UPDATE III: Votes are still being counted, but I’m encouraged. It has been a good night for Trump but not that good. There’s no reason, I can see, for either Rubio or Cruz to get out at this point (Rubio’s big stand will have to be in FL in two weeks. He must win there).
Sure, Trump still is the front-runner and has the best chance of getting the GOP nomination, but there is a chance that either Rubio and Cruz will keep dogging him and denying him a first-ballot majority, or one of them may yet become the Anti-Trump and roll up more delegates than Trump. We’ll have to see how it comes out.
UPDATE IV: Ok, so the votes are counted.
First and foremost, the Democrat turnout has collapsed against 2008 and the GOP turnout was not just large, it was remarkably large, historic…record setting, I understand in some States. These are numbers which in normal politics would indicate a Republican landslide in November…but with Trump at the top of the heap, we just don’t know…and might not know until the votes are counted on November 8th.
Second, I don’t see any reason for Bernie to drop out on the Democrat side. Hillary did roll up some big wins, but the States that the primaries are heading to are much more Bernie-friendly. In the end I do expect the Democrat leadership to muscle Hillary into the nomination, but if I were Bernie – or one of his supporters – I’d carry on the fight. I’ve talked with a number of these Democrat Bernie supporters…unlike the Obama-bots, they don’t seem to be relentlessly nasty people. They are wrong, but not wrong-headed. I wish them well – I don’t want a Socialist United States, but I admire the sincerity and conviction of these people.
Third – now what, for the GOP? As I said last night, no reason for Cruz or Rubio to back out at this point, though Rubio has to win in Florida on the 15th to remain in any way credible. There is a chance – a small one – that the combination of Cruz and Rubio can deny Trump a first ballot majority at the Convention. This does not mean that Trump isn’t going to be the nominee – the only way to prevent that at this point is for a candidate to roll up more delegates than Trump does, and that is a vanishingly small probability. But if Cruz and Rubio come to Cleveland with enough delegates to prevent Trump from winning on the first ballot, then Trump is going to have to make a deal…and it will be a deal with two candidates who rose out of the TEA Party movement. In other words, if Cruz and Rubio are worth anything, they’ll be able to force Trump to make some moves which would make a Trump candidacy and Presidency far more palatable. Just as one scenario: Rubio gets the VP slot, Cruz gets a SCOTUS promise. That sort of thing would make #NeverTrump into #WTFOkIGuessTrump. We’ll have to see how that plays out (no, I’ll never be a Trump supporter)
Well, here it is – later this evening, we’ll find out…and I suspect that in a rare moment of agreement, both genuine Socialists and Conservatives will be equally disappointed in the result.
If, as I suspect, Trump does very well then for the GOP nomination it is all over but the shouting. Cruz, unless he wins big in Texas, is probably out first – Rubio will likely hang around until the Florida result. Kasich and Carson might also hang in there, but I can’t imagine why.
If by some miracle either Cruz or Rubio massively exceed expectations then it is a whole, new ball game…and even such things as a brokered convention is not impossible. On the Democrat side, even if Sanders does well, the whole DNC machine is so greased for Hillary that it won’t matter. Come what may, the Democrat powers-that-be are going to give Hillary a shot at it in November. And against Trump, one does have to put Hillary down as the favorite given all we know about American politics…except for the fact that all we know about American politics should have prevented Trump from even getting this far.
For those of us who will be wondering if a four to eight year bout of alcoholism is our best bet, there’s this from Ben Domenech over at the Federalist which oddly gives me a glimmer of hope:
…The Trump phenomenon is neither a disease nor a symptom – he is instead the beta-test of a cure that the American people are trying out. It won’t work. But this is where our politics are going: working and middle class Americans are reasserting themselves against a political and cultural establishment that has become completely discredited over time and due to their own actions…
…Democrats and Republicans who still think that this is a phase – a fever they just need to wait out before a return to normalcy – are utterly delusional. They keep talking about voters “waking up” to realize that Trump is a bad choice – but the whole reason Trump is the choice is because voters believe they have woken up to the truth about the American leadership class. The old order is breaking down, thanks to Iraq. Katrina. The financial crisis. The failed stimulus. Obamacare’s launch. The Tea Party. Occupy Wall Street. Sanders. Trump. The American people are trying to find a new way, and they are looking for outsiders to lead them through the wasteland.
To the establishment, this breakdown looks like chaos. It looks like savagery. It looks like a man with a flamethrowing guitar playing death metal going a hundred miles an hour down Fury Road. But to the American people, it looks like democracy…
No doubt about it, Trump is the result of the Ruling Class treating the people with contempt. Unlike some on the right (and everyone on the left) I don’t actually lump former President Bush in with this…even though, no doubt about it, he’s a member of the Ruling Class. But remember some of the things he tried to do – not least immigration reform and entitlement reform. He was left high and dry by precisely those who are now most bemoaning the rise of Trump. Had the rest of the Ruling Class had a tenth of the guts of President Bush – not to mention just an ounce of the humility be brought to the job – then Trump never would have happened. Neither would have Obama. One doesn’t have to agree with what Bush proposed – but every honest person has to admit that he made an effort to grapple with our problems in a positive way. The moment was lost – and we first got Obama to double down on the corrupt cronyism while ignoring the real problems (along with bitterly dividing Americans along class, ethnic and social lines), and now we may well get Trump…and if we wind up getting Hillary, it will actually be worse (cronyism and favoring the elite over the nation will become something on steroids with Hillary in office).
Now we’ve got a population which has zero faith in our system – and that is terribly bad for a democratic republic. Such governments can only rule by consent…and the consent of the governed is not being offered these days. The governed are enduring it, but they don’t like it and are starting to lash out. If Trump is blown out in an epic landslide in November, don’t think that the cat is then back in the bag…it will, actually, just infuriate people all the more. That is why I think Domenech is on to something – this is a sort of beta test. The people will keep bucking against this corrupt and nasty system we’ve got…and eventually they’ll hit upon a working method to overturn it. I just hope that when that time finally arrives, the person who steps forward to lead it is in the likeness of Washington or Lincoln.
As for me, I’ll remain what I have been all my adult life – a Conservative. I don’t know if I’ll remain a Republican…Donald Trump is very much a bridge too far for me. I’ll put my faith in God and walk untroubled into the future.
