Hullabaloo

Monday, January 11, 2016

 
All the angry white women

by digby

No, they're not all lining up behind the unpalatable harpy. (Well, not the one you think anyway.) Juan Williams looks at the numbers:

[A]ngry white Republican women seem indifferent to the political storms stirred by Trump’s comments about women, ranging from his “blood coming out of her wherever” comment about my Fox News colleague Megyn Kelly to insulting Carly Fiorina, the only women running for the GOP nomination, by telling a reporter: “Look at that face – would anyone vote for that?”

Of course, Trump has also skewered the white woman fighting for the Democratic nomination. He belittled former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as a woman who got “schlonged” in the 2008 primaries and described her bathroom break during a recent debate as “disgusting.”

None of that has hurt Trump with white Republican women.

Polls consistently show that Trump's support is strongest among older people. A third of his backers in most polls are over age 65 and about another half are aged between 45 and 64. Among women in those age-groups, it seems plausible that anger about larger political issues, from high rates of immigration to concern about their retirement income, outweighs any concern about Trump’s slights aimed at other white women.

Overall, whites feel a far deeper concern about those issues.

Why any of them feel Trump is going to help with their retirement income is beyond me. Yes, I know he's now channeling Bernie Sanders on the stump but anyone who's looked at this "economic plan" will see that his prescription is actually for everyone to work harder for less money so we can "compete" with garment workers in Bangladesh on an even playing field. Oh, and we must reward the hard working heir to fortunes and "branding" experts like him with billions. Because: winning!

The fuel feeding the fire of rage among whites, according to the poll, has three sources: concern that the U.S. is no longer the world’s most powerful nation; the belief that the American dream is dying for their children; and the realization that it is harder for their middle-class families to keep up than they expected it to be.

The first is not true.  But they insist all of that is allegedly happening because blacks and Mexicans are stealing the country blind and giving nothing back when hard working white people are sacrificing everything. Pay no attention to how the rapacious billionaire buffoon with the pompadour got his fortune.

But it's not economics at all, is it? It's spoiled petulance:

Even as the nation remains mostly white, with most of its wealth and political power securely in white hands, the pollsters concluded whites today are feeling “the anger of perceived disenfranchisement — a sense that the majority has become a persecuted minority, the bitterness of promise that didn’t pan out — rather than actual hardship.”

Oh, boo hoo hoo. I'm so tired of this nonsense. This isn't a zero sum game. Racial and ethnic minorities (and yes, women) getting more opportunities and being allowed to exercise their rights does not automatically translate into a loss for white people. Sure, white working class men have gotten a very raw deal over the past few decades but it's not the fault of minorities and women --- it's the fault of avaricious greedheads like Trump.

But they can't blame him, can they? He's the BMOC, the Captain of the football team, the man. It must be somebody else's fault that they feel so insecure.

Esquire’s report on the polling noted that while non-white Americans report they have a tougher time paying bills, blacks are “more likely than whites to believe that the American dream is still alive; that America is still the most powerful country in the world; that race relations have improved over the past eight years; and most important in the context of expectations, that their financial situation is better than they thought it would be when they were younger.”

Sadly, the fact that non-whites feel optimistic about America and believe that old fashioned can-do spirit is making their lives better just reinforces the sour, withered white worldview.

So where is the white Republican anger, especially the growing female white anger, heading? It is fracturing the GOP, leaving the party at war with itself.

I hate to inform all my old, white female sisters but if you think they believe you're an equal, think again. When push comes shove, and all the "others" are put in their place, you'll be ground under the white guy's boot too. They'll just have you make them a sandwich (just the way they like it) before they do it.

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digby 1/11/2016 05:00:00 PM

 
Our longest war

by digby

Sure am glad we decided to meddle:



I can't watch that without recollecting that Junior was captured on an internal White House monitor pumping his fist and saying "feels good!" before he made that announcement.

The good news is that we can probably look forward to more such speeches but they'll probably go more like this one:

Or this one:

Feels good ...

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digby 1/11/2016 03:30:00 PM

 

David Jones is on his way

By Dennis Hartley

Live to your rebirth and do what you will
(Oh by jingo)
Forget all I've said, please bear me no ill
(Oh by jingo)

After all, after all

(Pushing through the market square, so many mothers sighing…) I woke up this morning to get ready for work, turned on the Today show (…news had just come over, we had five years left to cry in) and saw the lead story (…news guy wept and told us, earth was really dying…cried so much his face was wet, and I knew he was not lying). No, not him! Fuck!

When one is at a loss for words after a great artist dies, it’s not uncommon to default to the old standby that “(he or she) meant so much, to so many people.” Of David Bowie, it may be more accurate for one to say that “he was so many people, who meant so much.”

Bowie invented the idea of “re-invention”. It’s also possible that he invented a working time machine, because he was always ahead of the curve (or leading the herd). He was the poster boy for “postmodern”.  Space rock? Meet Major Tom. Glam rock? Meet Ziggy Stardust. Doom rock? Meet the Diamond Dog. Neo soul? Meet the Thin White Duke. Electronica? Ich bin ein Berliner. New Romantic? We all know Major Tom’s a junkie…

This one is hitting me hard. I’m 59 years old, so I’m getting a little used to watching the musical icons I grew up with dropping like flies…but this is one is hitting me hard. We’re talking Bob Marley and John Lennon; this is a significant loss to the music world.

Favorite Bowie album? For me that’s like choosing a favorite child. If pressed, I’d have to say my favorite Bowie period would be the Mick Ronson years (Space Oddity, Hunky Dory, The Man Who Sold the World, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Alladin Sane, and Pinups). There was something magical about the Bowie and Ronno dynamic; right up there with Daltrey and Townshend, Plant and Page, Ozzy and Tony, and Jagger and Richards. Luckily, this era was captured for posterity in D.A. Pennebaker’s 1973 concert film, Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars: the Motion Picture. Visually, the film is less than spectacular, but the performances are mesmerizing.

I’m sure his family had understandable reasons for keeping mum on his illness, and I respect that; but I can’t help but speculate on whether or not Bowie’s highly-developed sense of theatre prompted him to choreograph his demise into a sort of farewell installation piece. Consider: his final album (which he had to know was going to be his swan song) was released on his 69th birthday January 8…2 days prior to his death. It’s as if he anticipated the great sense of loss amongst his fans; it’s a reassurance, a form of grief counselling: “It’s alright. I got my affairs in order; came up with a few odds and ends here to leave you with…it’s OK. Enjoy! It’s only rock’n’roll. After all, after all…”

More at Den of Cinema

--Dennis Hartley
digby 1/11/2016 01:30:00 PM

 
Wingnut populism for profit

by digby

This is how the right wing keeps the small donor money flowing. From Richard Viguerie:

In response to my recent column, “It’s the Primaries, Stupid: Have You Filed For Office Yet?” some CHQ readers have (quite fairly) asked the question, “How do I know if my elected official is a RINO who deserves a Primary challenge?”

