Folks on the left who hate Hillary could vote Sanders and folks on the right who hate Trump could vote Rubio. Then, perhaps, no one would win a majority of electoral votes. That, is almost impossible to happen, but that’s the only way I can envision it not being one of these 2, awful, awful people. And, barring some amazing event, it’s basically a unary outcome now. All bow to Her Royal Majesty, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I agree with you that it is, almost definitely, a “binary outcome.” As I explained, despite that truth I will not vote as if it is a binary election. I will write in the name of someone I respect. Someone intelligent, competent, humble, etc. When the Libertarians picked Johnson I was happy. I thought that’s who I would vote for, but he’s been sorely disappointing. He doesn’t seem to be taking his own campaign seriously. Like the GOP, it seems like the Libertarians flipped their ticket the wrong way.

True, conservatives have always been called names. However, there is a difference when the left merely called conservatives names, even extreme ones, but they couldn’t necessarily make it stick.

Whether our side effectively dealt with that is another question.

BTW, we mustn’t naively assume “our” side doesn’t do it too (e.g. alex at powerlessline said clinton was possessed by demons). Both sides throw sticks and stones.

But now, much of what used to be evidently and provably untrue, becomes MUCH harder to undo because a large segment of “conservative” leaders’ and media’s strong endorsement of trump, who has catered to people who ARE those types, they have become closely associated with those names/types.

Since they identify themselves as “conservative”, we all (and the very different ideas we hold from them) get that brand (for now).

This is far bigger than the New Coke debacle, since nobody called what is running “New”, though there is some recognition that it is a form of populism / nationalism.
.

The other challenge is to meaningfully address the concerns that have given rise to trump. This is ground that can be won from the dems, as Sanders tapped into some of the same concerns.

Heh, the USS Mason still floats, y’see . . . but then, so does the entire IRGC Navy, not a single hull holed today. So many pussies to be grabbed, so little time.

It’s not as if once Hillary is in and unleashed, things will be unrecoverable sans a near catastrophe of some kind.

“Trump and Bannon are attempting to carve out an audience post-election loss, and they’re deliberately sinking the Republican Party and any ability to resist Hillary in order to do it. That’s best case scenario for them: the GOP goes down in flames, Hillary dominates, Trump and Bannon blame all of the backstabbers on the home front for losing the election, then pose as the secret rebellion. And you can be part of the secret rebellion too, all for the low, low price of $9.99 per month!” – Ben Shapiro
http://www.dailywire.com/news/9877/welcome-steve-bannons-trumpocalypse-ben-shapiro

Got to say that the way some in the conservative media have behaved this cycle, abandoning all that they claimed in the past to back trump, and how trump seems to think, one has to wonder if there isn’t some validity in this.

I resent that implication. I’m pro-Trump and can’t read minds AT ALL.

And, if your perceptions of reality weren’t so warped, you’d realize that you can’t, either.

J.J. Those who like Trump can’t seem to see what poor mindreaders they are and how it is their opinions which might be warped.

From what I can tell the dislike-Trump crowd understand the pro-Trump arguments very well — they just disagree. They usually give cogent counter-arguments which the pro-Trump people don’t seem to hear. The pro-Trump folks simply go back to explaining how there are only two major candidates and how bad Hillary is.

Across the board the pro-Trump solution seems to be just shouting louder.