Five Days That Shaped a Presidency

by

by liberal japonicus

OK, thought that I would crack open a fresh thread with Jonathan Chait's interview with Obama

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/10/barack-obama-on-5-days-that-shaped-his-presidency.html

I'm not going to pull anything out because I'm having some vision problems at the moment, and the straight thru read was about all my eyes could take this evening, but there's a lot of interesting points in there. Vas-y!

 

 

166 thoughts on “Five Days That Shaped a Presidency”

  1. Really interesting link. Not much to say except, well, you can’t really imagine Donald Trump giving this interview, can you…?

  2. damn. i’ve been saying it every day for a year now, but : i’m gonna miss that guy.
    can you imagine a Trump vs Obama debate ?

  3. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/paul-ryan-trump-1995-tax-return
    Ryan: “How can it hurt Trump? His tax profile mimics to the dollar, like an Ayn Rand wet dream, what he would pay under my tax proposals anyway and once we abolish the IRS.
    Evading all taxes for the rich IS my plan! He cribbed it from me.
    The rest of you suckers can pay for the gargantuan increases in defense spending Trump will propose and we conservatives in the House and Senate will rubber stamp to start the bombing, which will continue pretty much nonstop for four years.”
    I refuse to be governed by Republicans. The first dollar of taxation from any Republican on me will be cause for violence against them at every level of government.

  5. well, there was that one time someone made a video suggesting W had some parallels with Hitler. so, same-same.

  8. W had far more in common with Wilhelm II, last German emperor. Not evil, just annoying and mediocre and clearly not fit for important political decision-making. The main difference is that Wilhelm was intellectually curious (just lacked the attention span to get to any depth) while Dubya is not. YMMV on Bismarck vs. Cheney (ironically the old Prussian reactionary is passionately hated by certain US conservatives because he came up with the basic idea of a welfare state and for the same reason as FDR: to prevent a violent revolution from the left).

  9. I like the bit in the count’s link where float guy lists heart transplant patients among the kinds of people he likes to mock with his whimsical creations.
    What a kidder!
    He’s Trump’s kinda guy.

  10. In addition to the always amusing (not least because nobody’s views are disproveable) exercise of “How will Obama be viewed by history?” we can have even more fun with “How would a Trump win change how Obama’s Presidency would be evaluated?”
    My guess on the latter is that opinion would be divided between those who would see it as the end of a golden age, before the nation was massively trashed, and those who would see it (specifically the actions of the Republican Congress during it) as a precursor to the nation being trashed. But on balance, a Trump Presidency would make Obama look better.
    As for the view of history without a President Trump? I’m guessing that Obama will be seen as a better than average President. Who might well have been a great one, if not for the emotional reaction of the opposition party (or at least a big segment of its voter base) to his permanent suntan. And yes, that’s even allowing for a level of general opposition similar to what the Democrats directed at Bush II — which didn’t reach the point of “no compromise ever on anything, lest it be seen as a win for him.”

  11. “if not for the emotional reaction of the opposition party (or at least a big segment of its voter base) to his permanent suntan.”
    This is tired. Mitch McConnell and his crew didn’t give a damn about Obamas race. There is some, but still not determinative, validity to the Tea party members holding both those groups hostage due to racial bias.
    Hillary or anyone else at that point in history would not have been able to erase that enmity if they had addressed it like Obama did.
    There seems to be little recollection of the pure hate poured out at Republicans during that campaign. They hung Bush around everyone’s neck and trashed them in hate ads for a year. By the time the election came no one was working with a Democrat, no matter which one.

  12. I wouldn’t be surprised if McConnell et al were personally indifferent to Obama’s race. (And Obama’s remarks seem to indicate the same.)
    But to suggest that a lot of their voters were OK with a black President is delusional. Sure, there was some negative feelings after the campaign. But it was a very long ways from the nastiest campaign I have ever seen — and after those others people still managed to work together.
    Politicians are aware that they all go out and say rude things about each other during campaigns; and that there’s nothing personal about it (usually). I doubt that Clinton and Pence, for example, would have any problem working together next year. Well, as long as Pence doesn’t have to do so publicly. And even then, his base isn’t as hysterical about boobs as it is about race, so he might be OK.

  13. Mitch McConnell and his crew didn’t give a damn about Obamas race.
    yeah, maybe not.
    but wj didn’t say anything about “Mitch McConnell and his crew”.

  15. the Dems invented the idea of saying mean things about their opponents.
    You kid, but there were exceptions. I remember well the years of The Hate by the right for Jimmy Carter. It was well nigh inconsolable….and he had only one term and accomplished…not much.

  16. They hung Bush around everyone’s neck and trashed them in hate ads for a year.
    Deservedly so. Perhaps you could take 10 or 20 seconds and tell us what a great job he did as President.

  17. I doubt that Clinton and Pence, for example, would have any problem working together next year.
    Heeeeeeey, new unambiguous-anti-Trump-message-with-our-votes plan! Everybody votes Clinton for President, but Pence for Veep! No one could possibly misinterpret what THAT means!

  19. and the right was super awesome to JFK, too!
    Nothing compared to the decades (still ongoing in some quarters) of white hot hate for FDR who, as I was taught as a child, “wanted to be dictator.”
    The hate for Obama is an order of magnitude greater….and there is only one reason. He is black.
    Lyndon Johnson passed Civil Rights, and Medicare. He lost a war! But the Pure Unadulterated Hate never came close to that Obama currently endures.

  20. “But the Pure Unadulterated Hate never came close to that Obama currently endures.”
    Just wait ’til 2024, when the Demoncrats run a black muslim woman, who is wicked smart also, too.

  21. Marty: Hillary or anyone else at that point in history would not have been able to erase that enmity if they had addressed it like Obama did.
    Listen up, Marty:
    Without even knowing what in particular you mean with “addressed it like Obama did” I have to clue you in about something: I voted for Obama, and so did lots of other people who, without being you, are just as American as you are, and whose policy preferences are just as valid as yours. (Actually, more valid: we outvoted you. But let that pass.)
    And if those of us who outvoted you had a complaint about Obama’s first term, it was that he was too goddam accommodating to McConnell and his ilk. Obama refused to take personally the GOP thug policy to make defeating him their top priority, but many of us who voted for him did take it personally. We did not see it as McConnell & Co dissing Obama; we saw it as the likes of you dissing the likes of us. Speaking entirely for myself, I say unto you that you are entitled to your BS — and to be scorned for it also, too.
    –TP

  23. They hung Bush around everyone’s neck
    And that, after all of those (R)’s had spent the previous 8 years trying to distance themselves from W’s policies and actions.
    How freaking unfair.

  24. FWIW, I’m going to jump in the time machine and go forward 100 years to see how Bush and Obama are judged by history.
    Bush – in over his head. An interesting painter, though, in a sort of primitive/naive vein.
    Obama – kept the wheels on after inheriting the biggest bag of cluster**ks in 100 years.
    Yeah, FDR inherited the crash of ’29, but he didn’t get two wars along with the deal.
    You read it here first.
    Seriously, if you want all of the rest of us to give the whole W thing a rest, you might consider doing likewise.

  25. “Well, as long as Pence doesn’t have to do so publicly. And even then, his base isn’t as hysterical about boobs as it is about race, so he might be OK.”
    You don’t have a single fact to assert that any significant part of Pence’s base objects to either of these two people because of their physical characteristics. Give it a rest, or find a fact.

  26. “The hate for Obama is an order of magnitude greater”
    No its actually not.
    You are assuming, incorrectly, that lack of approval for a President is the same is virulent, frothing at the mouth, hatred. I certainly disapproved of several presidents who are in your link, Marty. But I did not come close to hating them, and screaming that they were trying to destroy the nation.
    What we have seen, these past 8 years, is not simply disagreement, even vigorous disagreement, over policies. Indeed, in a couple of instances, the policies were things that the Republicans were putting forward . . . until Obama came out in favor of them. That’s not about policy; that’s personal.

