“If [fill in the blank] becomes the Republican nominee…”
I’m choosing to discuss this comment by “mollyNH.” But really, that’s an arbitrary selection on my part. You’ll see why in a moment:
If Cruz were to be the nominee the MSM will shred him apart because of his Christian fundamentalism…The media will just dust off what they used for Romney & Santorum & replace Mormon & Catholic with So Baptist.
Indeed. But I’d go further and add that a sentence that takes the form “If [fill in the blank] becomes the Republican nominee, the MSM will shred him/her because of [fill in the blank]…” can be used for any Republican. One thing you can bank on is that the eventual Republican nominee will be under rhetorical attack from the mainstream media, and the eventual Democratic nominee will be under an umbrella of protection.
However, the form these things will take varies, because although all possible nominees will be under attack, the content will differ.
If a candidate is seen as especially threatening to the Democrats, he or she is more likely to be met with an attempt to take him/her down early, in order to try to avoid that person getting the nomination in the first place. That sort of early attack is not geared primarily to repel Democrats or moderates, either, because the people who vote in Republican primaries and choose the nominee of the GOP are primarily (pun intended) Republicans, although in some states others can cross over.
The MSM sometimes doesn’t even have to enter that fray, because other Republican candidates will often supply the ammunition and lead the charge. But sometimes the MSM tries to undermine a Republican candidate during the primaries; for example, the charges against Herman Cain in 2011, and this season’s lame attempt to discredit Rubio because of ownership of a boat.
But at the moment the MSM is relying mostly on the Republicans to attack each other, and the Republicans are mostly obliging. However, you can be certain that the MSM is holding back information on every single one of the Republican candidates in order to use that knowledge when it can do the most damage, which is after the nomination.
The real question is not whether they have such information on each, but what form it will take, how damaging it will be, and what segment of the public will be listening.
Just to illustrate what I’m getting at here: what dirt does the MSM have on Rubio? Tales of debt and boats and traffic tickets don’t really seem to matter to many people. The thing that hurts Rubio the most is his voting record on illegal immigration, but that is already pretty well-known to those who would find it to be a major drawback: conservatives, more than independents or Democrats. So I’m not sure that further revelations about the Gang of 8 would hurt Rubio any more than he’s already been hurt.
What of the rest? We can pretty much assume that Cruz will be excoriated as an extremist, both religious and otherwise. That would hurt him with moderates (and the religiosity might hurt him with some libertarians) and help him with conservatives. I’m not sure what the net result would be. For Fiorina it’s easy: more Hewlett-Packard. Christie? They already tried with Bridgegate, so that damage has been done. I’m not sure what else they would find (the hug is old, old news); perhaps there isn’t all that much more.
Trump, of course, is a very special case. There are a great many negatives that can be pulled out and emphasized or in some cases re-emphasized; you can find some of them here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. As you can see, it’s a lengthy list.
But will it matter? One thing of which I’m fairly sure is that it won’t matter to the hard-core Trump enthusiasts—who at the moment seem to account for something like one-third of the Republican Party, which makes them less than one-sixth of the American public, and perhaps slightly more than that of the voting public. I have no idea about the remaining majority of voters, but my guess is that those who are negative about Trump will become more so, and those who are ambivalent or lukewarm won’t find that the stories enhance his appeal. But that’s only a hunch of mine—and with Trump, what I really believe is that no one can predict what will happen, neither his followers nor his opponents.
The only truly predictable thing is what I said earlier: the MSM will do what it can to bring the Republican down, it will save some of its ammunition for after the nomination, and it will do its level best to protect the Democrat.
The first of these advantages is that Trump appeals in a unique and powerful way to white, working-class voters, the demographic group that used to determine presidential elections, but which has, by and large, been abandoned by both parties and by the Democrats especially.
[this is the group i belong to mostly… the ones who have watched the rest of the nation demonize us, take away our futures, destroy our fertility, remove opportunity, make us hated, get us attacked at random, and more… and only ONE candidate talks to us… elites would rather we be dead.. some of us almost]
Bill was the last Democrat to win anything in the South, where the white, working-class, Scots-Irish or “Jacksonian” Democrats still dominate. Obama, by contrast, won without any support at all from the Scots-Irish working class, but instead won by turning out minority voters in record numbers.