UPDATE: A bit more analysis from Allahpundit, regarding Senator Sasse’s firm decision not to back Trump and what is going on around here:
…The not so good point is when Sasse claims that Trump is filling a void created by the GOP when it grew too vacuous about “first principles.” Is … that what Trumpmania is about? I’ve heard lots of smart explanations for it — it’s a response to globalization and mass immigration from people who want jobs repatriated; it’s a demand for strength after a long period of national and cultural diffidence; it’s a rebellion by “Fishtown” after being taken for granted by “Belmont” for so many years; it’s “identity politics for white people” in a country that’s increasingly diverse. One thing it does not seem to be, except maybe to the extent that Cruz’s share of the vote overlaps with Trump’s, is an expression of frustration that the GOP isn’t as conservative or in touch with the Constitution as it should be. On the contrary, a lot of Trump fans seem like they’d be fine with Trump taking a dump on the Constitution and engaging in ambitious executive power grabs, like “opening up libel laws,” so long as it means increasing their share of the pie. (Sasse himself has criticized Trump’s caesarist tendencies but I wonder if he knows, or would admit, that Trump has some popular support for that.) Maybe Sasse is saying this simply because it’s part of his brand: He’s a conservative, therefore any problem with the party must ultimately boil down to “not conservative enough.”…
Sasse is partially right – but he is missing a large point. Partially because of the nature of things and partially because of relentless, Progressive miseducation, a majority of Americans only have a hazy idea of just what is in the Constitution. The other day Hillary said that the Constitution gives us the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – which is, of course, in the Declaration of Independence, not in the Constitution. True, one can argue that the Constitution was enacted to secure such rights, but the bottom line is that, for instance, a right to life is not definitively stated in the Constitution (and if it were, abortion would be illegal…and probably the death penalty, as well). But I’ll bet most of her audience didn’t realize the error…heck, Hillary might not realize the error (she’s not a person I’ve ever felt to be all that intellectually sharp, nor a person with more than a cursory knowledge of history.
The First Principal that most Americans care about, in my experience, is fairness. It is why our Progressives can at times run so well among the American electorate: they claim the are for fairness (what they are actually for is the unjust punishment of identified target groups, but that is unimportant right now). It is unfair that illegal immigrants can get in-State tuition while American citizens can’t. It is unfair that we spend money to resettle refugees in our nation while some of our veterans go without medical care and housing. It is unfair that the rich and powerful have armed guards but average citizens are to be barred from owing weapons. The people don’t like it when they perceive that others are getting an unfair advantage – whether that advantage is real or imaginary. This is not the same as desiring absolute equality – our Progressives tout that ideal, but Americans are sensible enough to know that no matter what you do, we won’t all be equal in our work ethic and life choices. But a rough fairness and parity between all is desired – and when it isn’t forthcoming, people get mad.
Conservatism won the battle over gun rights because it was an appeal to fairness. Conservatism is slowly winning the fight over abortion because it is simply unfair to kill a kid because her parents were in some way lacking. But Conservatism has been losing the battle on things like economic policy because Conservatism is perceived (mostly incorrectly – but not entirely) as being unfairly biased towards those who already have quite a lot. Over Obama’s 8 years as he has serially provided special benefits for his cronies (don’t think that all those waivers for Obama donors and supporters over ObamaCare went un-noticed), Democrats are also being perceived as a party being unfair. This is why Democrat power has cratered everywhere outside the White House since 2008. Donald Trump’s rise is in response to this – he’s going to pay back these unfair people – Democrats and Republicans – in their own coin. Or, at least, that is what his supporters think. And even a lot of people who can’t stomach Trump are just as angry over the unfairness of our system…and are just waiting for someone more acceptable than Trump to come along.
Win or lose, Trump will blow the Republican party to pieces. Some people will march out of it, never to return. But on the other hand, the Democrat party is going to bleed support as well – the Trump Democrats will be a real thing in 2016 (saw a report today that large numbers of Massachusetts Democrats are re-registering Republican so they can vote in the GOP primary – and I’ll bet this is happening all around the nation). Where this will all wind up is anyone’s guess. I’m hopeful that true Conservatives will form a new party in 2017 – not with a mind towards capturing a majority of Congress (that is probably not in the cards, at least any time soon), but with an idea of holding the balance of power in Congress…and maybe even getting a true Conservative into the White House in 2020 or 2024 via a massively fractured vote (Lincoln, you might recall, was elected with a mere 40% of the vote in 1860).
UPDATE II: Interesting poll. Do keep in mind that I’m going to take all 2016 polling with a grain of salt, but it is very much worth it to look over. The headline is that Hillary tops Trump and everyone is latching on to that. But I found a few other interesting things.
1. Trump is rated vastly better than everyone else in the race on handling the economy. This is a nonsense belief, of course – but nonsense beliefs can move an election (2008, for instance). If the economy goes south over this year (a 50/50 shot, I think), then Trump will benefit.
2. Trump rates best among all GOPers on ability to improve race relations. I have no idea where this notion comes from.
3. Clinton is rated best on foreign policy. This is just stupid – any GOPer who gets the nomination is going to be able to shred Hillary on foreign policy. But, people are thinking Hillary is good at it, at least for now.
4. Trump, Hillary and Sanders – that is the order of the candidates when people are asked who would be best at gun policy. This is a rather Twilight Zone polling result.
5. Trump and Hillary are viewed unfavorably by a substantial majority.
6. If Bloomberg gets in, the House will probably decide who gets to be President.
7. The polling sample is a good mix between Democrat, Republican and Independent so it is rock solid as long as in 2016 the various party strengths are what they have been for a long while.
Blogs For Victory 
There is a Dem primary in Colorado but the Republicans decided last year not to have one—they didn’t want their delegates locked into a candidate who might be out of the running later in the year.
I’m just wondering what the campaign will look like if Trump is the nominee. Will he call for a time out while he is defending himself against fraud charges? (His “Trump University” was described by one official as a classic Ponzi scheme—President Madoff, anyone?) With Trump in court this summer, and Hillary being hounded by one indictable charge after another, the whole thing may look more like a Court TV show than a presidential election. How do you decide who to vote on? The one who will probably spend less time in jail?
