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

...or Daniel Plainview's.

This is a beautiful gem from a CNN story about whether Trump is hurting himself (let's hope!):

Trump's free flowing style and unconventional political persona played a key role in his success in dispatching what had been billed as the most talented crop of Republican primary candidates in a generation.

can't read either due to article limits, good job old media

Try using private/incognito mode

I saw that spin many times during the early stages of the campaign, and I have to think even many GOP party faithful realized that was bullshit, and that part of Trump's appeal was his ability to bully and belittle them and show them up as UNtalented. (Of course many of them are now crawling back to him...) xp

Alternatively

https://i.imgur.com/j1F9yXZ.gif

xp

I thought it was generally accepted at this point that Trump clambered to the top of the republican heap because a) name recognition, b) no one took him seriously until it was too late, and c) this was arguably the least talented crop of Republican primary candidates in a generation (and certainly the most 'who's that?' crop as far as the general public is concerned). Oh and also d) super racist, you can't even believe how racist.

I got the impression that if you were following political news at all (even if you were ignoring horse-race stuff), you'd probably have heard of Cruz, Rubio, Bush, Carson, Fiorina, Perry, Santorum - though the last two from their time in the spotlight last time.

having a super-crowded field splitting the traditional conservative vote while you rake in 100% of the crazy racist shitbag vote definitely helped matters a bit

Carson was new to the political stage, Fiorina was a washed-up corporate type who'd lost a Senate race years ago, Perry was a major loser from last time - Bush, Rubio, and Walker were the people with the hype around them before Trump jumped in the ring. Maybe Santorum I guess. Cruz was radioactive to party types. Then there were the further "second-tier debate only" clown-car characters... the notion that these sixteen people were some murderer's row of all-star Republican talent is laughable. I'm not sure if they have great candidates waiting in the wings but if they did they'd probably have stayed home to avoid facing Hillary Clinton. The people who were supposed to be the front-runners turned out to have baggage they couldn't get around and/or really awful campaign/debate skills, with or without Trump.

If the year had started with some actually really popular, charismatic, good-campaigner Generic Republican with reasonable name recognition, a lot of the clowns would not have even been trying in the first place, and it certainly would not have gotten to where Trump could lead a 17-person field while polling at 20-25%. Like... some ex-general who'd written a best-seller and talked about low taxes and small businesses a lot, in a folksy but seasoned kinda voice, and was not the brother of George W. Bush... I really think half these goobers would have never gotten in, and Trump would have ended up a Pat Buchanan. I realize this is fanfic and that person did not, it seems, exist, but "the most talented crop" etc. is just lolsy.

I was surprised this year to learn what a dweeb Rubio was. Previously, I had only heard mutterings of him as a fresh faced "rising star" in the GOP.

It's really difficult to wrap my head around how hapless the republicans have become. I mean, I'm pretty psyched about it, but it's baffling nonetheless.

in-breeding will do that

“Donald Trump says he'll make America great again,” Warren said, invoking Trump’s ubiquitous campaign slogan. “It's right there. It's stamped on the front of his goofy hat. You want to see goofy? Look at him in that hat.”

Yeah, I should have made clearer that I was only addressing the "Who's that?" aspect - they are clowns to a man (or woman).

I've said it before, though, but these are the big guns - when it was Mitt vs Santorum vs Perry in 2012, Right-wing pundits were begging and pleading for Jeb Bush, Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee and Rubio to come on down and save us from this - conventional wisdom was that they were keeping their powder dry against a popular president, but 2016 would be when titans would walk the earth again.

(or, Old Lunch OTM)

it's not just that the republican candidates are terrible- it's that the republican party is dysfunctional to a point where it actively hamstrings anybody attempting to display the qualities that would make for good leadership. a lot of present-day conservatives' tactics have been cribbed from the sixties' left- this seems to include their factionalism and self-destructiveness.

They should take their post-Obama assessment to heart and take a few elections off.

surely there is a good republican somewhere who could have run. but I can't think of a single one.