My answer is one shared by the First Lady of the Conservative Movement Phyllis Schlafly: Today, all incumbent Republican Members of Congress are ‘guilty until proven innocent,’ by their actions and votes.

What this means is that even though your Congressman, your State Representative, your County Clerk, your local School Board Member, Fire Control District Commissioner or City Councilman talks like a conservative you must honestly and diligently investigate whether they actually spent their past term governing like a conservative.

If they haven’t, they deserve a Primary challenge.

Doing your due diligence is especially important with regard to Congress, the Republican establishment has mastered the art of campaigning like conservatives and governing like John Boehner, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell – they are more like con men than the principled defenders of constitutional liberty that the Founders envisioned their successors would be.

Fortunately, we conservatives have many resources to help us identify who on Capitol Hill is a real conservative and who is a con man.

Heritage Action for America, The American Conservative Union, Gun Owners of America, Conservative Review,The Club for Growth, The National Rifle Association, The Family Research Council, Americans for Prosperity andNational Right to Life to name but a few all publish ratings of Congress and track votes on the conservative agenda and are worth using as a starting point for your research.

None of these are individually by themselves dispositive of which Member of Congress is a conservative and which one is a con man, and some of them may even be in conflict, but taken as a whole they offer a good starting point in your research as to whether or not your Representative in Congress is innocent of being a RINO.

I say they are a good starting point because none of them really measures the key element that separates the conservatives from the RINO con men – the willingness to rock the boat and stand on principle and vote against the establishment Republican leadership.

And determining whether or not your Congressman is a boat-rocker is absolutely vital, because a big part of the incumbent Republican congressional con is the use of “show votes” to cover the con.

“Show votes” are votes that are meaningless because the establishment leadership does not intend for them to go anywhere once taken, sometimes they are set-up so incumbents being challenged on the Right can vote against leadership, knowing that Democrats will provide the votes to pass the bills the leadership wants – the recent Omnibus was a classic example of a “show vote.”

The Omnibus gave Democrats everything they wanted, so of course they were going to vote for it, giving establishment Republicans who are facing challenges from the Right the opportunity to vote “NO” without actually producing a result that was contrary to what the RINO leadership really wanted.

The key vote, the vote that actually separated the “boat rockers” from the go-along-get-along crowd was the vote on the Rule to bring the Omnibus to the Floor, and only a handful of principled conservative Republicans actually opposed the Rule, whereas 95 House Republicans including several like incumbent Rep. Martha Roby (AL-2), who are facing stiff conservative primary challenges ended up voting against the bill.

But what do you do about your local offices that aren’t covered by the national conservative organization scorecards?

Some scorecards do cover state legislators and can be helpful, but for your local offices, like County Clerk and Commissioner, City Council and the various Boards, like School Board, Fire Control or Soil and Water Conservation Districts you are pretty much on your own, so here are a few foolproof tests.

Did your local elected official campaign on being a fiscal conservative and holding down taxes and spending and then take a taxpayer-funded trip to a resort destination, like Las Vegas?

If they did, they deserve a primary challenge.

Does your local elected official claim to be a conservative and then act like national issues, such as same-sex marriage, funding of Planned Parenthood, the Muslim invasion and the like have nothing to do with them?

If they do, and they are unwilling to use the power of their office to stand for constitutional liberty, then they deserve a primary challenge.

Of course, there are some incumbents and many good candidates already running who are limited government constitutional conservatives and share our values. Some like principled limited government constitutional conservative All-Star Representatives Dave Brat and Louie Gohmert, may be facing a Primary challenge from establishment Republicans, and so they need your help.

However, if you apply the “guilty until proven innocent” test to your elected officials you will discover that the vast majority of positions on the ballot this year do not have limited government constitutional conservatives running, and many will have incumbents who have not faced a contest in years.

And because they have become professional politicians, rather than public servants, they are going to have all of the establishment money and resources behind them – don’t let that intimidate you!

As I documented in my book TAKEOVER, ever since 2010 and the Tea Party Wave incumbent RINOs have been on the bubble.

In 2012 Tea Party-backed candidate Ted Cruz announced his campaign for Senate against the incumbent Lt. Governor, David Dewhurst. Cruz started the campaign at 2% as measured by a poll with a 3% margin of error, against a candidate whose support read like a Who’s Who of DC and Austin lobbyists and influence peddlers – and who was prepared to spend over $20 million of his own money to fund his campaign. 

As I explained in TAKEOVER, Ted Cruz won that election by assembling a vast grassroots army of limited government constitutional conservatives and campaigning relentlessly on the conservative agenda.

Dave Brat’s stunning upset of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in Virginia was likewise accomplished through a grassroots “zen campaign” that turned Cantor’s overwhelming fundraising advantage among lobbyists and influence groups into an anchor around his neck that drowned him in a sea of voter outrage over his double-talk and betrayals of the conservative principles voters expected their Congressman to stand for.

digby 1/11/2016 12:30:00 PM

 
Was it Roger Ailes who said there's a sucker born every minute?

by digby

This is their plan to replace Social Security.

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digby 1/11/2016 11:00:00 AM

 
Trump's dream

by digby

I compiled some of Trump's recent promises on the campaign trail for Salon today. It paints a rather disturbing picture:

First, on the deportation issue, when asked how he would go about it he has said that he would have a "deportation force" to find, detain and repatriate suspected undocumented immigrants and their children, some of whom are Americans (but he'd fix that too.) When quizzed in the debates he had this to say to John Kasich's assertion that deporting all these millions of people is not a serious proposal:

All I can say is, you're lucky in Ohio that you struck oil. That's for one thing. Let me just tell you that Dwight Eisenhower, good president, great president. People liked him. I like Ike, right, the expression, "I like Ike." Moved 1.5 million illegal immigrants out of this country. Moved them just beyond the border. They came back. Moved them again beyond the border. They came back. Didn't like it. Moved them way south. They never came back. Let me just tell you that Dwight Eisenhower, good president, great president. People liked him. I like Ike, right, the expression, "I like Ike." Moved 1.5 million illegal immigrants out of this country. Moved them just beyond the border. They came back. Moved them again beyond the border. They came back. Didn't like it. Moved them way south. They never came back.

