The shotgun election
In yesterday’s comments section, Geoffrey Britain offered this quote from the ever-admirable Thomas Sowell:
Voting for an out of control egomaniac like Donald Trump would be like playing Russian Roulette with the future of this country. Voting for someone with a track record like Hillary Clinton’s is like putting a shotgun to your head and pulling the trigger. And not voting at all is just giving up.
Nobody said that being a good citizen would be easy.
Those are actually the last two paragraphs of a column of Sowell’s that indicts both Trump and Hillary, and states that in this election “the worst case scenario may be only marginally worse than the best case scenario.” So whatever Sowell thinks about his Russian Roulette vs. shotgun-to-the-head analogy (I assume, of course, that he means a loaded shotgun), he also thinks that chances of disaster with each scenario are probably pretty darn good.
That Sowell column was published two days ago, and appears to have been written before Trump’s recent precipitous decline in the polls. It remains to be seen whether that drop will reverse itself, but right now things are not looking good for the Trumpster. As Megyn Kelly put it:
“It’s true that the mainstream media now hates Trump,” she said. “But must he help them? Must he help them so generously every day?”
Apparently, he must—it is his nature. Or, it is a well-thought-out strategy to—well, to what? Those who think that Trump has always been intent on throwing the election to Hillary (I am not one of those people) find it easy to understand. Those who think Trump is a brilliant Master Persuader (I am not one of those people, either) say it will be to his advantage in the end. Everyone else (that includes yours truly) thinks it’s just his nature to say outrageous things in his defense when he feels he’s been attacked, and also to generally say things that sound as though he hasn’t done his homework because in fact he has not done his homework.
Now that we’ve gotten all of that out of the way, let’s get down to the Sowell quote. Would that it were as simple as Sowell states! I have spent a lot of time pondering the issue, which has been discussed ad nauseam on just about every blog long before Sowell wrote that, usually being expressed something like this: “We know what Hillary will do, and it’s awful; we know only what Trump might do that’s awful, and therefore it’s better to vote for him. At least there’s a chance.”
That, in a nutshell, is Sowell’s argument, too. The problem with the argument is embedded in it: we don’t know what Trump will do. Sowell compares Hillary to a loaded shotgun pointed at one’s head—if the trigger is pulled, you are dead. He compares Trump to a game of Russian Roulette, which means there’s a chance you live.
That’s a terrible but still an easy choice. But to me—although I have deep respect for Sowell’s brilliance—that’s a bad analogy. It posits two conditions, and one possible victim: gun loaded or 1 in 6 chance of gun loaded, and the gun is pointed at you. But maybe the number of possible victims is different with Hillary and Trump, and who says the chances of Trump screwing up royally (accidentally or purposely) are only one in six? Perhaps the proper analogy would go something like: Hillary Clinton has the loaded shotgun pointed at everyone in the nation, whereas Trump may have the shotgun pointed at everyone in the world, and we don’t have a clue what the chances of that are.
You don’t have to believe that Trump is actually reckless enough to start—or to unwittingly enable the start of—a nuclear war, to be concerned about the possibility, or to realize that many people are concerned, and that their concern is not crazy. And in fact, a president actually does have a great deal of power in that regard (nuclear weapons), as recent research I’ve done has proven to me, to my surprise. Before this, I had dismissed the idea as impossible—after all, the system has all sorts of checks and balances and requirements for approval by others along the way, doesn’t it? The short answer (and I plan to write a post in the next week or so that gives the long answer, because it’s complicated) is is no, not so much, and certainly not to the extent I originally thought.
When you go to that piece I just linked, you can skip the whole first part (which reports tentatively on a Trump conversation that most likely did not occur) and go right to the paragraph that begins “In 2008, then”“Vice President Dick Cheney said something pretty chilling about nuclear weapons during a Fox News appearance…” and then keep reading. The point I’m trying to make is that a president really does have a great deal of power in that regard, and therefore it’s at least theoretically possible that the risk of a nuclear conflagration with an unstable or impulsive or ignorant president is greater than the very great risk Hillary Clinton poses to this country.
Now, you don’t have to agree that Trump is any of those things: unstable or impulsive or ignorant. Or, you may believe he’s all of those things, but not that unstable or impulsive or ignorant. Trouble is, you could be underestimating his instability or impulsiveness or ignorance, and overestimating his ability to use sound judgment, and the consequences of that would be extremely dire. Whatever you (or I) may think, more and more other people are starting to feel that Trump actually might be capable of the unthinkable, and that includes the people he would need to persuade of his stability, steadfastness, and knowledge, if he is going to get elected.
The danger with Trump was always his lack of flexibility in terms of repertoire and personality. His promoters kept saying that once he was nominated we’d see a pivot to greater presidentiality. His sober and serious and reassuring side would come out. Instead, lately he has been acting more of a loose cannon (interesting metaphor, no?) than ever.
It does no good to say that a big-mouthed blusterer isn’t necessarily crazy, nor do such people usually consider murdering millions or billions of people with nuclear weapons. That’s certainly true. But we’ve never had a presidential candidate before that gives that impression. The LBJ forces liked to accuse Goldwater of having such a tendency (the famous “Daisy” ad), but in terms of personality he clearly did not. And yet even then the accusations damaged him.
People don’t like to play Russian Roulette with a president whose finger is (metaphorically) on the nuclear button, because the risks are just too high. And the more impulsive and bombastic and just plain weird Trump’s statements become, the more he scares people rather than reassuring them. It’s about personality and character: can I rely on this guy’s judgment and ability to curb his impulse to retaliate? To point out that his retaliations are all verbal makes sense but is irrelevant to the deeper issue, which is: who is this man? Is he reasonable? How does he react to stress? Does he strike out without thinking much? If the answer to the last two questions are “poorly” and “yes,” than the candidate has got a problem, a big big one.
Trump has a problem, a big big one.
When making his shotgun analogy, Sowell calls Trump an “out of control egomaniac.” That’s actually it in a nutshell, because if Trump is “out of control,” people fear that he might just be get more out of control if given the reins of a kind of power he’s never had before and only dreamed about. And if he’s an “egomaniac,” then note the root word “maniac,” which doesn’t offer people a lot of reassurance, either. And note that the definition of “egomania” includes (emphasis mine): “an obsessive preoccupation with one’s self and applies to someone who follows their own ungoverned impulses…”
I do not think that Trump is crazy, insane, or mentally ill. But his behavior lately is not reassuring to people, and one wonders why it has gotten more extreme. One of the possible reasons is that he’s having trouble handling the stress, and although this is a man who definitely has known responsibility and stress in his life, it was of a very very different kind and in an arena where he was very comfortable about his own knowledge base (real estate development and suing people who diss him). Now he’s under a great deal more stress, and in unfamiliar territory.
Nothing Trump is doing right now is reassuring. He was supposed to become more focused and presidential; the opposite has happened. And on the specific topic of nuclear weapons, even though he has made many statements about how reluctant he would be to ever use them (see, for example, the first and last statements in this list), unfortunately we’ve learned that Trump says a great many contradictory things and we can’t rely on anything he says. People do not want to play Russian Roulette on this particular issue, and on this one issue of nuclear weaponry most people trust that Hillary Clinton—whatever other deep and myriad flaws she clearly has—is not going to do something enormously destructive either impulsively or through ignorance. It is harder to trust Donald Trump on that score.
I don’t usually agree with much on Vox, but I can’t really fault what they’re saying here, unfortunately:
It’s not clear, in this mostly incoherent answer [to Hugh Hewitt about the nuclear triad], that Trump actually knows what the triad is. When Hewitt pressed him, Trump answered with a single line: “I think, for me, nuclear is just the power, the devastation is very important to me.”
Clearly, Trump doesn’t know the most basic thing about nuclear weapons ”” how the United States can launch them. This level of ignorance about the literal facts of nuclear weapons, together with his generally uneducated approach to policy, means it’s very likely he also doesn’t understand the strategic role of nuclear weapons.
Trump might order the use of nuclear weapons against ISIS ”” indeed, he has refused to rule it out in interviews ”” just because he has promised to wipe out the terrorist threat. We cannot know that he takes nuclear weapons as seriously he should.
The other reason for concern is his character…
Think of all the bizarre feuds Trump has gotten himself into…In all of them, he has displayed a similar pattern: irrational overreaction to perceived insults and slights.
Now imagine that same tendency to overreact to insults, only with Trump’s finger on the nuclear button. Would he order a nuclear strike on a country merely because he felt its leader had disrespected him?
I hope not. But the truth is that we don’t know ”” which makes every stray Trump comment about nukes, even thinly sourced speculation like Scarborough’s, deeply terrifying.
Whether it terrifies you, it terrifies a great many people. And these are people Trump needed to persuade of just the opposite—his good judgment and ability to control himself. He has failed in that endeavor, and I’m not at all sure that anything he could say or do at this point could change that.
It’s not what I was hoping for, and I doubt it’s what you were hoping for. But there it is, and I cannot ignore it and pretend that things are the least bit okay right now.
[NOTE: For another of Trump’s statements about nuclear weapons that could give people pause, see this for example. There are others.]
The big problem with Trumpian roulette is not only do we not know how many chambers are loaded, but we don’t even know if the weapon is a revolver or a semiautomatic.
I totally discount the crazy Trump with the nuke codes. The Dems are playing the same card they did on Goldwater. I fully expect the Dems will run the same commercials but updated.
Trump won’t nuke anybody. Too much destroyed real estate.
The real issue is that Hillary and Barack handed Iran nukes and the money to finish them. That changes everything.
Vox is a hoot. The President has to check with Congress to launch nukes if we are under attack? The President is the Commander in Chief. Not Commander of a Committee.
Neo,
While our choices in this election are indeed bad, I think that for all of Trump’s faults, and they are legion, he is;
a) better than Hillary, by a long shot.
Trump for all his faults, can with advice from experts in the field, be brought up to speed. All presidents do that.
He is ignorant, but he is not necessarily dumb. Indeed, I would say he is better prepared than a community organizer, or professional political wife. These so-called ‘smart’ people have made a wreck out of our economy, devastated our foreign policy, ripped a gash into our domstic political fabric, and put this country on a course that over 70% of the people disagree with and think is wrong.
b) the object of a media blitzkrieg that makes the assault on Palin in 2008 look almost benign.
In 2008 Sarah Palin, who prior to that was a moderate, well liked, and relatively effective governor was savaged in a most unprecedented manner. It worked because the main stream media is still the main source of information for the mass of ill-informed or uninformed voters. The attacks are vicious, personal, and reach a new low that made what they did to Palin seem mild in comparison. Compared to Trump’s mouth, there is total silence regarding Hillary’s actual crimes. Read the recent “War on Honesty” posts by Austin Bay. This man has been in business for decades and when you look at his business dealings, there are no reports of him being unstable, or a loose cannon, and if he was, we would have known about it.
c) being stabbed in the back by the republican party establishment who show beyond any doubt that for a long time we have not had two parties, but really only one party which is elitist, corporatist, trans-national, pro-war, and wholly owned by the major financial interests.
In my opinion, the reason many are going so over the top regarding Trump, is because for all of his faults, he is the only candidate that they do not own and totally control. Nor is he playing by their rules. So he must be destroyed.
All the stops are being pulled out to do so.
And furthermore, who is still believing any poles?
I think that the viciousness of the Trump derangement is a sign of the desperation of the elites that there may indeed be an awakening of the public.
So while I do not expect much from a Trump presidency, I know what another Clinton presidency will do to this country.
Yes, the choice is bad, but it’s the only choice we have at this point. Don’t fall prey to the media search and destroy campaign. If Trump could walk on water, they would berate him for not being able to swim.
Huey Long once said that the only way he could loose an election was if he was caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy. In today’s hyper-partisan media environment, the dead girl, or live boy would be smeared, discredited, and stalked into oblivion.
Are the nuclear codes encrypted somewhere in our government computer system? YouTube will show you footage of one of the candidates for President of the United States being found grossly negligent with government security and hiring aides who also were grossly negligent with such material. Notice that I did not say MIGHT BE NEGLIGENT. Two points. One: why was this example not used instead of a shotgun in this analysis? A shotgun is equally theoretical with Trump’s pistol. In the real world one of these folks has been investigated by the FBI and found to have been grossly negligent in the real world. Why the equivalence? Two: Can we assume that Hillary will change and safeguard things while assuming that Trump is incapable of change if needed? Seems to me he has the edge on the basis of known offender versus potential offender. Just sayin’.
Trump doesn’t know enough to not stand in front of his own Claymore.
He is asking the country to play Russian Roulette or catch with hand grenades.
He is already alleged to have leaked classified briefing material in recent stump speeches.
Yeah it’s a real mystery about his temperament and competency regarding nation security.
Oh, yeah “stabbed in the back” by the GOP. LOL
Trump won’t nuke anybody. Too much destroyed real estate.
Count me as one of those not reassured.
Today Nate Silver has Hillary at 91.7% chance of winning. Trump may well have nuked his own campaign in the past couple days.
I have been reading you for quite some time; I think since you first started blogging. You neurotic, self-important reactions to Trump have led me to the conclusion that you are no longer worth reading. I am taking you out of my RSS reader.
You need to go back to the useful idiot branch of the New England Leftism from which you sprang. That is where you belong; that is where your “soul”, such as it is, belongs. There you can indulge this delusion of yours that you are some sort of “intellectual sophisticate”. On this side of the fence it has become as tiresome as it is risible. Go back to the Democrats; there you can clutch you pearls and dream your laughable middle class dreams of “culture”, too your heart’s content, while the serious try to actually do something about the destruction of our civilization.
I had thought you merely the female version of a “cuckservative:, but you are merely a confused, navel gazing, menopausal liberal who briefly wandered off the reservation. You need to find your way back while they will still have you; this is your chance. You “conserve” nothing, and you pester those who would restore our once great nation. You in your way are far more a delusional egomaniac ten Trump, and, more to the point your self regard is, unlike Trump’s, not backed up by any real accomplishments at all
Good Riddance.
hadenough:
I am reminded so much of the days when I was “mugged by reality,” shifted from liberal to conservative, then was attacked by my liberal friends and in a few cases hounded out of whole communities.
Now it’s happening with my Trump friends. Two months ago I lost a friend, whom I’ve known since 1978 and talked to weekly, over Trump.
I know the stakes are high and it’s hard not to take things personally, but it’s important to try.
I came back to add something that I should have started with. The reason that I read this blog is the excellent analysis I see here and this post is an example of such. I did have a quibble which I went directly to without making the compliment. I wish I wasn’t prone to this behavior, but…
It seems to me that hadenough is a liberal troll seeking to misrepresent being a Trump supporter for obvious reasons.