  27. Obama: hung Bush around the necks of (R)s
    Bush: won the SC (R) primary in ’00 by spreading a rumor that McCain’s adopted Bangladeshi daughter was his illegitimate mulatto child.
    Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Ask Mike Dukakis. “We’ll strip the bark off of him”, said Lee Atwater. Cue Willie Horton.
    I’m sick of hearing about the Bushes and what fine public servants they are or were. GW Bush was “hung around the neck” of (R)’s because they couldn’t hitch their wagons to his star fast enough and enthusiastically enough.
    If that cost them electorally, they earned it. Because he was a shitty, shitty president, and they thought he was god’s freaking gift.
    Doesn’t he look great in a flight suit? Look at the package on that guy!
    What a fucking horror show.
    The man was in 100 miles over his head and he fucked up everything he touched.
    He should have stayed home, managed the Rangers, and started some kind of philanthropic trust with all of his crony capital money. Maybe coached a kids football league.
    He would have been great at all of those things.
    Not the worst guy ever, but maybe the worst POTUS ever.
    Jeebus, this crap gets right under my hide.
    People should be ashamed of supporting George W Bush and the freaking disastrous antics of his eight years of being POTUS. When his name comes up, folks who supported him should suddenly find it necessary to take an urgent phone call and absent themselves for a few minutes.
    It’s the political equivalent of buying an Edsel, except with a lot of dead people and destroyed lives in the bargain.
    Are we done with GW Bush now? I hope so, because I could go on for hours, and I have other things to do.

  28. As far as visceral hatred of Obama goes, we absolutely can’t forget that political culture is going more and more online, balkinization continues apace, and the Tea Party movement brought a lot of previously hard-to-hear voices on the right a lot closer to the fore. All of these amplified the churning intensity of the attacks on Obama without requiring a racial element. Having said that, anyone who wants to say there wasn’t one and that it was common in the quarters where the hostility raised to the level being discussed here must be very good at avoiding media.

  30. Not the worst guy ever, but maybe the worst POTUS ever.
    Slow deep breaths, Russell, slow deep breaths.
    There are lots of worse ones. Maybe not in your (adult) lifetime, but definitely worse existed.
    To just take the example I use whenever someone goes on about corruption in the Bush II administration, think about Harding. He was not the only bad President we’ve had either.

  31. “That’s not about policy; that’s personal.”
    It is not about policy, its about politics. And people, like me, don’t like him, mostly because I don’t like the way he politics. That has nothing to do with his color.
    If you said, “some people don’t like having a black man as President”, I wouldn’t disagree with that at all. But assigning his lack of ability to create and deliver his number one campaign promise, change to the tenor of the debate in Washington, to racists is just excuse making.
    And, there is no amount of frothing at the mouth hatred that is greater than that given to Bush in his last two years, particularly his last.
    He was evil, in every way anyone can think of. No policy of his was wrong or misguided, it had evil intent. It was meant to keep down the masses and make the wealthy wealthier, kill the Arabs for their oil and provide entertainment to the sadistic fantasies of Cheney. A line of virulence continuing today against anyone who would dare disagree with the Democrats, from Gary Johnson to Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell.
    We’ve listened to that for ten years. I dislike Obama most of all because he enables the left to talk hatefully about me just as Trump enables the right to talk hatefully about you.
    At least I’m willing to admit that Trump does it and withdraw my support for him.

  32. “Slow deep breaths, Russell, slow deep breaths.”
    no worries, i’m fine.
    you make a good point, could be that harding was worse.

  33. Trump doesn’t just “enable” the right to talk hatefully, he does so himself.
    I’m not recalling Obama doing so, but my memory is fallible. If you recall one, please share. Or, if you see the enablement in some other form, what is it?
    Certainly there are people today, left and right, who talk hatefully. The causality is complex. But whether it runs thru Presidential candidates to any significant extent is a somewhat simpler question to answer.

  34. “You don’t have a single fact to assert that any significant part of Pence’s base objects to either of these two people because of their physical characteristics. Give it a rest, or find a fact.”
    This took me all of six seconds to find.
    Quote:
    According to a new NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll, seventy-two percent of registered Republicans “still doubt” the President’s place of birth. Forty-one percent outright disagreed with the statement, “Barack Obama was born in the United States,” while only twenty-seven percent of Republicans agree.
    Source: http://www.mediaite.com/online/new-poll-shows-that-41-of-republicans-still-dont-think-obama-was-born-in-the-u-s/
    Quote:
    Two-thirds of voters with a favorable opinion of Donald Trump believe President Barack Obama is a Muslim, and a quarter of them believe that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was murdered, a poll released Tuesday shows.
    Source: http://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/poll-two-thirds-trump-supporters-think-obama-muslim

  35. The NBC News|SurveyMonkey poll was conducted from June 27 through July 5, 2016 online among a national sample of 2,201 adults aged 18 and over (+/-2.5), 645 registered Republicans including leaners (+/-4.4), and 840 registered Democrats including leaners (+/- 3.9). Respondents for this non-probability survey were selected from the nearly three million people who take surveys on the SurveyMonkey platform each day.
    Try again

  36. Marty: …his lack of ability to create and deliver his number one campaign promise, change to the tenor of the debate in Washington …
    “I promise to change the tone in Washington” can mean a number of things:
    “I promise not to call Republicans evil, stupid, or black.”
    A reasonable person with no ax to grind might allow that this is what Obama meant, and all he could have meant.
    “I promise to stop Republicans calling me evil, stupid, or black.”
    A reasonable person with no ax to grind might allow that pretending this is what Obama meant is ridiculous.
    Now, Marty would be right to accuse Obama of breaking his “promise” if Marty could cite a particular instance or two of President Obama trash-talking Republicans back in 2009 or 10.
    Or, Marty would be right to accuse Obama of breaking his “promise” if Marty could offer a different interpretation of Obama’s “promise” that is not ridiculous on its face, and then cite specific instances of Obama violating that version.
    Note: outmaneuvering the Republicans is NOT the same as trash-talking the Republicans.
    –TP

  37. Yes, but TP, have you considered that Obama, despite his avowal to change the tone in Washington, just couldn’t resist inciting Republicans to call him stupid*, evil, or black?
    *Actually, I don’t think this one applies. I’ve often seen him derided as smug, pretentious, over-educated, condescending, patronizing, conniving, or a know-it-all, but I can’t really think of him being called stupid.

  38. Obama doesn’t get explicitly called stupid (that I’ve heard). But what else is the repeated assertion that he only got into (and thru?) college and law school due to affirmative action?

  39. I had forgotten the discussions of Matriculating While Black. Those don’t necessarily have an implied assertion that the MWBer is stupid, just that they’re not as smart as every (perforce better-qualified) white would-be applicant who their admission unjustly excludes. There’s definitely more than a few baked-in notions about racial ceilings and floors in the area of intelligence or aptitude.

  40. Googling Is X the antichrist? with a name put in for X yields about half a million for Bush, Obama, Clinton each (slightly outperforming Hitler who has about 10% less). Prince William yields almost 200000 too though and Merkel a bit above 150000. Reagan comes up with a bit above a quarter million btw.

  41. To differentiate between Bill and Hillary on the antichrist front is a wee bit difficult since any search with Bill gets contaminated with anti Bill Gates stuff. Plus I remember some disputes on the Right* about Obama not being qualified for the position because his hellish majesty would never sink so low as to choose an n-word as his incarnation (a female is OK, or so it seems). So Obama could at best be the one heralding* the arrival of the true antichrist (Hillary being the most popular choice at the moment).
    * you may search the archives at rightwingwatch.org for details
    **’preparing’ was used in this context iirc.

  42. bill clinton is the antichrist = 419,000
    bill clinton is the antichrist -“bill gates” = 350,000
    hillary clinton is the antichrist = 482,000
    hillary clinton is the antichrist -“bill gates” = 549,000
    I’m not really sure what we’re trying to prove here, but it’s interesting that Google finds more results when you actively exclude a term.
    It’s unfair of course, because Google didn’t exist when Bill Gates^HClinton was president.