He, of course, plans to eventually build a wall so high that nobody can climb over it, apparently enlisting Jack and his magic beanstalk for engineering advice. But that comment was no joke. He's talking about the infamous Operation Wetback. And people never came back because they'd been left in the middle of the desert without water and died.

After Paris and San Bernardino his authoritarianism took another dark turn. His famous statement that the US should ban all Muslims from entering the country "until we find out what the hell is going on" was actually the culmination of a number of comments indicating that there could be a registry of Muslims and surveillance of mosques and other places where one might find American Muslims. (In other words, everywhere.)He reiterated the standard fatuous right wing bromide about arming everyone so that they could shoot down terrorists before they have a chance to explode their suicide vests. And he enthusiastically endorsed torture. and not just for interrogation purposes but as a punitive measure:

"Would I approve waterboarding? You bet your ass I would — in a heartbeat," Trump said to loud cheers during a rally at a convention center here Monday night that attracted thousands. "And I would approve more than that. Don't kid yourself, folks. It works, okay? It works. Only a stupid person would say it doesn't work."

Trump said such techniques are needed to confront terrorists who "chop off our young people's heads" and "build these iron cages, and they'll put 20 people in them and they drop them in the ocean for 15 minutes and pull them up 15 minutes later."

"It works," Trump said over and over again. "Believe me, it works. And you know what? If it doesn't work, they deserve it anyway, for what they're doing. It works."

When discussing what he would do with the families of suspected terrorists he was a bit more vague, but when you consider his other commentary the implication is clear:

I would certainly go after the wives who absolutely knew it was happening, and I guess your definition of what I’d do, I’m going to leave that to your imagination.

He has a fantasy about the wives of the 9/11 hijackers have knowledge of the attacks and that they and their children pulled up chairs in front to the TV to watch daddy fly into the World Trade Center. Except for the fact that the hijackers weren't married and had no kids it would be an interesting tale.

He has also blamed San Bernardino terrorist Sayed Farook's mother and sister suggesting the government need to "get tough" to deal with them:

I think his mother knew what was going on. She went into the apartment. Anybody that went into that house or that apartment knew what was going on. They didn’t tell the authorities. They knew what was going on. The mother knew. 

We better get a little tough, and a little smart, or we’re in trouble.”

And he's openly said he would commit war crimes and explicitly target the families of suspected ISIS terrorists:

"We’re fighting a very politically correct war. And the other thing with the terrorists — you have to take out their families. When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families! They care about their lives, don’t kid yourselves. They say they don’t care about their lives. But you have to take out their families.”

On the domestic front Trump has made it very, very clear that in addition to his "deportation force" he believes the country needs to allow the police agencies much more latitude:

"We’re going to get, you know, the gang members in Baltimore and in Chicago and these are some tough dudes. They’re going to be out so fast.

One of the first thing I’m going to do is get rid of those gang members. We’re going to be – you know, you look at what’s going on with Baltimore, you look at what’s going on in Chicago and Ferguson and St. Louis the other night. We are going to get rid of those gang members so fast your head will spin.

You know, we can be very tough. I just met your cops outside. Those police are tough cookies. Those guys – we need law and order. We need law and order.

I mean, they allowed – in one night, that first night in Baltimore – they allowed that city to be destroyed. And they set it back 35 years. One night. Because the police were not allowed to protect people. They weren’t allowed to protect people.

We have incredible law enforcement in this country and we have to be – the head of the police in Chicago is a person I know. Originally from New York. He’s a phenomenal guy. He can stop things if they’re allowed to stop them. He can stop it. Believe me.

He has never explained exactly what he means when he says he plans to "get rid of those gang members so fast your head will spin" but evoking his relationship close to Chicago's police chief might be a clue.

He exhorts citizens to spy on each other and report activities to the authorities. And he made a solemn pledge to police everywhere:

“One of the first things I’d do in terms of executive order, if I win, will be to sign a strong, strong statement that would go out to the country, out to the world, anybody killing a police man, a police woman, a police officer, anybody killing a police officer, the death penalty is going to happen.”

Considering the summary execution pantomime he does on the trail every day when he talks about Bowe Bergdahl it's fair to assume he has some ideas about how that might be handled.

Finally, Trump has welcomed the approbation of Vladimir Putin, Russia's authoritarian strongman leader, even going so far as to defend him against charges that he has killed journalists who challenged him. He has joked that he wouldn't kill any journalists himself --- well, probably:

I hate some of these people, I hate 'em," Trump told the crowd. "I would never kill them. I would never do that."

Then he decided to reconsider.

"Uh, let's see, uh?" he said aloud, his voice rising. "No, I would never do that."

Trump's comments on journalists came after he spoke about Russian President Vladimir Putin, who lavished Trump with praise last week.

Claims that Putin ordered the killings of Russian journalists are well-documented, but Trump has argued that those deaths are disputed and without evidence.

Trump did charge once again that some of the reporters in the back of the room are "such lying disgusting people," but as the crowd turned to angrily face those reporters, Trump pulled them back.

This past week Trump spoke admiringly of another despot --- North Korea's Kim Jong Un:

“You’ve got to give him credit: How many young guys — he was like 26 or 25 when his father died — take over these tough generals and all of a sudden, you know, it’s pretty amazing when you think of it. How does he do that?”

“Even though it is a culture, and it’s a culture thing, he goes in, he takes over, he’s the boss. It’s incredible.”

“I mean, it’s amazing that a young guy would go over and take over. You know, you would have thought that these tough generals would have said no way this is gonna happen when the father died.

“So he’s gotta have something going for him, because he kept control, which is amazing for a young person to do."

He did say Kim was a "total nut job" but it's fairly obvious Trump doesn't see that as much of a problem. "He's the boss" and "he kept control" and that is what Trump sees as true leadership. He figures that just as he would get along well with Putin, he and Kim Jong Un could forge and understanding.  They all have a lot in common.

And millions of Republicans seem to really love it.

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digby 1/11/2016 09:30:00 AM

 
Melting the Arctic in the middle of winter

by Gaius Publius

A mid-winter warm front over the North Pole, with temperatures above freezing (click to enlarge; GFS model courtesy of Levi Cowan; source)

Is it an emergency yet? Slate:

Over the past several days, an alarming string of tornadoes has left dozens dead across the South. At least 68 tornadoes were reported in 15 states from California to the Carolinas from Dec. 21 to Monday, the longest streak on record of December days with a tornado. December tornadoes are twice as common during El Niño years, but this weekend’s atmosphere over the South was something different entirely: By some measures, it was the most moisture-laden ever seen during the winter months. ...