Take time to notice the boards is when he is mixed with the political manipulators….
Or as Hanson and others point out, didn’t happen in his professional deals…
The larger problem is that Americans are so used to being controlled by the press they do not know his to look past what has always been a hate relationship
Imagine his someone less clean would fair…
If he had a again on his jacket they would be all over it worse than cosby…. They have scored his past and his present, his school, his friends… All business dealings going back more than one generation… All associations around the globe
And the worst stuff is from people who haven’t met him and are playing watch out for baba yagga
If the world hated you that much, would you do better or worse than him???
On another note.. Kahn has written that the Constitution is subordinate to Sharia… And a huge list of stuff going back to before Reagan is now bubbling up
Maybe do speculate on stuff you know absolutely nothing about. Work with nukes, see what can happen, try to live through it, then maybe that would be something.
Most of this is people that have never been there. Build a tower, fight a War, but please stop trying to tell old warriors to not believe their lying eyes.
I would like to see anyone here that was too scarred to be smug and sitting on their chattering territories.
Perhaps then people will stop putting others in boxes, according to the educational trauma. I am not waiting for this place to grasp any damned sense. Busy trying to fix stuff, instead of talk.
You’re depressing me …
Are we so acclimated to people who don’t defend themselves that we can’t handle sunshine who does???
The gop has caved for over thirty years
The other side doesn’t have to defend because find of others will attack for them
Who would defend Trump if Trump didn’t??
The GOP… The liberals… The Republicans who dying defend their own??? Bernie people???
Without defenders you either cooperate not to be pounded of give up.
What did banks do with the CRA???
Fight back and be racist???
Wait for us to defend them from race hucksters???
They had to cave…
If Trump didn’t fight, would neo fight for him??
Who would???
Ergo the situation you see…
Same applies to promotion…
And so we must choose between two dire threats: Shotgun or pistol? Fire or ice? Alien or Predator? Which to choose when neither choice is desirable, and indeed, when both are downright dangerous?
No one ever answers that question except to broadly proclaim that there is “another choice”.
In all seriousness: What/who is that other choice?
And hadenough: Good riddance and please don’t let the door hit you on the ass; that was totally uncalled for.
In order to shut down a debate they’re losing, Democrats find victims to make their arguments for them, pre-empting counter-argument by droning on about the suffering of their victim-spokesperson. Alternative opinions must be preceded by proof that the speaker has “sacrificed” more than someone who lost a child, a husband, or whatever.
Khan’s argument, delivered angrily and in a thick Pakistani accent at the DNC, is that “our” Constitution requires us to continue the nonstop importation of Muslims.
If the U.S. Constitution required us to admit more than 100,000 Muslims a year — as we do — we’d already be living in Pakistan, and Khan wouldn’t have had to move to get that nice feeling of home. So the “argument” part of Khan’s point is gibberish.
Luckily, Khan had Part Two: His son died in Iraq, whereas Donald Trump does not have a son who died in Iraq, so he can’t say anything
. If you think that doesn’t make any sense, keep your yap shut, unless you lost a child in Iraq, too.
A coulter
In principle, I don’t disagree with any of the criticisms of Trump that neo lists. I’m doubtful of the probability that Trump would use nukes precipitously but I do admit to the possibility.
I do think that basically, Sowell’s analogy is accurate because he both admits to the chanciness of electing Trump, while seeing clearly the certainty of electing Hillary.
Trump may lead us off the cliff and, I see no way that he could constitutionally affect the changes that he has promised.
But all of that pales in comparison to what Hillary will do. Hillary, with the assistance of the Left, will lead us into a cultural, political and military ‘quicksand’ from which there is no escape.
The choice before the country is simple; take a chance with “Russian roulette” Trump or… prepare to bequeath to future generations, a life upon their knees.
In 1983, for example, Khan wrote a glowing review of a book compiled from a seminar held in Kuwait called “Human Rights In Islam” in which he singles out for praise the keynote address of fellow Pakistani Allah K. Brohi, a pro-jihad Islamic jurist who was one of the closest advisers to late Pakistani dictator Gen. Zia ul-Haq, the father of the Taliban movement
Khan speaks admiringly of Brohi’s interpretation of human rights, even though it included the right to kill and mutilate those who violate Islamic laws and even the right of men to “beat” wives who act “unseemly.”
Brohi helped create hundreds of jihadi incubators called madrassas and restored Sharia punishments, such as amputations for theft and demands that rape victims produce four male witnesses or face adultery charges. He also made insulting the Muslim prophet Muhammad a crime punishable by death. To speed the Islamization of Pakistan, he and Zia issued a law that required judges to consult mullahs on every judicial decision for Sharia compliance.
Khan, who says he immigrated to the U.S. in 1980 to escape Pakistan’s “military rule,” nonetheless spoke admiringly of Brohi in his review of his speech. He praised his remarks even though Brohi advocated for the enforcement of the medieval Sharia punishments, known as “hudood” (singular “hadd”), that were later adopted and carried out with brutal efficiency by the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan.
“Divinely ordained punishments have to be inflicted,” Brohi asserted, “and there is very little option for the judge called upon to impose Hadd, if facts and circumstances are established that the Hadd in question has been transgressed, to refuse to impose the punishment.”
Of course, such cruel and unusual Sharia punishments, ranging from stonings and floggings to beheadings, would be a flagrant violation of the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
++++++++++++++++++
And note how everyone took the bait of hate and stood up for this person who in the great tradition of the left lied and played the race, sympathy card, and exploitation of their sons death for Allah
If Trump did not stand up for himself in sure all these people that saw through Khan would have defend him
If you don’t look at the mechanics and the game you might think Trump was mean and not see his it was totally orchestrated without any morals to play you for the prize
To bad the victims of this kabuki dance won’t get angry at who tried to play them…. Getting angry at Trump for fighting saves their face
An extremely insightful article by the ever admirable Richard Fernandez; “It’s Not the Bull, It’s the China Shop”
The rest is just as insightful.
I will repost a comment that did not come through in the last article, bit by bit, so that it comes through on this one…
“Yes, I understand the argument: Trump “might” (as in Russian roulette); Hillary “will” (as in the shotgun that is fully loaded).” – Neo
Right – absolutely the wrong type of analogy.
Even the analogy itself falls in on itself, as with trump it is not a “one shot” game… it is multiple shots. We all know where that ends in “russian roulette”.
“Might” gives a strange binary connotation to it, as in the opposite is “might not”.
The reality is there is a continuum of possibilities with trump, across multiple policy areas that a POTUS would touch.
Not only that, but the probability curve / distribution on each area covers a much wider range of outcomes.
#2
To picture it, here is a link – imagine the horizontal representing the impact to the country (far left being catastrophic), and the vertical height representing the likelihood that the impact lands at that point…
Higher Probability of Big Loss on Fat Tail Probabilities
One might think trump’s curve being the shorter, wider one – rather unpredictable – vs the taller, narrower one belonging to clinton – more predictable.
The shorter one makes sense for trump because he is mutable, because we just cannot know what he will deliver in most any policy area, and his character and temperament raises the probability of serious near-term consequences.
The taller one makes sense for clinton as we feel we know much better what she will do, and is unlikely to make sudden moves.
The very unbearable prospect of his finger on the nuke button
#3
But that is not the final view. We also must recognize that, from our point of view, the outcomes with clinton skew negative (note that a negative skew does not mean only negative outcomes are possible). Then we might think the probability curve looks more like this image…
Probability Curve Skewed to Negative Impacts
Many argue here like the clinton curve for most all policies skews almost entirely into the catastrophic territory. That is not realistic, and far overstates the case.
Many argue here like trump’s curve is not also skewed towards the negative. Also not realistic – we needn’t re-litigate his history of left policy stances, his lack of coherent governing philosophy, nor his responses to challenges / disagreement.
#4
The core issue is that while clinton is very likely to have negative consequences (skewed), trump may not be far behind anyway (also skewed), and he has a wider range of fat tail possibilities with deeply serious consequences.
.
I hope the visuals help, as folks seem to be dismissing the fat tail consequences with trump, and ignore any skew that trump may have.
And this is not even considering the consequences of the unpredictability itself across the full policy scope.
Agree with Carl in ATL re: hadenough. Good riddance.
As for the rest…
I still plan on voting, and will vote against Hill-o-beans, but I do not see it as voting FOR DJ Trumples. I wish I had a throwaway vote, that I could use in protest, but I live in Ohio, and don’t really have that luxury. I saw my mom vote for H. Ross in ’92, and know what happened and how she felt about it after, so I cannot rock the Libertarian Johnson vote, nor can I simply not vote and in so doing, effectively vote for Hillary in Ohio.
I wish Fiorina had caught on. I could have proudly voted for her in the general or in the primary (she was out by the time Ohio voted, of course)… But she had fire, conviction, and I honestly believe, would have obliterated Hillary in every single debate, and would also have taken away one of Hillary’s biggest selling points (being female).
I firmly believe the country is cooked. No matter which way the election goes, this will end in tears. Either candidate as POTUS is going to tear the country apart.
My only consolation in voting against Hillary is that Putin and Trump might actually somewhat get along, which might actually be somewhat good for US/Russian relations.
These are most interesting times and this is a great place to see various opinions and views on the Trump vs. Clinton heavy weight match which will play out in less than 100 days.
I love dropping by a time or two every day to see what I agree with and what sets my teeth on edge and to Neo and your regulars, thank you for being who you are.
As for hadenough, if you don’t like it, which we now know is the case, go away, don’t come back, have a nice life or don’t have one, whatever.
Re Trump’s “precipitous decline” in the polls that Neo mentioned — having to come to grips with the very real possibility of being so public a “loser” (and maybe by a lot) must be deeply jarring for him.
One other point.
Talking about the “nuclear button” is important, as it crystallizes an image in people’s mind about the downside.
However, there are several possible and realistic scenarios with nearly as bad consequences that can result from the same behavior / reasoning that we have to fear about the “nuclear button” issue.
Think about the implications of a president openly talking about pulling out of NATO, unless the “protected” nations “pay up”. We thought it incredibly damaging that obama announced a timeline for pull out of Iraq.
What about a president openly dismissive of nuclear proliferation treaty enforcement? For all concerned about Islamic terrorism, is this comforting?
trump has made these kinds of statements already.
It is probable that no one would be likely to go broke betting that “hadenough” is not a long-time reader here, although it’s impossible to know for certain.
One thing I can tell you is that he/she has never commented here under that name or any other name, at least not from the same location.
I like the analogy: President Hillary Clinton is certain death for the country — for many reasons. President Trump is an unknown.
I cannot vote for Hillary. Ever. I have moral and ethical standards that prevent me from voting for Trump. Is Hillary so awful that I will have to get drunk and vote for Trump? It’s possible, but I doubt it.
In all honesty I don’t think it matters because I believe that Hillary wins this election easily. The MSM will allow no other result. The Powers-That-Be on Wall Street will demand it. Certain vocal constituencies will demand it. No one has ever been elected President that didn’t win his home state. (Just ask VP Gore.) Hillary wins NY easily.
And it’s not Trump: she’d beat anyone the GOP can throw at her. Sadly, he’s off to a great start in making her life easier. It may well be that the 2004 election was the GOP’s last hurrah. They may not win the White House ever again. And with all of the real power condensing to the White House, the democrats in the White House will use the power to ensure that democrats stay in power — by any means necessary.
The country is pretty much done for.
Elect Hillary!? At this point, what difference does it make?
RE: “People don’t like to play Russian Roulette with a president whose finger is (metaphorically) on the nuclear button, because the risks are just too high.”
IMHO this is silly: a President can’t start a nuclear war. Period. His orders will have to be carried out by our military. Those men and women are not robots: they will not follow insane or reckless orders.
“In all seriousness: What/who is that other choice?” – carl
You may not like the answer I gave, but it is a serious choice.
That fact that you and so many others insist on only a binary choice is your own self-imposed limitation.
Since you and everyone else is signalling that these two are your “only” choices, it becomes self-fulfilling.
Either you accept trump or you accept clinton, and all their consequences.
OR, you believe they are both unacceptable and take your vote elsewhere, and stop chattering like they are your only choices.
People will soon enough get the message.
“Those men and women are not robots: they will not follow insane or reckless orders.” – kevino
1) Have no doubt that there are several in the military who are trump supporters.
2) From several comments here, some feel that humanity “deserves it”, or that there needs to be some kind of “do over”, “wiping the slate clean”. Could that be the kind of thinking harboring in some of trump’s support within the military?
Would LOVE to think the military were clean and ethically above the fray. But, like much of the GOP party, many will fall in line even if they see disaster ahead.
.
BTW, unless folks get off the binary train, there is still a good chance trump wins.
kevino; Big Maq:
I am planning to write about this in my subsequent post on the nuclear decision chain, but I will just say briefly here that the military is required to obey a presidential order unless (a) the president (Trump or anyone else) has been declared disabled under Section 4 of the 25th Amendment; or (b) the order is illegal.
How does a finding under either (a) or (b) take place under the circumstances of a nuclear decision that might be reactive in nature and under which there are only a few minutes to decide? And can we rely on it to happen? Most people would rather not take the risk of electing a president that presents a higher-than-average prospect of such instability.
Also, the Secretary of Defense must approve the president’s order, but that person is an appointee of the president and serves at his/her will, and can be dismissed at any point and replaced with a person of that president’s choosing.
That’s a very short summary of the situation.
kevino:
In addition to the above comment addressed to you, I’d like to add the following—
You write:
I agree that the MSM, Wall Street, and “certain constituencies” do not want Trump to become president.
I disagree however, that those are the reasons Trump will lose (assuming he is likely to do so). He will lose in part because of those reasons—they are important reasons. But I have thought for a long time that there were many other Republicans who had a fair shot this year at transcending those forces and beating Hillary Clinton, the weakest Democratic candidate we’ve had since George McGovern and Mike Dukakis (weakest for different reasons, however). That is the tragedy of this election and particularly this primary season. The voters in the GOP primaries went for the person least likely to succeed, and most likely to fail in the most spectacular fashion.
He was going to be propped up until the nomination, and then he would be torn down by the MSM. What I didn’t foresee is how willingly he would give them the ammunition for his own destruction.
Let’s find reassurance by looking at real events, and what has really happened, as opposed to speculation.
1. Obama came into office with Iraq mostly stable, and will be leaving with the quasi-state of ISIS in parts of Iraq and Syria, which is a source of repeated terrorist attacks.