Trump University has been described as a classic Ponzi scheme. Because it IS a Ponzi scheme. One of the things Mark Noonan gets and has said for the last 10 years is that higher education is a Ponzi scheme. There should be apprenticeships and trade schools as alternatives to average performing students who don’t want to do STEM careers.
I have been calling on the GOP for 20 years to get rid of the Department of Education. That’s the place where I could apply for big money to do social experiments on unsuspecting students. A place looking for magic solutions to student failure. Simple put students who, for whatever reason, don’t put in time on task aren’t going to learn even if professor has perfect lectures, course notes etc. Liberal professors love doing experiments on students, trying out the latest nonsense. Since it’s start in 1980 the GOP has held the presidency for 20 years and did nothing to get rid of it. Hell, in 2012 Romney didn’t campaign to get rid of the Dept. of Ed.
Trump and Cruz are the only candidates smart enough to get rid of the Dept. of Education and the establishment is instead lining up behind a candidate whose high school GPA was a 2.1.
Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme – higher education, outside the hard sciences (and even there, some doubts are growing), is just a scam to give otherwise useless professors and administrators a sinecure. And provide yet another funding source for the left, of course.
The Department of Education was just Carter’s payoff to the Teacher’s unions – it is a completely useless and regressive agency, but to attack it must be done with care…too easy for the left to scream “you’re against education!”. First step in any desire to reduce the size of government is to do what Walker did in Wisconsin…go after the public sector unions.
Unacceptable language and name calling //Moderator
Unfortunately, I’ve read and believe we get the government we deserve. Since, fiscal conservatives have taken leave of their senses, not to mention a goodly portion of evangelicals, and have seen fit to back a one percent, establishment Democrat posing as a Republican under the guise of a populist, I won’t have a dog in this race. Unless sanity returns by some miracle of divine intervention precluding a Trump victory, I, being socially conservative first and foremost albeit not exclusively, feel as though my party has died and I have been sentence to political equivalent of hell. I cannot in conscience vote for Trump or Clinton and if Trump is the nominee then I’ll stay home. I have voted in every election, since my 18th birthday, but I won’t vote for either of these two. I answer to higher power and what I’m I to say to my God when ask why I supported a criminal for president? I choose the lesser of to evils to rule the most powerful nation in the world? Evil being the disqualifier in the former sentence. I and those like me are no longer represented by the Republican party. I read in the American Thinker just the other day an article expounding on the political irrelevance of the evangelical vote just last week. However, fiscals should remember our fates are intertwined ninety percent of time and if we go down they do too. I want, no I demand a candidate whose character doesn’t make want to puke no matter how much money he made have made or how big his jet is. The morons can elect their reality star president, but I won’t vote for him even though he is the lesser of two evils. I say if we are going to commit national suicide let’s get it over with quick! The establishment thought Cruz too difficult to get along with, so let them try Hillary on for size. The answer to you question on how to decide to vote for me is easy Amazon. Don’t!
Mark, I agree with you. I have been struggling with this, myself. On one hand, I believe that party trumps (so to speak—-another word now looking for a less toxic replacement) person and that the most important thing is to get the right party in place even when the person is lacking, because being the winning party has all sorts of advantages that the losing party does not have. On the other hand, unlike Trumpbots, I DO have standards and principles that are not so shallow that they are so easily uprooted by a fanboy attraction to a fast talking con man.
So the question is not as simple as it looks. At first glance, the simple question of “can you vote for Trump?” has a simple answer. No.
But there are other things to consider.
If I will not vote for Trump, will I actively support a third party, a Constitutional Party with Ted Cruz as its candidate, with money and time and effort? Will I just not vote at all? Or will I vote on everything on the ticket BUT Trump, to do my best to make sure we hold the House and Senate no matter who gets the presidency?
Because that is the real problem here. Trump As President is out of my hands right now. It is in the hands of the establishment and the media and the Left wing which have all been promoting him because he is, as Carter said, “malleable”. Because, as Robert Reich says, he has no core principles. In other words, he is not a Cruz, not a man with faith and confidence in his steely focus on constitutional government.
As far as I can see, the only hope for conservatives is to not only hold the seats in Congress we already have, but to increase them. This is absolutely vital, no matter who wins the presidency, if it comes down to Trump v Clinton. And a refusal to vote for Trump can very easily lead to simply not voting at all, which I believe would lose us several of the seats in the Senate and the House we already have.
The only thing worse than a President Trump or a President Clinton would be a Democrat-controlled Congress. At that point it is all over.
But wait—it gets worse. There is a very good chance that if Cruz pulls this out of the hat and is the nominee, Trump will run as a third party candidate. He has already threatened us with that bully-boy tactic, phrasing it as a stand against an “unfair establishment” but what is really a Trumpertantrum of epic proportions.
Then we would get into the “inside baseball” of politics. Imagine, if you will, a GOP candidate Cruz, with true conservatives behind him, with lots of money and a good ground game, up against a Trump insurgency populated by—well, who the hell knows WHAT kind of people would flock to that?—and a Clinton campaign besieged by legal problems and issues but fantastically well funded
and well run. I think the GOP campaign would generate a lot of energy, the Trump campaign would attract a lot of Dems who want to vote but who can’t bring themselves to vote for Hillary (a phenomenon which may come to be known as the Trump Effect) but would lose a lot of people to Cruz, and the Clinton support on the ground would be lethargic. It would all come down to turnout. I think the Conservative ticket would generate a lot of turnout, because it would be the last chance for the conservative movement. I think the Trump campaign would be losing some steam from the Right, as a real campaign will no doubt bring out the negatives about Trump and he will be the big target for Clinton as those would be the only voters she could possibly woo. And a lot of Dems would think “I can’t vote for Hillary, I can’t vote for Trump, and I for damned sure won’t vote for Cruz” and would stay home.
The same basic scenario would play out if Trump is the GOP nominee and we mount a Constitutional Party campaign, though the Constitutional Party would have a lot less money because it would not have access to RNC funding.
If no candidate gets a majority of the electoral votes, the election is decided in the House of Representatives, with each member getting one vote. At that point every Representative would have to decide if he is going to vote the party line, or the GOP candidate, or go against it and vote for Trump. Or if Trump is the GOP candidate, go against it and vote for Cruz. And right now we have a majority in the House.