Eastwood could've taken it if he wasn't 114.

I mean, I don't think he would've been a good choice, but better than Trump and probably able to take the nomination. Gotta think outside the box!

xps RNC seems to be sitting this election out, tbh.

here in indiana the most frequent claim is that mitch daniels could have taken any of the clowns they had to offer, but given what happened to kasich i have to regard the claim with a certain skepticism. theoretically ben sasse has potential, but i fully expect him to have been completely ruined one way or another by 2020.

I remember Bush and Rubio being awaited with bated breath, and maybe a little bit of rumbling around Christie as the potential to be whatever these same people thought Giuliani was going to be in 2008. But was Huckabee really expected to be something he hadn't been the last time around? Jindal might have looked good to some in 2012 but did anybody still feel that way by the start of 2015 with (like Christie) his home-state popularity in the toilet and no accomplishments to his name? I agree, though, that the structural problems are there.

I'm sure we've discussed this before, but the donor pool and Citizens United undoubtedly played a role also; the Republican primary rules and calendar are designed for a world where factional candidates take 2nds and 3rds in the first contests, but are unable to keep the money going and are forced to exit, leading to the rapid emergence of a consensus front-runner. Now they stick around, at least long enough to convince each of the viable candidates that if they just stick around a little longer they'll emerge as the consensus candidate. If things worked the way they do now in 1999-2000 it's possible George W. Bush would have struggled to get the nomination. I dunno.

I've said it before on this thread, but watch out for Nikki Haley. Relatively young governor who has decent political instincts (declined to support transgender bathroom legislation in SC, supported bringing down the Confederate flag in the capital) and at least appears to project an aura of competence. Also gender, racial background, etc.

I feel like it's easy to look at the GOP field as a total batch of jokers now, but I bet 3-4 of them would have been a "solid" GOP nominee as recently as 2008. I think this:

the republican party is dysfunctional to a point where it actively hamstrings anybody attempting to display the qualities that would make for good leadership.

…is totally otm. Everyone on their side of the aisle liked this fine 6 years ago when that nutso energy allowed them to take the legislative branch and all the statehouses, when it provided a counter-Obama boost. But the people "in charge" have either no way of harnessing it or no interest in doing so, and now anyone who seems "legitimate" has multiple strikes against them going into a GOP primary.

i feel like the dumbest thing that the GOP donor class did was backing Jeb early, not realizing that the Bush name means vastly different things to the American public than it does to Republican elites.

i very much enjoyed it when they started referring to arch-tea-party candidate marco rubio as a "mainstream candidate". by 2020 matt bevin will be too "mainstream" for the republican party base.

the donor pool and Citizens United undoubtedly played a role also

this is getting overlooked a lot, I think, maybe partly because it was such an unexpected effect of the CU ruling. Everybody assumed (wrongly, apparently) that CU would benefit the GOP, but all it really did was allow loser candidates to remain bankrolled for way longer than was justified, totally fucking up the primary in the process.

Yeah, all that money thrown at Jeb really might as well have been thrown in the trash. Trump was born to go after guys like that, and effectively, but Bush was an awful candidate even if you bracketed out the name problem. If those same early dollars had been put into someone like Kasich - who wasn't exactly great on the stump, but was clearly the kind of candidate a Bush-backer would have wanted - then who knows what might have been? Or if the Bushes themselves had enough self-awareness and perspective for Jeb to have just said "uh, I think I should probably sit this thing out and work from behind the scenes" or w/e.

it's easy to understand why they thought jeb would work - he has that softness that conveys "compassionate conservatism" which in the old model was essential to getting centrist support, and he was moderate on immigration and from FL which gave him an advantage in a major swing state and among latino voters who after 2012 every republican pundit agreed needed to be wooed. ultimately both those things - his personality and his appeal to minority voters - turned out to be disadvantages among the GOP base in the current political climate, but that's more bc of a radicalized nativist base - not necessarily that there's anything inherently wrong with jeb (well and the last name bit which is not minor but generally speaking if any party would be okay with a retread of a not previously v successful presidential family you'd think it would be the Republicans).