[then he cheated them, harmed them, set them up for more race issues and both sides got into it… now there is one candidate that can address the failings ON BOTH SIDES without worrying about their future and so being forced to cave – hard to malign someone to control them if they never had good press in 40 years!!!]
Donald Trump may be the only politician in the country free to speak openly about the foreign policy disasters associated with both of the last two presidents, both parties, and thus both of the primary fields.
In the recent GOP debate in Las Vegas, Trump railed against the last fifteen years of foreign policy interventionism, asking “What do we have now? We have nothing. We’ve spent $3 trillion and probably much more — I have no idea what we’ve spent. Thousands and thousands of lives, we have nothing. Wounded warriors all over the place who I love, we have nothing for it.”
[yes… he can attack BOTH sides for their elite failings and its elite failings as there are very few in the elite edumacated classes that are not on the left. even the neo cons are on the left more than they even are aware of… and being steeped in the soup for so long, they cant bring themselves to side for the medicine they need to try to fix things and set things back on course, a painful move at best, but also one that requires independence not party servitude and party oppositional fear]
In order to win, therefore Hillary Clinton will have to find at least some votes that Obama couldn’t, which is to say among the white-working class — who are now dedicated Trump supporters.
the same people that loved Reagan and gave us the largest economic boost in human history
Donald Trump may not be an ideal Republican and would certainly represent a serious gamble as president. But he may also be the perfect candidate to take on Hillary Clinton, the only one in either party who can hit her where it hurts.
The Hill
Artfldgr:
As I’ve written many times, Trump does worst against Clinton in polls. Whether that will remain true I cannot say—it could change—but at the moment it’s been the case for quite some time.
Trump’s support within the Republican Party is certainly within the group of voters you cite. But the evidence that he’s drawing a lot of Reagan Democrats is weak. Again, that doesn’t mean he won’t draw them in the future. But at the moment, he is not drawing more Democrats than most of the other Republican candidates, as I discussed here, in some detail.
And neo’s post only highlights why the GOP candidates should attack the Hillary full time and nearly all the time.
Example: Carly’s three page tax code gets rid of all the tax credits for Big Solar. Therefore paint Hillary as a tool of Elon Musk. Repeat.
NeoNeocon Says: Indeed. But I’d go further and add that a sentence that takes the form “If [fill in the blank] becomes the Republican nominee, the MSM will shred him/her because of [fill in the blank]…” can be used for any Republican.
no, not Trump… he has no skin in their game..
what they gonna do, complain that he isnt upper crusty elitist in manners and should be cast out from the cotillian class? turns out that he is crass in a upper class way we forgot.
he can shred both… and will
and without that, you might as well vote for hillary or even bernie and give up the ghost.
NeoNeocon Says: What dirt does the MSM have on Rubio?
David Rivera (R-FL) / Norman Braman / “Misuse of State Party Credit Cards” / use of federal government buildings to solicit campaign donations / Rubio’s Attendance Record
the last one is interesting..
…look at the number of votes missed this year out of the five current senators running for president. Rubio has missed about a third of all votes. If we look at career truancy records, Rubio is a close second to Ted Cruz among the current field.
[daily kos admits trump is mostly right on this point!]
and for the campaign stuff
According to Senate ethics rules, “Senate Members and staff may not receive or solicit campaign contributions in any federal building.”
NeoNeocon Says: Trump, of course, is a very special case. There are a great many negatives that can be pulled out and emphasized or in some cases re-emphasized; you can find some of them here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. As you can see, it’s a lengthy list.
list of horrors:
he got divorced (and ivana and he share a great relationship now and she has talked well of him – though i thought it was the left that was all about divorce is good?).. is the first one – Warren G. Harding had a love chld (Elizabeth Ann Blaesing) with Nan Britton / Thomas Jefferson had children with his slaves / William Henry Harrison also had love child as did John Tyler
divorce in the modern age and a prenup is not a real reason… so why is it on the list? cause there is nothing better on the list
the second item is that trump sues people? oh, the humanity of it, that he goes to the court for recourse… note to self, if you want to run for president, dont divorce, dont sue, and what else? oh, he sided with eminant domain for public use… (how many of the rpublican congress sided with that, and how did the supreme court rule on it? oh, but trump is bad for that, and communists nationalizing or taking over 1/6 of our economy is ok…)
Clinton had 14 women on his tail and wanting to sue him for the cosby moment… nothing like that in trump and of course being in legal issues and sued is a reason for not being president… shall i list out the presidents who used the courts, suied people, etc?