I predict, and many people predict, that when Trump is nominated, or if he chooses to run as an independent, Clinton and her lapdog media will be on him like white on rice, with every woman-hating comment he has ever made to support the old revived “WAR ON WOMENNNN!!” meme, every comment he has made that might turn off black voters (“no one has done as much for equality as I have” and his tepid kinda-renunciation of David Duke and white supremacy), every Mob connection, every legal problem he has had, every bankruptcy and business failure. As one pundit said, they will have every person who lost money due to Trump’s Ponzi scheme, failure to build buildings people had already invested in, etc. Cruz wouldn’t have to lift a finger, as Trump would have to take the bait and to after Clinton.
But setting aside a three-way race scenario, the real problem in this race is getting enough Republicans to the polls to secure our position in Congress, and the fear is that people who refuse to vote for Trump might not vote at all, and we would lose everything.
I have been astonished by Evangelical support for Trump – it was because of Evangelicals that I didn’t figure Trump would last past South Carolina…and my worry, then, was that he’d storm off and run Third Party, thus handing the White House to Hillary. But, there he was in South Carolina cleaning up among Evangelicals against a solidly Evangelical candidate who also happens to be the Constitutional purist we all claimed we wanted. I’m at a loss to explain it – if any Evangelicals out there in the Trump ranks want to explain it to me, I’m all ears.
For all these years we have had conservatives bitching and moaning that “the Establishment” kept sticking us with bad candidates, so we had to choose between the lesser of two evils to even be able to vote In 2012 we finally got a candidate with a solid, if not perfect, conservative record, a stellar business record, a background that included the massive job of saving the Utah Olympics from disaster, and a good record as a governor. He had an impeccable personal history, was a devout Christian with a solid marriage, no history of sexual escapades, and a proven history of actually LIVING his faith. He was the real deal. He was a successful businessman with a better record than Trump. He not only went to church, he lived his faith, visiting the sick, caring for those less fortunate, being faithful to his wife, being a good and loving father to his children, He’d had one wife, one faith and one party. He was not only a successful businessman, he was also a successful governor, so he had some political experience. I, at least, could vote for him with pride, even though his conservative credentials were not absolute.
And we lost, in part because these “evangelicals” didn’t like his religion and refused to vote. His own party savaged him because in spite of everything that was good and admirable about him he wasn’t perfect, and these petty “evangelicals” had temper tantrums and many just stayed home.
Now these same purists, these self-styled paragons of virtue who demand not only a Christian but the “right kind” of Christian, are flocking to support a man whose morals are disgusting, whose entire history is one of deceit and abuse and depravity, and who has bragged about all of this. He is not only a proven liar, he has lied in this campaign, over and over again. We don’t have to worry about him belonging to the “wrong” Christian faith because we don’t even know what denomination he aligns himself with, and these smug self-styled arbiters of faith are quite happy with a guy whose personal definition of Christianity is that he never has to repent for anything and has never felt the need to ask for forgiveness, while he lies about pretty much everything, cheats on his various wives, and swindles people out of their life savings.
You think Trumpbots are driven by anger and frustration? Well, here is what conservatives have to say to them. That ain’t nothing, my hypocritical little sheeple friends, compared to the anger and frustration of finally having a good candidate, a solid and proven conservative, a man with a solid Christian background whose father is an evangelical pastor, a man of integrity and honor who is also brilliant, a constitutional scholar dedicated to its principles who has fought in the political trenches to uphold them, and you toss all those alleged “values” over your shoulder and go trotting after some painted and peroxided floozie who just promises that doing so will feel good and be “beautiful”.
So much for your smug and much-vaunted “values”. They were the first thing you threw overboard when you allowed yourself to be dazzled by an incoherent huckster who lies to your face and then comes back with another lie when caught in the first one, whose morals are not only in the sewer but something he brags about. There is literally not one single moral value that has allegedly been soooo important to the pious “evangelicals” that has not been blatantly trampled by Trump, the serial adulterer who goes on national radio to brag about how many women he has bagged, whose business deals are so shady they often to not stand up to scrutiny and in fact have him undergoing a trial this summer, and whose penchant for lying pretty much defines him. There is literally not one single political principle that you guys have sworn motivate you that has been part of Trump’s own political view and history, until he needed to put on a new set of clothes to disguise his true positions so he could woo you with his newly minted and imaginary credentials.
Maybe we need an Evangelical Party, so these crybabies with their infinitely flexible “values” and “principles” can be on their own and stop manipulating the Republican Party with their constantly fluctuating definitions of those words.
The question that will be answered, at least to some extent, is how deep this passion for Trump really is and how it will stand up to the unceasing barrage of factual negatives about him that WILL come from the Clinton camp. It will be if they will stay loyal to him, even after seeing testimony from those he has cheated out of their life savings, even after learning he is NOT “self funded” but has only LOANED his campaign money which has to be repaid once he has access to party funds, after unending video clips of him lying and lying and lying. Right now he is still protected by the media bubble that wants him as bullet-proof as possible till he is the official candidate, but when that excrement hits the ventilator some of the “conservatives” who bought into his particular brand of excrement may jump ship.
Mark, remember the parable of the tares for therein lies your explanation. It’s also prophesied God will blind those whom are not his in the end times to the truth. It’s possible we may be witnessing the start of the fulfillment of that prophecy. I am without any other explanation, as the truth seems, so self evident to me I cannot fathom anyone missing it. Certainly, the US, as the constitutional republic pen by our forefathers, and simultaneously a world power, still second to whom remains to be proven, makes it impossible for all end time prophecies to be fulfilled. A nation like ours could not allow much of what we are foretold the Beast’s rule will entail. The US will not be what it has been and may still be then. Perhaps God is setting the stage.
Amazon, you must of thought I was kidding when I said, “I say if we are going to commit national suicide let’s get it over with quick! The establishment thought Cruz too difficult to get along with, so let them try Hillary on for size. ” I was not kidding. I’m just passing through. This is not my home. Come quickly Lord Jesus! Then, for the first time, since the time of the Judges, we will have a worthy King! In God through Christ lies the only the enduring political victory possible. Everything else is temporary and always has been. The US and her glory is really just God’s Glory who blessed this nation for its faithfulness, as he blessed Israel when she was faithful. We are no longer faithful, so like Israel, how will we be blessed in disobedience and defiance? I’ll say it again, we deserve the government we get. The same story is played out over and over again throughout the ages with different nations, but the result is always predictable from the historical perspective at least. Unfortunately, so is man propensity to ignore history. We are the feet of clay and iron of the statue in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream as we proudly proclaim we are the melting pot. God’s sense of irony kills me!