The Texas tornadoes were part of a much larger storm system that at one point encompassed about half the country. The same storm system also brought heavy rains to the Midwest that threaten one of the biggest floods in history on the Mississippi River south of St. Louis, surpassing even the legendary 1993 flood. Road closures due to high water blanketed Missouri, and water levels will continue to rise for several days as record floodwaters from Oklahoma make their way toward the Gulf of Mexico.

On its western and northern fringes, the storm brought snow, the worst of which struck New Mexico. There, Gov. Susana Martinez activated the state’s National Guard and said the historic snowstorm had created a “dire situation.” In fact, at the exact same time that tornadoes were bearing down on Dallas, a record-setting blizzard was burying cars under snowdrifts 10 feet deep on the western side of Texas. Snow fell as far south as northern Mexico. The system also helped bring record-breaking freezing weather to southern California, a fierce ice storm to Chicago and Michigan, and the first significant New England snowfall of the season—just two days after temperatures climbed into the 70s as far north as Vermont. The Wall Street Journal called the juxtaposition of weather extremes “freakish.”

I'm ignoring all the "it's just El Niño" pablum. By now you know better, right? So does the author, by the way, as you'll read shortly.

Melting the Arctic in the middle of winter

That storm? It's moving north ... all the way north. Slate again (my emphasis):

As it departs North America this week, the storm will rapidly intensify over the northern reaches of the Gulf Stream and draw tremendous amounts of warm air northward from Spain and the Mediterranean Sea toward the Arctic. As the storm approaches Iceland, it will have strengthened to the equivalent of some of the strongest hurricanes ever recorded in terms of atmospheric pressure. Intensely high pressure over western Russia, perhaps boosted by melting sea ice, will aid in setting up the tropics-to-pole atmospheric superhighway.

Unlike other recent episodes of extreme weather around the planet, this storm is probably not related to El Niño, which has limited influence in Europe. The storm will be strengthening over the exact spot that North Atlantic temperatures have been cooling over recent years, an effect that scientists have linked to a slowdown of the basin’s circulation triggered in part by melting sea ice ...

The remarkable storm will briefly boost temperatures in the Arctic basin to nearly 10 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal—and the North Pole itself will be pushed above the freezing point, with temperatures perhaps as warm as 40 degrees. That’s absolutely terrifying and incredibly rare. Keep in mind: It’s late December and dark 24 hours a day at the North Pole right now. The typical average high temperature this time of year at the North Pole is about minus 15 to minus 20 degrees. To create temperatures warm enough to melt ice to exist in the dead of winter—some 50 or 60 degrees warmer than normal—is unthinkable....

Your bottom line: "On Wednesday, the North Pole will be warmer than Western Texas, Southern California, and parts of the Sahara."

It's not too late unless we wait

Is it an emergency yet? Because if it is, there's an obvious thing to do. In an emergency, we mobilize — one example here. You can also support the only presidential candidate who gets it and has a chance to win. Adjust the split in any way you like at the link.

(A version of this piece appeared at Down With Tyranny. GP article archive here.)

GP




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Gaius Publius 1/11/2016 07:30:00 AM

 

Had enough and then some

by Tom Sullivan

Photo by AFGE via Creative Commons

In a conversation over the weekend, a knowledgeable rural organizer raised the prospect that in a an election with Bernie Sanders on the Democratic ticket, conservative, white, working-class rural voters might be persuaded to back Sanders. It's not the first time the idea has been raised. Depending on whether or not Trump winds up the Republican nominee, it's not necessarily a wild idea.

Americans have a remarkable capacity for compartmentalizing. It is that capacity that might explain how it is possible that Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders can appeal to some of the same white, working-class voters. Yet, the idea that some Trump supporters might be persuaded to vote for Sanders, the declared socialist, seems patently absurd. At Political Animal, D.R. Tucker addresses that forcefully:

Nix’s argument is why I find the contention that Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders might be able to woo Trump’s supporters patently absurd. Let’s be blunt: the average Trump supporter shares (or at the very least tolerates) the Republican frontrunner’s reactionary views on gender and race, his loathing of outsiders, his malevolence towards Mexicans and Muslims. Does anyone in his or her right mind think these right-wing revanchists would ever vote for a self-professed democratic socialist? These voters view “democratic socialism” as a euphemism for “handouts to people in the ghetto.” It’s not happening.

Maybe and maybe not. Trump's malevolence and xenophobia may not be the sole or even principle attractor for all of his supporters. Charlie Pierce found a Canadian who came from Monteal to Trump's Burlington rally "for the show." It does have a certain WWE feel to it. Come for the Smackdown. Stay for the Trump. It's hard to say how many of Trump's fans come to be "a good audience" for the reality show.

The thing is too, neither the right nor the left is monolithic. Now, for many white, working-class voters, nuance is suspect and smacks of over-educated elitism and lack of principle. Yet some of the same people pray to Jesus and quote the inerrant scriptures and violate them in spirit and in fact without seeming to see any contradiction. Hypocrisy? Maybe. Or compartmentalization.

The common compartment both Trump and Sanders inhabit is that they are not perceived as establishment politicians. Trump, because he is Trump, and Sanders for all his years in Washington still presents as the same disheveled, cranky fly in the ointment. This year that's what supporters of both candidates wanted for Christmas – someone they can trust to give a middle finger to the elites. That's certainly the mood among T-party activists here. It's possible that for at least a fraction of Trump supporters that that drives them more than sticking it to Muslims and other minorities. In close races, shaving the spread at the margins can, if it doesn't win the election at the top of the ticket, at least help down-ticket candidates. That's the possibility my white, working-class advocate was getting at in wondering about attracting Trump supporters to Sanders. Some might set aside democratic socialist in one compartment in service to sticking it to Washington.

The anti-establishment, populist mood exists here on both the left and the right, a "plague on both your houses" mood. A lot of former Republicans as well as Democrats have re-registered UNAffiliated (that's how it's designated here). We have seen a few Republicans leave the GOP out of disgust, but that doesn't mean they will vote Democrat, especially for any "establishment" Democrat. Depending on their leanings and the November slate, they might vote for either Trump or Sanders (if they're disgusted with the GOP) or else stay home if neither is on the ballot as the clear anti-establishment choice.