yes I suspect the GOP underestimated the number of swing-able voters the way the Dems used to. We're too polarized, so there's no reason why a modern conservative party would run a Jeb!

jeb alone in the miami airport is some kind of something

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cl-Fx6PWMAAbH6V.jpg:large

please clap

lonely guy just thinking baout things

I agree that Haley seems at least on the surface to be as good of a candidate as the GOP could hope for at this point, but the white nationalist faction Trump has mobilized wouldn't vote for her in a million years right now. That wing is going to have to be convinced that its best bet to actually see its values and principles enacted is to swallow whatever the Republican Party feeds it (like Dems are hoping Sanders supporters do with Hillary). If it decides not to buy what the GOP's selling though, you might just see the Repubs cleave in two. And of course they'd have no one to blame but themselves, for spending years now blaming everything on "political correctness."

So what are the odds that Warren is Clinton's VP? Is there any doubt at this point?

please clap

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Monday, June 27, 2016 2:14 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lonely guy just thinking baout things

― riverine (map), Monday, June 27, 2016

I've been in that terminal; it's usually packed. Guess security wanted the terminal to mirror the topography of Jeb's! mind.

Want to paint a series of desolate landscapes with Jeb! somewhere in the background, looking forlornly at his shoes.

plenty of doubt about warren

kaine and castro both seem like legit alternatives but u gotta think dnc likes the optics of hillary/warren

Certainly Clinton is a least testing the waters with the joint appearances. I guess it's possible that she's only on board as an attack dog, but that seems unlikely.

the last sentence is a pearl:

"She said she's 5 percent Native American. She was unable to prove it. She used the fact that she was Native American to advance her career," Trump said, as quoted by NBC News. "Elizabeth Warren is a total fraud. I know it. Other people who work with her know it. Elizabeth Warren is a total fraud."

"She made up her heritage which I think is racist," he continued. "I think she's a racist actually, because what she did was very racist."

the most racist, just unbelievable, the racism

that's what some people are saying anyway. I would never say that.

"I think she's a racist actually, because what she did was very racist."

Unassailable logic there. I think Trump is an idiot actually, because what he said was very idiotic.

This has become a tack of racists lately. Probably spearheaded by Trump. Calling me out for saying something racist is totally racist!

god knows I'm no Clinton fan but who was saying in May that she's gonna be in trouble once he starts campaigning in the general election?

xpost It's all about muddying the waters as much as possible and blurring the lines between reality and whatever world is occupied by people who view Trump as a leader.

Meanwhile in "pathetic footnote" news:

Failed presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is paying $25,000 for playing "Eye of the Tiger" at a rally last year without the band's permission, CNNMoney has discovered.

Huckabee played the triumphant song by the band Survivor at a rally he held for Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

But Huckabee never paid for the rights -- so his campaign got sued for copyright infringement.

He recently agreed to a confidential settlement with Rude Music. That company is owned by the Survivor guitarist who cowrote the song, Frankie Sullivan.

They settled out of court, and it came to light when Huckabee listed the $25,000 cost as a campaign expense on federal election records. A payment to Rude Music is listed as a "legal settlement" for "copyright infringement."

the donor pool and Citizens United undoubtedly played a role also

this is getting overlooked a lot, I think, maybe partly because it was such an unexpected effect of the CU ruling. Everybody assumed (wrongly, apparently) that CU would benefit the GOP, but all it really did was allow loser candidates to remain bankrolled for way longer than was justified, totally fucking up the primary in the process.

― Οὖτις, Monday, June 27, 2016 10:57 AM (55 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Agreed, there's a section near the end of Jane Mayer's Koch book that talks about how members of the press corps decided CU wasn't a big deal, since the super-PACs weren't coordinated enough to unseat Obama in 2012. But there have been all these other effects of CU, effects that are in no way subtle, that a lot of pundit-types have totally ignored.