…(cronyism and favoring the elite over the nation will become something on steroids with Hillary in office)…”
I wonder what Trump’s competitors think about him having control over the newly weaponized IRS (just saw that phrase and thought it very appropriate) and with the ability to use the United States government to advance his friends and crush his enemies. Remember, Trump makes the old Nixon “enemies list” look like a Best Friends index. You think the Clintons and the Obamas used the government, particularly the IRS, to go after people they didn’t like? With a President Trump it will be Katie bar the door.
And the only difference between Hillary and Donald, re: crony capitalism, is which of them was on the government side and which was the corporate. Same game, different jerseys. Can anyone think the problem will be corrected by either one of them? I think the problem will get worse with either one of them in the Oval Office.
It is why, I think, that a lot of GOP money isn’t willing to go full on against Trump…that plus the fact that if he does get in, they know they can cut deals with him.
That is the whole thing about Trump – and his fans actually like the idea! It reminds me of a time last year when I found a prospective Hillary voters…sure, she’s corrupt to the bone, but isn’t that what we need in order to get things done? That statement shook me quite a bit…but it seems that a lot of people are willing to go for a crook if the crook appears to be a can-do person!
It never fails — I leave for a few days, and things go nuts around here. It’ll take me a while to catch up on the last 5 days, but my oldest grandson’s Eagle Scout Court of Honor was something I wasn’t going to miss come hell or high water. Now it turns out that my younger grandson only has to finish his last merit badge and do his project, and we’ll get to repeat the process again in the next year. I’m one proud grandfather.
I’ve still got my fingers crossed that enough people will come to their senses today that the slow motion train wreck that is Donald Trump gets knocked off the rails, but I suspect it’s wishful thinking. The level of anger and frustration at the status quo and the establishment is just too strong.
We have been busy!
I suspect you are correct – Trump is going to do very well today, so will Hillary. Proving, at least in this instance, that politics is, indeed, an ass.
Latest thing on Twitter: #DisloyalOpposition. Yep. That’s me. Either of those two gets in, I’ll only mention them to attack them.
“..The level of anger and frustration at the status quo and the establishment is just too strong…” I keep hearing that it is “anger” and :”frustration” that drive Trumpbots. I understand anger and frustration fueling a drive to find someone who does not represent this establishment, but that does not explain Trump, because until he decided to run for the presidency he WAS the establishment.
Quite frankly I am tired of hearing how these people are just so “angry” and so “frustrated”, as if being pissed off and feeling impotent is a legitimate excuse for abandoning allegedly deeply held principles and even the slightest hint of reason. Back when all most of us knew about Trump was the story he had concocted about himself and his greatness, his appeal could be explained, because here was a guy with the courage (so goes the carefully crafted meme) to STAND UP AND TELL IT LIKE IT IS !!! Trump became the hero of every movie where a student stood up in class and faced down a bullying teacher. He was Norma Rae on the table in the work room. He was Ferris Bueller , impishly breaking the rules. Kevin Bacon taught kids to dance, Fonzie was the town rebel. Our culture is rife with movie heroes who stood up and said what others were thinking, and we have become kind of programmed to applaud that and think it is not only cool, it is courageous.
That was OK. It was fun, and cathartic, and entertaining, to see Donald up there waving his arms and saying what we wanted to hear. I know I got a kick out of it, and often said it was about time someone with a voice was willing to use it to bluntly say what had to be said. It was fun to see brashness, even recklessness, as Donald tromped all over the things that people had been tiptoeing around for so long. I liked seeing his brashness force others to be more bold. I thought he was the right man in the right place at the right time. I thought that once Trump had played Godzilla with the Establishment, a grownup could come in and pick up the pieces and really make a difference, not having to take it all on by himself or herself.
Once Trump brayed that he would just deport every single illegal immigrant, a reasonable approach to the illegal immigration problem would be so much less “extreme” that it would be more likely to be acceptable. Everything Trump said was so extreme, I thought any coherent and rational proposal by a coherent and rational candidate, that candidate would be so sane and reasonable by comparison that he or she might be able to get something done without the Liberal whine of “extreme” dogging every proposed plan or policy. “Extreme? No, that’s Donald Trump. Cruz/Rubio/Fiorina aren’t extreme, they are so moderate compared to Trump.” Wow, I thought—Trump is The Man, boldly tipping every sacred cow, clearing the way for the real statesmen. He’s charging ahead blazing a path, so the real candidates won’t have to do it themselves.
I was fine with Trump As Battering Ram. I was fine with Trump being the tank blasting its way through the walls of the Unspoken and knocking everything ten ways from Sunday.
It just never occurred to me that anyone—and I mean ANYONE—could then cast him as the statesman, then want to put him in charge of doing the opposite of what he had been doing. That is, it did not occur to me that a nation which needs an Atticus Finch (to carry on the popular hero theme) would rally around a Vince McMahon/Bob Guccione/Howard Stern hybrid. When Trump first started his Godzilla routine, I didn’t know much about Trump except his whoremongering adulterous past and some of his business failures, aside from his general clownish and boorish demeanor, so while I found him so cringeworthy and classless I could see how he might appeal to some who just took him at face value. I was reminded of the line from the Tom Waits visit to the parody show “Fernwood 2Nite” when host Barth Gimble (Martin Mull) introduced Waits by saying, in part, that Waits had made a lot of money “..and that, folks, means talent..” I guessed that a lot of people would take Trump’s financial successes as proof that he is, overall, a very talented businessman, and would be impressed by the self-promotion, the glitz and superficial glamour.
I also had enough faith in the American Conservative to be confident that when these people had time to think it over, had time to analyze the positions taken by Trump’s Republican opponents, had time to learn that he had switched parties five times and only recently decided to adopt the “R” after his name while still saying he is really more of a Democrat, had time to learn that he has racked up a whole list of rather spectacular business failures and bankruptcies where many people lost money, had time to consider that his claimed stances on things like abortion and illegal immigration and crony capitalism and its attendant corruption were not only conveniently new but were in direct contradiction to everything he had said and done before, they would realize he is a complete fraud.