A totally inexperienced independent won the second-most votes in our recent city council race, helping knock off a sitting Democratic councilman in a solid-blue town. The incumbent wasn't left enough for voters, perceived too business-friendly and too party-associated (correctly or incorrectly). The left is as pissed off at their establishment over feeling unheard as the righties are. Both want to stick a thumb in the eye of their respective leaders. A bumper sticker seen over the weekend put it succinctly: Bernie. Because f*ck this sh#t. It's a sentiment Trump supporters can find relatable.

Undercover Blue 1/11/2016 06:00:00 AM

Sunday, January 10, 2016

 
Take him at his word, folks #Trump

by digby

It's fun to laugh at Trump and all but I wish all these freedom lovers would listen a little bit more closely to what he actually says before they cheer him on like a bunch of tweens at a One Direction concert:

“If you look at North Korea, this guy, he’s like a maniac, OK?”

“And you’ve got to give him credit: How many young guys — he was like 26 or 25 when his father died — take over these tough generals and all of a sudden, you know, it’s pretty amazing when you think of it. How does he do that?”

“Even though it is a culture, and it’s a culture thing, he goes in, he takes over, he’s the boss. It’s incredible.”

“I mean, it’s amazing that a young guy would go over and take over. You know, you would have thought that these tough generals would have said no way this is gonna happen when the father died.

“So he’s gotta have something going for him, because he kept control, which is amazing for a young person to do."

Setting aside the utter lack of understanding about how North Korea works betrayed by that statement,  if people cannot see by now what Trump is about when he says things like that, they're being willfully blind.

This isn't actually a joke. It's not really a Reality TV show. This guy has millions of Americans cheering him and what he's saying very clearly is that America needs a strongman dictator. Him. But don't worry he'll be "very humane" and will "take care" of the people. But that's what he's saying. He really could not be clearer.

What's amazing is that most of the people who are supporting him also wave around the Constitution like it was handed down directly from God. I guess they must not be too bright.


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digby 1/10/2016 05:30:00 PM

 
Sunday Funnies

by digby

Via Politico

Via DKOS:

digby 1/10/2016 04:00:00 PM

 
The incredible whiteness of being

by digby

This is just one passage in a thought provoking essay in today's Guardian about American "whiteness" as reflected in the Trump and Sanders campaigns in Iowa. I'm not sure I agree with all of it, but it it's a fascinating piece:

As despair has suddenly spread like a fabulous mist over the white people of America, as the white people die off in their unprecedented numbers, the commenters are surprised, a bit, but they have no plan of action. No policy proposals aim at ameliorating the conditions of white people.

How could they? If you believe the Case and Deaton report, white people are victims of their own privilege – literally. Their cherished right to own guns, and the vast increase in the ownership of weaponry, means that their suicide attempts are more effective. They have more access to opioids because doctors are more likely to trust white people with them. They have the money to make themselves lonely and drink.

It's a rather depressing look at the white electorate and I'm not sure it's entirely representative, but it's interesting. You cannot avoid the subject in this election --- Donald Trump has made sure of that. So we might as well take a look at it and try to understand it.


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digby 1/10/2016 02:30:00 PM

 
"He thought that the actual abuse was even more widespread"


by digby

Gosh, this really seems bad.

At least 231 children who sang in a boys’ choir led for 30 years by the brother of former Pope Benedict XVI were abused over a period of almost four decades, a lawyer investigating reports of wrongdoing said Friday.

The lawyer, Ulrich Weber, who was commissioned by the choir to look into accusations of beatings, torture or sexual abuse, said he thought that the actual abuse was even more widespread.

At a news conference in Regensburg, Bavaria, where the choir traces its roots to the year 975, Mr. Weber estimated that from 1953 to 1992, every third member of the choir and an attached school suffered some kind of physical abuse.

He attributed the beatings and other mistreatment mostly to Johann Meier, director of a lower school attached to the choir from 1953 until his retirement in 1992. Mr. Meier died suddenly later that year, Mr. Weber said. A 1987 investigation of reported abuse did not prompt the choir’s leaders to remove Mr. Meier or take other action, the lawyer said.

Asked whether Benedict’s brother, the Rev. Georg Ratzinger, who conducted the Regensburg choir from 1964 to 1994, had known of the abuse, Mr. Weber said, “After my research, I must assume so.”

Ulrich Weber is investigating accusations that children who sang in a German choir led by Georg Ratzinger were abused. Credit Armin Weigel/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Father Ratzinger, who turns 92 this month, is the older brother of Joseph Ratzinger, who served as pope from April 2005 until he stepped down on Feb. 28, 2013, saying he was too frail to fulfill the full range of his duties. Now known as the pope emeritus, he still lives in the Vatican; his brother resides in Regensburg.

Mr. Weber noted that, as conductor of the choir, Father Georg Ratzinger sat on a three-person supervisory body, along with the directors of the high school and the boarding school attached to the choir, that was supposed to oversee the lower school where Mr. Meier worked.

All I can say is that I'm glad they weren't Muslim or we'd have to start bombing something.

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digby 1/10/2016 01:00:00 PM

 
A right winger wraps his mind around Trump

by digby

And finds that he's a little bit in love...

I've replicated the whole thing here because you really need to read it. It fully shows the extent to which the right will go to rationalize their attraction to this no-fascist jerk. I give you Mark Steyn:

On Tuesday night, my daughter and her friends went down to Claremont, New Hampshire to see Donald Trump in action. She and her chums range from the not terribly political to those with the usual enthusiasms of youth, so they went mainly because Trump's a hot ticket, and we don't get a lot of those in the Granite State. Her only other candidate encounter this season was at the North Haverhill Fair last summer when Lindsey Graham pounced outside the 4-H barn, no doubt with an eye to recruiting her for one of his "rotating first ladies".

At any rate, after hearing my daughter's account of the night, my sons said they wanted to see Trump, too. I wasn't particularly enthusiastic, having wasted far too much of my time in New Hampshire on campaign events, going all the way back to the oxymoronic "Dole rallies" of 1996. But they persisted. So we checked out the schedule and discovered that he was due to be in Bernie Sanders' socialist fortress of Vermont on Thursday. Which is how we wound up crossing the Connecticut River and traversing the Green Mountain State, and eventually found ourselves in an unusually lively Burlington. Herewith, a few notes on what I saw:

~THE VENUE: When was the last time a GOP presidential candidate held (in the frantic run-up to Iowa and New Hampshire) an event in Vermont? Every fourth January, Republican campaigns are focused on the first caucus and the first primary states, as Bush, Rubio, Christie, Kasich, Huckabee, Fiorina et al are right now. But in fact the Green Mountain primary is on March 1st, and its delegates count as much as any other state's. In recent cycles, the American electoral system has diminished and degraded itself by retreating into turnout-model reductionism and seriously competing only over a handful of purple states. Even if he's only doing it as a massive head-fake, Trump understands the importance of symbolism: By going into Berniestan, he's saying he's going for every voter and he's happy to play down the other guy's half of the field.

