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

lol

“Clinton is going to face a divided government unless there is a total tsunami,” said one moderate Washington Democrat with close ties to the banking industry. “What you want in a vice president is someone who can negotiate for you on the Hill, someone like Joe Biden. And that is not a Warren strength.”

the Joe Biden who pushed for more sequestration

Please please please let there be someone at the heart of Trump's campaign who's taking copious notes from the inside so they can write an amazing book when the dust has settled.

You'd have to think that's the reason half the people on his staff have agreed to work for the campaign.

my guess is he's got people signing NDAs

He wants the sweet book deals all to himself

Only the sweetest. The best deals.

"I wouldn't call it a pivot, because that makes it sound like it’s a big move. The campaign has always been about the Mexican heroin problem and schools that don't work and government that is wasteful and people who can't find jobs and no one is getting a raise. That’s kind of things this campaign has been about over a year. We need to talk about that more for sure."

Literally three matches on Google for "'Mexican heroin problem' Trump"

it just seems like something someone who watched a lot of action movies from 1982 to 1994 would say

Jason Pargin/David Wong has mentioned repeatedly that part of the issue is that in every narrative these guys have consumed for decades, from Jack Ryan to Jack Bauer, the problem is always solved and the people saved by a good guy with a gun.

Now I'm flashing back to scene in Tom Clancy's Partriot Games, where Jack Ryan is grilled why he didn't wound the bad guy with a gun instead of straight offing him, and Jack replies that it's not like it is in the movies.

We really should send all of our good guys with guns overseas. They'd have this terrorism problem wrapped up in like an afternoon without a single casualty among them.

Well, his campaign manager's gone.

feel like every day there is some bad/ridiculous news from the Trump campaign

He was a chief promoter of the idea that the best campaign strategy was to "Let Trump be Trump."

Best strategy for Democrats, yes.

Is there any way to stop Trump from being Trump though?

According to one source, Lewandowski's departure comes amid a sense of disorder within the campaign and Lewandowski taking much of the blame for it. The source said he was under fire for blocking hires, refusing to install more traditional elements of the campaign and generally causing friction.

How much was this guy being his own asshole, and how much was direction from above?

I hope this doesn't mean that the Trump campaign is getting it's shit together

why start now

if they have one more last chance to get their shit together, this would be it

That ship has sailed. Trump has had amazing success "running" a ramshackle clusterfuck of a campaign. Anyone who comes in now and starts telling him he needs to do things differently is gonna get steamrollered.

Both of these are amazing, like he is running a major campaign with minimal effort.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/clinton-camp-outspends-trump-battleground-states

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/under-the-hood

Add in his reportedly light fundraising and refusal to ask for money, and it's like he's running a cost/benefit experiment.

Oh, and now the dude who said this:

"If in that club, you had some people, not a lot of people ... but if you had somebody with a gun strapped on to their hip, somebody with a gun strapped on to their ankle and you had bullets going in the opposite direction, right at this animal who did this, you would have had a very, very different result."

Claims he meant this:

"When I said that if, within the Orlando club, you had some people with guns, I was obviously talking about additional guards or employees."

What a shit.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ClRzW-aVYAAMipF.jpg

Gawker: Is it funny that you worked for Romney in 2012, and now you’re working for someone he strongly dislikes?

Scaramucci: I did use the Game of Thrones analogy—I basically said that it looks like your dad just got slayed by your uncle, and you’re super mad at your uncle for that and probably for other reasons, but he’s controlling the castle now, and so you better figure this out, because the White Walkers, which are basically the zombies in the show, are coming from the North. Winter is coming, and you’ve got to figure it out. A lot of unpredictable things happened in the Republican party, but I think the notion that we’re gonna demonize Donald Trump or we’re gonna mischaracterize him is completely unfair. I would also say that I don’t spend any time demonizing Secretary Clinton. For me this is a battle of ideas, this is a battle of policy...

a pithy, elegant analogy, that. we will miss the days when everybody communicated only in sports lingo.

if they have one more last chance to get their shit together, this would be it

― ejemplo (crüt), Monday, June 20, 2016 11:24 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That ship has sailed. Trump has had amazing success "running" a ramshackle clusterfuck of a campaign. Anyone who comes in now and starts telling him he needs to do things differently is gonna get steamrollered.

― Manspread Mann (Old Lunch), Monday, June 20, 2016 11:26 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Are you guys saying that merely because you want it to be true? There is still an entire general election campaign ahead of us and Trump has proven that anything possible and nobody is safe from evil.

Both of these are amazing, like he is running a major campaign with minimal effort.

