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

I'm not sure what's 'better for america', that happening and this kinda being like the french 2002 election or rubio or cruz winning and having an actual shot at becoming president. I guess #2 is scarier but less embarrassing?

the cowardice in the GOP is remarkable, the totality of the self-serving shortsightedness

it's not just cowardice, they don't have any good angle to attack trump from

haha oh sure they do

he's not some unbeatable figure, the guy is an idiot that gets by on going unchallenged

that they can't bribe a proxy to attack him is the crazy part. I'm not saying Rience Priebus would be an effective vehicle for delivering an anti-Trump message, but you'd think one of these bajillionaire backers would be able to buy a candidate to serve as a front for GOP leadership attacks. This is cloak and dagger ratfucking stuff, sure, but the GOP used to be good at that shit!

'challenging him' just feeds the persecution complex that the reactionary white nationalist subculture is built on

what's the alternative

Voting for him in primaries.

I mean it depends on who's doing the challenging - if its someone who's an even bigger asshole, but (crucially) one who can be brought to heel when necessary, then problem solved. Trump can't be brought to heel, which is the problem.

xp

where exactly are they gonna find a bigger asshole than donald trump?

sometimes I wonder why trump wont go away, but literally every single time I go to the lunch counter in my building they have cnn on and that idiots fat face is on the screen

where exactly are they gonna find a bigger asshole than donald trump?

Cruz fits the bill. Christie too, if he didn't already have the obama-hug-taint

idk I'm just spitballing it's just weird to see all these powerful interests totally cowed and unwilling to invest/pick a side

they did invest and pick a side, that ship sunk

http://www.loriferber.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/u/s/uss-ronald-reagan-plaque.jpg

they did invest and pick a side, that ship sunk

then pick another side!

that anybody thought JEB! had any legs is also nuts, of course

Clip of Trump on CNN a minute ago (referring to Cruz, I assume): "If somebody hits me, I'm gonna hit him back so hard..." Made me think of Goodfellas: "If anyone complained twice, they got hit so bad, believe me, they never complained again." Cruz is going to turn up in a car trunk one of these days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpmtMyr6orE

don't they already know that throwing money behind a losing candidate isn't effective, though? like, wouldn't they be looking seriously at romney's losses and, free of the must-be-insanely-conservative-to-win fixation, thinking that they can't even actually field anyone as 'presidential' right now?

the question is who 'they' are, like how large is the non-crazy part of the republican party at this point?

small but v v rich.

it's not just throwing money behind a candidate, it's financing attack ads etc.

the lines get blurry when ted cruz supporters start to qualify as reasonable people

xp

the thing about the guy is, he's a genius of stupid. i have decades of experience in and with severe mental illness, and i still routinely find my jaw dropping at the batshit crazy things he says. he's a walking issue of the "weekly world news".

vox linked to a couple of article on that subject: http://www.vox.com/2015/12/1/9830556/donald-trump-koch-brothers

Part of it is being afraid of Trumps bullying. Part of it is considering Cruz as the one who would benefit from attacks on Trump, and fearing a surging Cruz more.

So there are strategic reasons for not attacking Trump, though I think they sound spurious. But what's crazy to me is that nobody in the party has the backbone to speak up and say 'this is simply wrong' to all the hateful bullshit he is spewing. Liz Mair, who is working to gather money for an anti-Trump campaign, is constantly basing the criticism on the fact that Trump used to be more liberal, has liked the Clinton's, etc. The attack is that he's too moderate, which seems insane, but that's the GOP atm.

If the megadonors have realized the chances of funding a GOP candidate into a general election victory are all but impossible, then they should mostly be interested in ensuring their downticket investments aren't spoiled by a presidential nominee who drives blue participation up and red participation down. There are no clear options right now.

The piece that amateurist posted about Trumpists being the UKIP / National Front equivalent is pretty interesting

You guys still think Trump is in this to actually be President? C'mon

i do - he seems more megalomaniac than cynical tbh

tho some small part of me does believe he's a hillary mole

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.

this is amazing

Ding ding ding, Mordy!

let me just say this:

http://imgc.allpostersimages.com/images/P-473-488-90/65/6553/UNT4100Z/posters/the-x-files-i-want-to-believe-print.jpg

'Peace Thru Strength' was a genuine DoD slogan in 1963 or earlier and NOT invented for Dr Strangelove, correct?

age-old idiom

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Si_vis_pacem,_para_bellum

i was probably thinking of Peace Is Our Profession

thoughts on http://theweek.com/articles/583243/what-hillary-gets-right-about-glasssteagall ?

My impression is it's a complicated subject where reasonable, well-intentioned, reform-minded people will disagree. I don't get the impression Glass-Steagall is critical to a sane and thorough reform of the financial services industry.

my understanding is most engaged ppl want legislation with a Glass-Steagall EFFECT, not nec its literal restoration.

I tend to agree with Ben Bernanke's take as expressed here:

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/ben-bernanke-puzzled-by-democrats-glass-steagall-214996

I think there are smarter, more targeted ways to make Wall Street safer.

The mere fact of the FDIC should preclude allowing commercial banks to engage in investment banking, which is far less regulated and much riskier.

I think Dodd Frank has shown that it's possible to constrain investment banking in ways that make it less risky and compatible with taking federally insured deposits, for instance through the Volcker Rule and heightened capital requirements. As we saw in the last crisis, there is enormous pressure to bail out any bank of sufficient size, even if it has no federally-insured deposits (as for example Bear Stearns, AIG or Lehman). So to say "Those banks can go off and do risky stuff because they don't have insured deposits" clearly is a non-starter. Once you realize that all banks of a certain size need to be tightly regulated, then the focus on Glass Steagall seems a bit beside the point.

"iatee
Posted: December 1, 2015 at 5:37:17 PM
they did invest and pick a side, that ship sunk"

God knows we have had our differences but this is so fucking OTM it hurts.

Also, the result is hilarious. Not in a Donald racist trump is hilarious way, but in a watch the cockroaches scurry when they bring raid into their own house sort of way.

i think the new panic is very much tied to cruz. a few weeks back it looked like rubio would be the default candidate once trump/carson faded. now if trump fades cruz is the clear beneficiary, which in some ways is as disastrous since they can't spin 'he doesn't represent the gop really' as easily w/ the guy who led the govt shutdown.

well, there is of course the background fear. show of hands: who honestly believes that should this guy lose the primaries, he will not then turn around and run in the general election?

that anybody thought JEB! had any legs is also nuts, of course

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 1 December 2015 23:51 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Inevitable slapstick

josh marshall tries to link the current political environment to the Great White Death study that came out of princeton a while ago (Case-Deaton)

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/you-can-t-understand-american-politics-without-reading-this-study

just digging around a little, the study does have its critics:

https://familyinequality.wordpress.com/2015/11/06/age-composition-change-accounts-for-about-half-of-the-case-and-deaton-mortality-finding/

http://andrewgelman.com/2015/11/06/what-happened-to-mortality-among-45-54-year-old-white-non-hispanic-men-it-declined-from-1989-to-1999-increased-from-1999-to-2005-and-held-steady-after-that/