  43. I was surprised to find Bush so high on the antichrist count since I remember more of a second coming of Christ mindset on the side of the usual suspects while the feud was usually about which Clinton (or both) was His antagonist. Obama was the natural next candidate (a number of ‘Clinton murders’ were also reattributed to Obama btw).
    The “X is the antichrist” meme seemed to my uninformed self as a decent marker for unhinged political hatred towards a person but almost exclusively on the Right. I seem to have been wrong there (and have no idea what makes prince William a candidate). I know of no similar marker on the Left (9/11 thrutherism can be found on both sides and can seriously only be applied to the narrow Bush era despite attempts to whitewash Bush by blaming others).

  45. I dislike Obama most of all because he enables the left to talk hatefully about me
    wtf.
    the very second Obama appeared on the scene in 2007, the racist bullshit started raining down around him. the winter of Reverend Wright, the ‘whitey’ tape, the whole disgusting rainbow of birtherisms, he’s a Muslim!, madrassa!, etc.. it’s been one Stormfront meme after another for 9 years.
    he “enabled” >someone to talk hatefully, allright. by having the balls to stand up and run for President.

  47. “The NBC News|SurveyMonkey poll was conducted from June 27 through July 5, 2016 online among a national sample of 2,201 adults aged 18 and over (+/-2.5), 645 registered Republicans including leaners (+/-4.4), and 840 registered Democrats including leaners (+/- 3.9). Respondents for this non-probability survey were selected from the nearly three million people who take surveys on the SurveyMonkey platform each day.
    Try again”
    Let me first say that I appreciate how you completely ignored the second poll which makes the same point. Let me also say that I could go around finding polls like this all day–something you seem disinclined to do (I wonder why). In fact, here are some more:
    http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/nov/23/arsalan-iftikhar/do-59-percent-americans-believe-barack-obama-musli/
    Explaining multiple polls going back several years in which a substantially larger fraction of Republicans think Obama is Muslim and/or was not born in the U.S.
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/republicans-trump-cruz-canadian-birth-eligibility_us_56940e76e4b0c8beacf7fe2d
    Moving on to the one poll you bothered to object to, I assume you’re subtly complaining that the poll was a non-probability sample, i.e. that there was response bias in the sampling because the subjects were qualified merely by volunteering to take the poll. Yes, that is a flaw in the poll. No, that does not mean the poll is worthless. Is that all you’ve got? Do you disagree that a large fraction of Republicans believe Obama is a Muslim and/or was not born in this country? Do you have any evidence whatsoever?
    Marty, you could be a case study for denial. It’s truly marvelous.

  48. according to the survey (partially done face-to-face) behind my 7:40AM link:

    In reality, while 23 percent of Democrats say black people are lazy, 41 percent of Republicans do. And among strong Democrats and strong Republicans, the numbers become even more stark, 20 percent compared with 46 percent. Furthermore, 41 percent of whites who say they are extremely conservative believe black people are lazy, compared with 14 percent of whites who say they are extremely liberal. On the question of whether black people are unintelligent, it’s 30 percent for extremely conservative whites versus 11 percent for extremely liberal whites.

    thanks again, Obama, for dividing us so!

  50. I think Marty upthread is right, that the Republican party leaders never cared about Obama’s race. What they care about is their pursuit of a permanent Republican majority in service to the oligarchy, and they are capable of just about anytime to achieve that goal, including fanning the flames of racism in the population. If Hillay gets elected it is a foregone conclusion that a Republican majority in Congress will result in an impeachment attempt. I also expect the right wing hate machine to generate endless amounts of crap about her in line with the crap already generated: she will be smeared as a murderous woman who is a master criminal with shady finances who is frigid and the cause of her husband’s infidelities. The capacity for the righwing base to hate and to believe anything that stokes that hates stil astonishes me.I just can’t get used to it. I keep believing that reason will prevail, but that’s being optimistic in the face of past behavior.

  51. I keep believing that reason will prevail, but that’s being optimistic in the face of past behavior.
    Trump is likely to pull 60,000,000 votes even if Hillary wins the electoral college by 100+. It is a tad bit worrisome that 60M people in this country think Trump is a better candidate than Hillary.

  52. What I’m curious to see is if the pattern holds that her approval ratings go up significantly while she’s in office versus when she’s running for office (assuming she is elected, as it thankfully appears is likely).
    There will always be a fringe believing any ridiculous thing that comes out about her, but if she takes office and governs well, without any new scandals of real consequence occurring during her presidency, what will the 2020 election look like? Trotting out the same old stories about email servers,
    Benghazi, and the Clinton Foundation 4 years later is going to be even less compelling to the overall electorate than it’s been this time around, I would think.
    That’s not to say I don’t think there will be some new Benghazi-like witch hunt during her presidency. That’s almost assured. (Or maybe it isn’t. Obama’s presidency has been largely free of scandals, at least any that had any sort of staying power, as opposed to all the supposed “Obama’s Katrinas” that never went anywhere. Then again, he isn’t married to Bill.)

  53. I think there is a significant risk Hillary is not re-elected in 2020.
    I think she’d be losing right now if Kasich or Rubio had been the GOP nominee, maybe even Cruz. If 2020 is Paul Ryan v. Hillary, I’d expect Ryan to win unless things are going extraordinarily well for the country (which the GOP will try to prevent, IMHO, with Ryan leading the charge!).
    The GOP now only functions effectively as an opposition party, it has lost it’s ability to govern the country because it doesn’t believe that that is its job when it wins elections.

  54. Harmut, I’m not sure raw numbers on “X is the antichrist” is particularly informative here. A very common rhetorical ploy in our recent political discourse is to dismiss criticism of a chosen politician as e.g. “X derangement syndrome”, which I’ve seen play out as people explicitly making statements to the effect that their obsessive, unhinged opponents all think or act like “X is the antichrist”. Raw search hits aren’t going to be able to distinguish criticism of a pol from criticism of criticism of the pol…

  55. I think she’d be losing right now if Kasich or Rubio had been the GOP nominee, maybe even Cruz.
    I agree with this part. I’ve been saying for months that, had Romney been on the ticket, he’d be beating her handily. But I think the GOP is so dysfunctional that, even if the people running party have learned some sort of lesson, I don’t know that they can act effectively on this new knowledge. Of course, Trump was such an anomaly that the dynamics of the primary to come will likely be nothing like what we saw this year, with the Hillary haters united behind someone the mushy middle won’t be horrified by.
    So, yeah, it comes down to just how well she actually does in office, what the economy does, and whether or not there’s a major event involving terrorism or some sort of armed conflict. The combination of anything significantly bad happening while she’s in office and the Republicans nominating someone who can at least act like a reasonably sane and smart person could very well put her reelection in jeopardy.
    But I also think she will be a very effective and competent president and that demographics will continue to move in her favor.

  56. “Marty, you ought to delete your facebook account. It’s really leading you astray…”
    lj, if I went by my fb feed I would be convinced everyone hated everyone, specifically because the are either white or black, male or female, rich, middle class or poor, etc.
    The magnification of hateful voices striving to be heard diminishes any hope of civil conversation.
    And that filters through to here and sometimes even to the way I express things.

  57. Cruz, i doubt. he’s pretty easy to dislike – moralizing, sanctimonious and overall kind of weaselly. SNL would be having a lot of fun with him, too.
    Rubio and Kasich would be tougher.
    but if the GOP had a normal nominee, we’d be talking about policy a lot more.

  59. i’ve recently cut waayyyy back on FB. i still have to go there once in a while because it’s the only way i keep in contact with many people i want to stay in contact with. but i’m done with it as a primary destination.
    it was starting to bum me out – turns out i really don’t want to know that much about my friends and their other friends and all their babies and vacations and crazy ideas about politics and food and religion.
    i can’t imagine getting news from FB. all i see there are clickbait conspiracy theories.