~THE PROTESTS: On the closed block of Main Street outside the Flynn Theatre there was something of a carnival atmosphere. On the south side the thousands of Trump supporters snaked down the sidewalk and round the corner. On the north side the hundreds of protesters waved the usual signs: "DUMP TRUMP", "TRUMPISM IS FASCISM", "TRUMP: AMERICAN IDIOT", etc. Marginally more inventive were "TRUMP IS THE REAL TERRORIST" and the elliptical "TRUMP - THE OTHER WHITE MEAT". My older boy ran into high-school pals who were variously there to attend the rally and there to protest it. The media like to play up the anti-Trump demonstrations, but even this works to his benefit, since they come almost exclusively from the leaden clichés of college-debt social justice. For a six-year bachelor's degree in orientation studies, you'd think these fellows could work up something other than chants that were stale back when Pete Seeger was wondering where all the flowers went. A couple of straggle-bearded hipster dweebs wandered around waving "NO BORDER" signs, which would be a tougher sell in, say, downtown Cologne. A bossy girl of vaguely sapphic mien led us all in a "Black Lives Matter! Black Lives Matter!" chant, which is pretty funny on a street that's 99.99999999999 per cent white. If black lives matter that much, you'd think they could have bussed one in. As enthusiasm faltered, she segued deftly into "Don't give in to racist fear! Immigrants are welcome here!" I must say, as an immigrant myself, I've never found Vermont that welcoming, but perhaps I'm insufficiently exotic for their tastes.

There were a few ill advised ventures into wit. The local toupée salesman wandered around with a big sign recommending Trump try his range of non-flyaway wigs and weaves: This would have been a cuter joke six months ago, but this far in felt a bit like a bad rug, forced and awkward. Still, he was a pleasant chap, so we all pretended to be amused. The guy from the "Vermont Comedy Club" passed out free tickets inviting us to "Comb Over To A Real Show!" for "Trumprov" - a night of Trump improv comedy he'd scheduled to compete with the main event.

~THE MUSIC: In Claremont, my daughter had been bewildered by the songs played beforehand: a loop of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera and Catsalternating with Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" and "Rocket Man", occasionally punctuated by the Beatles' "Hey, Jude"... Listening to the same tape in Burlington, it occurred to me the unifying feature might be that they're all tenants of Trump's at Trump Tower (I know Andrew is, and Sir Elt), or it might just be that British pop stars are more easygoing about being associated with Republican candidates. You'll recall that Sam & Dave and Isaac Hayes told Bob Dole to quit using his version of "I'm A Soul Man" ("I'm A Dole Man") and Heart did the same re Sarah Palin and "Barracuda". Evidently, Andrew Lloyd Webber is more relaxed about the title song of Phantom, and certainly its descending haunted-house organ motif is unlike any other warm-up music for a presidential nominee: "The Phantom of the Op-e-ra is here ...inside your mind!" Very true.

~THE ESTABLISHMENT: The reserved seating at the front of these events is usually held for the big donors. Trump has no donors, so there are no money guys who've paid for access hogging the best seats. Instead, they were taken by folks who'd been backing him the longest. One couple were there because they were tootling along with a Trump sticker on the back of the car (something of a rare sight in Vermont) and at the stop sign an appreciative campaign staffer behind had leaped out and offered them VIP tickets. The only real VIP in the seats was a former finalist at "The Apprentice" whom Trump had asked along.

That said, while the donor class continues to hurl bazillion-dollar checks at Mike Murphy's "Right-to-Risibility" Bush campaign, at the state level of the GOP establishment Trump is not without supporters: He was introduced on stage by Deb Billado, the Chittenden County chair for the Vermont Republican Party (Chittenden is the state's most populous county - and the most Ben & Jerrified), and prowling the aisles you could spot the occasional New Hampshire state rep. So if, as some of the dottier rumors suggest, the Republican establishment is planning to run third-party if Trump gets the nomination, it's not clear how much of the state apparatus they'll be taking with them. "If Trump were the nominee, the GOP would cease to be," declaresMichael Gerson. The state legislators and volunteers present on Thursday would disagree.

~BACKSTAGE: I did check out the action backstage, and I'll say this: It was unlike any other candidate event I've been to. By comparison with, say, presidential campaigns such as Lamar Alexander's or Orrin Hatch's, Trump is very lightly staffed, and entirely unmanaged. Twenty minutes before the event, backstage is usually a whirl of activity with minions pretending to look busy and frantically tippy-tapping away on their phones over some vital matter or other. Deputy speechwriters and assistant campaign managers bustle about saying things like, "Mike's seen the Egyptian Prime Minister's response to the Secretary of State, so we're working on a sentence to add to the nuclear-proliferation section." There's none of that around Trump. He's meandering around back there shooting the breeze, posing for pics, totally relaxed - and so are his press secretary and campaign manager, too. If you've seen any of those inside-the-campaign movies, from Robert Redford in The Candidate to George Clooney in Ides of March, it looks all wrong: There's far too few people, and there's none of the fake busyness.

And then the announcement: "Ladies and gentlemen, the next President of the United States, Donald J Trump..."

~THE SHOW: He's very good at this. Very good. On the same day as Trump's speech, Peter Shumlin, the colorless dullard serving as Vermont's governor, came to the State House in Montpelier to deliver his "State of the State" address. He required two prompters so he could do the Obama swivel-head like a guy with good seats at Wimbledon following the world's slowest centre-court rally. Two prompters! In the Vermont legislature! And for the same old generic boilerplate you forget as soon as you've heard it.

Trump has no prompters. He walks out, pulls a couple of pieces of folded paper from his pocket, and then starts talking. Somewhere in there is the germ of a stump speech, but it would bore him to do the same poll-tested focus-grouped thing night after night, so he basically riffs on whatever's on his mind. This can lead to some odd juxtapositions: One minute he's talking about the Iran deal, the next he detours into how Macy's stock is in the toilet since they dumped Trump ties. But in a strange way it all hangs together: It's both a political speech, and a simultaneous running commentary on his own campaign.

