Curb Your Authoritarianism? The 2016 Conventional Wisdom Thread (Elections, Part 6)

xps- that's the best deBoer takedown i've ever read, damn... so good

this is amazing to me

Others might do it well or poorly. But Trump isn't doing any of it. There's a Politico story out today about how the RNC gave him the names of twenty big GOP donors to call. He got bored or frustrated and stopped after calling three. And this comes after deciding that he actually doesn't need to raise a billion dollars.

It is increasingly clear that Donald Trump is perfectly happy to be president, as long as he doesn’t have to work for it.

obv not surprising at all

a reversal from George W. Bush, who was perfectly happy to be president as long as he didn't have to work.

c'mon, he cleared all that brush that one time

these fuckin putzes, so doomed:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/17/us/politics/donald-trump-fundraising-gop.html?_r=0

Donald being forced to raise money after all his nonsense in the primary is some delicious irony

I mean how can you not laugh, what a fucktard:
Moreover, while Mr. Trump lent his campaign more than $43 million in the primaries, he has shown little inclination to self-finance his general election campaign in a large-scale way. Yet many Republican fund-raisers have openly questioned why they would donate their money to a candidate who has claimed a net worth of $10 billion.

Did I say $10 billion? Uh, I meant $10 hundred. And half of that is an abstract valuation of my name brand, so see? I really need the money, thanks!

I used to think that Trump campaign volunteers would be the saddest thing ever, followed by Trump campaign donors. Now I'm not so sure. Perhaps it's the other way round.

apologies if this has been posted:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/15/donald-trump-poll-numbers-us-election-hillary-clinton

The suspicion of protesters reached a point at which Trump supporters were informing on each other for not being “real” supporters. One woman pointed security toward a couple sitting quietly in their seats. “Them,” she mouthed.

The couple seemed baffled and denied to a security agent that they were anything but genuine Trump admirers. He waved them toward the exit and said, “Let’s go.”

Afterward the informer, who declined to give her name, grinned as onlookers congratulated her. “I heard one of them say ‘Never Trump’,” she said. “And one held up three fingers, like this.”

She held up her hand in a Boy Scout salute.

What did the three fingers signify?

“I have no idea,” she said.

Probably posted on the mass shooting thread:

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/58885b65cf714811964305b99ca78d93/mccain-obama-directly-responsible-orlando-shooting

Disgusting (and the "I misspoke" clarification doesn't much change that). I hope it helps dispel the idea that McCain was this pillar of virtue in 2008, which is always followed by a cut to him sheepishly telling that woman "No, ma'am, he's an American..." As many have pointed out, he'd been letting that stuff go on for weeks beforehand. He got noble only when the election was clearly not going to go his way. That's when he started cleaning up his image.

I occasionally have some dark, dark thoughts about Trump's supporters that are difficult to square with my generally pacifistic leanings.

Forced sterilization isn't technically violence, right?

that's... p violent

Aw, man.

the bit quoted from the guardian article shows why these kinds of movements inevitably flame out (not without enormous cost, of course)--their rites of purification are inevitably turned inward, the only logical end point is a kind of suicide.

ratfucking suggestion: send ppl to Trump rallies to randomly accuse other ppl in the crowd of being protestors

That would be beautiful. That would be the best ratfucking, absolutely the best.

let me tell you, a lot of people are talking about this ratfucking and really, it's just unbelievable, the rats, the fucking

lol

I don't necessarily believe in this ratfucking but people come up to me every day and say, I can't believe how tremendous the ratfucking would be. It's true. I'm building a wall.

I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my rat, perhaps I’d be fucking her.

ratfeeding suggestion: feed ppl at trump rallies to rats

i have the best rats, they do the best fucking, it's beautiful.

http://www.tuxboard.com/photos/2016/01/send-a-rat-to-donald-720x380.jpg

is the entire trump campaign just an extended advertisement for a new trump tv network?
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/donald-trump-tv-network

well mordy i guess you got your wish somehow, bernie sez everyone should run for office

kind of a weird timing?

https://go.berniesanders.com/page/signup/win?source=160616-livestream

why weird? bc after all the primaries? there's still tons and tons of uncontested seats he can help find ppl to run for, but admittedly would've been happier if he had campaigned for fetterman, been looking for primary challengers, etc.

man I saw that trump media empire coming from a mile away

appreciate the congrats for being right on trump media empire, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!

