I DON'T KNOW WHERE THE BOTTOM IS • US presidential elections part VIII

cruz is bacon grease with a toupee'd blobfish hanging from it but he's less punchable than hannity or cohen. his politics are equally horrible but his tactics and persona are a tad more ingratiating.

trump-goldwater comparison is complicated. goldwater's failure (+ nixon's solution) had nothing to do with demographics -- it wasn't that explicitly or tacitly racist whites were an insufficient percentage of the electorate in 1964, but that goldwater was unable to separate them in sufficient numbers from the new deal / lbj landslide coalition, because of some combination of 1) white rage/fear not yet ripened by 1965-1968 and 2) he didn't go straight for it like nixon. despite his appeal to these people (and pace his raving-madman reputation) (and to the frustration of the excited kids around him) he did not run his campaign like an appeal to them; compared to nixon (let alone trump) he was dry and academic and his dog whistles were no fun to strain to hear. in many ways trump is more like nixon (but yknow, stupid) -- his appeal is completely emotional and targeted at the base's brainstem rather than the theoretical cerebellum in which it stores its Principled Conservatism. from this perspective the analogy to trump/cruz seems exactly backwards.

what we have now is a gop candidate even more openly dedicated than nixon to the politics of white grievance -- certainly much more dedicated than goldwater -- running in an america that just isn't white enough. (shakey's link above complicates this further of course -- this guy's such a bozo he's losing the whites too.) so it can't happen again the way it happened 1964-1968 -- the gop can't win in 2020 with a candidate who appeals to the same people and same emotions as trump but more directly and artfully and while seeming simultaneously more "statesmanlike" and more righteously embittered. (not sure anyone will ever pull off that last paradox w anything like the flair of r.m. nixon.)

what does worry me is the fascist demo, which someone ambitious will presumably work out how to make into a rainbow coalition. the infestation of the trump campaign with far-right authoritarian trolls like milo does remind me of the 1964 takeover and racial purge of the southern gop by local goldwater delegates who were not in denial at all about why they were for goldwater -- the beginnings of a capture, in the background of a whiffed campaign, of party apparatus by a really nasty and ambitious group of young right-wing activists. (this, not some 1967 brainwave of nixon's, is the birth of the realignment and thus the "southern strategy".) the main problem with this analogy is that if you actually read milo, or nu-breitbart, or even (to a lesser but still pretty fuckin hard not to notice extent) moldbug, what you find, still, is not tooled-up 21st-century multiracial authoritarianism but... white nationalism. someone like milo literally throws around phrases like "white identity" -- he's not planning for a glorious fascist future but harvesting clicks today.

idk what's gonna happen tho.

^^^ good post

NSFW: http://dangerousminds.net/comments/nude_donald_trump_statue_glued_to_the_ground_in_several_cities

The statues were commissioned in April. The INDECLINE pranksters said they wanted Trump’s effigy to appear to have a “constipated look.” Each statue was glued to the ground using industrial strength epoxy.

What I like best about this is that clearly these wonderful pieces of ostensibly “public” art were made, really, for just one person’s dubious pleasure: Donald Trump’s! That the rest of us might find them amusing seems like a bonus.

read that as "'pubic' art"

Hey, we found the (bare) bottom!

This tweetstorm today from a GOP strategist guy I regularly see RTd in movement conversativism NeverTrump circles is worth reading through, not because of any particular deep revelations, but in essence what these kind of folks are telling themselves about the point we're at and how the GOP came to it. Consider it an extension of the increasingly locked-down mythology -- who to blame, why they should be blamed, etc -- combined with the usual 'conservatism can't fail but only be failed' mindset. As such, illustrative, but much less surprising/bracing to those looking in on all this from the outside -- people have to have their origin myths:

https://twitter.com/MattMackowiak/status/766324793377378304

I like Natalie Reed's extensive response.