2. Obama and Hillary intervened militarily in Libya; in short, they started a war and made a worse mess of things.
3. Obama and Kerry made a deal with Iran that looks to be all one-sided, and not in the favor of the U.S.
4. Hillary has already compromised national security by her use of a secret e-mail server; additionally, the donations to the Clinton Foundation appear corrupt.
5. Donald Trump chose Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate, for Vice President.
By such examination, better conclusions can be reached. This is why Donald Trump is the better choice for President this year.
(Thanks also to Geoffrey Britain for the earlier link to the article by Richard Fernandez at pjmedia.com)
Yankee:
The trouble is that Donald Trump has no track record of governing to go on, and his choice of Pence is hardly enough to reassure people in the face of his inflammatory statements and erratic behavior during the primary.
He has hardly ever said something political that he has not walked back. He has lied many many times. He has made alarming statements that seem to indicate recklessness to most listeners (even many of those predisposed to want to vote for him because they detest Hillary).
You can pick and choose what you wish to pay attention to, and there is no doubt—none at all—you can find terrible things about Hillary, plenty of them. None of that negates the fact that every time the public builds up some trust for Trump, he does or says something to undo that trust. A person who is untested in a position of governmental power is not going to build up any trust that way.
Trump scares people. Lots of people. Even many people who would desperately like to vote for him. And that is Trump’s fault and no one else’s.
Regarding Big Maq’s comment at 6:29pm.
While you are correct in saying that there are other choices. and that the two given options are not the only options. I do not think you would argue that at this point, they are the only realistic options who stand a chance of being elected. Maybe you would, I don’t know. But I do know that there is no third party candidate, or any candidate for that matter who stands the slightest chance of being elected, hence a vote for any third party candidate will only help the democrats who have the edge on money and who have the complete and total cooperation of most all of the media.
As for Trump’s ‘words’. Dumb yes, but if the looked as closely at Hillary as they do Trump, they would not only find stupid words, they would find real crimes!
My God, Trump has not broken any laws or compromised the Security of this country. Yet the media has everyone talking about how crazy he is and how he might drag us into a nuclear war. As another commenter above observed, they used this same tactic against Goldwater.
Yet not only has Hillary broken laws, she has committed crimes!
If you want crazy talk, just read her acceptance speech at the democrat convention. (Italics are my comments)
Why isn’t anybody calling out Hillary on this bullshit? Why is everyone talking about what Trump <i.might do?
“Yet not only has Hillary broken laws, she has committed crimes!”
Typing too fast. Sorry about that.
The results of the GOP primaries demonstrate that no GOP candidate had the right combination of qualities to win in Nov. Not because many were not qualified but because we on the right are too balkinized.
This blog’s readers, all conservative, demonstrate that reality.
nyght has the right of it, in that whoever wins, a trail of tears awaits us.
Big Maq typifies those whose clarity in evaluating Trump’s flaws blind them to the greater danger. That ‘greater danger’ being the nation’s likelihood of recovery.
“An extremely insightful article by the ever admirable Richard Fernandez; “It’s Not the Bull, It’s the China Shop”” – GB
Sorry, that is not insightful at all.
It is the same old “folks are mad as h*ll and want to burn it all down” restatement in several paragraphs, leaving unanswered then what?
Oh, the “establishment” has “missed the mark”. Even Cruz and Rubio were not good enough because they were perceived as “working within the system”.
So, folks / trump see fit to say things as outrageous as obama and clinton, and lies are okay because they all lie.
.
There are several “pundits” who try to straddle the line (e.g. Victor David Hansen) who seem to be trying to align themselves with the angry masses, acting as some “objective observer” giving “voice” to those concerns.
But, they never really comes to the table with whether it is right or wrong, or have something to contribute on what needs to happen to navigate out of the mess.
Their faux neutral stance is revealed when one reads between the lines…
“The case against voting for Hillary is that it is like taking a serum that might kill you before effecting a cure…. The case for voting for Trump is the belief that he may buy time and in that time something good may happen… The probabilities are ultimately unknown. Each person must ultimately weigh the probabilities himself — and choose. America is in a place of great peril because it made bad choices in the past. Now it must take a chance if it is to win redemption. Nothing is guaranteed. The choice in 2016 is ultimately one of calculated risk”
https://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2016/07/21/calculated-risk/?singlepage=true
Rather than burying it in such prose, casting clinton negatively as a choice that “might kill you”, and trump positively as a possible good, (and redemption from what – “past bad choices”? – which choice offers that path? – clinton might kill you, so it must be trump) he ought to plainly come out and say “vote trump because I think there is a chance that something good can happen or we can buy some time (and I think there is less downside than clinton)”.
This is part of the problem, we have too many “opinion leaders / pundits” out there who are trying to cater to an audience, but fearing alienation of any, they rather obscure their opinions (aren’t they writing opinion columns after all?).
They are good at echoing grievances and drumming up emotions, but are short on any real answers, or arguments one way or the other.
Tim P:
Everyone has been calling Hillary out—and certainly Obama out, and the Democrats out, and the MSM out—on their BS for many years. I’ve been doing it since late 2004 on this very blog. Almost 1600 posts on Obama alone, over 100 on Hillary.
We know what and who Hillary is. Everyone knows. That’s the premise of this post: that we know, and that she’s absolutely awful.
The choice we face is in this election: Trump, Hillary, or “other.” And it is an important topic, staring us in the face. This post is about how the voters see Trump, among other things, and why they see him that way.
It is Trump who should be hammering, hammering, hammering, on Hillary. Instead, he’s the one wasting time with counterproductive BS, starting a war with the Kahns, of all people, and continuing his war on Ted Cruz.
Take it up with him. It’s certainly a very frustrating thing that he has lost focus.
That is a hope, but it is not a truth. These aren’t the movies.
The primary purpose of boot camp, and the subsequent training (over and over and over again) is not to get people into fighting shape. It is to create tools that will do what they are told, and when they are told to do it.
Insane/reckless orders are to get into a boat and invade Normandy beach against an entrenched enemy. Insane/reckless orders are those telling you to climb over your trench, and assault machine gun positions in WWI. History is rife with examples of soldiers following insane/reckless orders.
Truman ordered the dropping of both bombs, and was about to order the dropping of the 3rd, and the soldiers did it so that the Jon Stewarts of today could call them war criminals.
“Why isn’t anybody calling out Hillary on this bullshit? Why is everyone talking about what Trump” – T
Because the MSM IS Biased and trump gives them fodder for it!
trump has been playing the same game since he entered the nomination race. With the same behavior he scored $2-3B of free media attention and drowned out the other 16 candidates from getting any attention, when they were nearly all competing with each other for the same segment of GOP primary voters. They never got traction while trump maintained a plurality with his “lane” of voters.
BTW, while that was going on, NOBODY paid much attention to obama and what was going on at the WH. clinton didn’t get nearly the same coverage as trump.
trump is playing his hand the exact same way, but it is a one on one fight now.
Different dynamic.
trump can continue to throw bombs to get attention, but if trump’s message is not about clinton, it is going to be about trump.
I predict that if somehow the GOP finds a good replacement candidate (don’t ask me, I have no idea how), Trump will suddenly start putting up a fight again.
You see how long it took for Trump to collapse? What was it, two weeks?
Good job, Trumpkins. Really, just a super job.
Now you’ll have 4 of the longest years in your life to consider WHAT YOU DID WRONG. Because no it wasn’t us, it was YOU.
YOU GAVE US HILLARY BY NOMINATING A CLOWN.
If Trump loses, we all lose. Lose our liberties and our money.
If Trump wins, the Congress, Rs and Ds, will be all over him, checking him at every turn. The GOPers and the Dems have made that clear.
If Hillary wins, the Dems will fall in line like the Brownshirts they are. There will be no stopping her: Sotomayors as far as the eye can see; being a climate change denier will subject one to RICO prosecution and 20 years in the can.
“Whether it [Trump’s nuclear trigger finger] terrifies you, it terrifies a great many people.” That, Neo, is because of our rampant victimology. We are now the most cowardly, frightened, scaredy-cat nation on the planet. We are scared (to death, ha-ha!) of the Zika virus. We are scared to use DDT. We were scared one year to eat apples treated with Alar; an entire crop was thrown away. We fear gluten and GMOs.
Zika is our newest fear, and that fear is being actively promoted by BHO and minions and he wants his team to spend >$1 billion “fighting it.” I heard a local news person say of Zika today, “It causes unbelievably severe birth defects.” Actually, no. It causes a mild increase in the incidence of microcephaly is all. Those few can be aborted like the hundreds of thousands of healthy babies aborted every year because of “women’s rights to control their own bodies.”
But Chicken Little is highly contagious.
The “Greatest Generation” fought World War Two. We can’t do jacksh*t because we might get some of it on us.
Weenies.
“Truman ordered the dropping of both bombs, and was about to order the dropping of the 3rd, and the soldiers did it so that the Jon Stewarts of today could call them war criminals.” – nyght
Poignant
As I said to GB recently, I’d prefer a terrible predictable president to a terrible unpredictable president.
I mean, the country can survive a lousy liberal president. I just looked out the window, and it’s still there, so I know we can survive 7.5 years of a lousy president. Not prosper, but survive. I’d rather we don’t have 12 years of it, sure. But the country could well be permanently damaged by an erratic president like Trump would be.
First of all, the markets need stability. Second, businesses do – one of the reasons for this weak recovery is the lack of predictability of our laws and regulations, and the enforcement thereof. Third, our allies need us to be stable. Sure, our enemies would rather we be predictable as well, and that’s always a risk. But “will we support NATO” is different than “will we bomb a camp in Pakistan”. The world needs the US to honor its commitments.
I’m tired of debating the merits of Trump. He’s the candidate and a badly flawed one. My vote is more of an anti Hillary vote (yes, I do despise her and her husband and what they have done to the country over the years) than a pro-Trump vote. It’s just my choice. I’m not even going to think about it anymore.
I’m concentrating on the down ticket races. We need to keep the House and Senate no matter who is President. My donations are going to Chris Vance who is running against Patty Murray (yes, THAT Patty Murray) for Senate and for Robert Sutherland for the House in my district. In deep blue Washington the legislature has done a pretty good job of controlling spending with a very slight majority of Republicans. They have shown what can be accomplished when they stand up to the democrats. I’m working for Barbara Bailey and Norma Smith the state legislature Senator and Representative for my district. I also think Bill Bryant has a good chance of defeating Jay Inslee, our democrat governor who, so far, seems to think he is running against Donald Trump. Yes, he’s that dumb. I will be working for Bill Bryant as well.
Do not get mesmerized by the Presidential race. It’s like an auto crash, everyone wants to slow down and look, but it is a waste of time.
Even if Hillary wins, if the GOP can keep their House and Senate majorities, there is still some hope for slowing her agenda. Anyway, I urge all the #NeverTrumpers to vote, and when you do vote, mark a straight GOP ticket down ballot even if you vote (shudder) Hillary or Johnson or Stein or nobody at the top of the ticket.
As to hadenough. Free speech is great. When you can express your opinion and disagree with someone while displaying some manners, it is even better. One of the great attractions of this site is that the regulars try to be mannerly and so does our hostess. Thanks for leaving.
JJ – Toomey for me. Rubio if I think he’s in trouble.
@Nick – I understand what you are saying, but respectfully, I disagree in this instance. Hillary, and especially her appointment of judges, will effectively destroy the ideals of this country. The 2nd, 9th, and 10th Amendments will look pretty on the Constitution, but will no longer have meaning. Portions of the 1st will be drastically changed.
Hillary after Barack is, in effect, a bridge too far.
It is precisely because there is a chance that Trump will be better than Hillary that makes him the lesser of two evils.
You said the country “could well be permanently damaged by an erratic president like Trump would be.” I, and many others, believe that the country has already been permanently damaged by Barack Obama, and will be further damaged by Hillary. It’s not a matter of “could be”.
Look, I’m incredibly pessimistic in this. I truly believe that the country, as I grew up in it, is completely finished. There will still be a “United States of America”, but it will not be the same country I grew up in.
You say we have “survived 7.5 years of a lousy president”… That honestly remains to be seen. In the immediate, you are correct. We are still here. But we will be paying for his handling of ISIS, Iran, NoKo, etc for years to come.
And don’t even get me started on the math aspect of our debt, doubled under 7.5 years of Obama.
Want to know how Venezuela went belly up? Really slowly, then suddenly all at once. How long did it take the policies to effectively destroy QoL in Venezuela? ~2 decades.
People made fun of Romney for being stuck in the 50s. Obama’s policies, and by extension, Hillary’s, have largely kept the masses in Cuba stuck in the 50s for the last 60-odd years.
This is a little off-topic, but somewhere I want to make a comment that can serve as a public bookmark for my own opinion. If events prove me wrong, it won’t be the first time.
I think Trump is done. At this point the election is a formality. When the candidates are roughly even, the make-up of the electoral college gives the Democrats an edge. This time, Trump will get swamped in something just short of a landslide.
So, it’s time for the GOP and for small-government conservatives to start planning how to limit a Hillary Clinton presidency. Yes, it’ll be an awful four years, but our side isn’t completely impotent. Organize an opposition. Form new alliances. Reach out to those who supported Trump, etc. Of course, most GOP Senators and Representatives won’t be able to make this their public position until after the election, but others need not hold their tongues.
“I’m tired of debating the merits of Trump. He’s the candidate and a badly flawed one.” – JJ
It is more than just “badly flawed”.
If the objective is to keep clinton out – why? To stop the march towards marxism?
trump is hardly the foil to that march on his own accord, and may even be an accelerant to it.
Then there are all the risks that come with him that we’ve been discussing.
There is still a significant chance trump could win in today’s binary paradigm, so I will keep on discussing the merits (or lack thereof, on balance) of trump, since we all agree on clinton as also unacceptable.
Cornflour:
This past week I also have decided that Trump appears done.
I could be wrong, of course. But I’ve not had this feeling before about him. I have always thought a Trump victory highly unlikely, and then for a while it seemed a bit more likely but still not likely. Now it just seems over.
I remember back when Romney’s statement about the 47% came out. That was nothing like this, really, and that race was nothing like this. But I had that same gut feeling the moment I heard about the comment: it’s over, it’s done.
nyght; Nick:
Nick writes that we “survived 7.5 years of a lousy president,” and nyght questions whether we in fact have (although of course it’s literally true that we have survived, in that the country and its people still exist).
However, I feared that the Obama administration would irrevocably change this country for the worse and I think it has. I also strongly feel that the Trump candidacy is one of the legacies of those years. Trump never would have gotten traction but for the rage of so many people against Obama, and rage at their perception of the GOP’s failure to stop him.