and the last two is how close a builder who builds buildings in a democrat controlled city which the mob is their strong arm with unions, has ties to the mob? of course…. you cant build ANYTHING in Democrat NY without having at some point a visit from the mob. while kennedy family was mob run and smuggling alcohol…
[edited for length by n-n]
daily beast
Ex-Wife: Donald Trump Made Me Feel ‘Violated’ During Sex
‘rape’ allegation to ‘exploit’ Donald Trump in divorce – Twitchy
nypost (the paper of the blue collar non elite man and woman) says:
Ivana Trump: Donald didn’t rape me – and he’d be a great president
http://nypost.com/2015/07/29/ivana-trump-donald-didnt-rape-me-and-hed-be-a-great-president/
“I have recently read some comments attributed to me from nearly 30 years ago at a time of very high tension,” the 66-year-old Czech-American told CNN
“The story is totally without merit,” she said in a statement Tuesday.
“Donald and I are the best of friends and together have raised three children that we love and are very proud of. I have nothing but fondness for Donald and wish him the best of luck on his campaign. Incidentally, I think he would make an incredible president.”
so much for the bad divorce to hold against him..
but the links are all from leftist press and do not quote ivana, but instead use the old hack crap…
keep telling the bs till its truth, right?
then forget that you notice that, right?
then use it when convenient for your own?
“[O]n one occasion during 1989, Mr. Trump and I had marital relations in which he behaved very differently toward me than he had during our marriage,” she said at the time.
“As a woman, I felt violated, as the love and tenderness which he normally exhibited towards me was absent. I referred to this as a ‘rape,’ but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense.”
Artfldgr:
My guess is that you haven’t read that article about Trump. It has a title about the divorce, but it isn’t about the divorce primarily, and the divorce is NOT why I linked to it. It goes into Trump’s other history, including some other controversies. Only a small part of the article is about the divorce; it’s a long article, however.
I have made it clear in the past that I do not think Trump’s divorces will hurt him particularly, and his divorces are not a concern of mine. My guess is that you didn’t read that, either.
I don’t believe I’ve ever written a post about Trump’s divorces.
Artfldgr:
One more thing—the other articles and reports about Trump I cited are not cited in order to say they are all true, or even that they will all hurt him if aired. I cited them specifically to indicate that they are the sorts of things the MSM will put out to try to discredit Trump.
That’s what this entire post is about—what the MSM would say about each major candidate if that candidate became the nominee. I think that’s very clear.
You write:
I have definitely NOT said that the charges are necessarily true or not true; as I said, I am listing the things the MSM can use against each candidate, and discussing whether or not I think it would hurt that candidate.
Nor have I ever spread that claim about Ivana that you go into in your comment. It has been debunked by Ivana herself. If you can find a time I “used it because it was convenient” then please, be my guest.
It is you who are bringing it up, not me—or anyone in this comment section, actually. Who are you talking about? It certainly doesn’t apply to this blog.
What will they find? A dog on a roof of a car, a kid who might have been bullied when the candidate was 14. They will find anything lies, truth or in between. Remember when the MSM liked McCain, the Maverick. As soon as he was the nominee he became the crazed war mongering extremist.
Trying to find a moderate woh would please the press and the MSM is how Obama became President. The last thing we should be considering in choosing a President is what the MSM will do.
We just have to accept the fact that we are the Jews of the new American order.
When John McCain, who had been the media darling for years, looked like he was going to get the Republican nomination, there was suddenly a month-long front page barrage of charges in the New York Times that he was diddling a female lobbyist based upon rumors that somebody’s babysitter who knew somebody’s uncle who thought he had once met somebody who thought he had heard that McCain once pinched somebody’s bottom.