It's also hilarious. I've seen no end of really mediocre shows at the Flynn in the last quarter-century, and I would have to account this the best night's entertainment I've had there with the exception of the great jazz singer Dianne Reeves a few years back. He's way funnier than half the stand-up acts I've seen at the Juste pour rires comedy festival a couple of hours north in Montreal. And I can guarantee that he was funnier than any of the guys trying their hand at Trump Improv night at the Vermont Comedy Club a couple of blocks away. He has a natural comic timing.

Just to be non-partisan about this, the other day I was listening to Obama's gun-control photo-op at the White House, and he thanked Gabby Giffords, by explaining that her husband Mark's brother is an astronaut in outer space and he'd called just before Mark's last meeting at the White House but, not wishing to disturb the President, Mark didn't pick up. "Which made me feel kind of bad," said the President. "That's a long-distance call." As I was driving along, I remember thinking how brilliantly Obama delivered that line. He's not usually generous to others and he's too thin-skinned to be self-deprecating with respect to himself, but, when he wants to get laughs, he knows how to do it. Trump's is a different style: He's looser, and more freewheeling. He's not like Jeb - he doesn't need writers, and scripted lines; he has a natural instinct for where the comedy lies. He has a zest for the comedy of life.

To be sure, some of the gags can be a little - what's the word? - mean-spirited. The performance was interrupted by knots of protesters. "Throw 'em out!" barked Trump, after the first chants broke out. The second time it happened, he watched one of the security guys carefully picking up the heckler's coat. "Confiscate their coats," deadpanned Trump. "It's ten below zero outside." Third time it happened, he extended his coat riff: "We'll mail them back to them in a couple of weeks." On MSNBC, they apparently had a discussion on how Trump could be so outrageous as to demand the confiscation of private property. But in showbusiness this is what is known as a "joke". And in the theatre it lands: everyone's laughing and having a ball.

That's the point. I think it would help if every member of the pundit class had to attend a Trump rally before cranking out the usual shtick about how he's tapping into what Jeb called "angst and anger". Yes, Trump supporters are indignant (and right to be) about the bipartisan cartel's erasure of the southern border and their preference for unskilled Third World labor over their own citizenry, but "anger" is not the defining quality of a Trump night out. The candidate is clearly having the time of his life, and that's infectious, which is why his supporters are having a good time, too. Had Mitt campaigned like this, he'd be president. But he had no ability to connect with voters. Nor does Jeb ("I've been endorsed by another 27 has-beens") Bush.

~THE HORSE RACE: Trump always talks about the polls - or "the ratings", as he calls them. For example, he suggested it was time for Rand Paul to get out because his ratings are "horrible". Pundits complain that Trump spends time in his speeches scoffing at his rivals' numbers rather than laying out his ten-point plan for capital-gains tax reform. But these same pundits go on cable TV shows where the same polls are pored over in great detail - Carson's down five in Iowa, Christie's up three in New Hampshire. So presumably the media feel this horse-race stuff is of interest to their general audience. In that case, why shouldn't it be of interest to people so into it that they've spent all day lining up in freezing temperatures to see their preferred candidate? And Trump is funnier on the horse-race stuff than most of the professional analysts: He'd noticed in one poll that George Pataki had been at zero, but then he saw that next to the "0" was the "less than" symbol ("<"), and he wondered how that was even possible, even for George Pataki. That's a very endearing feature of his act: He's done Miss Universe and "The Apprentice" and he understands that the conventions of the nominating system are more ridiculous than either.

~MESSAGE DISCIPLINE: In fairness, he is (or was) actually competing against Pataki, and still is (just about) against Rand Paul. But he also did a couple of minutes on Martin O'Malley. He'd been talking about the crowds he's been getting, and he'd said that when he goes back home his wife asks him how the speech went and whether anyone was there. Because the cameras stay directly focused on him and never show the audience. And he thought at first this was because they were fixed and hammered into place - until a protester starts yelling and then suddenly the cameras are twisting around like pretzels, no matter what corner of the room they're in. Anyway, at some point, he mused on a Martin O'Malley rally at which apparently only one person showed up. So O'Malley talked with him one on one for an hour, and at the end a reporter asked the guy whether he would be supporting O'Malley. And the fellow said no.

And we all laughed, as did Trump.

Now, short of the mullahs nuking Hillary in Chappaqua and the following day Kim Jong-Un nuking Bernie in Burlington, there is no conceivable scenario in which Trump will be facing off against Martin O'Malley. So talking about him is a complete waste of time - and Karl Rove says that campaigning is all about the efficient use of the dwindling amount of time you have this close to Iowa and New Hampshire. So doing ten minutes of knee-slappers on Martin O'Malley is ten minutes you could have used to talk about Social Security reform that you'll never get back.

Maybe Rove is right. But as a practical matter it's led to the stilted robotic artificiality of the eternally on-message candidate - which is one of the things that normal people hate about politics. And Trump's messages are so clear that he doesn't have to "stay on" them. People get them instantly: On Thursday he did a little bit of audience participation. "Who's going to pay for the wall?" And everyone yelled back, "Mexico!" He may appear to be totally undisciplined, yet everyone's got the message. Likewise, his line on an end to Muslim immigration "until we can figure out what the hell's going on" is actually a subtle and very artfully poised way of putting it that generates huge applause. Trump has such a natural talent for "message" that it frees up plenty of time to do ten minutes of Martin O'Malley shtick.

~AUTHENTICITY: Traditionally in American politics the way you connect with voters is to pretend you're just as big a broken-down loser as they are. One recalls Lamar Alexander and his team flying in to Manchester, New Hampshire and just before touchdown changing out of their Brooks Brothers suits and button-down shirts into suspiciously pressed and unstained plaid. In this cycle, it's been John Kasich doing his slickly produced, soft-focus "son of a mailman" ads. So much presidential politicking is now complete bollocks, as rote and meaningless as English panto or Chinese opera conventions. Trump doesn't bother with any of that. Halfway through, he detoured into an aside about how he was now having to go around in an armored car, and how many rounds it could take before the window disintegrated, and how the security guys shove you in and let the reinforced door slam you in the ass. And the thing's ugly as hell. "If I win," sighed Trump, "I'll never ride in a Rolls-Royce ever again." And all around me guys who drive Chevy Silverados and women who drive Honda Civics roared with laughter. Usually, a candidate claims, like Clinton, to feel our pain, but, just for a moment there, we felt Trump's.