For reference:

https://twitter.com/nataliereed84/status/766340566871179264

I was specifically referring to this:

https://twitter.com/nataliereed84/status/766341654391455744

@ Ned - Yeah, that is interesting. The bad guys are Trump and opportunistic not-twue-conservatives who saw through the birther movement but exploited it anyway.

https://www.rawstory.com/2016/08/green-partys-jill-stein-tied-with-dead-gorilla-harambe-and-losing-to-deez-nuts-in-texas-poll/

Glad to see Deez Nuts still in play.

That Natalie Reed tweetstorm is righteous and right on.

Deez Nuts is a paper tiger imho, he presents himself an 'outsider' but he has ties to the Hollywood establishment going back to 1992 - your classic chronic media darling. The dead gorilla stands a real chance but typically, 538 (who are in the tank for Crooked Hillary) have been completely ignoring him along with the rest of the MSM.

Glad to see Deez Nuts still in play.

deez nuts and that donald trump statue make a good matched pair (pun intended)

And appropriately one somehow droops lower than the other.

What would Trump nickname Deez Nuts?

Wannabe SCROTUS

Something profoundly unclever? Pathetic Deez Nuts!

Tough Deez Nuts is showing "GREEN" wackos who is boss! Still losing BIG to me but not bad!

Pathetic NYT won't report on size of Deez Nuts in #Texas. I could have warned him!

deez nuts as big as texas IIRC

http://laist.com/2016/08/18/naked_donald_trump_ewwwwww.php

borderline nsfw because anatomically correct nude sculpture of trump

No Trump micropenis in Chicago, it seems. Sad!

what does worry me is the fascist demo, which someone ambitious will presumably work out how to make into a rainbow coalition...

idk what's gonna happen tho.

― le Histoire du Edgy Miley (difficult listening hour), Thursday, August 18, 2016 1:12 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i've said something like this before, but it seems to me like the easiest switch to flip is to make immigration restriction -- 0 illegally by brute state force and sharply lower legally -- a core part of the GOP brand. if you 'bake that in' to the establishment you make the party more immune to 'populist' entrants like trump

restriction is popular enough electorally, very popular among the GOP electorate. the big problem is with the owner/mgmt/donor class who don't want their access to labor disturbed. i think a peter thiel shows the way there, and that this was one of his motivations for speaking at the convention -- look gentlemen, you can be a plutocrat and still be 'anti-globalist'.

it doesn't solve the 'problem' of existing 11m undocumented or existing dependence on H1bs. compromise deals that amount to "ok fine, these people can stay but no more" are not likely to satisfy.

if the big money men get sick of democratic presidencies and can swallow a little more nativism in their policy basket, that's that.

goole! I'm not even sure where to start: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/439150/white-identity-politics-wrong-and-immoral

I suppose I could or should have said explicitly that the retreat into white identity politics is a response to the rise of Left identity politics. But I do think it’s pretty clear that it’s implicit in what I’ve written above. Left-wing identity politics as we know it today is quite old, and identity politics generally is even older (indeed it’s ancient). I have written scores of pieces and a chunk of two books making the case that the Left are oppressors or aggressors in the culture war(s). Traditional American culture is, as a matter of historical fact, a mostly white, European and English culture. Identity politics has simply been one very effective weapon among a whole arsenal the Left has deployed in its war on tradition. We should fight this effort and sympathize with those most aggrieved by it, but we should not let our sympathy push us to adopting the same tactics or thinking as the Left. And, as Avik Roy notes, Jeremy is entirely right that there is a double standard. Black pride is to be celebrated. Asian pride is to be celebrated. Latino pride is to be celebrated. But white pride is denounced everywhere. African-American or Black studies, for instance, is a discipline intended to build up and exalt black culture. Whiteness studies — a growth industry — is an academic discipline dedicated to tearing down and demonizing “whiteness” – whatever that is.