  60. I think the GOP is so dysfunctional that, even if the people running party have learned some sort of lesson, I don’t know that they can act effectively on this new knowledge.
    I’d say the odds are excellent that they will not be able to do so. After all, following the 2012 election, the party put together a quite sensible analysis of what they needed to do differently in order to win next time. And then proceeded to accomplish none of it; instead they nominated a guy who is pretty much the antithesis of what they concluded was necessary.
    So come 2020, will they be able to nominate someone viable? Or will another demagogue step up and blast thru any such candidates? I’d tend to bet on the latter. (And note that, by that time, Ryan will have 4 more years as Speaker. Meaning that he will have had plenty of time to alienate the radicals by having the bad taste to pass the legislation needed to keep the government from imploding.)

  63. NomVid, as I started googling I expected a huge difference between Bush and Clinton as far as antichrist claims are concerned and was quite surprised when this turned out not to be the case. Prince William was offered by Google (otherwise It would not have entered my mind to test that about him).
    In other words, I expected it to be at least a rough marker dividing left from right but this turned out to be wrong. Since I still believe that few outside the Kristian(TM) Right actually believe the whole concept this indeeds seem to point at the raw google check being of little value. In both directions, i.e. it does not really serve the ‘both sides do it’ either. Maybe one should check other absurd combinations, if it holds true there too (like X + Cthulhu or fluffy bunny or musk ox or larks vomit).

  66. What I’m curious to see is if the pattern holds that her approval ratings go up significantly while she’s in office versus when she’s running for office (assuming she is elected, as it thankfully appears is likely)
    From your lips to God’s ear, for your assumption in parentheses. Personally, I’m far too worried/superstitious to assume any such thing.
    I think there is a significant risk Hillary is not re-elected in 2020.
    Even if she is elected this time, I fear that she’ll be second-guessing GOPers and Trumpista types (and the barely HRC-committed) so much with an eye to her race in 2020 that her ability in the next four years to do the things she ought to do, and is committing to do, will be hugely compromised.

  67. after discovering that, in light of his inability to tell the truth, Trump own lawyers had to meet with him pairs so that they could corroborate each other, a blog writes:

    Consider the context. The people who were entrusted to protect Trump’s interests in a multimillion dollar bankruptcy case knew he could not be trusted. If you are trusting Trump to be good on Supreme Court Justices or any thing else what right do you have to think he’s going to be more candid with you than with his own legal team?

    what blog is that? RedState!
    cats and dogs, sleeping together.

  68. Even if she is elected this time, I fear that she’ll be second-guessing GOPers and Trumpista types (and the barely HRC-committed) so much with an eye to her race in 2020 that her ability in the next four years to do the things she ought to do, and is committing to do, will be hugely compromised.
    I have no worry about this at all. My only worry is that the obstruction will continue. This will be less of a problem if she at least wins the Senate, but the House is not going to give her anything. Then, in 2020, they’ll blame her for what she hasn’t been able to do. I’m hoping against hope that Dems win it all.

  69. My only worry is that the obstruction will continue. This will be less of a problem if she at least wins the Senate, but the House is not going to give her anything. Then, in 2020, they’ll blame her for what she hasn’t been able to do. I’m hoping against hope that Dems win it all.
    I fear this too.

  70. I fully expect it. The question, politically, is who comes out looking worse because of it? How many people blame Republicans for obstructing versus how many blame Clinton for not getting things done?
    Obama was reelected after 4 years of facing obstruction, which many tried to say was his own fault.

  71. The obstruction and worse is already baked into the cake.
    The usual suspects are already meeting and planning the obstruction of all governance by the next Democratic President, domestically, both nationally and at the state and local levels, and in foreign policy.
    If Trump is elected, Democrats and liberals, of course, will not have in place the malign alt hate media and political infrastructure, nor the guts, to obstruct all governance by him and his Republican Party, and I mean to the point of bloody Civil War against the Republican Party and all of its interests.
    The Democratic needs armed paramilitary forces like the Republicans’ NRA, the Oath Keepers, and the rest of the militia movement.

  72. From (possibly TLDR) Imagining The Post-Trump GOP: The Trainwreck Of 2020 (not the inspiration for my previous musings, but along the same lines):

    This is a complex calculation for each and all. The Trump candidacy exposes the GOP’s grievous fractures; his defeat would further aggravate them in unpredictable but surely damaging ways which will be difficult to navigate. For the hopefuls of 2020, more bars their path to the White House than the specter of President Hillary Clinton — or even each other. Simply winning the nomination may be, in itself, near fatal.
    The GOP’s factions are not only it odds with each other, but all too often with the general electorate. The more support they give to a prospective nominee, the more they damage that candidate in November 2020.
    Take the evangelicals — a target for Pence, Cruz and pretty much everyone else. With the ferocity of dead-enders, they insist on blanket opposition to abortion, even in the case of rape or incest. They oppose gay rights in every area of life, including marriage and freedom from discrimination. They are obsessed with bathroom use by LGBT Americans. In the name of religious freedom, they want to tear down the wall between church and state. But where they have stuck their flag in the ground, shouting defiance, the larger society is passing them by on the path to greater tolerance.
    Or the Tea Party crowd. Driven by fury and a sense of betrayal, they rail against government and the congressional leaders of their own party, killing off John Boehner and subjecting Paul Ryan to frequently impotent misery. Such is their nihilism that they would rather shut down the government — forcing the rest of us to live with whatever may follow — than pursue a program which, however conservative, offends their sense of purity. These folks live in a very special world. Most Americans do not.
    Including another influential element of the GOP — its donor base and the Chamber of Commerce crowd, devotees of lower taxes, deregulation and free trade agreements. These programs depend on the GOP winning the White House and enacting legislation and, therefore, on a modicum of pragmatism. This, to put it mildly, is not the Tea Party model.
    Nor is it the wish list of the Republican base among the embattled middle and working classes. Trump activated their suspicion of free trade and globalization — and of those within the party who advocate tax cuts, entitlement reform and free market ideology. Their desires cannot be reconciled; their differences with privileged Republicans will not be easy for the hopefuls to gloss over.
    So, too, with the nativism, racial resentment and anti-immigrant feeling essential to Trump’s candidacy. This deeply emotional issue separates the base from the Republican establishment and, more fatally, from the larger electorate, including traditional Republicans among educated and suburban whites who want a humane and reasonable solution to the problems of illegal immigration. As Trump is currently proving, this agenda may well be a demographic poison pill — indispensable to his success in Republican primaries, and increasingly fatal in a general election.
    Finally, Trump has exposed the conflict between his “America First” xenophobia and Republican hawks and internationalists. He garnered support from Republicans, often blue-collar folks, who were fearful of terrorism, suspicious of all Muslims, and sick of wars in which their kids suffered more than the children of Americans at large.
    In contrast, Trump was roundly rejected by the party’s foreign-policy establishment, who regard America as essential to preserving global order and aggressively combating Islamic terrorists — not by mindlessly restricting immigration, but by using military power. But among Americans at large, weary of war and fed up with its costs, Trump’s neo-isolationism holds instinctive appeal. Here, too, the clash of contending forces among Republicans has broader electoral implications for the party, and for its perspective nominees.

  74. Drudge and Limbaugh spreading conspiracies that the government is exaggerating the strength of the storm to make the case for global warming. Jesus.

  76. Maybe Drudge and Limbaugh will go to the east coast of Florida tonight, the more graphically to make their point. One may hope.

  77. The question is not whether the Republican party leaders never cared about Obama’s race. It is whether they have used relatively common racist tropes to try and undercut Obama. I’d suggest that if they actually have no actual prejudice towards Obama and are operating under the principle that ‘politics ain’t beanbag’, they are actually worse than if they have some unconscious prejudices against Obama.
    The question is not whether Obama is smart, what is at issue is whether he is ‘uppity’. Something like this
    http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/photos/desk.asp
    When they claim that Obama is “didactic and he lectures”, they are calling on that stereotype.