“You say we have “survived 7.5 years of a lousy president”… That honestly remains to be seen.” nyght
If we want to see what four more years would look like, we need to check out any of Canada, Australia, Britain, France, Germany, Switzerland, etc. they are more than four years down that same road. It will surely be something like what one or a combo of them have.
As to the external issues – historically, clinton was more a hawk than obama ever was. And, we still have to wonder what trump will really do.
Suggesting a pull out of NATO, and that we no longer need to enforce nuclear proliferation agreements, makes one wonder if he won’t put us in greater harms way (follow through on these likely will), notwithstanding the very real concern of temperament vis the nuclear button.
Neo,
You said,
I agree that you certainly have. Many in the independent, conservative, and extreme left blogosphere have as well. No argument there.
But the mainstream media has not. That’s a fact. They cover for her, make excuses for her, frame their ‘news’ to portray her in the best light, while putting others in the worst possible light.
They bombard the airwaves and print with coordinated story lines that distract and mislead while ignoring the most blatant facts until enough time has elapsed that they can pretend it’s old news.
Or, like in the case of Comey’s so-called report, they feign a tepid outrage and disgust, then bury the story while bombarding us with other trivial distractions.
The problem is that the mainstream media is MASS media and the vast number of ill-informed, or uninformed voters still use it as their main news source.
They are highly skilled at the ‘symbolism’ and non-verbal subtext to manipulate opinion. That’s why the whole Trump is crazy, stupid, fill in the blank meme is just kabuki theater to subtly make voters uncomfortable with Trump and more comfortable with Hillary so they will be more likely to vote for her.
Already the whole false narrative of the so-called intervention by party wise men, the possible dropping out and other stories have been shown to be false. Planted by a media that is 99.9% in the bag for Hillary.
The rapid fire continual news cycle and this level of sophisticated and coordinated attacks by the media who are 99.9% for Hillary insure that Trump will be in the news front and center and put in a negative light continually. Hillary will need only to keep her mouth shut to provide a positive contrast to the crazy man.
We should be smarter than this and not fall for it. And by that, I mean ignore the distraction and bullshit and continually hammer home all of the insanity, and criminality of the democrats and their program.
Many will never hear it in the MSM venues. They need to branch out and we should not allow these distractions the time of day. That’s all I’m saying.
Tim P:
And the MSM never will. Never, never, except in the smallest and safest of ways.
That is a foregone conclusion.
I believe, however, that nevertheless, if it hadn’t been for the most awful candidate of the entire 17, Trump, getting the nomination, there was a good chance that the GOP nominee could have won this year. Even the MSM can’t hide who and what Hillary Clinton is.
Neo, you can keep telling yourself that Trump is not bonkers in the vain hope that somehow he’ll snap out it, or perhaps convince yourself that like the cartoonist-turned-seer it’s all part some intricate master plan, but the simple reality is before our eyes. Watch the beginning two segments of this Youtube video and then tell us there is no resemblance between Trump and Queeg:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQCzKkaumbw
“And the MSM never will. Never, never, except in the smallest and safest of ways.” – Neo
Right. It is frustrating. Even been witness to a direct lie on air one time.
However, more and more, complaining about the bias in the MSM has been like complaining that lightning can cause a fire – we don’t like the outcome, it is unfair when it comes our way, but we need to understand this reality and plan accordingly to protect ourselves.
It may change over time, but not by the effort of any one of us individuals.
What we learned this election cycle, if we hadn’t figured it out before, is that the “conservative” media also have their own biases. AFAIC, many of them have misled a great many of us, and were instrumental in creating an atmosphere in which a trump can thrive.
As responsible individuals, we cannot take everything at face value, even though the media source may be confirming our own views.
I finally understand how so many WWII Jews refused to see the writing on the wall. All those who suppose that Hillary will just be four more years of Obama are suffering from a version of ‘normalcy bias’.
The tipping point will finally be recognized by them, only after it has passed. But then, denial has its price.
The deeper the denial, the greater the shock when reality arrives. Hillary will be America’s first woman President and it’s last. As, after her reign, America will be America in name only.
“Watch the beginning two segments of this Youtube video and then tell us there is no resemblance between Trump and Queeg:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQCzKkaumbw“ – Other Chuck
Ha! Feels more like Evelyn Mulray at 1:22 explaining the risks with trump to folks.
“He seems ignorant of policy and lacks detail for us to understand his plan” (smack) “I said I want the truth!”
“He has no discernible governing philosophy and is mutable” (smack)
“He is too comfortable with identity politics and authoritarian themes” (smack)
“He might be unhinged and push the nuclear button” (smack, SMACK) “I said I want the truth!!”
“I finally understand how so many WWII Jews refused to see the writing on the wall. All those who suppose that Hillary will just be four more years of Obama are suffering from a version of ‘normalcy bias’. “ – GB
Gosh that is a bad parallel. Just awful, really.
It completely under rates the experience that the Jews had in WWII and the situation they really faced.
What we have today is no where near that same situation.
If anything is analogous, it is the Weimar, only it was far more desperate times for folks then, and they were far less educated, and had far fewer information sources.
People wanted to have radical change then too. Nationalism ended up the dominant force, propelled partly by blame aimed at “different” cultures, to name three items that have parallel to only one candidate today.
Regarding Trump refusing to rule out first use of nuclear weapons, please note that refusal to rule out first use has been the position of every administration since the development of nuclear weapons.
Big Mag, ha indeed. The Evelyn Mulray lines fit sooo perfectly.
Nick @7:50 says: I mean, the country can survive a lousy liberal president. I just looked out the window, and it’s still there, so I know we can survive 7.5 years
I’m sorry, I cannot agree with this.
We have DJT as a nominee today because, after 30 years of deceit and collusion, the normally-GOP-centric electorate realized that it needed a weapon to get the party’s attention. DJT was apparently the only crude weapon available. Now that he’s been wielded, we see the real truth about what the GOP thinks.
In effect, you could say that, right or wrong, nominally GOP voters ran completely out of patience after 2014.
Meanwhile, despite everything that’s happened in 7.5 years, I observe mostly a lot of nasty pokes with pointy sticks. This administration might say a lot, but it seems reluctant to take truly decisive actions (which may, in retrospect, be wise).
OTOH, Hillary will have absolutely zero compunction taking decisive action when significant parts of the population refuse to accept her impositions. This will have tragic consequences, and I don’t see how our former republic comes through it intact.
Big Maq:
““I finally understand how so many WWII Jews refused to see the writing on the wall. All those who suppose that Hillary will just be four more years of Obama are suffering from a version of ‘normalcy bias’. “ — GB
Gosh that is a bad parallel. Just awful, really.”
Neo has posted many times about the situation that the Jew’s faced in Europe before 1939 and before “solutions” were imposed, and the tragedy of those who could not escape but suspected what awaited.
No, it isn’t a parallel or analogous situation. Hyperbole.
steve.c:
Cruz would have gotten the GOP’s attention just as well. He fought them tooth and nail, and they hate him even more than they hate Trump. Actually, much more.
If voters were just looking for an anti-establishement-GOP weapon, he would have been a great one, with the advantage of actually being brilliant and not seeming like a loose cannon.
No, Donald Trump was chosen for other reasons. And although some of those who voted for him in the primaries were disgruntled people on the right, some were not.
Tim @4pm A little contemporary Louisiana history. I live there.
The dead girl, live boy quote is NOT Huey Long’s. It is by Edwin Edwards (D) who governed Louisana for four terms and in 2014 ran for Congress at age 90, which felons can do.He’s married to a way younger woman and has a young son, the product of stored semen. When I knew him as Gov, he took full control of a full room just by entering it. All of his TV commercials were off-the-cuff, first takes, no retakes. He was smart, slick and as we say in S. LA, cannai (lucky).
When David Duke got the GOP nomination, much as Trump has, the Dem bumper stickers read “Vote For The Crook! It’s Important.”
Democrats never improve with age. They become fetid corruptocrats with talons, like Hillary.
My predicted story arc is right on track.
The MSM loved Trump knowing that they could hate him.
Ted Cuz would’ve represented a REAL problem.
To quote Bookworm:
President Hillary Clinton will:
Turn the Supreme Court into an activist, hard-Left engine of permanent change;
Narrow the First Amendment to the point of meaninglessness, giving government the final say over who gets free speech (and you can see what this will look like by visiting any college or university in America except for Hillsdale);
Narrow the Second Amendment to the point of meaninglessness, giving government the absolute right to seize all privately held arms;
Grant full amnesty and voting rights to all the illegal aliens already in America;
Abandon any effort at controlling our Southern border;
Continue to turn the American military into a vast social justice and climate change experiment;
Continue to destroy the American economy by (a) funding crony-style climate change initiatives and (b) making it impossible for ordinary Americans to get affordable energy from clean coal, oil, and natural gas;
Raise taxes to pay for her war against the climate;
Deny the existence of Islamic fundamentalism, something exceptionally cruel, not only to non-Muslims killed by Islamists, but to those peaceful Muslims who need someone to partner with them to help bring about an Islamic reformation;
Cultivate her close ties with rich, radical Islamists, aided by Huma Abedin (scion of the Muslim Brotherhood) and by all of her other long-standing Islamic funders;
Turn her back on Israel, a nation she’s always approached with hostility, abandoning it to the Islamic/Arab savagery that surrounds it;
Destroy the last remnants of a free market in America by tightening her cronyist connection to Wall Street and her regulatory control over businesses and individuals;
Be exceptionally vulnerable to blackmail from all those nations that are sitting on her emails, both the 30,000 she destroyed, as well as the ones already in FBI hands; and
Continue to divide America by focusing on victim groups in order to retain those groups’ fealty to the Democrat party.
Nothing Donald Trump does can or will be as bad. While Hillary, as the “first woman” president, will get full cooperation from all Democrats and all RINOS (which means most GOP Congress critters), Congress will rediscover the separation of powers when Donald is President, reining in his greater excesses. In addition, Donald has indicated that he will:
Appoint conservative justices to the Supreme Court;
Look to conservatives for advice about his executive management;
Control our out-of-control bureaucracy (and his management experience indicates that he can do this);
Reinstate enforcement of America’s existing immigration laws and border policies;
Maintain Americans’ right to keep and bear arms;
Maintain Americans’ right to free speech;
Continue to chip away at the mind-control that is political correctness;
Stand by Israel;
Acknowledge that we are at war with radical Islam and turn to the best minds to help us wage that war successfully; and
Speak to all Americans, not just special-interest groups.
Trump will be an imperfect president, but all presidents are imperfect. Even Ronald Reagan, in his heyday, did stupid things or things that his supporters disliked. It is inconceivable, though, that Trump could ever be as destructive as Hillary most certainly will be.
OM; Big Maq: Geoffrey Britain:
Here’s one of my posts about the efforts of the Jews of Germany to leave the country prior to WWII. Here’s another.
Neo writes at 11:10pm: No, Donald Trump was chosen for other reasons. And although some of those who voted for him in the primaries were disgruntled people on the right, some were not.
Absolutely agree. However, I also realize I did not connect points well in my prior post…
A key point I was trying to make was this: DJT might be considered the “last chance to vote our way out of this” by a lot of people on both the right and (perhaps old-school) left. The traction seemed to come from the media fixation; he attracted attention when no one more credible seemed to be able to do so.
When he fails to accomplish what they intended, something else will have to do in his place. Those voters are not simply going to go away, they will make themselves heard.
(That was the connection I failed to make clear)
Even right in the thick of the primary season, I encountered a surprising number of folks that didn’t even know who Ted Cruz was. Unfair, but it was just the reality at that time. Only those of us who watch this stuff in depth were aware of what he might be capable of.
Zeke:
Part of the quote you offered:
Unfortunately, saying it does not make it so. I just spent an entire lengthy post arguing for a possibility that CAN be not only as bad, but much much worse, than what Hillary will do. Now, neither you nor Bookworm may think he will actually do that (I don’t happen to think he will, either), but it’s something that he could do, and he has given indication of being enough of a loose cannon that it is possible.
Then there’s this portion of your quote:
Another assertion that, sorry to say, has no reason to be true. It is merely a hope. It is not even true that Obama got “full cooperation” from “all RINOs.” He got no cooperation at all on Obamacare, for example, and many other of his initiatives were blocked. What’s more, what does “rediscovering” the separation of powers consist of? How will it be accomplished and enforced by Congress? Unless that “rediscovery” involves 2/3 of the Senate willing to either (a) override a presidential veto; or (b) impeach the president for exceeding his powers, I think it is meaningless. I have seen not a particle of evidence that either of those things will happen to Trump.
Here’s some food for thought from Joe Bob Briggs about Trump’s supporters (H/T American Digest):
“My point is that the Donald Trump voters have consistently told us why they’re voting for Trump, but it doesn’t fit any of the stereotypes and so it’s never mentioned. What’s the first thing out of a Trump voter’s mouth when he’s asked about it?
“I like him because he says what’s on his mind.”
“He’ll say anything.”
“He doesn’t sugar-coat it.”
“He says things no one else will say.”
It’s a political movement based on the First Amendment.
********************
Most Americans don’t believe in dividing speech into “protected speech” and “hate speech.” Most Americans believe that all speech is protected, even speech that some people regard as hateful. Most Americans think it’s okay to be an old coot with unpopular opinions. Most Americans feel that the federal government should get out of their business. And many Americans blame the Supreme Court for allowing the national social norms, set in New York and Washington, to filter into their communities in Wichita Falls, Boise and Spokane. They fear Hillary because they fear that more of their speech will be taken away, and more of their local control. They don’t love Donald but they know he’ll “say whatever he wants.”
They remember a time when they could also say whatever they wanted to say, too, but that time was more than thirty years ago. Meanwhile, there’s some guy at the Daily Arapaho telling them they’re idiots for voting for Donald Trump. They remember that guy, he’s the snooty one who went to McNeese State. He’s a clueless media type. Otherwise he would know that they’re not voting for Donald Trump because he’s a swell guy, they’re voting for the restoration of their personal liberty. Fortunately for their cause, the very fact that the media opposes them means they’re even more certain that it’s the right decision.”
It’s a long read, but a pretty good explanation of the people who are supporting Trump. I know many Trumpsters and this rings true to me.
http://takimag.com/article/donald_you_ignorant_slut_joe_bob_briggs/print#ixzz4GQSyMh2O
steve. c:
I have an anecdote from a conversation I had the other day with a liberal Democrat of my acquaintance. He detests and fears Trump, can’t stand Cruz, isn’t inordinately fond of Hillary but thinks she’s head and shoulders above them (and above most Republicans). Until now, everything this person has ever said about Cruz has been negative. But he said two things about Cruz the other day. The first is that he respects him for not endorsing Trump. The second is that, if the race right now were down to Trump vs. Cruz, he’s donate a ton of money to Cruz’s campaign to see him win.