Whether you believe the “Hillary vs Candidate X” polls or not (and I don’t for one, since I’m sure people are hiding their support of Trump in particular from pollsters), you have to throw all of them out once there is an actual Republican nominee.
At that point, you have to take into account the savagery the candidate will then be torn into my the media and entertainment industry, and if they would have the ability to withstand those attacks while Hillary gets treated with kid gloves. I don’t see Cruz or Rubio polling as strong against Hillary post-nomination as they are now. You know the combover jokes about Rubio will be dusted off and absolutely torpedo his candidacy. Cruz will be attacked as an evil anti-science Bible thumper.
They’ve already turned the volume to 11 for Trump at this point–there’s really no place to go. What are they going to do, rehash the old “he raped his wife” story yet again that the low infos seem to latch onto?
neo-neocon,
Excellent synopsis of the inevitable, coming storm! The other side are fools if they even concern themselves with this. It is fact, and, as BurkeanMama so adroitly points out, even if the candidate is as squeaky clean as Mitt Romney, he or she will be vilified. This is one of the few areas where I will credit Trump with genius. He alone doesn’t seem to pay attention to what the other side says about him.
The number and type of issues is not important. The other side controls the media and they will quickly get one or two memes going about the opposing candidate that will be insurmountable.
One of my kids is a freshman in College. He’s not political and not particularly conservative or liberal (Engineering major). He’s shared with me a few social media things circulating among his peer group regarding the situation in Oregon. He knows nothing of the issue (and doesn’t really care about it), but the meme being pushed is they are “terrorists” for occupying a government building. Nobody in his peer group would have ever used that word to describe the Occupy Wall Street occupiers who did the exact same thing, only to a greater degree.
That’s a perfect synopsis of how this will play out. The facts don’t matter. The facts in Oregon don’t matter and the facts on Wall Street didn’t matter. And the actual policies and beliefs of the Republican candidate won’t matter.
The left are brilliant propagandists. They will allow the Republican candidates to diminish each other, then, when the GOP stakes their future on a candidate clearly enough that they cannot back down, he or she will be painted negatively with a very broad brush and that will be all the typical uninformed voter knows of the candidate.
And the percentage of uninformed voters grows each election cycle.
wreath:
Plenty of places to go, with Trump and all the others.
All the things I listed and linked to, and more. With Trump, for example, there are plenty of times he praised Hillary and Pelosi. A lot of this has been aired only in the press on the right, particularly blogs on the right—the NY Times et al haven’t gone into that sort of thing at all, during this campaign.
A veritable army of Trumpbots has swarmed Breitbart in recent months, all making multiple comments on all political posts. They’re pretty uniformly dishonest and/or politically ignorant and obnoxious and cultish in their blind love for The Donald. They use a few standard demagogic praise lines for Trump but give no positive, thoughtful reasons why to vote for him, while ignoring the major flip-flops of Trump.
Their target for the last couple months is Ted Cruz and revolve around four major criticisms: his wife’s employer, Goldman-Sachs, his supposed support for TPA, his minor waffling on H1bs (which they equate to amnesty for illegals), and now they’re hot and heavy on his citizenship. If these are the best they can do, I’m not certain there is a lot of substantive dirt the Democrats can come up with.
Therefore, they will have to attack Cruz on his conservatism, and smear him with the “war on women” fraud. I think he can handle those, but I’m concerned he won’t lower himself to attack the role she played in destroying BJs accusers in response to her “all women should be believed” and “vote for me, I have a vagina” platform planks.
He will bring Hillary! to near rears in the debates. I look for the Democrats to try to limit the number, length and subject matter of the debates. (On the debates, his crushing of Hillary may actually get her some sympathy from women, who tend to vote on emotional and aesthetic reactions to the candidates.)
Neo:
“However, the form these things will take varies, because although all possible nominees will be under attack, the content will differ.”
Yep. Unlike the Right, the Left doesn’t primarily approach political discourse like HS debate club, ie, affirmation of one’s position on the merits. They primarily approach political discourse as a maneuver contest to defeat their opponent. In other words, the Left approaches political discourse as propagandists.