  78. Drudge is a lying piece of dirt. A simp in a dumb hat.
    If he’s journalism, then I’m a Pinochet third-world potentate murdering journalists.
    Luckily for Drudge, he’s not a journalist.
    As for Limbaugh, here’s a shot of his Palm Beach digs:
    http://www.jeffrealty.com/blog/2012/03/rush-limbaughs-palm-beach-home/
    If I was a liberal mirror image of Republican Pat Robertson, I would be just now praying and wailing and calling in the pledges on TV in support of Limbaugh’s joint being inundated and shifted off its foundations by the hurricane and his bloated Republican corpse being found face down in his swimming pool under three tons of sea wrack.
    Fish the vermin out with a boat hook and then Paul Ryan can let Rush’s supperating corpse lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda so he can bring us just a little lower under this country’s scum line.
    But I guess fag-bashing Republican filth will, as always, find their way to higher ground and find a microphone to shit on the rest of us.
    I’m sure Limbaugh is well inland in a penthouse somewhere being blown by Trump groupies.
    Turns out the Governor of Florida, a miserable Ayn Rand flesh-eater his own self, is taking the coward’s way out and following the NWS’s (remember when Gingrich et al were trying to privatize that too) advice and exhorting Floridians, including in and around Palm Beach, to evacuate the area in the path of the hurricane.
    Who needs Facebook (not me) when we’ve had Drudge and Limbaugh poisoning the discourse all these years. They among others trained me.
    “didactic and he lectures”
    That was exactly one of the infractions of the main character in “12 Years a Slave”. What happened to him is much the same as what has happened symbolically to Obama at the hands of the obstructionists, soon to be deceased, if God gives a good Goddamn about this country.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92AmGY8P2po
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92AmGY8P2po

  80. http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a49349/hurricane-american-ships/
    Federal government heroes setting sail from our Naval Port at Norfolk Virginia, home of subhuman anti-American Pat Robertson, wisher of woe and lethal misery upon millions of Americans during every natural disaster to hit this country over the past 35 years, to bring help and service to the South Atlantic Coast during this storm, among whose inhabitants include Limbaugh and Drudge, who live in palatial homes paid for by their broadcasted hate, on my fucking radio spectrum, of the government coming to help them.
    Fuck the Republican Party.

  81. When they claim that Obama is “didactic and he lectures”, they are calling on that stereotype.
    Among other things, Obama was a senior lecturer in ConLaw at U Chicago.
    Old habits die hard.
    Maybe, if Obama acts like he’s the smartest guy in the room, it’s because he’s the smartest guy in the room.
    I wish I had a nickel for every person who chooses their political alignments based on whether they think that somebody running for national elected office is a “regular person just like them”.
    Being a “regular person just like you” is in general not a really strong argument for “qualified to hold national elected office”.
    Is “being a regular person just like me” something they look for in airplane pilots, or neurosurgeons, or investment counselors, or litigation attorneys?
    Sometimes it’s not all about your feelings.

  82. I wish I had a nickel for every person who chooses their political alignments based on whether they think that somebody running for national elected office is a “regular person just like them”.
    What’s crazy to me is the people they consider to be a “regular person just like them.” Like, Donald Trump, a (purported) billionaire TV personality? George W. Bush, son of a President, Andover, Yale, Harvard Business School, and Governor?

  83. Like, Donald Trump, a (purported) billionaire TV personality?
    Look at the commentary on the leaked pages of his ’95 tax return. “Hey, don’t you take all the deductions you can? How is this any different?”
    Yeah, because hiring an expert, whom most of us couldn’t afford, to pour over the tax code to look for any arcane and unintended chink in the armor to be exploited to maximum benefit, even if it requires screwing over investors, is just like taking the mortgage-interest deduction or the child tax credit.
    Now everything that reduces your tax bill is a loophole. I’m using, among other things, the “I don’t make enough money to pay more in taxes” loophole. Shrewd, no?

  84. HSH: How many people blame Republicans for obstructing versus how many blame Clinton for not getting things done?
    Everybody who has ever said “Washington gridlock” instead of “GOP obstructionism” has made the problem worse. The Broderist media are the main culprits, of course.
    What annoys me is that Obama himself has used that trope. He was especially prone to it in his first term, perhaps in a misguided attempt to avoid trash-talking Republicans.
    HSH: … the “I don’t make enough money to pay more in taxes” loophole.
    I’m stealing that line to use next time I explain to people that we already have a flat income tax in this country: the rate is 39.6%, with increasing discounts as your income goes down. The Limbaughs and the Drudges live in a flat-tax world. A key feature of the flat tax world is that “productive effort” is not discouraged at the margin.
    –TP

  86. Own it Paul Ryan:
    I doubt very much that there are many Jews who don’t feel the change from 2015 to 2016 and very few who don’t know where the change is coming from. I doubt Paul Ryan has an anti-Semitic bone in his body. But he’s going to campaign with Trump on Saturday, the day before the second presidential debate. That’s all I need to know.
    Also.

  89. HSH: Now everything that reduces your tax bill is a loophole. I’m using, among other things, the “I don’t make enough money to pay more in taxes” loophole. Shrewd, no?
    A regular “lucky ducky” of shrewdness you are.

  95. Evangelicals are use to leaders who check out the tits on women and try to get in their pants, because that’s what their opportunistic big-haired preachers spend half their time doing, when they aren’t filching cash from the collection plates to invest in African cobalt mines with low overhead and high underhead.
    That’s why they are in the tank for Trump. They want a piece of his action.
    Trump often has an evangelical newly on his staff rummage through the former’s conquest’s purse to get rid of any birth control paraphernalia to keep with the Republican program, but if the woman Trump just boffed becomes pregnant, they will also arrange either to sell the baby on the open market or have it aborted, but at one of those rich guy private clinics that will always be legal, no matter what happens to poor women’s choice.
    As for Bill Clinton, evangelical money-grubbing preachers had grudging respect for the man. “How does he do it?”, they ask themselves. “I want some of what he’s having.”
    “There but by the grace of God go I”, they say to themselves, “to a cheap motel outside of town to offer oral marriage counseling to my female parishioners, while he doesn’t even have to leave the office for it.”
    Krauthammer: Donald, if that b*tch Clinton brings up any of this at the next debate, do a Pence and deny, deny, deny. Praise Jesus if you have to.
    Trump: You think? I don’t know, I think that c&nt Hillary has the hots for me. Did you see her eyes rolling at the first debate. It was like she was in heat for me. I know women and I know when they want this hunk of burning love.
    Krautlover: I admire you Donald. If I had your chops, I’d have gotten laid at least once over the last decade, but alas, every time I jump a babe, my cholostomy bag springs a leak and my wheelchair tips over.
    Trump: I believe it, ya gruesome gimp. Sorry about the lack of ramps at Mar a Lago. And could you use the back stairs when you go to your suite; it’ll only take you a couple of hours
    to crawl the twenty flights. Stay off the elevators, you scare the other guests.
    Krautlicker (hugging Trump around the thighs, from which Trump flinches and begins to gag out of disgust): Thank you so much, Meine Presidente.
    Anything you wish. May I press Chris Christie’s boxer shorts, or is Marco Rubio already doing that.

  98. Trumo, in answer to SourKrautHammer’s request to iron Christie’s big boy pants: It’s a three-man job … you, Rubio, and Ricky Perry should be able to handle it.

  108. Ryan may not be there yet. But the cascade of un-endorsements is getting really impressive.
    I think Johnson’s chances of taking Utah just jump way up. (The governor just announced that he will NOT vote for Trump.) Because where else can they go?

  109. There’s a rash of articles by liberals empathizing with Trump voters.
    The apocryphal Trump supporter described in the article seems to be a mouthpiece for the author, not the other way around. Really? Trump supporters were disappointed when Walmart moved into town? Something rings very, very false with that narrative.