I think that’s interesting.
A few hours and I’ve already broken my pledge not to watch or comment on this train wreck of a campaign. Hey, I’m only human. 🙂
J.J.:
True, but ironic, IMHO—because Trump is no champion of free speech, except for himself (see this and this).
FWIW: It is unlikely that the President would ever give the order to launch a counter-strike with our nuclear missiles. If we are ever attacked, the first thing that would happen is that Washington DC would be obliterated by a low-flying missile launched from a submarine a few miles off-shore. It would probably take the missile about four minutes to get there.
People who are saying that Mr Trump is so thin-skinned that he would launch a first strike because of some slight or taunt are wearing tin-foil hats.
But, his questioning of the military experts as to whether we can launch a first strike are entirely legitimate. We have been weakened by the current Commander-in-Chief’s failure to project the will to defend our country. We will be safer when we get someone in the White House with some resolve. By his even asking those questions, our enemies might realize that the days of us being a laughing stock are over.
Big Maq & OM,
Bad parallel or not, your knee jerk rejection of even considering the possibility, that we are far closer to a tipping point, in the Left securing it’s fundamental transformation of America than you credit, speaks volumes about a refusal to consider any position but your own.
Here’s the difference between us; I actually hope I am mistaken and, if proven wrong about a Clinton Presidency will happily admit to having fallen prey to hyperbole. You refuse to consider that if I and others of like mind are right, then it is you that is profoundly mistaken.
Perhaps my memory is faulty but I can’t recall seeing either of you admit that anyone who disagrees with you might have a valid point, much less persuade you to reconsider even the slightest point.
neo,
I wasn’t implying that many Jews did not try to get out, I was referring to the many that willfully refused to ‘connect the dots’ until the writing was on the wall. That’s a form of normalcy bias.
Waiting until it’s too late is demonstrated by those who do get out before it is too late. Today, it’s known as having “situational awareness”.
Frog (11:11 pm)
Thanks for the correction. For years I have attributed that quote to Huey Long.
Neo (9:33pm)
Neo, I can’t argue if Trump was the worst of the lot. The fact remains that he beat them all. Much of his appeal being that he was not a ‘Washington Insider’. I agree his utterances on policy show frightful ignorance. However, that’s why a president has advisors.
Regarding his temperament, after things I have read and know are true about about Hillary, I fear her temperament may be far worse. But that’s not discussed because the MSM still frames the story and everyone else just reacts.
As for Hillary, I suspect whoever the republican candidate was, the MSM attack would be overwhelming. And yes, she can’t hide who and what she is. However The MSM air cover for her would have been just as effective.
The democrats, with their MSM handmaidens and a weaponized civil service have become masters of distraction and electoral fraud. Our last somewhat fair election was back in 2004.
I will also add that regardless of my present lack of trust in our electoral process at the national level, Trump, is a genuine expression of the ordinary citizens rage at the corruption and theft of the republic occurring right under their noses.
It would appear that after almost 100 years since the publications of Lippmann’s Public Opinion and Bernays’ Propaganda, their methods have proven correct and effective.
Geoffrey Britain:
But those posts I linked are evidence that the vast majority of Jews in Germany DID connect the dots. Of course there were some who didn’t, but not most.
What’s more, I have long been very concerned about a Clinton presidency. I think we reached a tipping point in 2012, actually, and what’s happening right now is just playing that out. But that has nothing to do with what I think of Donald Trump and his possibilities, nor does it mean I think he has much chance of reversing that tipping point. The tipping point was a result of the Gramscian march though education, media, entertainment, religious institutions, etc..
Tim P:
Trump won because the rest of the vote was split.
And Cruz was less of a “Washington Insider” than Trump, as was Walker, and Fiorina.
In addition, what good are advisors—even good ones—if you don’t take their advice? Trump’s temperament is such that I don’t think he takes anyone’s advice.
Cap’n Rusty:
Some of the people asking that question about Trump and nuclear weapons have been criticizing the protocol around launching weapons even before Trump became a candidate, and some are military people with a lot of expertise on the subject. Not tin-foil hatters. I have read several such articles in doing research on the subject in the last couple of days.
GB:
You post a lot and assume a lot more. What you “know” and what you write are open questions. You attempt profundity but fall short from time to time. This last delving into the 1930s and 1940 was one of those times. My assessment.
You have stated your positions over and over and continue to pound home points that confirm, to yourself, your speculations, and almost always they are woe, doom, and despair.
I plan to vote for neither DJT or HRC, but you may have forgotten that. You vote your own conscience.
To paraphrase Cornflour the real work involves peaceful resistance to whichever of the two a**holes wins in Nov. at a state and local level. Enjoy your funk.
Neo:
“It is probable that no one would be likely to go broke betting that “hadenough” is not a long-time reader here, although it’s impossible to know for certain.”
Typical alt-Right with a foreign (Russian?) tinge.
Tim P:
“I think that the viciousness of the Trump derangement is a sign of the desperation of the elites that there may indeed be an awakening of the public.”
National security is the chief duty with vested powers for the President.
As such, for me, Trump fails the litmus test for a prospective Commander in Chief with his view on President Bush’s decision for Operation Iraqi Freedom; Trump’s position is consistent with Russian propaganda and based on blatant legal and factual error. That’s disqualifying.
Neo:
“In addition, what good are advisors–even good ones–if you don’t take their advice? Trump’s temperament is such that I don’t think he takes anyone’s advice.”
Trump evidently takes Russian advice and parrots Russian propaganda.
Neo:
“Donald Trump was chosen for other reasons.”
The Trump campaign, though clearly subpar in its own right, had the critical competitive advantage of a social activist movement creatively driving it. It’s been crude “jayvee” caliber activism, but competition is relative. “Jayvee” activism is superior to insignificant activism. Trump’s GOP opponents were mortally disadvantaged in the activist game of the 2016 GOP primary race by the aversion to activism that’s endemic among conservatives of the Right, yet whom the GOP relied upon for activism like Democrats rely on the Left.
Despite Clinton’s glaring unfitness for the presidency, it’s not clear that an otherwise qualified GOP candidate, bereft of the necessary activism component, would have won the 2016 general election versus varsity Democrat-front Left activists.
Having graduated to the general election after defeating the haplessly activism-deficient GOP, the “jayvee” Trump-front alt-Right activists have stepped up in competition versus varsity Democrat-front activists.
Insurgency is the inherently stronger position for activists, but it doesn’t confer an instant advantage over dominant activists. Can they raise their game in short order? Will they ally with hard Left activists, if they’re not already crossover alt-Right activists, versus the main Democrat-front Left?
Competing in the activist game is iterative and progressive, so whatever the outcome of the 2016 election, “jayvee” Trump-front alt-Right activists will improve towards varsity caliber activism and advance their Gramscian long march. They’re at least in the arena, striving towards the social dominance necessary to make the difference they prefer.
In contrast, the conservatives complaining about Trump have yet to show, even now, proper respect for the activist game nor a moving inclination to enter the arena themselves to take the lumps and do work that’s necessary to become the activists who are necessary to compete for their preferred social condition.
@Zeke:
But you left off the first part of Book’s post, where she impugned the motives of everyone who wasn’t willing to vote for Trump.
She went with the traditional “holier than thou/purity test” accusations.
The truth is, Trump is the shallow loudmouth we always thought he was, but because the stakes seem so high (they might actually be that high), normally rational people have been coopted into shilling for a candidate that is unfit.
The only lesson to learn from this debacle is that if you have any hope of winning, don’t nominate an asshole. Because cajoling people doesn’t work that well.
Think back on all the candidates we had, and measure each against the current condition. With a very few exceptions, they would all be preferable to what we have now.
If anyone was guilty of intransigence, it was the Trump supporters. You’ll have 4 years to ponder that under the Bitch Queen now.
@ J.J.:
People with Tourette’s Syndrome speak their mind too. That’s the problem.
A responsible adult needs to have a filter. Trump doesn’t. That and his ego are what drove him to fall into the Khan trap.
A man without self-control will be easy for our enemies to manipulate. Hell, they’re doing it right now.
@ Eric:
The Trump train is a cult of personality. Those die with the leader, or his disgrace (e.g. losing to Hillary).
The alt-right keep threatening online to make the next candidate worse, somehow. This is childish posturing and butthurt.
Many people refuse to vote for Trump because he’s indecent. Making the next nominee even less decent is a great way to get 0% of the vote, especially after the example of failure that we’ve just had.
So “alt-right activist game?”
I think not.
The great news is the the dedicated public servants of this administration including Loretta Lynch can remain and still the media can continue to view them as all scandal free.
I have a dream. Suppose people like Newt Gingrich, Chris Christie, Ben Carson, Rudy Guilliani, etc. got together with some of the Rep leaders and issued a statement: We have tried: We have offered Trump all the advice and information we could. We have supported him on the campaign trail. We have tried to explain the possible meanings of his tweets. We have listened to the concerns of his supporters and tried to advance policies that addressed those concerns. But Trump has failed us. We don’t want him to fail you too. That is why we will be encouraging you to write in a vote for ???. We have plenty of field workers who will let you know how this is done in your state. We don’t need a majority. We just need to deny Clinton one, and then the House can decide. If our candidate can come in second or third and Hillary doesn’thave a majority of electoral votes, your Representative will have the duty to represent you and elect the person who is best for the country.
We will focus on reforming immigration laws and controlling illegal immigration.
We will step up efforts to deal with radical Islamic terrorism both here and abroad, and we will not be intimidated by phony charges of islamophobia. After all, any Muslim who lives in and values America should know that they are just as like to be a victim as any other person who happens to be walking down the street when a bomb goes off.
We will prioritize securing your first and second amendment rights and get rid of federal employees who have tried to curtail them. We will support states, local governments, universities, and other institutions that are trying to protect these rights. And we will remind the activists who get upset about not having a wedding cake baked by a particular baker or transgender people upset by their choice of restrooms that they need to step back and be grateful for what they have in America. They don’t have to worry about being thrown off roofs or not having sanitary indoor toilets.
Above all, we will try to show you what smaller government means; it means that people have greater control of their own destiny and that they can work with neighbors and local politicians to solve problems because they have the most on-the-ground understanding of these problems.
Please find out how to write in your candidate for president and take a good look at ??? because this is the person who can best move to implement our proposals.
Thank you.
“My predicted story arc is right on track.
The MSM loved Trump knowing that they could hate him.
Ted Cuz would’ve represented a REAL problem.” – blert
I was thinking the same back then too, and commented here and elsewhere on that point. I only added that it was a “twofer” – trump brought huge ratings. It was not that they so much as pumped trump – he gave them enough fodder to keep him on the evening news every day – but that they were “keeping their powder dry” so to speak.
Note: Probably wasn’t some coordinated conspiracy, but part of the culture mixed with incentives inside the MSM that drives these kinds of decisions.
keep beefing over the choice your given, and you may end up with this, rather than something else. you cant change this choice, its way past that point, and decades past the idea of the best given how much the electorate was played and really didnt care to not be played.
North Korean propaganda project backfires badly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=91&v=o3C9k19NvfY
Part of the quote you offered: “Nothing Donald Trump does can or will be as bad [as what Hillary will do].”
Unfortunately, saying it does not make it so. I just spent an entire lengthy post arguing for a possibility that CAN be not only as bad, but much much worse, than what Hillary will do…
“While Hillary, as the “first woman” president, will get full cooperation from all Democrats and all RINOS (which means most GOP Congress critters), Congress will rediscover the separation of powers when Donald is President, reining in his greater excesses.”
Another assertion that, sorry to say, has no reason to be true. It is merely a hope. It is not even true that Obama got “full cooperation” from “all RINOs.”” – Neo responding to Zeke
Zeke provides an overwrought case against clinton, and an equally blinded case for trump.
Neo pointed out some glaring falsehoods.
I’ll add that any surety about SCOTUS picks under trump is pure foolishness.
Also, any notion that the rest of the GOP, or Congress, or the media, or SCOTUS, or etc, etc, etc are going to keep trump on the straight and narrow is pure foolishness.
I could go on, on practically each point positive that Zeke makes about what trump would do (and probably have on several in prior comments)
But. Zeke, and others like him, are not even trying to take a realistic look on either side of the equation. Not even on pretense.
To them it is all fire and brimstone with clinton, and cookies and ice cream with trump, with no serious explanation as to why.
Pure fairyland tales (originating somewhere in the land of Honah Lee out by the sea, evidently /jk).
I’m surprised no one else has mentioned this yet: “Wag the Dog.” Have we already forgotten how bad things were during Bill Clinton’s administration?
1. The movie “Wag the Dog” is released on 12/25/97.
2. The Monica Lewinsky scandal breaks on the Drudge Report on 1/17/98.
3. Hillary Clinton uses the phrase “vast right-wing conspiracy” on 1/27/98 while on The Today Show (a lie to distract from the scandal).
4. Operation Infinite Reach, on 8/20/98, with strikes on targets in Afghanistan and Sudan (retaliation for the al-Qaeda embassy bombings on 8/7/98, with Clinton admitting the affair with Monica Lewinsky on 8/17/98).
5. Operation Desert Fox, from 12/16/98 to 12/19/98, for the purpose of degrading Iraq’s ability to make weapons of mass destruction. That same day, on 12/19/98, Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives.
6. The NATO intervention in the former Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War, from 3/24/99 to 6/10/99. This was about six weeks after Bill Clinton was acquitted by the Senate on 2/12/99.
All of those actions would have effects later on with al-Qaeda and terrorism, the Iraq War, and relations with Russia. And one can be certain that Hillary Clinton lied in 1998 during the impeachment scandal to preserve their power; that she lied again in 2012 with Libya and Benghazi; and that she has lied just recently with the secret e-mail server and the “donations” to the Clinton Foundation.
Against those real actions and documented lies are some panicky speculations about Trump. Can we please get a better sense of perspective?
“A key point I was trying to make was this: DJT might be considered the “last chance to vote our way out of this” by a lot of people on both the right and (perhaps old-school) left. The traction seemed to come from the media fixation; he attracted attention when no one more credible seemed to be able to do so. – steve c
Yes, that captures the essence of the motivation during the primaries, and why trump had a solid plurality.
But it doesn’t explain the unrealistic view they still hold with all the media attention trump has had since (see comment above re: Zeke’s comment).
Many others at least see the problems with trump, and have a rationale that is debatable, but at lest one can understand where they are coming from.
.
When he fails to accomplish what they intended, something else will have to do in his place. Those voters are not simply going to go away, they will make themselves heard.” – steve c
Right. And if they are desperate now, what will they be like then?
