noted, the most despised person in the running who could still be thought of as an establishment figure so I can't imagine that his name at the top of the ballot would reflect well on other Republicans downticket unless the person voting has only seen the DT clown show and has never paid attention to a single thing Cruz has ever said or done.

my hunch now is trump, so i'm hoping he noisily clings on

p.s. if you make an incorrect prediction about this election you're not allowed to post in the 2020 thread