  110. Of course it does, sapient, because it doesn’t mesh with the strawconservative in your head. Speaking as someone who grew up in rural Ohio, and currently lives in a small semi-rural Ohio town, and who was around when that small semi-rural town got itself a Walmart… it is hilarious to hear your pontifications upon who would and would not be happy for Walmart to show up and crush the local family-owned downtown businesses. Just… trust me on this. You could hardly be more wrong if you tried.

  111. Hillary Clinton’s at 44% to 43% for Donald Trump, 5% for Gary Johnson, and 2% for Jill Stein. If voters had to choose just between Clinton and Trump, Clinton’s advantage remains one point at 48/47.
    Many people resent Walmart, but my guess is that most of those who do are not supporting Trump. I live in a swing state too, and we have Walmarts also. I don’t shop there, and neither do most of my snobby, elitist, non-Trump supporting friends. The author of the piece was a Bernie supporter, and was channelling Bernie when “empathizing” with the fake woman Trump supporter.

  112. I can again only shake my head about the warped public mindset in the US. So, it would be okay with the public, if Trump would shoot someone in Time Square in front of multiple witnesses but not, if he sexually molested women in semi-private?
    [For the record: each remark should disqualify him]

  113. sapient, living in a swing state is not the same as living in the same (Midwestern) state that the article from. Living in an urban or suburban area within that state would not be the same as living in a rural area. Not supporting Wal-Mart because you’re too good to shop there is not the same as not supporting Wal-Mart because it ran small businesses that had been in town for generations out of business.
    It’s quite appalling that your reaction to a point of view that does not closely align with your own nor with your prejudices is to immediately conclude the author is a scheming liar creating a populist Trumpette from whole cloth. I know people like the “fake woman”. That hard-luck populist working class Midwesterner is not one that rings even vaguely false to me as another rural Midwesterner – who by the way, despite my “snobby, elitist” politics, shops at Wal-Mart from time to time because they’re cheap and because they drove the local alternatives out of businesses.

  114. This is a pitch-perfect example of the exact dismissive classist elitism that fosters resentment of establishmentarians from populists on both the left and right. The are very real economic criticisms that can be leveled at liberal bourgeois political institutions. This isn’t a simple culture war, with the deplorables and DFHs against the nice, respectable liberals. The rising tide hasn’t lifted all boats as it trickled down from our betters.
    Check your class privilege.

  115. There’s a rash of articles by liberals empathizing with Trump voters.
    I’ve read articles like that for 40 years, people trying to understand and empathize with the ‘silent majority’, ‘reagan democrats’, etc., etc., you know, the people who spit on busses during integration attempts, supported foreign wars, and bent government policy to their hateful racist advantage.
    Personally, I’m sick of it.
    Let’s see some heartfelt journalism from the “real heartland” showing empathy for Democrats in general, and the urban poor in particular.
    That will be the day.

  116. Not supporting Wal-Mart because you’re too good to shop there
    I was being ironic, but it’s okay with me that you missed that. But it’s true that I haven’t seen any Trump supporter boycotts against big box stores coming in, ever.
    Personally, I’m sick of it.
    Me too.
    I sympathize with and am sorry for people who have trouble making ends meet for whatever reason. But people who can’t grasp the fact that Democratic policies have down the line been designed to mitigate wealth inequality, and Republican policies to exacerbate it, either are willfully misguided or have a darker agenda.

  117. I’ve seen articles empathizing with the urban poor– some guy named Ta Nehisi Coates has written a few and he is widely praised by some and trashed by others. JD Vance seemed to think he was doing the same thing Coates did for urban poor blacks, which implies a kind of approval. So the pieces aren’ t lacking, you just want them to come from the heartland. But this apocryphal woman expressed some of those sentiments.
    More empathy about struggling people no matter what their behavior or views seems like a good idea. Empathy doesn’t mean you agree with the bad behavior, whatever it might be. Nowadays tribalism is everything, in both foreign policy and on the domestic front.

  118. More empathy about struggling people no matter what their behavior or views seems like a good idea.
    You know what’s a really good idea? Electing people who address the “struggling” part. “Empathy” is cheap.

  120. were trump to be elected, he would do bugger-all for the woman in dreher’s piece. if she mowed his lawn, he’d stiff her.
    if she’s pissed off at obama for ‘bailing out the banks’ instead of regular folks like her, she might want to check on how her reps in congress voted on obama’s aid proposals at that time.
    did she vote for W?
    given her situation, she should have supported bernie. she didn’t because she assumed clinton would beat him.
    i call this a self-fulfilling prediction.
    i’m sympathetic to her situation, but i have no respect for her decision to vote for trump.
    basically her position seems to be ‘fuck it all’. i can understand why she might feel like just burning the whole mess down is the way to go, but she doesn’t get to take the rest of us with her.
    as an aside, there are a ton of people living here in our coastal nirvana who are by-god hurting, too. nothing special about ‘heartland’ suffering.

  121. I’ve seen articles empathizing with the urban poor– some guy named Ta Nehisi Coates has written a few and he is widely praised by some and trashed by others.
    No, as much as I admire Coates, it’s not the same oeuvre. Coates is not angling for sympathy or ’empathy’. It’s pretty much history, facts, and anger.
    What we don’t see are articles about, say, an angry ‘tribal’ urban poor person who loudly supports the New Deal paradigm seeking to understand why they “feel the way they do” or their “anger” (yes, I hear some liberals get angry at times!).

  123. NV,
    What can an elitist liberal like me possibly say to a small-town Midwesterner whose grievances include the demise of downtown mom-and-pops “because of WalMart”?
    I obviously can’t say: “Hey, I never shop at WalMart!” That marks me as snooty.
    I obviously can’t say: “Look, it wasn’t WalMart that killed the mom-and-pops; it was your friends and neighbors choosing to shop at WalMart that did it.” That smacks of blaming the victim.
    Maybe I could try: “We kept WalMart out of our snooty liberal town using local zoning rules and regulations that our free-market conservative neighbors had always opposed.” Too coldly political, probably.
    And I bet that talking about the Walton heirs and the “death tax” wouldn’t get me anywhere either.
    So, I ask this in all seriousness: how could a liberal like me address this sort of grievance in a sincere but not condescending way?
    –TP

  124. when investigative reporters and pundits want to talk to people who have been hosed by the last 35 years of trickle down bullcrap, they always go to freaking Ohio. Or some similar place.
    I have nothing against the people of Ohio, and have great sympathy for the damage that has been done there. Most of my wife’s family is in Ohio, and/or southeastern PA.
    But maybe they could also go to Springfield, or Worcester, or North Adams.
    If they really need rural, specifically, they could got to any of the hill towns on either side of the Connecticut river valley.
    They could go anyplace in NH north of Concord, or anyplace in ME north of Portland and more than a half-hour from the coastline, or anyplace in VT, full stop.
    They could go to anyplace in upstate NY north of Dutchess Country and west of the Hudson. Just ask cleek, he knows.
    People who live someplace in the middle of the country and bitch about “those people on the coasts” who “look down on them” are doing exactly the thing they are pissing and moaning about.
    They are engaging in geographic regional bigotry.
    Their problems are not due to people like me, or Tony P, or anyone else who lives within an hours drive of an ocean.
    If Dreher’s subject doesn’t want Walmart to drive the mom and pops out of town, she needs to *get off her ass* and keep Walmart out.
    Etc etc etc.
    Enough victimization bullshit. If you vote for Trump because you’ve been “victimized”, you’re victimizing yourself.
    There ain’t nothing I can do to help you.
    Thanks.