Will an honest to badness REAL, make no bones about it, authoritarian be in the wings ready to pick up the pieces?
And, given that either candidate will expand the executive branch’s power (trump is likely to push much further than clinton, imho, given his seeming lack of boundaries on virtually everything), what will stop such a candidate, should they get elected?
the wag the dog was spurious, but the kosovo war was curious in light of the december 1998 pdb, which first pointed out a potential al queda attack, and if case you’re moving on to the next narrative, he was right the first time,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXJGPwXCK8Q
FWIW,
Libertarian Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson endorses #BlackLivesMatter
“At the CNN Libertarian Party Town Hall on Wednesday, Johnson praised the efforts of Black Lives Matter and endorsed the organization.
Speaking to a Black Lives Matter protestor and registered Democrat who was shot in the leg during a march, Johnson said, “What it has done for me is that my head has been in the sand on this,” Johnson said. “I think that we’ve all had our heads in the sand and lets wake up. Discrimination does exist, has existed, and for me personally, um, slap, slap, wake up.”
“Libertarian Vice Presidential nominee Bill Weld focused less on the Black Lives Matter movement and more on the stats of black youth unemployment, calling it a national emergency.
The BLM movement’s leaders are on record, repeatedly calling for the murder of cops and is funded by George Soros…
Big Maq:
This may be a stupid question (and/or you may have previously stated this) but who is the presidential candidate you currently support? I ask, respectfully, because although I see that you’ve been consistent in stating that you believe there is a third option, I don’t recall your ever having identified who that candidate is.
Johnson? Stein? Mitt? Ryan? Walker? Cruz? Carly[oh, how I wish]?
Or is it an unknown candidate who has not yet come forward? I’m honestly trying to understand who you believe the third option candidate to be….
I also think that Trump is done and it is all over “cept the shouting.” I think they will work to gut the 2nd amendment first, and will jump on the first “hate speech” opportunity to begin gutting 1st amendment. I predict they will go after the obvious suspects: Rush and other talk radio heads. I think they will also go after blogs. They will make the blogger responsible for the comments. Twitter will also go all in to suppress “hate speech” more so than they already have. This country is already changing like a slide show before our eyes. It will now speed up like Lucy and Ethel in the chocolate factory. I am to the point where a lump is constantly forming in my throat. The liberals I know are poised to laugh like the Joker at the lot of us. I think people who have gone all in for Trump from THE START have a lot to answer for.
Neo,
You said,
This is a perfect example of the type of speculation I have been talking about. Judging by many of the comments here, the media offensive has worked.
Yankee (9:47am) nails it and succinctly echos what I have been saying.
Trump sucks as a choice, I agree. But he’s our only choice at this point.
Bad parallel or not, your knee jerk rejection of even considering the possibility, that we are far closer to a tipping point, in the Left securing it’s fundamental transformation of America than you credit, speaks volumes” – GB
Not a knee jerk reaction. If you want to convince me, you better have something that at least comes close in analogy.
I’ve never said that the left wasn’t trying to transform America.
It is your distopian proposition that within the next four years we will be in a position that guarantees leftist jackboots, and gulags under a marxist regime. That is what “speaks volumes”.
The problem with that argument is that it is way overwrought.
It was the same kind of argument heard in varying degrees from conservative media in 2008 and 2012, drumming up all kinds of fear, resentment and distrust (not saying the left doesn’t play the same game, btw). As a result, some people are behaving like we are in the Weimar, willing to grasp at anything for “change”. Yet, here we are in 2016 and it is not even close to that outcome, and not even close to the conditions people faced in that era (let alone being like the Jews after the Nazis took power)
Having been, on lengthy segments of time, to other western countries, they are several years (if not a generation or so) down the leftist path “ahead” of where we are. There are major problems with that, but it is still far from gulag territory.
Of course, we have major issues ahead of us. Principles won’t mean much if we end up in a financial catastrophe because of our debt load and unfunded “obligations”. Our freedom won’t mean much if we cannot secure our borders, nor if we all keep asking the government to do things on our behalf (be they left or right). Democracy won’t mean much if we cannot reassert our role in shaping and securing the world around us.
That said, people have no real bearing on the US’s place is in the world. Is is special. It is unique. It is still by most any measure the best place in the world for opportunity and prosperity.
Yet, people are willing to blindly risk throwing it out, or, worse, advocate “burning it all down”, because things are “so bad”.
We need to collectively get a grip.
Instead, many of us are giving incredible importance to our gripes, making them out to be catastrophes just around the corner, making us vulnerable to any demagogue who plays to our fears.
We need to see the world as it is, not as we fear it, nor as we wish it.
I suggest that we start toting up what we know will happen, and what will not be allowed to happen legislatively, if Hillary takes office.
Start your list with the Supreme Court appointements, and then proceed to Obamacare repeal, and Administrative and judicial respect for first 10 Amendments.
And for those who are concerned with Trump’s mental outlook, I suggest that they review what is already known of Hillary’s.
Never in my experience have we had a major political figure caught on film cackling with casual glee at having killed, or been responsible for triggering the killing, of a head of state; no matter how corrupt and deserving of juridical execution that person may have been.
There is always some restraint, some sense of decorum or gravity, some at least modest reference to law and justice – if only natural and cosmic, but never before to a Cesarian paradigm of: We came, we saw, and he died … giggles.
Hillary is a flawed to the core, morally corrupt, pathological liar, who cares less about the Constitution and the rule of law than Trump knows of it.
Those who imagine that the way of safety, if an oppressive and downwardly spiraling one, lies with Hillary, are deluding themselves.
With both Bill Clinton and Obama we have had seriously damaged males with daddy and social acceptance issues who have used our political system in an effort to refashion our country so as to validate their lives.
With Hillary we get a plotting boundary-less monomaniacal character with many of the same drives and issues – including quite likely, the sexual disturbances.
You will be safer living in Putin’s Russia, than you will be in Hillary’s America.
“Big Maq: This may be a stupid question (and/or you may have previously stated this) but who is the presidential candidate you currently support? I ask, respectfully” – carl
Why do you ask again, when I already answered? Are you not bothering to read my answer, even though you “respectfully” ask this time?
Libertarian at the top. GOP down ticket.
” There are major problems with that, but it is still far from gulag territory.”
Individual shared responsibility mandate.
Big Maq’s screws need a bit of tightening.
G.B.: Thanks for the Libertarian news. Here’s a little propaganda photo from Reuters:
http://www.reuters.com/news/picture/pictures-of-the-month-july?articleId=USRTSKLMY
“Hillary is a flawed to the core, morally corrupt, pathological liar” – DNW
Said as if anyone here is denying it?
That is why she is unacceptable.
But so too is trump.
“who cares less about the Constitution and the rule of law than Trump”
And, you assert that she cares less than trump.
Not sure how you think either’s view as it applies to the Constitution is acceptable?
Being “more caring” (however one can measure that?) is not the same as “it will remain intact”, nor that “it will be respected”.
“Neo, You said, “In addition, what good are advisors–even good ones–if you don’t take their advice? Trump’s temperament is such that I don’t think he takes anyone’s advice.”
This is a perfect example of the type of speculation I have been talking about. Judging by many of the comments here, the media offensive has worked.” – Tim
Not much speculation when you have Gingrich and Guliani voicing concern. They may not be in the inner circle (which include Pence and Christie), but they cannot be the lone voices in the wind on some of trump’s recent controversies.
I understand the reasons for Trump’s support and I share much of the same anger and frustration as his supporters. When I started looking into Trump, I hoped he would be a better, smarter, more decent candidate I could get behind, but that’s not the guy I found.
I don’t think Trump supporters grasp how peculiar, unpleasant and untrustworthy Trump appears to those unsusceptible to his blunt charms. His unfavorable poll ratings are not flukes. His record is littered with red conman flags.
When I saw that Trump couldn’t be stopped last spring, I realized that, barring an FBI indictment or another 9-11, Hillary was going to win. I’ve been living with the reality of President Hillary since, so the Binary Choice hasn’t been much of a live choice for me. I also reside in California and Trump claims he could take CA always sounded delusional.
Between the third term curse and the predations of seven years of Obama, this is the election Republicans should have won.
Yeah, a Hillary victory is going to be bad.
“We need to see the world as it is, not as we fear it, nor as we wish it. Big Maq
I couldn’t agree more.
“Of course, we have major issues ahead of us.
Principles won’t mean much
if[when, as its mathematically inescapable] we end up in a financial catastrophe because of our debt load and unfunded “obligations”.Our freedom won’t mean
much if we cannot[anything, under Hillary since we won’t] secure our borders, nor if we all keep asking the government to do things on our behalf (be they left or right). [The Left HAS to keep increasing the nanny state]Democracy won’t mean much if we cannot reassert our role in shaping and securing the world around us.”
The right will have NO “role in shaping and securing the world around us”, which is the whole point of open borders and amnesty.
Sovereign bankruptcy isn’t a fear based prediction, it’s a mathematical certainty.
Open borders under Clinton isn’t speculation based in fear, it’s a promise and cast-iron certainty. Does “Open Borders Society” (George Soros) ring a bell?
The growth of the regulatory State, federal bureaucracies, the nanny State and ever increasing entitlements is also a certainty under Hillary because it is a necessary means to greater power.
Amnesty for 15 MILLION illegal immigrants, amnesty for Muslim ‘refugees’ provides the means to one party rule, which guarantees that the right will have NO “role in shaping and securing the world around us”.
A leftist SCOTUS, denial of religious freedom, ‘Hate speech’ laws, further emasculation of the military, continued federalization of local police, increased taxes on the middle class, increases in business taxes currently the highest in the world, and a nuclear Iran will all happen under Clinton.
All of these are facts not ‘fears’ and your denial is entirely based in where you wish for us to be.
Trump has not shot anyone on Fifth Avenue so it is not over yet. Do you really believe that he has not studied the MSM and Democratic machine enough to know that the way to victory is the October surprise? Neo believes it was the 47% comment that nailed Romney. I believe Hillary will die from one or more of the 30,000 emails. If one had them, the decision would be between keeping them to blackmail Hillary or selling them to Trump now. We know Trump would “make a deal”. So I am inclined to wait until November 1 before giving up on Trump, no matter what. Everyone agrees that the emails exist. No one knows how many hackers have them. This game is just starting. Order the popcorn for October 15.
Big Maq (11:15am)
Regarding the so-called intervention,
The only problem with that is that Guilliani and Priebus say that it isn’t happening. And Guilliani is part of Trump’s inner circle. Furthermore, Trump denies the why can’t we use nukes statement.
I don’t much like Trump, but I have to say again, that what we are seeing here, more than Trump putting his foot in his mouth, is the media lying overtime to plant doubt in the public’s mind about him. All based on anonymous sources, speculation, and innuendo.
Whether folks vote for Trump, or Hillary is their business, but choices should be based on facts, and verifiable history, not sophisticated smear and distraction campaigns by the media.
By that measure the 900 pound elephant in the room that the media ignores is Hillary’s verifiable record. Those commenting here know that. Many who get all, or most of their news from the MSM do not.
“Libertarian Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson endorses #BlackLivesMatter” – GB
Did you actually listen to the youtube segment?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3MO-A1um20
Is it an endorsement?
I didn’t hear him say anything that comes close to an “endorsement” of BLM itself!
This is the point I made above. People have eaten up, without questioning, exactly the narrative that several in conservative media provide.
GB, when you way over do the case, and pass on such things that are easily falsified, it makes your argument look like a house of cards, a jenga game.
More emails could damage Hillary, but note that it is external events which might save Trump, not his own terrible candidacy.
If it is so darned important to stop Hillary, why did people pick about the worst guy to run against her?
Haven’t read all 113 comments so my apologies if this is in any way a repetition.
I’d like to offer another alternative.
It is possible that Trump’s behavior is in part motivated by the desire to push the media off the cliff to their own demise.
Megyn Kelly’s quote about the media already hating Trump is true. The more he instigates, the more he gets under their professional skin (as it were) and the more extreme they become. The more unhinged they become, the more their credibility suffers. The more their credibility suffers, the less effective their water-carrying fro Hillary becomes.
That may be precisely why it appears that he is “helping” them; throwing gas on the fire. If so, even Megyn Kelly, who is no dummy, can’t see that because she still thinks and resides within the media box.
Trump may be not so much running against Hillary (at least not yet) than he is running against the media itself. Once the media envelope is pierced, and they/it is totally discredited, then the game really begins because Hillary’s defenses evaporate and she becomes an open target.
Again, no special powers of prognostication here, but looking at what’s going on from that point of view explains a lot that otherwise makes no sense.
The way I see it either candidate is a bad choice but if Trump screws up he will be impeached, but not Hillary. Therefore my vote is for Trump, I am ok with a President Pence.
Here’s another fact,
Again, recognize and understand the game afoot with regard to the media and so-called polls.
I remember this same atmosphere in 1980. Reagan was an insane, stupid, nazi, fill in the blank, yahoo who would lead us into WWIII, a fascist theocracy, hell, again fill in the blank. The polls all said it was too close to call. Iran thumbed their noses at us and held our hostages (to Carter’s credit, he didn’t pay cash to free them). it was dark times.
What happened? Reagan won walking away. Also, he turned out to be a pretty good president, except in the economic realm.
I’m not saying Trump is another Reagan, but any casual observer can see the media parallels between then and now.
T (12:10pm)
Great comment. I hope you’re right.
Neo:
RE: “I agree that the MSM, Wall Street, and “certain constituencies” do not want Trump to become president. I disagree however, that those are the reasons Trump will lose (assuming he is likely to do so). He will lose in part because of those reasons–they are important reasons.”
We agree. What I tried to say was that Hillary wins no matter what — for the reasons I gave. (And I can give others.) Trump loses for many other reasons.
This election will follow a familiar pattern: allow the GOP to nominate a weak candidate, then destroy him. Trump isn’t waiting for the firing squad; he’s committing suicide.
“but choices should be based on facts, and verifiable history, not sophisticated smear and distraction campaigns” – Tim
You are correct that we do not have direct insight to trump’s inner circle.
BUT, we DO have what they have said publicly after the fact.
So, it ought to be conceivable that, if they were asked, they would have advised trump the opposite of the action he took. And, if they weren’t asked, then some useful inner circle that is.
Call that speculation, if you wish.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/giuliani-thinks-trump-backed-khan-family-article-1.2735336
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/08/03/gingrich-trump-has-been-very-self-destructive/87996040/
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/rudy-giuliani-trump-khan-feud-226557
“what we are seeing here, more than Trump putting his foot in his mouth, the media lying overtime to plant doubt in the public’s mind about him”
Perhaps. But if trump is circling himself with all these GOP advisors, trump makes a point of challenging and publicly withholding endorsement of GOP candidates down ticket (who are favorites to win their local nomination to begin with), and the party needs unity to win, it is hard to think they would think everything is hunky dory.