The difference in practice is the Left will stitch together an incoherent conglomerate of points that can contradict each other, including samples taken from competing factions on the Right, and don’t stand up under scrutiny as sound. But there isn’t a contradiction in practice because their principal criteria is not affirmation of their own position on the merits, but whether their rhetoric is expedient to achieve the defeat of their opponent in the political discourse. Thus achieved, the propaganda has served its purpose. For the Left, their affirmation is not winning on the merits, like HS debate club, but capturing the flag by any means necessary.
As you’ve observed, Trump supporters from the alt-Right are employing Left propagandist tactics in their campaign targeting mainstream conservatives and the GOP.
For example, Artfldgr:
“Donald Trump may be the only politician in the country free to speak openly about the foreign policy disasters associated with both of the last two presidents”
Actually, see the answer to “Was Operation Iraqi Freedom a strategic blunder or a strategic victory?”.
The basic flaws in Trump’s position are, one, he (deliberately?) misconceives the grounds for OIF. His record view of the Iraq intervention is the Left’s demonstrably false narrative, which incorporates samples from dogmatic realists and isolationists from the Right.
Two, Trump unfairly ascribes the consequences of Obama’s profoundly illiberal approach as failures of Bush’s policy despite that President Bush’s approach was working at the time he left office. If Obama had carried forward the course from Bush like Eisenhower carried forward the course from Truman, then “the foreign policy disasters associated with both of the last two presidents” would be a fair conflation to make. But the subsequent failures under Obama have followed from Obama’s (deliberately?) poor choices and fundamental course changes from Bush — led by the irresponsible exit from Iraq and feckless ‘lead from behind’ approach to the Arab Spring — not from staying the course from Bush.
Arfldgr’s comment reinforces why it has been a profound and compounding strategic error by mainstream conservatives and the GOP to decline the rehabilitation of President Bush’s legacy for the zeitgeist, in particular their neglect to re-litigate OIF in order to set the record straight at the premise level of the political discourse.
The law and the facts are on their side, yet they’ve mistakenly chosen to believe they could move past Bush’s propaganda-induced unpopularity by running away from Bush’s legacy, most of all regarding OIF.
Instead of competing for the zeitgeist in the narrative contest of the activist game, mainstream conservatives and the GOP have chosen to effectively stipulate the demonstrably false narrative that was constructed and employed by the Left to establish the frame of the political discourse. Thus, they affirmed the competitive opening that has been exploited by the Left and now picked up by alt-Right activists in their campaign to displace mainstream conservatives and capture the flag of the GOP.
Well stated, Eric.
To paraphrase H.L. Mencken, the Democrats understand, “No one ever lost an election underestimating the intelligence of the American people.”
neo,
I read somewhere that Trump and his whole family also maxed out donations to Jimmy Carter in 1980.
I hope someone eventually goes after Hillary on her cybercompetence. Given that hackers just knocked out electricity in Ukraine, I’m not sure she has demonstrated even a basic awareness of how to protect the country. Does she have a bathroom big enough to hold all our servers?
I have met Ted Cruz.
Ted Cruz poured me a cup of coffee.
Ted Cruz is no extremist!
geokstr:
“A veritable army of Trumpbots”
See the movement, not just the man.
The ratio is not clear of the alt-Right opportunistically seizing on the Trump campaign versus the Trump campaign signaling for the alt-Right to join.
On the other side, Obama isn’t the source. He’s part of the Left. In contrast, it doesn’t appear the alt-Right produced Trump like the Left produced Obama. Nonetheless, the dynamic of the combination of activist movement and candidate are similar. But Trump is less foreseeable because he’s not of the alt-Right like Obama is of the Left.
geokstr:
“while ignoring the major flip-flops of Trump”
That’s a tell-tale of a propagandist approach. Conservatives marvel that leftists are apparently unperturbed by rhetoric that zig-zags, but it’s due less to cognitive dissonance than to a propagandist mindset.
Simply, Trump’s alt-Right supporters have adapted the Left’s proven effective competitive tactics in their insurgency against mainstream conservatives. It remains to be seen whether the strategy will work as well for the alt-Right to displace mainstream conservatives as it worked for the Left that displaced mainstream liberals.
So far, at an early stage, the precedent seems to be holding up. Despite having history as a guide, mainstream conservatives seem unwilling to make the adjustments necessary to compete in the activist game sufficiently to forestall obsolescence.
I think the two main reasons people support Trump: his stance on immigration, his self-funding.
We know his past history due to plenty of news articles, books he’s written, tv show appearances, etc. And that doesn’t seem to be sinking him as of yet.
I don’t know why exactly, but I always lie to pollsters who call me at home. In fact, I take a certain delight in feeding them misinformation because frankly it irritates me that they’re imposing on the few hours of peace and quiet I get at home. Maybe I’m just under the sway of Poe’s Imp of the Perverse.
I certainly feel like it sometimes and I’d bet a dollar that I’m not the only person who does this…
K-E:
It’s not sinking him with the 1/3 of self-declared GOP and GOP-leaning people who say they support him in polls. I doubt anything would sink him with them.
It’s everyone else that I wonder about—those GOP and GOP-leaners who don’t already support him, and especially the Independents and Democrats who may or may not be willing to vote for someone other than Hillary, and who that “someone” might be.
I visited all of the links neo cited as detrimental to Trump’s winning the election. Frankly, I judge them to be lacking in ‘traction’. Not that they shouldn’t have traction, simply that IMO, they will not.
Of the various negatives, the most challenging for Trump will be his prior positions on the issues. All he needs to say is that as things in America have gotten ever worse it caused him to look deeply into the issues and that led to a new appreciation for the threats America faces. Then, if he briefly repeats as needed but… doesn’t elaborate, he’ll have diffused that negative.
But all of that pales next to the ‘great political wind’ at Trump’s back. Namely, Islamist terrorist attacks, which are as predictable as tomorrow’s sunrise. From now till election day, every attack will raise Trump’s poll numbers. The one thing that ‘trump’s’ all else for the LIVs is a mortal threat.
Before November’s election we’ll see evidence of panic in the public, which is already visible for those with eyes to see.
“Panic at Disney World: False Reports of Shooting Sends ‘Wave’ of Crowds Stampeding for Safety”
carl in atlanta:
As I believe I’ve said before, people who decide to lie to pollsters (and they exist, although I don’t know the size of the group, large or small) can lie in any direction.
They can say they’re Republicans when they’re not. They can say they will vote when they will not. They can say they will vote for Trump when they will not, or they can say they won’t vote for Trump when they will.
Etc. etc….
Geoffrey Britain:
Since Trump’s share of the entire vote right now is fairly small, it’s not just whether the charges will have “traction” in the usual sense of discouraging those wanting to vote for him from voting for him. They won’t.
It’s whether they would discourage people from coming to support him in the future. And those people could be Democrats, Independents, or Republicans, with each group having different things about him that might be discouraging.
The positional flip-flops, for example, would discourage conservatives but possibly encourage Democrats. And that’s true for all the stories about his past—they could have some effect, no effect, or a differential effect on different groups.
geokstr:
This is Cruz’s approach so far:
I think it’s a smart approach. I think that those who think that attacks on Hillary for defending Bill’s philandering, etc. will hurt her with woman, are wrong. The reason is that there are a lot of female voters who have had husbands who have had affairs and have “stood by their men.” Some of them probably even blame “the other women” as temptresses and/or liars. They may identify with Hillary; her tolerance of Bill’s philandering somewhat humanizes her, in a way.
We should keep in mind that the media cannot control external events, which may end up shaping the campaign. Surges of “migrants” and “refugees” rightly concern voters, and will result in more support for people like Trump. Other nations who have opposing interests (Russia, China, Iran, etc) will see this year as their last chance to get some gains in, while Obama is so weak and feckless. And Islamic terrorists will find a way to strike somewhere, at some time, because that is their nature.
Plus, there is still a chance that Hillary will be indicted for the e-mail server scandal. And even if she is not, she could still suffer from a publicity backlash. She may be cavalier about this, since she has gotten away with it so many times before, but she can’t depend on that forever.
All this indicates an advantage for the Republican nominee, even with the mainstream media.
Yankee:
I will go on record as saying there is almost no chance at all that Hillary will be indicted.
And although it is true that the media doesn’t control events, it (and the Obama administration) controls what is said about them. For example, look at what happened prior to the 2012 election—Benghazi—and look how well it was controlled by the MSM and the administration.
neo @ 5:40,
I was not speaking of those who support Trump now but of the independents and democrats who are at this point inclined not to vote for Trump. Fear is a powerful motivator and as Hillary continues to denigrate the threat, her credibility will lessen accordingly.
neo,
The media and administration’s control of what is said has limitations, the more at odds it is with obvious reality, the less credibility.
Neo, Comey’s investigation of Hillary is no doubt scheduled to be completed sometime in
…sometime in December 2016 and the outcome is probably dependent on whether she’s POTUS or not.
Geoffrey Britain:
Naturally, the media and administration’s power has limitations. But we haven’t yet even come close to figuring out what they might be.
geokstr:
Well, of course it’s possible that she could be indicted after the election, if she loses. I doubt an indictment would happen, though, even under those circumstances.
What I as addressing was the possibility of a Hillary Clinton indictment before the election, however, which I believe is virtually nil.
Neo:
It’s one thing if females sympathize with Hillary because they also “stood by their man” when he strayed. It may be also true that many blamed the other woman for the affair.
But would they have deliberately and actively engaged in an attempt to publicly destroy the lives and reputations of the others, especially when they could wield immense power to do so, even if they were coming out of the woodwork by the dozen, demonstrating that the man they stupidly “stood by” was a serial sexual predator who showed little respect for his wife? On top of that, would they feel no pangs of conscience in saying decades later that “all women should be believed” now that half the voters are too young to know what she did?
If so, I’m afraid my own lifelong respect for your gender has been heavily damaged.
A post today on Insty quoted Joy Behar as saying on the View that it was irrelevant to her if Teddy murdered Mary Jo and Bill raped Juanita, she would vote for them anyway because they voted the way she wanted them to. She implied most leftist women feel the same way. This demonstrates that the left really is as evil and despicable as I suspected.
The View’s Joy Behar: I’d Vote for a Rapist as Long as They’re Liberal
neo,
When they can’t spin it, when the circumstances are too blatantly obvious. Of course, even then they’ll still try but few will swallow the lies. That is where the limitations lie.
I am calling a Trump/Cruz nomination, it would solve a lot of issues. I am only dead set on anyone but hillary.
Darrell:
My first choice would be Cruz/Jindal or Cruz/Fiorina. I would be very supportive of a Trump/Cruz ticket because Cruz would hopefully keep Trump from wandering too far from conservative principles. Trump/AnybodyElse would be problematic for me.
Trump would no doubt get bored and decide to quit after one term. With Cruz as VP, we could look forward to 2020-2028 under POYUS Cruz.
geokstr:
I think that most people (men and women) listen to or read news in a fairly superficial way. So although the distinctions you are making are certainly valid, they require making distinctions that a lot of people aren’t going to make in the case of Hillary, Bill, and infidelity, IMHO.
I continue to think that unless that distinction is made very clearly—and even if it is—a lot of women who have dealt with a wandering spouse and forgiven him will identify emotionally with Hillary in this. I don’t think most of them would agree with Joy Behar, but they don’t need to in order to sympathize with Hillary.
neo-neocon wrote, “I think that most people (men and women) listen to or read news in a fairly superficial way.”
I wish I still had your optimism. I doubt “most people” have anything more than a passing knowledge of current events, let alone reading about them to any level of depth. Can more than 30% of U.S. citizens name the planets? The Continents? The country we gained our independence from? The number of Branches of the Federal government and their function? The name of their state’s Governor? The name of a single, living Supreme Court Justice?
Geokstr, agree, I see it that way also. My second choice is Trump/Carly but I don’t think it would work as well.
Neo, is Trump allowed to be a changer? Could it be?
Darrell:
Sure, Trump would be allowed to be a changer, but there is no evidence of it, and I’ll tell you why I say that.
I have done a lot of reading about political change and changers, as you might imagine. And a lot of thinking about it. I have never encountered a single changer who didn’t want to acknowledge and explain his/her change of heart.
Trump has described his former ties and donations to Democrats as merely pragmatic, but he has never acknowledged or explained changes of heart that you would expect to hear about, such as his praise of single payer, his criticism of Romney’s immigration policy as mean, his praise of Nancy Pelosi, his strong wish that Democrats had impeached President Bush who was “evil.” He has not explained those points of view, or apologized for things such as the “evil” remark. He just brushes them off.
This is not the behavior of any changer I’ve ever heard of. What’s more, he has never explained any of his positions in terms of political principles, conservative vs. liberal, or why he changed. He simply doesn’t acknowledge his change, as far as I know. Of course, it’s possible I’m missing something, since I haven’t read every single word the man has ever uttered, but I think I’ve read quite a few and have seen no indication whatsoever that he even thinks in those terms.
Trump is a narcissist. Narcissists don’t feel they have to change—they are always right, they have always been right, and any changes the viewer sees are in the eyes of the viewer.
“I doubt “most people” have anything more than a passing knowledge of current events, let alone reading about them to any level of depth.” Rufus T. Firefly
Whether true or not, education on the issues is of limited value. It’s the basic principles and cultural premises that we embrace that count. In the founder’s day, many people could not read and many more were uneducated. Yet they recognized the worth of the founders.
Perhaps most of Trump’s support is relatively ignorant about the issues but they are well aware that PC has gotten far out of hand and that the path this country is being led down promises disaster.
Events will awaken the LIVs. Islam and the left’s machinations guarantee it. Look at Europe; “Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Dusseldorf… New Year’s Migrant Sex Assault In Every Major German City” that will happen here and when it does, what do you think the reaction of the LIVs will be? And the media and administration will not be able to silence something like that.
All I need to know about trumpsters is that people like artfldgr praise him. OTOH, I still believe hrc will not be the nominee.
@neo-neocon:
Narcissists are rarely self-deprecating. Have you ever seen Obama joke about himself?
Trump is often self-deprecating. He had a woman come on stage to feel his hair to see if it was real. He had a guy with a Trump wig come on stage and had fun with him. He mocked himself and his stupid hair on SNL.
Huge ego, yes. Narcissist, no.
@neo-neocon
Trump was definitely a mainstream Republican back in Aa href=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Usb0iE5WiZI”>1988.
@neo-neocon:
HTML oops.
Trump was definitely a mainstream Republican back in 1988.
Another view of Trump.
I liked this:
The bakers dozen of GOP candidates does not serve us. The Obama years are an unmitigated disaster, yet the Left is smart enough to know that they must give the appearance of mastery — so they have suppressed any serious contest on democrat policy. The Right looks confused and clueless when the country desperately needs them to quietly unify around a strong, masterful advocate for GOP leadership. Yes, the dominant media will distort facts and events, but they are effective because we in the GOP are too ADD-ridden to be the calm, confident leadership the country requires.
If Cruz, they’re going to come after two things. First, his religious beliefs. Second, his eligibility to become president due to his citizenship. The Left won’t be alone. Those that don’t like Cruz who are non-“progressives” will aid The Left with the second point. For whatever reasons they all of sudden like “rules.”
That Trump holds about 1/6 th of the electorate now, per Neo, that is not an “only 1/6th”.
How was McCain doing at the same point in that cycle?
About the same.
McCain became the GOP nominee in large part because of proportional delegate assignment: if he got 30% of the primary vote, he got 30% of GOP delegates from that state. And so it went until he hit the threshold, IIRC. I do not recall a lot of McCain >50% primary victories. Democrat primaries were largely ‘winner take all’ though.
We here are hardly representative of the general electorate. That we like Cruz more than Trump is pretty non-representative and may signify nothing.
Neo:
If he wanted to, I think Cruz could succinctly and clearly make those distinctions, but the media would never report it. He would have to bring it up himself in the debates, but the “unbiased”, “objective” “moderators” would cut him off, and the network would go to an unscheduled break. From everything I can tell about him, he does not like to be uncivil, an admirable and honorable attribute that will, unfortunately, not serve him well in this campaign.
And if you’re correct about the emotional reaction of women in favor of Hillary on a matter of such serious import, I will have to reluctantly join those who feel the 19th amendment should never have been passed. I apologize if that offends you.