  125. Excellent empathetic article regarding large parts of West Virginia going full Trump-red this election cycle and why. Even Democrats like Trump.
    http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/in-the-heart-of-trump-country
    I get it, but my two cents. Even though West Virginia is still among the top states in terms of Federal dollar return-to taxes paid, it is a disgrace that more hasn’t been done to aid these folks and I blame both political parties. Plus, not having Robert Byrd on your side and instead replacing him with Democrat in name only Joe Manchin has taken its toll too. Besides, his Republican budget schemes would pretty much disable all federal dollars going to his state. He may think not, but he’d be wrong.
    Yeah, coal and the EPA. Well, the thing killing the coal industry is in fact the free market, namely attractively priced natural gas, which may or may not be cleaner depending on which expert you talk to, although from the looks of things, talking to know-nothing sh*theads instead gets you more political capital these days.
    There is enormous opportunity and money to be made, with federal help, to clean up the mess that is that state and improve the quality of life as we transition to cleaner energy sources.
    Non-retrofitted coal fired power plants are going to close down, EPA or not. Maybe the EPA should pay for clean coal retrofitting technologies to delay the inevitable.

  126. joe manchin may well suck, but he’s there because they voted for him.
    i spent part of my commute yesterday listening to a woman give the reasons she was voting for trump. many or most of them were based on things that either were plainly untrue, or which were assumptions on her part in the absence of facts.
    if trump wins i will be because of people who are largely motivated by some kind peevish resentment, and who frankly believe a lot of stuff that isn’t true. and, which they can’t be bothered to find out about, and seem to feel they are being abused if anyone calls them on it.
    IMO the people of west virginia should take up freaking arms against the coal industry and their lackeys in government.
    instead they vote them in.
    there is not one freaking thing i can do about that.
    trump is running for POTUS, which is a position of significant responsibility and consequence. basically what we are dealing with are millions of people who don’t give a crap if the world goes to hell – and that is no exaggeration – because they think somebody somewhere is looking down on them.
    FUBAR

  127. Regarding empathy for women and the Republican pols abandoning Trump for Pence, who describes himself as an evangelical Catholic, after these recent revelations:
    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/top-evangelicals-stand-by-trump-after-crude-video-revelation
    Or, as corrupt sleaze dung beetle Republican Ralph Reed said (the quote was off the record):
    “If you have to bash your c&nt girlfriend in the face to stop her from heading for the abortion clinic and you want Supreme Court Justices who will take your side on both the bashing and the closing down of those clinics, then pray for Donald Trump’s ascendancy to the White House.”
    Pence will murder as many Americans as Trump will, but it will be more methodical and cloaked in patronizing/condescending Christian budget-cutting piety.

  128. Plus, all this “whipping out of the Mexican thing” Pence downplays seems insincere. That his “thing” is “Mexican” and that he might “whip it out” seems both exhibitionist, unChristian, and vaguely multi-cultural, but who am I to judge?

  130. What really has me worried is the thought of losing my bet with Dr. Science.
    Allow me to suggest that your bet may end up with a split decision.
    I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump’s campaign folks are thinking seriously about having him not show. Simply because they still have enough grip on reality to know that
    a) someone (and a voter, not a moderator) is going to bring up that latest video. And ask something about “Why should I vote for someone who will present that kind of role model for my children?” And then,
    b) Trump will lose it. Maybe he goes off on irrelevancies during his initial response. But someone will follow up and insist on an actual answer, and he will totally melt down.
    But I think they won’t convince him — his ego can’t accept that he might fail to cope. Tt will actually work out on Sunday that they were right.
    Trump will insist on showing up. But before it is over, he will implode and walk out. (Thus getting the worst of both worlds.) And probably spend the entire night tweeting all manner of stuff that will make things even worse.

  132. So, I ask this in all seriousness: how could a liberal like me address this sort of grievance in a sincere but not condescending way?
    I don’t have a great answer, not least because I’d approach this more from your POV than from that of a hypothetical aggrieved-to-the-point-of-supporting-Trump working class voter. I grew up here, I know people from here, and I can see their point of view fairly well (including some very noxious or outright toxic aspects), but I don’t fit in here, and I don’t have the same grounding assumptions they do. It’s a lot easier for me to see what they do do than to speculate about what they might do.
    However, it wouldn’t exactly hurt to stop sounding lazy tribal rallying calls with intentionally vague subjects like Clinton’s baskets of deplorables. Civility isn’t as satisfying as derision – you can argue Clinton wasn’t deriding, but vast swathes of her supporters would disagree with you – but incivility for its own sake costs you for that momentary feeling of petty superiority.
    —
    russell, it’s always OH because OH is the swing state’s swing state. That’s BS, and it blows up Ohioans’ heads, but it doesn’t seem likely to change any time soon. And yes, Midwesterners do elitist regional bigotry just as readily as people deriding “fly-over country”. It’s just as stupid and baseless and ignorant when they do it, and they do it a lot. That doesn’t make tu quoque any better of a justification, though.

  133. Skittles and Tic Tacs abandon Trump:
    http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/10/08/1579492/-Things-we-never-thought-we-d-say-a-second-candy-has-come-forward-to-disavow-Donald-Trump
    However, both companies declined to endorse Hillary Clinton or to pledge to stop providing campaign donations to anonymous Republican mail drops in seedy suburban malls around the country, citing her refusal to lower taxes on rich celebs, politicians, and corporate people who pop their breath mint products just before grabbing a woman’s crotch.
    After all, they averred, we’re trying to run a business over here.
    When asked about Gary Johnson, they paused with quizzical looks on their faces and asked: “WTF is a Gary Johnson? Is that a candy bar or something? Look, we’re Libertarians, we don’t do details.”

  134. Empathy is a good thing, sapient, for its own sake. I rant as much as anyone around here and am about to do some more, as soon as I figure out which thread is appropriate for another Yemen rant. And I used to hate how civility used to be used to shot down people who are legitimately angry. But I think we have gone a little too far in the ranting direction. We all have to live together and it would be good if at least some of us try to listen to what makes other people think the way they do. On occasion they may even be right, though not about Trump voting. I see Trump as a symptom of all that has been going wrong with our politics. Hopefully a self-destructing one. I still want to know the reasons, sympathetic or not, why people want to vote for him.
    On a completely unimportant point, one tiny reason I hope for a total Trump wipeout at the polls (admittedly the least important by far) is that I hope it embarrasses and humiliates Scott Adams into well deserved oblivion. He is the most disingenuous jerk analyzing this race that I’ve seen and that’s saying a lot. If you have read him, on this point we are probably in agreement.

  135. Just read Scott’s blog to see how the latest Trump development effected (affected?) him. Humiliation is not part of his emotional range, I guess.

  136. Probably this thread will do. Micah Zenko says that the Saudis depend on us to kee at least part of their Air Force flying.
    https://mobile.twitter.com/MicahZenko/status/784831213198516224
    The Saudis just hit a funeral, killing about 80 and wounding hundreds and making the US government excuse that the Saudis hit civilians by accident look even more obscenely dishonest than it already did. Bad timing when Kerry was calling for war crimes investigations into Russian behavior.
    But, yes, I am willing to read empathic accounts on why officials in any government decide to act this way.

  137. From the count’s link:

    So when they see that the media élite is driven out of their mind at the success of Donald Trump it makes them want to root for him. It’s like giving the middle finger to the rest of the country.