That is where I overestimated millions of American “conservatives”, learning that their alleged commitment to all sorts of noble-sounding values is so superficial it can be discarded as soon as a carnival huckster comes along who sings a song they like to hear. It just never occurred to me that so many would not consider “anger” a valuable tool to initiate change, but want it as a POLICY.
Sorry, but I no longer buy the “anger and frustration with the establishment” line to explain the Rise of Trump. There are too many honest, competent, reliable, consistent, ethical people who not only share the anger and frustration but are qualified to do something about the problems without just further trashing the Constitution and making the nation a laughingstock. No, anger and frustration may have led to the Rise Of Trump, but now he is appealing to something either dark and ugly or to the same emotions that make the WWE (where Trump has often appeared, once having part ownership) and Jerry Springer popular.
it is not a pleasant sight.
And Spook—congratulations on your grandsons’ success in Scouting. I can understand why you are so proud.
Oh, yeah – forgot about that: Congratulations! You must be the second most proud grandpa around (sorry, first most proud grandpa is the Mannings’…).
In a Megyn Kelly interview, Mike Huckabee (the uber-religious evangelical who manages to find that compatible with liking Trump) said, about Trump’s tepid response to the David Duke question, “He continued, “Here’s the one thing I think is important: Is Donald Trump a racist? I don’t think he is.””
But that is not the question. The question is, does Trump want/need the votes of racists? Analysis of his supporters finds a large percentage—-I have seen as high as 60%—are racist.
So the question is not whether Trump himself is racist, but if he is pandering to those who are, in search of votes.
His views on race are certain rather odd. He just said “…no one has done as much for equality as I have.”. BOOM! Take THAT, Martin Luther King Jr.!
Read on Twitter today – Falwell: won’t buy Girl Scout Cookies because organization backs SSM, but endorses Trump because Values, or something.
It is finally time for the Catholic to make you Protestants explain yourselves! What the heck is going on here? What is being an Evangelical about?
That was only half-serious, of course…
One thing I’ll say – while there are a lot of racists hanging ’round the Trumpwagon, the results today might tell us more about his real, core support.
Hmmm, I have been snookered by the “evil” Girl Scouts. Not that I buy their cookies but when I do see them (leaving a store), as well as many other organizations, I will drop them a $20 donation. Now I will need to check with Falwell. Suspect $19.50 of every local $20 is going for nefarious corporate doings.
Unacceptable language and name calling //Moderator
So a vile lie that 60% of Trump supporters are racists gets a pass, but calling that nonsense retarded is problematic?
Associating female Trump supporters on this blog to those suffering from battered wives syndrome is kosher?
This is a really good perspective of Ted Cruz. Have we heard from one single person who worked with or for Donald Trump over the last four years (let’s narrow it down to just the last part of the Obama administration to make it easier) who can testify as to his commitment to the “conservative” values and positions he has adopted? Now that I think of it, I haven’t seen any of his business partners telling us how honest and ethical he is, either. I may have missed someone, but it appears to me that those on the Trumpvagen are people who know him socially or who have been drawn to his rhetoric since he has started to look like a contender. These men worked side by side with Cruz, because they believe so strongly in what he stands for and in him as a person, as an ethical, honest, dedicated fighter for American and our Constitution. (emphasis mine)
From an essay by Chip Roy and Brooke Bacak | March 1, 2016, 10:47am
“We were confident then – as we are today – that Team Cruz waged the most effective battles against both the Obama Administration and the entire D.C. Establishment – be they democrats or republicans. We were driven daily by the determination to “Make D.C. Listen,” so that this and future generations are not conscripted by the unbridled authority of the ruling class, but instead are secure in the unshakeable rule of law and confident in the ability to hold accountable a government by the people, of the people and for the people.
And while we do not wish to add to the toxic animosity that has characterized the last few weeks of this election cycle, suffice it to say that we are not satisfied that any other candidate has truly heard the voters’ resounding demand to “Make D.C. Listen,” much less be that voice in a tone-deaf city. Nor have we seen any evidence that any other candidate has demonstrated such a reverence for the Constitution or rule of law. To the contrary, other candidates were either absent entirely, funding the opposition, or holding the spears we were facing. Though they now all claim consistency on long-held views, I challenge you to dig a little deeper before you give any your vote.”
http://theresurgent.com/why-we-believe-in-ted-cruz-we-were-there
We were driven daily by the determination to “Make D.C. Listen,” Not just recently, on TV and to stir up adulation, but behind the scenes, doing the drudgery of day to day work. other candidates were either absent entirely, funding the opposition, or holding the spears we were facing.
Cruz has a lot going for him and this isn’t the last we’ll see of him…if the Trumpster gets in, let’s hope a payoff to the right is Attorney General Cruz (or even Justice Cruz).
Preferably a Justice Cruz. At 45, the age he would be when appointed, he could have a solid 40 years, or even more, to balance the excesses of the Supreme Court. As his real strength is communicating one on one, he would have an excellent chance to argue his principles to the other justices in a way he could not when he faced the whole Court—and even then, he prevailed.
As AG, he would be temporary, and as part of the Executive Branch it would be a day to day battle with King Trump, undoubtedly resulting in his quick dismissal.
Justice Cruz would be best.
Trumbots are cheering for the possibility that their guy might just stick it to “the establishment” (which in this case means real conservatives, as their guy is the Poster Boy for crony capitalist establishment corruption) and some of them might really believe that Trump will not only win the presidency but be a good president.
This could happen if enough Democrats and Independents are so disgusted with Hillary and concerned about having a president who might be convicted of several felonies, that they will vote for a president who has to interrupt his campaign to fight federal charges of fraud. Potayto Potahto, right?
But the real concern now is not Trump himself—that will just have to work its way through, and given the past few weeks it could turn out any way at all. Trompbots could feel that they have sent their message and are now ready to settle down and walk away from an even more despotic constitution-trashing executive branch and vote for someone who is actually qualified to be president. They might be too giddy over their flipping off of whoever they think Trump is flipping off, reveling in their chance to finally feel relevant and celebrating their power in much the same way that rioters show their power, burning down everything in sight. It seems to be an out of control train right now and no one can predict when it will go off the tracks—in the near future or when Trump’s finger is on the button, who knows?