VP shortlist leaked: http://www.vox.com/2016/6/16/11954878/hillary-clinton-vice-president-veepstakes

Senator Elizabeth Warren (MA), Senator Sherrod Brown (OH), Senator Tim Kaine (VA), Senator Cory Booker (NJ), Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro (TX), Secretary of Labor Tom Perez (MD), Representative Xavier Becerra (CA-34), Representative Tim Ryan (OH-13), and Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles (CA)

No franken :(

If she doesn't select Booker, that'll be good, for it means Booker will lose his will to live and evaporate into a cloud of stale farts over a grave of Atari Democrats.

Man, I sort of wish it was Castro, for all sorts of reasons. I know he was a golden boy for a long time. Has he continued to make good?

Only good thing about Warren, who I love but who Clinton does not really need, is that it would prime her for president, but then again, it could hurt her chances, too, especially if Clinton was a one termer or if she screws up her integrity bona fides by batting too hard for Clinton. It would be weird if they picked her to try to get some lefty support, because of course she would have to temper her progressive talk if she hitched her wagon to Clinton. Do the two have any sort of relationship that anyone knows of? Have they worked together, are they friends?

pulling for castro here too

i don't get why ryan is on the list, just cuz ohio? isnt he a deficit hawk?

a trump network could be a disaster. can you imagine a 24/7 infotainment channel that's /worse/ than fox news?

i mean, it could be a disaster in one or both of two ways

a disaster in the sense that it would fail spectacularly

or a disaster in the sense of, providing a dangerous voice to the fascist element in our society, in a way even more unhinged than fox news

"Mayor of LA" is a choice I like in concept no matter who holds that office; would like to see some mayors run for president.

Man, I sort of wish it was Castro, for all sorts of reasons. I know he was a golden boy for a long time. Has he continued to make good?

http://www.dallasobserver.com/news/will-presidential-reporters-come-here-to-check-julian-castros-record-at-hud-7546888

you be the judge:
"In 2013, after a four-year investigation, HUD found that Lockey and MacKenzie were telling the truth and Dallas was not. HUD found that Dallas had systematically defrauded the federal government over a 10-year period by using money intended for desegregation to fund instead a system of deliberate racial segregation downtown.

Then six months after Castro took office, HUD basically tossed its investigation into the toilet, suggesting that its own investigators hadn’t known what they were doing. Dallas got away with a slap on the wrist and peck on the cheek."

another report, less critical of castro: http://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Castro-dealing-with-scandal-laden-HUD-6532244.php

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2012/09/04/julian-castro-a-radical-revealed/

gotta love this, itll be obama's alinsky/ayers/rev wright shit pt 2

I think everybody, including Warren, agrees that Warren is far more valuable in the senate—especially if there's the prospect the senate will change hands.

Unfortunately, I don't see anybody else on that list that adds even the slightest bit of appeal to the Dem ticket.

not k3vin!

"Mayor of LA" is a choice I like in concept no matter who holds that office; would like to see some mayors run for president.

― Sean, let me be clear (silby), Thursday, June 16, 2016 9:24 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

just be glad rahm emanuel has already been disgraced.

perez seems like the most stand-up guy on the list, but the VP pick is almost wholly symbolic, so a principled policy wonk isn't necessarily a good choice.

i didn't realize the mayor of LA was such a motley mix of ethnicities -- italian/mexican/jewish. it's like he was born to be on a presidential ticket.

(he's already essentially declined btw.)

Mayor of LA isn't much to write home about. The city council has most of the power along with the county supervisors.

I guess for VP being a toothless executive might be beneficial

Only good thing about Warren, who I love but who Clinton does not really need, is that it would prime her for president, but then again, it could hurt her chances, too, especially if Clinton was a one termer or if she screws up her integrity bona fides by batting too hard for Clinton.

Bah - I meant to add that I'm not sure that Clinton managing a two-term presidency wouldn't still be a millstone for Warren - if Obama had picked a black man for VP, how nasty would the campaigns against him be (even in a world where Clinton hadn't a chit that she's cashing in)?

Please please do it

After eight years of largely abstaining from politics, former President George W. Bush is throwing himself into an effort to save his party’s most vulnerable senators, including several whose re-election campaigns have been made more difficult by Donald J. Trump’s presence at the top of the ticket.

In the weeks since Mr. Trump emerged as the party’s presumptive presidential nominee, Mr. Bush has headlined fund-raisers for two Republican senators and has made plans to help three more. Among them are Senators John McCain of Arizona, who was one of Mr. Trump’s earliest targets of derision, and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, who has struggled to respond to Mr. Trump’s inflammatory talk.

Friends say that the former president is deeply bothered by Mr. Trump’s campaign message, especially his derogatory remarks about Muslims and immigrants. At the event with Mr. McCain, Mr. Bush stressed the importance of preserving the Republican-held Senate as a “check and balance” on the White House, suggesting that such a check was needed, whether the next president is Mr. Trump or Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee.