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

I just meant that thinking about Trump is similar to thinking about the prequels - neither is particularly well thought-out, it's not worth expending mental energy on. What you see is what you get. There's no three-dimensional-chess being played here.

imo best case scenario is Trump wins some delegates but not enough to win the nomination, claims it's been stolen from him by the GOP establishment, runs on a third party ticket, GOP fields huge election losses as a result, giving the Democrats the WH and the Senate (super-optimistically I would say the House too but that's really unlikely)

xxp

A little after 4:20 is when they basically hang up on him.

Trump sounds like an angry right wing radio call in loon.

either conservatives didn't get the memo that history hasn't judged fdr kindly for that or they think michelle malkin said it was ok so it's an open and shut case. or, occam's razor, based on erick erickson's dumb as fuck tweet yesterday, they're just complete bigots.

hey if FDR didn't do what he did, the Nazis would have swept straight into the heartland and we'd all be speaking russian now

politico says that hillaryland thinks cruz is gonna get the nomination

WFP endorses Sanders (87% member vote)

http://www.thenation.com/article/working-families-party-endorses-sanders-for-democratic-nomination/

I thought Trump wanted to sabotage his campaign, but his yelly interviews making the news-rounds make him sound totally invested in this lunacy.

That's his thing, though. He always doubles down and never admits to being the slightest bit wrong or in any way overstepping. He's entirely fueled by baseless confidence, and his bluster would putter out completely if one iota of doubt or self-reflection crept into the mix.

which brings me back to something I've been pondering for months - what would it take to puncture Trump's bluster? What could you do or say to make him cry onstage, for example?

or just make him lose his composure and physically attack somebody or something like that.

with Jindal, Huck, Santorum, I get the sense that they're running to increase leverage when they negotiate their FOX News consultant contracts; with Trump, I get the sense that "winning" is all he knows.

A decent interviewer would help. That Morning Joe clip is pathetic.

which brings me back to something I've been pondering for months - what would it take to puncture Trump's bluster? What could you do or say to make him cry onstage, for example?

"We're seizing all of your assets."

"You're fired"

"usfl"

apparently spy calling him short-fingered still bothers him all these years later

A third party run by Trump would ensure a democrat in the WH, but wouldn't much hurt the GOP candidates down the ticket, because there wouldn't be any slate of Trump Party senate or house candidates to take votes away from the GOP. Once it was safely obvious from opinion polling that neither Trump nor the eventual republican nominee would be president, it might even suppress democratic voter turnout.

Meanwhile Trump could lure a lot of usually disenchanted fringe crazies into the polling booths to take their best ever chance in decades to vote for a racist loudmouth, and while they're already standing in the booth they might go ahead and vote for some republicans down the ticket, too.

not exactly surprising but it's a fun tour through the sewer

http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/white-nationalist-and-anti-muslim-fringe-embrace-trump-propo#.ncA2EjdL6

hmm you might be right Aimless. Maybe best-case scenario to ensure GOP losses is for Trump to somehow actually get the nomination.

which would depress turnout, hurt downticket candidates etc.

does he ever actually debate in debates, or just do his boastful grandstanding?

open outrageous, the media freaks, add 'nuance', the media wonders why it hasn't hurt him

the thing that's funny about this is that it involves continuing to pretend that trump supporters are some free-floating cloud of general republicans. how strange it is that republicans aren't turning on him after all these horrible statements! well, republicans generally are turning on him! as noted, he's hated by as many republicans as like him, and i suspect the hate-number is only going up. the analysis refuses to admit this hard-core of Aggrieved-Americans who have been prepared to vote for Trump no matter what since june or july, who are excited about him because of all the crazy stuff he says and especially anything that treats stigmatizing and casting out racial Others as "common sense." that's his appeal, so wondering why him doing more of it isn't hurting him with that group is like...umm... duh? the useful story to track here is not "are trump's first-choice numbers going down?" but "are trump's absolutely-not-that-guy numbers going up?"

aimless is right about down-ticket candidates in the unlikely trump third-party scenario. it could help republicans as much as hurt them, though there is certainly some possibility that trump's die-hards really WANT to walk in and vote only for him, to 'send a message' to all the RINOs. i think there would have to be a real campaign of urging them to do this, though.

just do his boastful grandstanding

this is all any of them do, for the most part

you've got me there

Aimless re: "it might even suppress democratic voter turnout." Now THAT scares me in a way I hadn't thought to be scared before. Dems thinking hey, it's in the bag, why bother.

Or, if the nominee is Hillary and she appears to be on an easy path to victory, perhaps diehard Bern-feelers would feel free to write Sanders in. I know of some Nader supporters who did so in ought-four, believing that if Gore was safe in their state, they might as well vote their consciences.

Of course that was, and is, their right to do so. However I continue to believe that smacking down the current right-wing looniness is the priority.

Hillary and she appears to be on an easy path to victory

she will not have an easy path, this is gonna be bloodsport

Clinton-Sanders race isn't going to get any traction in this thread until 3 days before New Hampshire, right?

I had forgotten WFP is a multi-state entity.

has a lot of traction here, I see a lot more Sanders signs than Clinton ones, even if she's polling higher

the NYC public advocate (someone i was happy to vote for) is grumping about the Sanders endorsement

http://observer.com/2015/12/top-working-families-party-pol-is-not-happy-they-just-backed-bernie-sanders/

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2015/12/08/poll-trump-cruz-rubio-clinton-sanders/76948760/

the blustery billionaire businessman

http://www.wearysloth.com/Gallery/ActorsW/18187-1293.gif

@SenTedCruz
Our strategy with radical Islamic terrorism should be very simple. We win. They lose.

it's catching

something something greyzone

@realDonaldTrump
A new poll indicates that 68% of my supporters would vote for me if I departed the GOP & ran as an independent.

unlike religious and ethnic minorities, trump supporters willingly put his mark on their homes and vehicles, allowing us to give them a wide berth

That Cruz post is Carson-level. Or second-grade-level, which is basically the same. "Every American should have a pony. Why? Because ponies are nice. Case closed."

a pony in every stable

@SenTedCruz
Our strategy with radical Islamic terrorism should be very simple. We win. They lose

^^ he's plagiarizing Reagan.

http://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-here-s-my-strategy-on-the-cold-war-we-win-they-lose-ronald-reagan-47-55-22.jpg

Carson, a seven-year-old, an Alzheimer's sufferer. What's the diff?

My strategy with Putin: I'm rubber, you're glue.

I still wonder how many Trump supporters are Trump voters. I think a statistically significant number of them are fans of Donald Trump, the guy from TV, and go to his rallies in the same spirit one might attend a Nickelback concert.

God Bless the Goddamned Onion: http://www.theonion.com/graphic/trump-gives-muslim-fence-about-radicalizing-just-p-51999

yeah how trump support translates to trump votes is the big question. i do wonder if he's tapping into this segment of the population that didn't bother to vote cuz 'they're all the same' or whatever and now someone's finally saying what needs to be said

it's been funny seeing some of the shitheads that a couple of weeks ago were saying 'we will not accept syrian refugees unless maybe they're christians (not even orphans - it's in the blood!)' now backpeddling and going 'o that was totally different from what trump is saying'

I still wonder how many Trump supporters are Trump voters. I think a statistically significant number of them are fans of Donald Trump, the guy from TV, and go to his rallies in the same spirit one might attend a Nickelback concert.

― the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Tuesday, December 8, 2015 3:28 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Probably also people that have waited their entire lives for a chance to vote against Hillary Clinton.

well they can do that without voting for trump though

Probably also people that have waited their entire lives for a chance to vote against Hillary Clinton.

― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, December 8, 2015

I know these people!

uh well that's why i voted for Obama in the 2008 NY primary and for any minor-party lefty in her Senate races

a charmed life but hoping maybe just once more and not twice

kinda reassuring to see "Trump is a fascist" entering mainstream political lexicon