One last point: I do not think, nor do I want to suggest, that vast bulk of pro-Trump Republicans are racists or even aware of the white nationalist flames the Trump campaign has ignited.

Way to wuss out, Jonah.

I'm increasingly inclined to believe that a sizable percentage of "Trump supporters" are just super low-info voters who mechanically vote R and know next-to-nothing about the dude except that he was a game show host.

I suppose I could or should have said explicitly that the retreat into white identity politics is a response to the rise of Left identity politics.

"the rise of left identity politics" = "the civil rights movement"

goole seems otm. thiel as bellwether a good call -- conveniently our new generation of intellectual-superman barons, provided they're supported by a global supply chain i don't see the american electorate managing to destroy, doesn't rly need a lot of labor to begin with.

Many of them likely know that he speaks candidly and not like a wooden politician and almost nothing else, I'm sure.

So the "he tells it like it is" can ignore whether "it is" true or "it is" racist or "it is" coherent or "it is" consistent with what "it was" a few days or hours or minutes ago.

xp

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CqK16oJVIAAzzlg.jpg

LOL A+

yeah um.... I'm not sure it's going to be just a matter of GOP business types (not to mention the range of religious conservatives who are maybe a little complicated/not unitary on this issue, and still a big part of the coalition) just getting over their little problem with immigration. like aside from the fact that the "0% / much lower" thing would, indeed, be a matter of monstrous bruality that could never be practically implemented (nor would people stand for it at the massive scale required SWAT teams and ICE raids by the millions, not the hundreds, dragging families apart, etc...). it would also, from the business establishment point of view, break the domestic economy in pieces if actually implemented. maybe not such a big deal if all you do for money is move global supply chains around in a spreadsheet, but let's not overstate the corporate whiz kid class's role here... your bread-and-butter rotary club mid-sized-city business republican is not necessarily going to be on board with this, or not in the same way. nor are they, i think, on board with trump - they wanted jeb, or kasich, or something.

and anyway it's an ideological problem: if the establishment is committed to neoliberal free trade as the present and future of capitalism, they can't plausibly make just this one exception even if they want to, nor would the trumpist base really accept it if they stopped there. there's a serious conflict of ideas here that i don't think could or would be papered over by the elites just holding their noses on "immigration" as if it's just one little side issue interrupting what would otherwise be harmony with the trumpists. you can pull it off if you're pat buchanan and nativism is your core brand (with the other generic republican values stapled on); i don't think you can do it if you're mitt romney or whoever. basically the only version that works is the establishment people being the candidates, and paying vague lip service to nativist sentiment and "keeping jobs in ohio" while continuing to actually implement neoliberal economics. if trumpism solidifies as a funcitoning bloc strong enough to keep nominating people, it will make more sense for the business class to vote for clintonesque democrats, hold them strongly rightward (or accept that they have to give up some compromise crumbs to domestic progressivism), and let the nativists become a (t)rump party.

xxpost lolll

I was just out and about and some 40-something dude is downtown holding a garden trellis festooned with Trump/Pence signs and waving at traffic. MAKE AMERICA WEAR AVIATORS AGAIN

i don't think you can do it if you're mitt romney or whoever. basically the only version that works is the establishment people being the candidates, and paying vague lip service to nativist sentiment and "keeping jobs in ohio" while continuing to actually implement neoliberal economics. if trumpism solidifies as a funcitoning bloc strong enough to keep nominating people, it will make more sense for the business class to vote for clintonesque democrats, hold them strongly rightward (or accept that they have to give up some compromise crumbs to domestic progressivism), and let the nativists become a (t)rump party.

yes i think that's true -- paradoxically the combo of business-friendly clintonist dems and immigration-friendly plutocrats like the kochs are a huge complicating factor in this scenario. like i said, the donors have to get sick of democratic presidencies.

i think there are a range of immigrant-unfriendly policies that could be implemented that are far short of total removal of 11m people. i mean, obama is doing so!

sure - but clearly those are not enough for the "build a wall" types!

from that jonah goldberg article!