It's because he honestly is, by all accounts. He has no idea what he's doing and he refuses to listen to anyone who does. It's wonderful.

xpost No, I'm saying that because Trump is a narcissist, and the only apparent route to swaying his opinion is to appeal to his ego. Common-sense suggestions on how to run his campaign more traditionally (i.e. in a way that has any chance of success) will almost certainly entail him curbing his ego, which is why they will be met with dismissal.

so long as we're using sports lingo, it's like when people say one team is obviously gonna steamroll in the playoffs (*cough cough Warriors*) based on regular season results, then when the playoffs come and things start happening you start thinking, oh wow that was sooo long ago

I mean if Trump had actually straightened out/became more "presidential" or whatever by now, I think a lot of people would've forgotten about some of the uglier moments. But he's dumb and just keeps piling on/doubling down

I am not talking about whether America is safe from Trump. I am talking about the Trump campaign's capacity for competence.

like, maybe in a month, if Trump can stop saying/doing things, a lot of this may seem very far in the past for general election voters

xxxpost Like, he would have to accidentally latch onto a campaign manager who was both savvy enough to both run the campaign in a productive way and make it all seem like every decision was Trump's amazing idea all along.

xpost No, I'm saying that because Trump is a narcissist, and the only apparent route to swaying his opinion is to appeal to his ego. Common-sense suggestions on how to run his campaign more traditionally (i.e. in a way that has any chance of success) will almost certainly entail him curbing his ego, which is why they will be met with dismissal.

― Manspread Mann (Old Lunch), Monday, June 20, 2016 11:45 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Someone convinced him to read off a teleprompter recently, and he is very confusingly suggestible. I'm sure he'll accommodate certain suggestions but yeah perhaps that won't last.

https://twitter.com/DanaBashCNN/status/744917430200340480
https://twitter.com/gabrielsherman/status/744913178551853059

Yeah, I was just going to link to this, where HamNo is chatting with Trump's Wall Street guy:

http://gawker.com/donald-trumps-man-on-wall-street-explains-himself-1782159605

With his GoT analogy, d'ya think the guy knows enough real-world medieval European history and what sometimes actually happens to the king's advisors when the king was offed?

http://g.christianbook.com/dg/product/cbd/f400/12497.jpg

this book is great, i might send him a copy

I would choose Jesus over Donald Trump, probably.

https://twitter.com/DanaBashCNN/status/744917430200340480
https://twitter.com/gabrielsherman/status/744913178551853059

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Monday, June 20, 2016 10:51 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lmao PALACE COUP

Someone convinced him to read off a teleprompter recently, and he is very confusingly suggestible. I'm sure he'll accommodate certain suggestions but yeah perhaps that won't last.

― Evan, Monday, June 20, 2016 10:50 AM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It can be difficult to find the line separating his pigheaded determination to be Trump cranked to eleven and his almost childlike suggestibility, but I maintain that it's all about appeal to his ego. Right now, his supporters (the loudest and largest and most ego-stroke-y of the parties that have Trump's ear) want rancor and racism and fear-mongering and sub-literate strings of unrelated words that they can interpret however they like. They also want Trump to keep doing things his way and to buck the system and to show DC where they can stick it. No one who comes into his campaign and suggests that that's a losing strategy is likely to gain much ground.

Put more succinctly: the supporters want Extreme Trump, and any dilution of the extremity is going to be like chum in the water to that pack of savages.

The supporters are already on board though, if he starts acting like a politician they'll probably say "he's gotta do wuh he's gotta do" understanding that the real Trump wouldn't stop being himself when it counts.

https://twitter.com/Bencjacobs/status/744927967868948480

Hearing that Lewandowski had trying to plant negative stories about Jared Kushner in recent weeks in attempt to sideline Trump's son-in-law

https://twitter.com/wbznewsradio/status/744928383822233601

Sources tell @DanaBashCNN that @IvankaTrump and husband #JaredKushner wanted campaign mgr. @CLewandowski_ fired, got their wish.

heads up, gonna be some good content from the alt-right today

they'd have to admit ivanka is jewish first

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ClaHS8FWQAIWtPY.jpg

I don't think the middle one is his. The other two, I buy.

Jennifer Lawrence and two well dressed Groundhogs?

the resemblance becomes clearer without makeup: http://www.eonline.com/eol_images/Entire_Site/2012918/1024.ivanka.mh.101812.jpg

Common-sense suggestions on how to run his campaign more traditionally (i.e. in a way that has any chance of success)

His success so far has been unconventionally attained. He can claim (not without justification) that the "traditional" way is the way of losing losers who lose. Why should he listen to traditional advisers advising him on how things are traditionally done?

(All this said, of course, as a bitter foe who hopes he doesn't suddenly acquite a chance of success.)

(And, pace DJP, with an awareness of how awful his candidacy is, win or lose - but his losing abysmally is surely better, right?)

Trump's sons look like an amalgam of every dude who ever told someone to stop hitting themselves.

(And, pace DJP, with an awareness of how awful his candidacy is, win or lose - but his losing abysmally is surely better, right?)

http://www.wcvb.com/news/police-man-with-hammer-shouts-racial-slurs-attacks-teens-at-revere-beach/40130564

the damage may already be done

Are you guys saying that merely because you want it to be true? There is still an entire general election campaign ahead of us and Trump has proven that anything possible and nobody is safe from evil.
― Evan, Monday, June 20, 2016 10:41 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this. it’s incredibly unlikely he’ll win, but i hope nobody gets too cocky or comfortable.

i want Hillary to win this by 20% or more*

*no, that doesn't mean I'm enthusiastic about Hillary. this is, sadly perhaps, no longer about her.

DJP, i fear the effect of trump even when (and before) he loses, but i don't think that individual incident really makes the case for his influence.