    That’s all good, but as part of the “rest of the country” I’m taking note of the fact that the bird is being flipped at me.
    If people in WV want to vote for Joe Manchin, I think that is self-defeating and short-sighted, but it ain’t my hash to settle.
    If people want to vote for Donald J Trump for POTUS – president of *my* country – then I have a much stronger opinion about it.
    I have no problem if people have different values than me and vote for someone who is closer to those values.
    I do have a problem with people whose basis for voting is (a) bone ignorance about simple factual information and (b) some weird resentment against “elites” and “the establishment”.
    Because they’re not just crapping in their own punch bowls, they’re crapping in mine, and everybody else’s, as well.
    I’m not empathetic to that.
    At this point I’m reasonably confident that we will not be seeing President Trump, although it ain’t over until it’s over. But even the possibility of somebody that careless and irresponsible holding the office is freaking unacceptable. To me.
    If people want to be taken seriously, they need to act seriously. If they want People Like Me – the dreaded liberal ‘elites’ – to hear their story, they need to not flip the bird to everybody else on the freaking planet.
    There are, in fact, really large things at stake. Including the quality of ‘middle American’ lives, and that of their children and grandchildren.
    People really should take these things a little more seriously than seizing an opportunity to piss off a liberal.
    I’m a coastal liberal. I have a good job, a pretty good household income and net worth. My wife is already retired and I’m about five years away from it myself. My car and my wife’s car are paid for. We have a little consumer debt but nothing over the top. We’re on track to pay off the mortgage before I’m done working.
    Barring truly extraordinary events, I’m all set. Lucky me.
    Flipping me the bird is just not going to change my world at all, in any way. And it’s not going to improve their lives one freaking inch. It could, in fact, take them from hard times to a world of freaking pain.
    Put-upon ‘middle America’, wherever they happen to live, needs to wise up.
    Trump doesn’t give a crap about them. He doesn’t want to have a beer with them, he doesn’t want to know them. If they went to his fabulous resort hotel, he’d have them escorted out. If he hired them to work at one of his places, he’s stiff them and tell them to get a lawyer and sue them if they didn’t like it.
    He’s not their friend, and he’s not their champion.
    Wise up middle America.

  138. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/08/us/politics/hillary-clinton-speeches-wikileaks.html?rref=collection%2Fnewseventcollection%2FPresidential%20Election%202016&action=click&contentCollection=Politics&module=Collection&region=Marginalia&src=me&version=newsevent&pgtype=article&_r=0
    Something for everyone.
    I predict by November 9, Republicans will convince Clinton, given her Republican views expressed in the emails, to replace Trump on their ticket ahead of Pence, and Bernie Sanders will replace Clinton on the Demo ticket ahead of Kaine.
    Given her views expressed therein it’s obvious that Republican’s hatred of her must be rooted solely in her plumbing, given that she agrees with them on so much policy-wise.
    Gary Johnson will run his trousers up a flagpole and, pants-less, blubber his lips with a forefinger in rehearsal for his first State of the Union.
    No one, thus far, has decried the theft of emails, private or government, so I guess we need to just hand over all of digital stuff to hackers and foreign powers, or just abandon the technology and go back to handwritten love notes delivered by courier.
    I suggest stationing a sniper outside the Ecuadoran Embassy in London (is that where he is), and when Julian Assange appears on the balcony and leans out just far enough to not be protected by diplomatic immunity, shoot him right between the eyes.

  139. Bernie Sanders will replace Clinton on the Demo ticket ahead of Kaine.
    I’d go for Kaine/Sanders myself.

  143. I can’t quite picture Trump stepping down, but supposing he did, can the Republicans legally put someone else in the ballot? I’ve heard people say no, but don’ t know if there is an authoritative answer to the question.

  144. Trump could (but certainly won’t) “step down.” But the reality is that in most states there is no way to get him off the ballot at this point (let alone select someone else and get them on instead). That’s before we consider that voting has already started in some places.
    Also state laws in a lot of states require electors to vote for the guy whose name is on the ballot. Which means that, even if he says he withdrew, they would still have to vote for him. If he then gets elected, he would either have to be inagurated and resign, or be impeached and removed.
    The best hope of those who wish he would just disappear is this: Enough people vote for Johnson and Stein that one of them wins at least some electoral votes. And nobody actually gets a majority of the electoral votes. At which point, the House can select the next President.
    BUT, under the Constitution, the House can only choose from amongst the top three electoral vote-getters. Which, realistically, means that their only choices would be Clinton, Trump, and Johnson. Be interesting to see how the Republican majority (assming it survives) deals with that.

  145. I’ve heard people say no, but don’ t know if there is an authoritative answer to the question.
    State law controls. It’s too late in most states.

  146. One more:
    Sean Hannity, in defense of Trump
    http://uproxx.com/news/hannity-trump-king-david-concubines/
    I take that as an admission that Sean has been polishing Roger Ailes’ knob weekly these past two decades in thanks for the hateful, malign career the former had bestowed on him by the latter with the mission of destroying the United States of America.
    Let’s see: The Russians protest a UN official criticizing Trump, Hannity is fully in the tank for Trump, and the white male Evangelical leadership wants Trump in like a prostitute wants her/her money upfront.
    Sounds like an Axis of Evil to me.
    Nuke at dawn.

  148. While states may have laws dictating how electors vote, those laws have (IIRC) never been used, never been tested, and are almost certainly unconstitutional.
    States get to set the procedures by which electors are chosen, but that’s it. Just like states can set some general requirements (residency, etc) for you or I registering to vote but if they try to force us to vote for a particular candidate, it would certainly fail constitutional muster.
    I kinda wish some state would actually try to prosecute a “faithless elector”, because the resulting Federal court ruling would a hilarity-level smackdown.

  152. What are they talking about, when they say he should resign? They are talking about how things might go in a perfect world. Unfortunately, they are stuck with the real world, where all they can do is pray he gets defeated.

  153. New Hampshire GOP chair Jennifer Horn: “There will be no repercussions from the party directed at those who choose not to support Donald Trump.
    I’m trying to think of a time, ever, when a state chair of a party said anything like this. (And she is not alone. The Republican state chair in Ohio has said the same.) It’s flat out encouraging everyone to bail on the nominee.
    Talk about rats deserting the sinking ship! (And I expect a lot more “unendorsements”, and announcements that they won’t even vote for him, after the debate fails to provide a miraculous recovery.) The interesting question is how long guys like Ryan can hold out.

  155. Ryan got heckled today for disInviting Trump to his event. The GOPers bailing on Trump are endangering their own reelection by alienating Trjmp supporters who might otherwise had voted for them and now might make a point of not doing so. Meanwhile, it’s not like they are going to convince anyone who was not voting for them that they are now somehow worthy.

  162. All I have is a simple “Wow” for this:
    http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/10/09/1579827/-Donald-Trump-s-debate-preparation
    I can’t riff on that.
    This thing, this so-called political party, is starting to look like Flight 93 over PA just before it went upside down over the tree tops. Thing is, Trump and Guiliani, (the plane lists a little to starboard because Christie is taking up three seats in first class and keeps sticking his tree trunk of a leg in the aisle and tripping those hardy few who try to rush the cockpit) the hijackers, are locked in the cockpit, and while a few noble conservative souls are trying to man the drinks trolley (I’m not including the latest Repub filth to defect from Trump; they hijacked the plane before Trump did it better) in a final desperate charge up the aisle, it looks like they aren’t going to get any help at all from the rest of the passengers, who it turns out are Trump’s fellow terrorists, the ones who the Republican Party have been deliberately and methodically smuggling aboard the plane for 35 years to help them in the hijacking with duck tape and box cutters and to f*cking ruin the country and government at all levels, and they are enjoying the joyride down.
    Gingrich is popping the last of the champagne, the scum killer.
    Paul Ryan is sitting near the tail of the plane, a little bag of peanuts clutched in his claw, figuring the odds of surviving if he busts open the rear entrance and jumps for it, and wondering why he didn’t pack his parachute in a carry on bag. Well, it would have cost him an extra $25 to carry that bag on, so a guy makes his choices.
    Plus, he thought it unwise to regulate the airlines’ charges for carry ons.
    The lack of legroom is bugging him too, but hey, it will be over soon.
    The problem for the country is that Trump et al may well have smuggled a few thermonuclear warheads on board too, with Putin’s help, and wherever the plane lands and for hundreds of miles in every direction is going to take it in the shorts.

  164. Despite all that, I give trump 60-40 odds of winning the second debate, by which I mean the current American way, by being so completely full of shit that the media and any remaining fence sitters choke it down with tears of pure appreciation for the sheer chutzpah.
    It’ll be like one of those guys who lifts his shirt up and takes a cannonball off his beer belly at close range, or maybe eats a 1958 Buick, part by part, in one sitting.
    We’re a disgrace.

  165. I am enjoying this all too much. I am not getting anything done, just stuck on the couch, reading political blogs and snickering…This just seems like huge karmic payback. Republican leaders: you built this!

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