This points to the fact that the designation “white” came into existence as the cultural and political opposite of “black” at a time when being black invoked either slavery or Jim Crow. In this context, white isn’t really an ethnicity so much as an ideological construct about racial superiority.

i guess this concept has been fully assimilated into the culture, or jonah has somehow escaped velocity from the conservative mainstream

when i read this article it makes me feel like there were conservatives that didn't realize what their party was about. it doesn't speak very highly to their intelligence (or it speaks very well of their ability to self-delude) but i think many are actually sincerely repulsed by the GOP's transformation into an explicitly white nativist racism party.

^^^ Someone from a conservative think tank responded to that extensive Natalie Reed tweetstorm above acknowledging this (although I think there's a lot of disingenous "Who knew?" going on right now):

Kevin Glass ‏@KevinWGlass
@nataliereed84 My response as someone who played into it: me & "GOP elites" did not buy the explanation that racial animus drove much.

Kevin Glass ‏@KevinWGlass
@nataliereed84 that yes, the GOP had a bunch of racists, but whatever racial undertones of prominent rhetoric were overimagined by the Left.

Kevin Glass ‏@KevinWGlass
@nataliereed84 Trump has proven us wrong! Left critics of the Right were correct. We were wrong.

more like stink tank amirite

the kids are calling it "stank"

This is why the Left’s discrediting of assimilation is so dangerous and saddening. The Left goes around insisting that non-whites shouldn’t be expected to assimilate into “white culture.” Some even say they can’t. And, guess what? The white nationalist agrees! And the irony is that when the white nationalist agrees, the Left screams “racist!” And they’re right. The problem is the Left can’t see how identity politics is, at least in its purer forms, just as racist.

also these ppl don't actually understand the left. there's maybe an anti-imperialism left that has failed to square the circle btwn 'third world nationalism is good' and 'assimilated universalism is good', but even they are a minor part of the left. maybe i'm wrong but my impression is that 95% of americans who fall on the left side of the spectrum (ie not leftists v. liberals which is not a distinction i think jonah uses) believe in some of salad bowl metaphor for america - a melting pot where everyone shares the same democratic values but keeps a little bit of heritage for flavor. the ppl on the left who say that non-white groups can never be assimilated into american culture are the hardest of the hard left. it would be like talking about what right-wingers believe and saying that they all believe #whitegenocide is happening right now, except that my guess is that a much larger percentage of the republican party believes that than the democratic party believes in the incompatibility of non-whites with the broader culture.

personally i prefer the cholent metaphor bc salad components are too easily disambiguated. cholent tho you're obviously getting a stew where every flavor participates in every other flavor and there's like potato in the broth and meat in the potato and beans in the meat but also you can still make out that these were once different things so it's a nice reminder of the rich tapestry of humanity food.

yeah I think the broader definition of "assimilation" in use by the left has more to do with civic duties/roles/functions (working, paying taxes, voting, respecting rights of others etc.) and basically nothing to do with culture (language, media, food etc.). The left supports the former and does not see the latter as important.

xp

whereas Jonah can't separate the cultural from the civic

Perino isn't having Bolling's stupid anecdotal horseshit: http://www.redstate.com/jaycaruso/2016/08/18/eric-bolling-dismisses-polling-data-citing-trump-crowds-dana-perino-incredulous/?utm_content=buffer53945&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

re the crowd sizes i haven't seen anyone say this but i think large crowds can counterintuitively be indicative of an actual lack of support. ppl who feel like their message or identity hasn't been represented until this pt are more likely to be enthusiastic about coming out to support someone who is finally speaking directly to them. but the reason they have had to wait so long is often bc their beliefs do not have enough currency to be mainstream. the candidate representing the average mores of broader society will get broad support, but there's no reason to be particularly enthusiastic about someone speaking on the hegemonic wavelength.