No, the real concern now is what will happen to the Senatorial and House races, when so many conservatives find it impossible to vote for the tyrant behind Door # 2. Losing the White House is bad enough—and make no mistake about it, a President Trump = losing the White House—but losing Congress, in addition to Trump being in the position to appoint as many as 4 Supreme Court Justices, would be the death knell for the country as it was founded.
This is why a third party movement is not such a bad idea after all. Giving Conservatives a reason to go to the polls might mean the difference between life and death for conservatism, as once they are there they can vote a protest vote against Trumpary and still vote for Republican Senate and House candidates.
Republicans face a serious, SERIOUS, uphill battle in November if Trump is the nominee, because so many principled conservatives will not be able to set their principles aside to vote for the Democrat in conservative clothing, Donald J. Trump. Without a good turnout we can’t hope to even hold our own in Congress, much less gain enough to have some control over a runaway Executive Branch.
When the media unload on Trump, as everyone but those blinded by the glitter of Trumpism know will happen, it is theoretically possible that his radioactivity would mean his followers turning to a Constitutional or Federalist Party. As there is already a Constitutionalist Party, it would not mean having to start a new party, and as a brand it stands in stark contract to Socialism as well as offering repentant “conservatives” a chance to at least partially redeem themselves by not going all the way over the cliff with The Donald. It might attract the 60% or so of Republicans that already despise Trump and all his Trumpery, as well as the more rational Dems and Indies who can’t quite stomach having a felon in the White House. As polls consistently show Trump losing to Hillary anyway, even before the massive media attacks on Trump that are already being put in place to be activated the day after he is nominated, it’s not as if there is that much to lose.
True – if GOP turnout drops because a lot of GOPers can’t stomach Trump, then the Senate is probably gone…the House we’ll probably hold, but that is not a certainty. Of course, in 2018 if Hillary is President we’ll probably clobber the Democrats…but that would still give Hillary two years of mostly unchecked power.
If Hillary wins, she appoints 2-3 Sotomayors to the SC and you have a socialist SC for eternity. She passes amnesty, bringing in 10-30 million voters from left-wing countries. Eventually all 3 branches of government are controlled by the Democrats into the indefinite future.
All the deep conservative principles and love of checks and balances and constitution and so on mean NOTHING if a 1 party left-wing state rules for 70 years like in Mexico. How hard is that to understand?
Off to a Super Tuesday party, and I can’t really add anything to the anti-Trump effort except this. It’s not meant to change anyone’s mind — just entertain.
Spook that is an absolutely wonderful clip. I have never seen John Oliver but on this at least he is so on target while being really really funny, I loved it. Of course, every single Trumpbot in the country could watch every minute of it and then say “But he TELLS IT LIKE IT IS!!”
I didn’t know that he has not spent his own money but lent his money to the campaign, so if he is the nominee and gets federal funding he will repay himself. “Self funded?” Not hardly. I think that is the last excuse for supporting Trump that was left, and it is now shattered.
Do you think Oliver was serious about being able to buy one of those hats? I’ll buy several and give them to friends who feel the same distaste for Trump and disgust for his mindless minions.
The meaning of “trumpery” via the Oxford English Dictionary:
(1) Practices or beliefs that are superficially or visually appealing but have little real value or worth.
(2) Showy but worthless:
(3) Delusive or shallow:
Origin
Late Middle English (denoting trickery): from Old French tromperie, from tromper ‘deceive’
In other words, Super Tuesday seems like a good day to comment on the entry of the United States into widespread Trumpery
8:00 my time. I’ve been trying to watch Fox to keep up with the results of the various primaries and caucuses, but as usual Fox has turned everything over to Trump. He has been talking, and talking, and talking, and talking, ad nauseum.
I am still trying to figure out if that is a cardboard cutout of Christie behind him, a photo taken of Christie dazzled by the brilliance that is Trump, with that goofy fanboy look on his face. But I think it moved once, so who knows?
I am fed up with Carson. His team had admitted he has no shot but just won’t quit, so he is still sucking up a few percentage points in each state. Ditto for Kasich. Why are they so intent on being spoilers? I think it is finally time for Rubio to step down. I look at the totals for Rubio and Cruz and realize that if they were combined Trump would be skunked.
I just hear that “Donald Trump has created a coalition in the Republican Party”. Really? No, he has bled off some Republicans, drawn in some disaffected Democrats and some Indies who are usually Indies because they can’t make up their minds about much of anything. But he has not created a coalition within the GOP. That was a few seconds of someone else talking, and then it was back to Trumpery.
Bookmark Ace of Spades Decision Desk. It’s great at tracking results in real time.
Charles Murray has a pretty good take on “Trumpism” from a cultural and societal standpoint.
Well, I don’t agree with everything Murray has to say, either. For example, he says “There is nothing conservative about how they want to fix things. They want a now indifferent government to act on their behalf, big time.” But the problem is not that the government is indifferent, it is that the government has chosen sides, and the side chosen by the government is to support and expand a Dependent Class on the backs of the Working Class. The anger is not that the government isn’t doing enough, it’s that it is doing too much for the “wrong” people, on the “wrong” side. If the government had chosen their side, they would be completely happy, so now they are all excited and giddy about someone who is telling them what they want to hear—not that he wants to make government less intrusive into their lives, but that he wants to make it intrusive in the “right” ways.
But aside from that, yes, the Trumpbots now want, to put it simply, revenge. They don’t want the government returned to a constitutional state, they want their own guy running the show. They don’t care if he is a despot, as long as he is THEIR despot.
“Democrats and Republicans who still think that this is a phase – a fever they just need to wait out before a return to normalcy – are utterly delusional. They keep talking about voters “waking up” to realize that Trump is a bad choice – but the whole reason Trump is the choice is because voters believe they have woken up to the truth about the American leadership class. The old order is breaking down, thanks to Iraq. Katrina. The financial crisis. The failed stimulus. Obamacare’s launch. The Tea Party. Occupy Wall Street. Sanders. Trump. The American people are trying to find a new way, and they are looking for outsiders to lead them through the wasteland.”