Ultimately, we know the MSM for what they are, but is trump really being smart by providing them fodder for this kind of thing?
Anyway, it might not be a lie that the MSM made up, but a leak by Gingrich…
“that word (intervention) was used by Newt in a memo that got around” – Guliani
http://www.businessinsider.com/giuliani-gingrich-trump-intervention-2016-8
So, even though we ought to rightly be suspicious, perhaps we don’t suspect that everything the MSM tells us is a fabricated lie.
The “crazy Trump will start a nuclear war” is insane. The man’s chief flaw is his isolationism. This is just Democrats and their media ass-lickers throwing out lies. Anyone who repeats that idiotic lie is a fool or a liar or both.
“In all honesty I don’t think it matters because I believe that Hillary wins this election easily. The MSM will allow no other result” [Kevino]</b [emphasis mine]
. . . and that would explain why the media itself must be the first target of the campaign.
‘Those who think that Trump has always been intent on throwing the election to Hillary (I am not one of those people) find it easy to understand.
He wants to win, just not enough to change his behavior (kind of like all those people who ‘want’ to lose weight).
Big Maq (12:20pm)
Valid points. I guess we will see, soon. But I suspect Gingrich is mad because he will not get a Trump administration appointment.
Regarding this,
Trump is correct in not supporting Ryan. He is in the primary fight of his life and may well be Cantor’d. Nehlen may replace him and I hope he does. Ryan is a perfect example of a RINO and has done more to help Obama and the democrats that stop them.
Trimegistus:
Ad hominem attacks on those who argue against the position you hold (“just insane”) doesn’t really convince, does it?
And no, it’s not just “just Democrats and their media ass-lickers throwing out lies. Anyone who repeats that idiotic lie is a fool or a liar or both.”
If that’s the gist of your argument, I’m sad to say you’ve lost it.
First of all, it’s irrelevant if Trump keeps giving people who aren’t otherwise disposed to love him fuel for believing that he’s capable of such an act. That’s actually the thrust of this post of mine, in case you hadn’t noticed.
Secondly—no, not everyone repeating it or thinking it’s possible is crazy, or gullible, or a (to use your elegant phrase) an “ass-licker throwing out lies.”
You’re angry. I get it. I’m angry too. I’ve been angry for a long, long, long time, maybe since around 2006, when the Democrats started fighting the surge. Maybe before; I’m not sure of the exact date. Very angry when Obamacare was passed. Extremely upset and angry in 2012 when so many people on the right hated Romney and didn’t see the danger of an Obama re-election as much worse.
Romney was a prince, a Churchill, compared to Trump.
As I wrote earlier, some time in the next week I am planning a post on how nuclear decisions are made. You may be surprised at how much power a president has. We have never had a presidential nominee with as little impulse control and as much angry erratic behavior as Trump (and I’m not talking about in private—I’m talking about in public, which is where most people manage to curb themselves).
It is Trump’s behavior and Trump’s behavior alone that has frightened people. Sure, the Democrats and the MSM have accentuated the negative in Trump. That’s a given. He should have realized that. He hasn’t—instead, he’s escalated.
It’s indefensible.
“The other reason for concern is his character…”
I worry more about Clinton’s character, or lack thereof.
The danger I see with Clinton is that she believes she is above the law and she acts outside the law. And she knows the law. She has never been brought to heel for any of her criminality and corruption. And this has been going on for a very long time.
And she understands how the government works and how to maneuver through it. And the federal bureaucracy, most importantly the Department of Justice, is overflowing with Obama/Clinton progressive leftist sympathizers who will aid and abet or look the other way . A look at the Department of State under her tenure is a small example.
And with a Clinton SCOTUS she becomes even more dangerous.
Finally, there is also reason to believe her health is precarious. But that is a side issue.
Yes, this is a simplistic view of this oh so complex world of politics. But sometimes … forest …trees.
“Trump may be not so much running against Hillary (at least not yet) than he is running against the media itself. Once the media envelope is pierced, and they/it is totally discredited, then the game really begins” – T
Interesting theory.
But, most of what we are seeing on the MSM is trump’s own words tweeted, or video of him speaking.
Hard to tell if there is any special editing of the type in Katie Couric’s “documentary” “Under the Gun”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QO-zyLQynf4
However, we do have the benefit of much of trump’s public speaking is available online to get the full context, therefore it is hard to misconstrue his meaning.
Not voting at all: really like letting *someone else* make the decision as to whether you must play Russian Roulette or just get a direct shot to the head.
Hillary Clinton is as narcissistic as Trump, and much more bitter…indeed, whatever Trump’s manifest faults, I don’t think bitterness is among them. And I think bitterness is a major risk factor for destructive behaviors of all kinds.
One appears to be ignorant, the other, Hillary, an outright enemy. The ignorant man, identifies with the traditional American polity and way of life, even though he seems oblivious to the legal cords that support it.
The other, Hillary, recognizes nothing but her own empty ambition and desires.
My point, first made weeks ago, is that there is nothing that a Trump administration can screw up domestically, that cannot just as easily be fixed. He will not intentionally wage ideological war on the society of which our current heritage of rights is a values-expression in law.
That leaves only the international situation, and only insofar as one is concerned with cold war era style issues …. which typically and to pattern, after some years of Democrat maladministration crop up to again be dealt with by their successor administrations.
I cannot at this point see how the country is safer from existential catastrophe of an international origin with Hillary in the White House, than with Trump, given her serious and proven moral pathologies and her blatant psychological and characterological issues.
The Libertarians are, unfortunately, now the party of cranks. Their platform is the platform not of American Constitutionalism and classical liberalism, but of a self-disemboweling and ultimately nihilistic commitment to the body as real property, and the disembodied will, as a coherent concept.
The cathartic value may make this discussion worthwhile, but, it is certainly going in circles.
The matter of the Presidential race is out of our hands. We have discussed the shortcomings of each candidate ad infinitum. There is general agreement that both are deeply flawed; and the only serious disagreement relates to the degree.
I think it worthwhile to review JJ’s post at 8:05pm.
The down ticket votes are now critical. Regardless of who is President, it will be essential to have a majority of level headed members in the House and Senate to mitigate the potential damage. (Yes, conservatives are preferable, but, also “moderates” if that is the most acceptable choice.) Strong candidates must be supported at the local and state levels, because it is almost certain that over the next several years, encroachment on their prerogatives by the Federal government will continue, if not accelerate.
“I remember this same atmosphere in 1980. Reagan was an insane, stupid, nazi, fill in the blank, yahoo who would lead us into WWIII, a fascist theocracy, hell, again fill in the blank” – Tim P
Notwithstanding “media parallels”, to the extent that Reagan was portrayed that way, nobody ever heard Reagan entertain the kinds of themes that coincided with that narrative.
This time around, trump does delve into “parallel” themes, and proudly so.
Big Maq,
It was indeed an endorsement of BLM propaganda. It was an endorsement of their world view. In doing so, Johnson acted as an apologist. Not one word of qualification, much less criticism of BLM issued forth from Johnson’s mouth.
That’s an endorsement in all but name.
Tim P:
The difference with Reagan was that Reagan’s behavior and words refuted what the MSM was saying about him, and Trump’s backs up what the media is saying. Of course, the media is exaggerating and distorting what Trump does as well (and I already said when I first wrote my post that that business about Trump asking that question was “a Trump conversation that most likely did not occur”). But there is enough truth in what Trump is actually doing and saying to back up the MSM’s assertions, and make them totally believable.
Big big difference. If a lie is being spread, you don’t fuel it. Now was the time for Trump to act differently and show that they were lying, if indeed they were lying about him in general. Instead, it’s as though he’s been determined to prove them right. And that’s because he lacks character, judgment, and impulse control—a fact that also has a tendency to prove them right.
RE: Order for a nuclear strike
I eagerly await your article on the subject.
RE: “How does a finding under either (a) or (b) [unlawful] take place under the circumstances of a nuclear decision that might be reactive in nature and under which there are only a few minutes to decide?
It depends on the circumstances. If the US was under attack by the Russians or Chinese, I have no doubt that the military will strike. What other circumstances require an immediate response? A terrorist group threatens Americans in very large numbers. How would a nuclear strike benefit that situation? ISIS/ISIL wipes out NYC with a nuclear weapon. An immediate response? No, most people would like to see the evidence as to who did it and how. These are questions that military people will ask.
Like I said, they aren’t robots. It’s tough enough to get people to pull the trigger on a single human being, launching a nuclear strike that will kill hundreds of thousands and could start a war that destroys all life on the planet is quite a bit tougher. People will launch a nuclear strike if the country’s survival depends on it, but I doubt if they’ll take any President’s word for it.
RE: “Also, the Secretary of Defense must approve the president’s order, but that person is an appointee of the president and serves at his/her will, and can be dismissed at any point and replaced with a person of that president’s choosing.”
With the advice and consent of the Senate.
Tim P.:
Here’s my opinion on Ryan.
Big Maq:
Johnson certainly has some social liberal-ish PC tendencies.
But people who support Trump probably feel they must accentuate them in order to discourage anyone from finding him to be a decent, if flawed, alternative to the two Awfuls who are the current major party nominees.
I am trying to take a good long hard look at Johnson. He is, of course, a mixed bag. But this is a strange year, and he may be the best alternative in a bad business.
Tim P:
My statement that I don’t think Trump takes people’s advice is based not on any media reports, it’s based on my own observations of Trump for this entire year. I’ve certainly been paying close attention. Of course, without being a fly on the wall, I can’t know for sure, but I’m a fairly keen observer of human beings and that’s my conclusion about Trump. My own conclusion.
“One appears to be ignorant, the other, Hillary, an outright enemy. The ignorant man, identifies with the traditional American polity and way of life, even though he seems oblivious to the legal cords that support it.” – DNW
It is not just that trump might well be “ignorant”. It is his entire “package” (incl. what appears to be “moral pathologies” of his own) that, combined, make him a serious risk for the country.
The notion that trump, because, to paraphrase, he has “good intentions”, he can do no harm, even domestically, is pure folly.
We cannot even discern what it is that he WILL do? So that assumption has no rationale to stand on.
Then clinton’s “serious and proven moral pathologies and her blatant psychological and characterological issues” are what will cause us “existential catastrophe of international origin”? Huh?
clinton’s moral character should be disqualifying for POTUS. Yep.
Be that as it may, it is hardly solid proof, nor logically follow, that we will therefore suffer some “international existential catastrophe”.
Again, like GB, you overstate the case for trump and against clinton.
Big Maq:
I must have missed your answer among the many, many, many comments you’ve been posting these past few days, sorry about that.
For a while there I thought you might have had a realistic or helpful idea, but it looks like you’re really just talking about “voting your conscience”, doing some heavy duty virtue signaling and crowing about it. Hope it makes you feel good because hectoring, insults and lecturing aren’t very effective as tools of persuasion. And if you’re not trying to persuade others to see things your way, what is your purpose? Respectfully, carl
“It was an endorsement of their world view.” – GB
Oh come on! Not whatsoever!
To my point about overstating your case, people can look at the youtube vid and make up their own minds, but how many really are going to come away thinking it was an outright “endorsement”?
Gosh, he didn’t even use the words or acronym BLM in his response.
“In doing so, Johnson acted as an apologist. Not one word of qualification, much less criticism of BLM issued forth from Johnson’s mouth. “ – GB
Can we not acknowledge that there IS something of a problem in our country with our police abusing their authority, without having to accept all else that the BLM advocates and stands for?
That Johnson responded the way he did shows that he doesn’t easily get baited into making some stupid remark.
carl in atlanta:
I can’t speak for Big Maq, but I can certainly speak for myself, and I imagine it might be what motivates him, too (as I think his comments have made fairly clear): that we are actually exploring whether it is automatically true that Hillary Clinton would be worse than Trump.
That last assertion is, at this point, pretty much the gist of most of the pro-Trump argument: that Hillary is worse. It’s not a bad assertion, either, and in fact it’s the only thing that could get me to vote for so abominable a human being as Trump. But there are reasons to doubt it. If it’s doubtful, then why vote for him?
This is not virtue-signaling. This is wrestling with what is probably the most difficult voting decision of my lifetime, and I’m pretty old.
So why start insulting people?
I couldn’t care less about “virtue-signaling” or the rest. I’ve proven my ability to stand out from the crowd (of my friends) and earn their disapproval.
I wish this WERE just about “virtue-signaling.” That would make things clearer. It most assuredly is not.
@carl – what you may think is “lecturing” is my trying to state the case.
If folks here are point to the “morality” of clinton as a reason to not vote for (just to take one of the angles folks are arguing here), it seems to me that they also ought to consider the “morality” of trump.
If neither are “acceptable”, then we ought to look elsewhere.
If you take that as “heavy duty virtue signalling” then fine, because there have been a lot of “signalling” going on here and everywhere about there only being two choices. That “signalling” (and its assumption) is driving us into this quagmire.
About T’s hypothesis about Trump playing a long game to get the media to discredit itself:
In 2004, we thought the media had discredited itself in its obvious attempt to drag John Kerry over the finish line.
In 2008, we thought the media had discredited itself in its deification of Obama and blatant smearing of McCain and Palin.
In 2012, we thought the media had discredited itself by smacking down Romney in the middle of a debate with a false narrative (among other things).
And now, we’re to believe that the media will discredit itself when Trump is busily providing ammunition for his own firing squad?
I am not optimistic.
And if preventing Hillary from winning is the most important thing in the world, how about a discussion of Trump stepping down for the good of the country and the party, since in addition to his many flaws and his checkered hisory, he has shown no ability to control himself as a candidate?
If he was going to pivot to presidential as he promised and his supporters believed, he would have done so by now. If he is to win, we would also see polls iindicating it by now, but other than a couple blips, Trump has been consistently underwater with respect to Clinton, often by large margins.
It’s not too late … except of course this would be totally unacceptable to Trump supporters, so defeating Hillary really isn’t the most important objective for them.
“that we are actually exploring whether it is automatically true that Hillary Clinton would be worse than Trump.” – Neo
Absolutely true.
With trump now leading the GOP, thus redefining what the GOP really stands for (still figuring what that is, as it seems to be up in the air, largely because we cannot pin trump down on anything), then it is NOT axiomatic that clinton is the poorer choice.
What we are left with to find an answer is that we have to explore our pre-existing assumptions and biases.