What is "authenticity" in contemporary politics? Is it a man who parlayed a routine Congressional career into a lucrative gig at Lehman Brothers presenting himself as the son of a mailman? Or is it a billionaire with a supermodel wife dropping the pretense that he's no different from you stump-toothed losers in the rusting double-wides? Trump's lack of pandering extends to America, too. He doesn't do the this-is-the-greatest-country-in-the-history-of-countries shtick that Mitt did last time round. He isn't promising, like Marco Rubio, a "second American century". His pitch is that the American dream is dead - which, for many Americans, it is. In 1980, Jimmy Carter's "malaise" was an aberration - a half-decade blip in three decades of post-war US prosperity that had enabled Americans with high school educations to lead middle-class lives in a three-bedroom house on a nice-sized lot in an agreeable neighborhood. In 2015, for many Americans, "malaise" is not a blip, but a permanent feature of life that has squeezed them out of the middle class. They're not in the mood for bromides about second American centuries: They'd like what's left of their own lifespan to be less worse.

That's the other quality on display: at certain points - for example, when Trump started talking about "beautiful Kate in San Francisco" being killed by an illegal immigrant - I turned around and saw men and women tearing up.

~IDEOLOGY: Is Trump "conservative"? Peggy Noonan:

Mr. Trump's supporters don't care if he's classically conservative. Doctrinal purity is not the story this year.

If the national GOP is a vehicle for ensuring that John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan have a car and driver and a Gulf emir-sized retinue, then it's very effective. If it's a vehicle for advancing conservative principles, then it's a rusted-up lemon on cinder blocks. At an event with Newt Gingrich about a decade ago, one of my neighbors asked why the Republicans were so ineffectual. Newt said it was because they're still getting used to being the majority party. Somebody responded, "So the Iraqis are supposed to get the hang of self-government after six months, but the Republican Party still can't manage it after ten years?"

For many conservative voters, 2014 was the GOP's last chance, and they blew it. For those conservative voters whose priority is immigration, 2016 is America's last chance, and Trump's the only reason anyone's even talking about that.

~IT'S CHRISTMAS IN AMERICA: One of the loudest cheers came from another diversion in the midst of China trade talk or whatever: a pledge that under a Trump Administration people would be saying "Merry Christmas!" again. At a certain level it seems an odd thing to be talking about on January 7th, but in a broader sense it resonates because people understand that at the municipal, school and county level the culture wars never stop. Christmas concerts become "winter" and "holiday" concerts. Department stores issue elaborate instructions on approved seasonal greetings. School districts declare the American flag culturally insensitive. "Cinco de Mayo" is a wonderfully diverse and inclusive way of celebrating the Mexican contribution to America, but nobody thinks of marking "Victoria Day" to help Canadians feel welcome. Powerline's John Hinderaker has a note on whether or not Trump is aware that he can't sign an executive order abolishing gun-free zones in American schoolhouses. Yes, he knows that. But he also knows that using the bully pulpit to push back against the remorseless one-way cultural warfare of the left is one of the most powerful tools a president has - and one that, for example, President Bush chose not to use, to disastrous effect.

~THE DIFFERENCE: Trump has already demonstrated that he knows how to change the conversation. Peggy Noonan:

He changed the debate on illegal immigration. He said he'd build a wall and close the border and as the months passed and his competitors saw his surge, they too were suddenly, clearly, aggressively for ending illegal immigration.

At least until they can see him off, and get back to talking about "comprehensive reform" and bringing people "out of the shadows" and how family values "don't stop at the Rio Grande". But until then Trump has so dramatically moved the needle on this subject that in The New York Times Thomas L Friedman is now calling for "controlling low-skilled immigration".

He moved the meter on the "war on women", too. Mrs Clinton pulled out the card, and Trump flung it right back in her face with her sleazy sociopath of a husband's four decades of abuse against vulnerable women. Hillary's now backed off.

On Thursday, because of Obama, gun control was in the news. Trump's pushing back on that, too:

You know what a gun-free zone is to a sicko? That's bait.

~THE WINNOWING: It's assumed by the GOP establishment that once the field narrows Trump will bump up against his natural ceiling. I think the opposite is true. Trump has essentially sat out these stupid ten-man TV debates and then resumed his rise once they're over. If it came down to a four- or three- or two-man race, the man I saw on Thursday night would be a formidable debate opponent. And I don't doubt he could hold his own against Hillary.

~THE END: What can stop Trump? The establishment want him gone, and are pinning their hopes on an alleged lack of precinct captains in the fiendishly difficult caucus state of Iowa. If that doesn't work, they're building a southern firewall. Peggy Noonan again:

In Virginia the state Republican Party wants a so-called loyalty oath in the March 1 presidential primary. Virginia is an open-primary state—any registered voter can vote in either primary—but the GOP apparently wants to discourage independents and Democrats from voting for Mr. Trump. So they've decided voters should sign a statement of affiliation with the GOP before they get to cast a ballot. This is so idiotic it's almost unbelievable. When Democrats and independents want to vote in your primary you should be happy. Politics is a game of addition! You want headlines that say "Massive GOP Turnout." You don't greet first-time voters with an oath but with cookies, ginger ale and balloons.

So, for all the post-2012 talk about outreach to Hispanics and gays, in the end the GOP would rather have the old, safe, depressed-turnout model than a bunch of first-time Republican voters coming in and monkeying about with their racket.

The headline in Friday's local paper read: "BURLINGTON TRUMPED". That's what his fans liked. In the liberal heart of a liberal state, the supporters streaming out of the Flynn Theatre, waving genially to the social-justice doofuses across the way, couldn't recall a night like it. Not in Vermont. In New Hampshire, sure. In South Carolina. But not in Vermont. It felt good to be taking it to the other side's turf. And they'd like a lot more of it between now and November.

I like how he says "his fans" as if he isn't so far in the tank he's grown gills by the end of that endless paean to an undisciplined, shallow,  nasty piece of work who is tapping into America's dark id.  It's all in good fun folks.  It's just entertainment. Like Rush and Coulter. Except it's not.

Essentially he's saying that everyone's so screwed now that they no longer even care about democracy, politics or government. Indeed, they don't even care about themselves or their families. They're just looking for a good laugh. Nihilism on acid. And if that's the case, I guess Trump's their man.

Why am I not laughing?

h/t to DailyKos for the image
digby 1/10/2016 11:30:00 AM