Again, the Same Old Same Old. This guy is writing a whole lot of words based on what I think is a flawed perception. He acts as if wanting to shut down Trump is a desire to, or a way to, “return to normalcy”. If this is what he thinks, he is simply not paying attention.
The rejection of Bush and Kasich and Christie is a message that there is not only no desire to “return” to anything, but a determination to continue the momentum started by the TEA Party. The rejection of Trump by so many is not a desire to “return” to anything but a deeply felt and I think well founded concern that electing Trump, or even nominating him, will effectively halt this movement in its tracks, and that it might take a very long time for it to regroup, by which time the nation will be so far down the rabbit hole it might not be possible to resurrect it.
“They keep talking about voters “waking up” to realize that Trump is a bad choice – but the whole reason Trump is the choice is because voters believe they have woken up to the truth about the American leadership class.” Here he is trying to relate two things which are not really related at all. Trump is the choice OF SOME because, yes, they have woken up to the truth about the American leadership class. That is not the point. Oh, it is constantly made, is constantly recited as if we don’t KNOW that. We know what got Trump traction. We get it. The reason we want voters to wake up to realize that Trump is a bad choice is because Trump is a bad choice. It’s not as if “waking up” would automatically lead to Trump as the answer. On the contrary, waking up was Step One, and then while we were looking for a realistic answer that was consistent with the goals and values of the Conservative Movement Trump swept in on the wings of a supportive media to present himself as the only logical choice. In fact, “waking up” and then moving to Trump are antithetical actions, internally inconsistent. You can’t logically “wake up” to corruption, betrayal of conservative principles, and lack of integrity in government and then look to Trump as a solution to these things, when he represents all of them. We have gone over the reasons so many times with so little effect on Trumpbots and pundits like Domenech that we are tired of repeating ourselves.
Yes, pundits, just keep lecturing us on “why” Trump had appeal when he started saying things that no one else had been saying, or at least that no one else got air time to say to very many people. It makes you feel so smug and superior, stating the obvious up to a point, that you don’t seem to understand that after that point you have absolutely no clue.
For one thing, Trump got all this traction not because he was boldly going where no man had gone before—-it was because he had the media coverage to get his message out there, where it was received as if it was the first time anyone had ever had the intellect, or the courage, to say it. Maybe we should stop talking about this fabled “TRUMP PHENOMENON” and start talking about the media phenomenon that made Trump the official spokesman for what people like Cruz had not only been saying, but had actively been working on, for quite some time. For people so impressed with “telling it like it is” no one has actually stood up and told it like it is—-that Trump As Candidate is a creation of the media. Without the hours and hours of free prime time given to him to bloviate endlessly as if he had just discovered all these problems, and therefore was the only logical person to fix them, he would be an also-ran.
But in spite of the media effort to brainwash us into thinking Trump must be not only the Real Deal but the Only Deal, because after all his was the only voice we ever heard, about 60% of Republicans know that he is not the real deal at all, but is a fraud, propped up by an unholy alliance of media shoving him down our throats and his immense and ever-expanding ego. So Mr. Domenech and his ilk can stop telling us what we think. He/they can stop explaining that we think Trump is a a bad choice because what we really want is a reset to the Bad Old Days. No it is because he is a proven liar, a repeated failure, and has history that will rise up to swamp him, and Republican hopes, as soon as we are stuck with him as our nominee.
The MSM has been Trump’s megaphone, without a doubt…but remember how it started: Trump makes an outrageous statement. MSM looks for his support in the polls to collapse. His support goes up. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Now, to be sure, the MSM is in the tank for Hillary and they will try very hard to turn on Trump…but they will also want viewers. They’ll be between a rock and a hard place. Hillary talking means people switching over to Dancing With the Stars…Trump talking means people watching.
Now, will Trump talk himself out of the job? Could very well do that – but I suspect as we head towards November, if Trump is the nominee, then all of a sudden we’ll see a more reasonable, Statesmanlike Trump on TV…still giving some carefully pre-planned “off the cuff” remarks to generate outrage (and ratings), but when pressed on specifics he’ll offer up Mr. Reasonable Boilerplate (he apparently did a bit of that tonight – saying he’d work with McConnell and Ryan). I don’t know any of this, of course – but I really do start to see a carefully scripted plan in Trump’s activities. Maybe I’m seeing what isn’t there – but it is what I see, so far.
Trump is not in my view the answer to any rational question – but he’s the answer quite a lot of people have latched on to. I suspect without thinking the matter through (which is usually the case in politics…look at Bernie supporters: I had an actual nice interaction the other day with one; he was convinced that Bernie’s tax plan would provide all the money we need for “free” healthcare, education, etc…then I pointed out that if you confiscated all the wealth of everyone rich, you’d be able to fund current government spending for about a year…the guy then fell silent; most people out there don’t realize just how much the government spends…nor how massively larger it is than the entirety of the wealth of the 1%…or even the 10%). But facts are not in demand these days – emotions are; but they are emotions created by the facts on the ground.
‘…this is where our politics are going: working and middle class Americans are reasserting themselves against a political and cultural establishment that has become completely discredited over time and due to their own actions…” but they are not taking this assertion of their anger and frustration far enough. Instead, they are falling for the first guy down the pike who gets their attention. And, sadly, what gets their attention is what is loudest and shiniest, and who they see most often on TV.
For those running around shouting that Trump walked away with Super Tuesday, and it’s essentially over, the numbers don’t support that.
Thanks for that, Spook. It is not only encouraging, it is a vivid portrayal of Trump’s position if the other candidates would put the welfare of the nation and its constitution ahead of personal egos. If the other candidates’ support had not gone to Trump (and remember, he had hardly anyone saying he would be an acceptable second choice) Cruz would have had 365 electoral votes, ahead of Trump’s 316. If Kasich threw all of his 25 votes to Trump it would still have been 340 for Cruz and 341 for Trump.
I have to say, Carson’s refusal to drop out even while acknowledging that he knows he has no chance pretty much wipes out my respect for the man. As for Kasich, I have thought of him as an opportunist for quite some time now. I can see how hard it would be for Rubio to step down—he has come so close—but for a newly minted Senator with so little experience in politics he has been amazingly successful and I could see him as someone on the bench waiting for his turn in eight years.