When some here say “vote your conscience”, that is very much what that exploration is about – to air those assumptions and supposed “proof points” and challenge them.
huxley:
I decided long ago that defeating Hillary was not the prime objective of the early and most fervent supporters of Trump. It probably is the objective of the late-adopters, the reluctant supporters, however.
That’s two different populations right there.
On August 8, 2015 (a year ago), I wrote (addressing the early Trump supporters at the time):
They’ve stabbed us all in the back. The one person who’s been spared is Hillary, the beneficiary of their position.
Big Maq says,
You cannot understand why I said Clinton’s moral pathologies are what will cause us an ‘existential catastrophe of international origin’? That is well, because I didn’t.
I’m going to show you how to avoid these apparent perplexities.
It’s through quoting,
Here, let me give an example as I quote myself as to what I actually said:
“I cannot at this point see how the country is safer from existential catastrophe of an international origin with Hillary in the White House, than with Trump …”
See? I did not say what you said that I said. Puzzle dissolved.
Next,
Once again, let me quote what I was actually asserting. I did not say that he would not screw up domestically. I said:
” … there is nothing that a Trump administration can screw up domestically, that cannot just as easily be fixed. He will not intentionally wage ideological war on the society of which our current heritage of rights is a values-expression in law.”
You see, Clinton is a positive rights “kinda gal” just like Barry is a “positive rights” kinds guy. In other words, they are boundary-less left-fascists whose intention it is, is to cement the various piecemeal changes in the statutory law, into the fundamental legal predicates of our political association, permanently.
We have seen what the Obama administration has done using the IRS to attack conservative non-profit groups. We have seen what the courts are now doing with regard to religious exemptions. You have said we are not at the gulag stage yet.
No we are not. We are in the stage where intimidation, and harassment, and extra-legal maneuvers are used to coerce and browbeat and economically bleed opponents of the Administration’s left-fascist agenda into submission, and possibly jail. And as the progressives in this country cheer it on, other more sanguine people shrug and say Hillary, and more of the same, will not be the end of America.
Depends on what you mean by “America” I guess.
No, but you are so right. No gulags yet.
Brian Swisher:
Unfortunately, if Trump is doing anything to the media at this point, it’s validating it.
This may be the time that the media, like the proverbial stopped clock, is (mostly) right about a person, despite their lies and distortions on this and so many other things.
Big Maq’s link to Johnson is a big, big “Slap, slap! Wake up!” of its own.
Johnson is a toadie. He’s playing to the ever-grievous Black America like the wormiest Democrat.
One should cite the cop- violent black perp interaction incidence v. the cop-white. There is a 40-fold difference. Violent black thugs are still violent thugs. Color is no excuse.
But Reynolds of Ferguson remains an innocent hero to them. “He was going to go to college.” Sure. And the list goes on. And on. And on.
Seen the major rise in violent crimes as reported by the FBI since last year? In Democrat-controlled anti-cop cities. Mostly by blacks, yet again. Baltimore has lost 15% of its cops, and the thugs are having a great time. Freedom! Uhuru!
huxley:
Very good especially last para. it may be more about trying to get back at “them,” revenge and lashing out, the “burn it all down” response.
DNW:
You write, “there is nothing that a Trump administration can screw up domestically, that cannot just as easily be fixed.”
Ah, would that that were true! I think there are many things that will advance the cause of leftism and big government, and they are no more easily fixed than they would be if Hillary had done them.
I have many posts on the subject of Trump’s predilections for tyranny and strong man rule, and his opposition to free speech if that speech is against him. He also supports eminent domain and might appoint justices that will further his goals there. That’s just a few; there are more. I don’t have time to give you the links, but that sort of thing is all over this blog.
The gist of it is that Trump supports many leftist and big government, executive power overreach goals, and they are just as irreversible as if Hillary did them. Even more, perhaps, as the GOP would have more trouble distancing themselves from them if he advocated them or did them.
“The matter of the Presidential race is out of our hands.” – Oldflyer
While I agree with much of your other points in that comment, this one I cannot abide.
It is essentially opposite the premise of Neo’s article on “Does Your Vote Matter?”
While each individual vote has an expected value of close to zero impact on the election, not voting guarantees absolutely zero impact.
But, the point of voting is to collect a “consensus” agreement on preferences.
I take it one step further…
If we all resign ourselves to two awful choices, and say so amongst ourselves, and if we and everyone else would like another choice but behaves the same way, it becomes self fulfilling.
If we’d just start talking about the need for a third choice and what is available that we might consider, that ALONE would start the ball rolling.
In that manner, it IS in our hands.
Someday, someone will manage a very thorough demographic study of who Trump’s early supporters actually were. Or will try to do so.
It’s obvious that they were not politically informed conservatives, nor even libertarian leaning casual conservatives.
At this point much of it is inference, and probably, just-so stories.
One gets the impression, from dealing with the few outright Trump supporters one meets, that they are a mixture of gleeful jingoist tending blowhards like Trump himself, and who delight in the ruckus and revel in ressentiment; and working class Democrats who have invaded the citadel of the Republicans after their welfare state privileges were handed by their leaders to new populations thought to be more morally deserving.
But that could be a just so story constructed on too few instances, as well.
neo: You’re correct about the two groups of Trump supporters. I’m thinking of those I’ve known and the fervent ones shotgunning comment sections I read.
I too have noticed a near-nihilisitic rage among core Trump supporters. My ex-friend said even if Trump fails, he couldn’t make things worse. If Trump doesn’t beat Hillary at least he’ll destroy the Republican Party.
Well, in my view things can get much worse and peserving the Republican Party, however flawed and squishy its leadership may be, is important.
I have read your many comments on this angle and considered them.
Who will support Trump if he manifests strong man ambitions? Do you think impeachment would be impossible? What conservative in the Senate would defend such usurpation? What leftist would not jump at the chance to oppose him?
What congressional backing, what judicial support could Trump muster in such a gambit?
On the other hand, Hillary could get away with anything because the Democrat party has repeatedly proven it will allow progressives anything, including the destruction of the rule of law.
So that, leaves you two arguments, only one of which is germane in this exchange.
1 Trump is a danger internationally — which is not our topic here.
and
2, Trump will have the support of left-fascist Democrats if he begins manifesting Cesarian impulses.
Do you really believe this?
As far as the Supreme Court appointments go, yes, it’s a throw of the dice with Trump and a moral certainty with Clinton.
Ok I have to run. Economic duty calls.
“See? I did not say what you said that I said.” – DNW
As if we don’t have enough to debate about. Now you want to claim I misrepresented what you said.
I don’t think I missed your point, and think I paraphrased it accurately enough.
You said:
“I cannot at this point see how the country is safer from existential catastrophe of an international origin with Hillary in the White House, than with Trump, given her serious and proven moral pathologies and her blatant psychological and characterological issues.”
Strangely, your quote of yourself stops at “with Trump…”
I pulled the rest of your point to the front, as, well, it was your point – it was a “given” about clinton that leads to this outcome.
Just so our dear readers don’t have to scroll back to find what I said:
““Then clinton’s “serious and proven moral pathologies and her blatant psychological and characterological issues” are what will cause us “existential catastrophe of international origin”?”
.
I don’t intentionally try to misrepresent what folks are saying. It is hard enough to debate what we have to debate about.
Besides, readers will see though that and my argument would lose credibility.
I’m in a minority opinion around here, it seems. Like I can afford to play games like that.
Generally speaking, #NeverTrump GOP and #NeverHillary GOP are talking past each other.
#NeverTrump GOP are foremost about integrity of principle and focused on the clear unfitness of the candidate for POTUS and wary of the essential changes wrought by Trump and the Trump-front alt-Right to the GOP, particularly the severe, perhaps mortal political damage to conservatives by the Trump phenomenon.
#NeverHillary GOP are focused foremost on the zero-sum consequential competition and see in the Trump phenomenon, if less in Trump himself, a hope of adopting practical steps needed to compete, steps which the activism-averse GOP has consistently fallen short which has caused them to fall behind the Democrat-front Left. It also appeals to them that Trump parrots base rhetoric (irrespective of merit), which is adapted directly from the Democrat-front Left populist tack.
They’re talking past each other, but both sides are right.
#NeverTrump GOP are right that, besides the “Russian Roulette”, joining with Trump and the Trump-front alt-Right is corrupting and self-destructive for conservatives.
#NeverHillary GOP is right that the GOP needs to have better account of populist concerns and become sufficient activists to compete for real.
Oldflyer:
“I think it worthwhile to review JJ’s post at 8:05pm.”
JJ at 8:05 pm:
“They [Republican state legislators] have shown what can be accomplished when they stand up to the democrats.”
That’s an argument for conservatives to hope for a Trump defeat.
If Clinton wins, conservative Republicans can rally to counter Clinton and try to reclaim the GOP from the Trump-front alt-Right. Regardless, conservatives need to become activist to compete for real versus the Democrat-front Left and (Trump-front) alt-Right. But a Clinton win at least sets them up to compete if they’ll seize the opportunity.
However, if Trump wins, conservative Republicans may try, but they won’t rally to counter Trump. Instead, the GOP will inevitably be transformed – or if you’re a principled conservatives, fundamentally corrupted – from the inside with a Trump presidency.
The GOP legislators that #NeverHillary GOP rationalize will check Trump will be displaced, cowed, and/or converted with the participatory political pressure applied by ascendant Left-mimicking Trump-front alt-Right activists.
The Trump-front alt-Right is modeled on the Democrat-front Left. Refer to the Left activist reshaping of the Democrats; same structure for the GOP. If Trump wins the Presidency, the affiliated social activist movement will be boosted to apply the Left reform model to transform the GOP.
Of course, with their now-established Gramscian long march, they’ll push for reform whether or not Trump wins, but a Trump win accelerates the alt-Right reform within the GOP at the same time significantly weakening already weakened conservative GOP dissidents from the inside.
Just came across this Jonathan Rauch quote at Instapundit (posted by Stephen Green). It seems to be a timely addition to this ongoing discussion:
The link:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/07/how-american-politics-went-insane/485570/
Add: The solution is a viably competitive Center 3rd option.
DNW:
No, I do not believe Trump will be impeached and convicted. I have written several posts and comments, on this, and on why I think it.
Here’s one:
It takes at least 2/3 of the Senate to convict; 67 votes. That means that 34 senators can block it and keep Trump in there. I am convinced that there would be that many who would either agree with him, or be promised favors by him, or who would be afraid of what he would do to them (especially in the event that they lost, if others chickened out and deserted the cause).
@DNW – on your second claim of misquote…
Again, I think it is clear what I was responding to… “irreparable” damage. I didn’t drop “irreparable” intentionally, but even still, with it added, the point is still the same!
It is you who asserts that trump cannot do damage we cannot fix, citing as example “He will not intentionally wage ideological war on the society”
Fact is, whether he has intentions to or not does NOT mean that he, in fact, will not cause irreparable damage.
I’m not sure how the rest of your response has bearing, but I had to address this second claim, as it leaves a blatantly false impression.
when i looked at the figure of 14756 dollars .Than I have no other choice but to accept , what i saw .They have been doing this for a year aand get rid of their debts.. Yesterday they purchased new Aston Martin …
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“I am convinced that there would be that many who would either agree with him, or be promised favors by him, or who would be afraid of what he would do to them (especially in the event that they lost, if others chickened out and deserted the cause).” – Neo
A fair assessment.
Why? Because when it was much “easier” to go against trump, many failed to do so.
After having “endorsed” trump as many have, won their seats under the GOP label, and once trump has the reins of power in his hands, the equation is radically changed.
And, as Eric puts it, over time…
“The GOP legislators that #NeverHillary GOP rationalize will check Trump will be displaced, cowed, and/or converted with the participatory political pressure”
“are a mixture of gleeful jingoist tending blowhards like Trump himself, and who delight in the ruckus and revel in ressentiment; and working class Democrats who have invaded the citadel of the Republicans” – DNW
May seem so. However, I’ve run across several business men who one would think are “well informed” that are still trump supporters. They wouldn’t fit nicely in the categories you identified, and I don’t think they are outliers, though I imagine that your categories might well cover many.
Big Maq:
“the equation is radically changed”
The cognitively dissonant contradiction in many #NeverHillary GOP rationalizations is railing against the contextual influences on government officials on one hand yet then on the other hand asserting that Trump can be checked by the high-school civics USG framework of checks and balances as though the criticized contextual participatory political pressure points on USG will be closed with a Trump administration.
Ah, Feel the Johnson!
Saw this a few days ago at Althouse. Pretty good song, actually.
Pay close attention to the lyrics…
And the MSM never will. Never, never, except in the smallest and safest of ways.
That is a foregone conclusion.” – Neo
Very interesting and detailed article discussing conservative media vs main stream media and what it means.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/438651/fox-news-conservative-media-echo-chamber-hurts-conservatives
carl in atlanta:
I did not listen to the song, but “johnson” used to mean “penis” in the good old days before the F-word was everywhere.
There is potentially a safety valve if Trump beats the odds. Consider a thought experiment. How would it play out if the President does something outrageous and worthy of impeachment:
1. if Hillary is President and there are at least 33 Democrats in the Senate, or
2. Trump is President and the party breakdown in the Senate could be anything.
One hot flash away from thermonuclear war, that’s what the Crooked Mrs. Clinton would be. Our only hope would be that the rapist she enables would lose the nuclear codes again.
Frog: Yes. I wonder whether the irony of the slogan is conscious?
3 Clintons. Barack Hussein Obama. Mitch McConnell. Paul Ryan. The New York Times. The Washington Post. John Podesta. Joe Biden. Elizabeth Warren. Huma Abadein. Khizr Khan. James Comey. Lois Lerner. Etc.
versus Donald J. Trump ….
Mr. Trump, I have your back!
” He compares Trump to a game of Russian Roulette, which means there’s a chance you live.”
There’s actually a 5 out of 6 chance that you will live, as long as you only spin the cylinder and pull the trigger one time.
Micha Elyi:
Nice try.
I detest Hillary Clinton and everything she stands for, and will not vote for her. But neither I nor most people consider her to be potentially unstable in the sense of nuclear weapons.
And at nearly 70 years old, she is way way WAY past the age of hot flashes, which occur during the process of perimenopause and menopause itself. Her meno has long long paused, for good.
Col. Harumph:
You may have missed it, but I’ve already addressed the topic of a Trump impeachment, here.
I’ve run across several business men who one would think are “well informed” that are still trump supporters.
There are 3 pillars to Trum’s support. Those would be Republicans who feel betrayed, thus middle class, many of them would also be TP or Cruz orientated.
They are not blue collar Democrat voting since 1830s people, B.