2016 Republican Presidential Clown Car Begins!

Discussion in 'Politics' started by joepistole, Jan 30, 2015.

  1. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    Donald the Dirty has begun a new (old-style) cult.

    The evidence is writ in any conversations overheard or otherwise reported, by reporters, from his hardcore followers.
    These people might just be considering a rebellion of some kind, of what kind I guess remains to be seen, but they're already mostly convinced that if the SuperDonald loses, it will be because "they" cheated.
     
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  3. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Trump accused Clinton of using performance enhancing drugs during their last debate. Just when you think Trump cannot get more bizarre, Trump gets more bizarre.
     
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  5. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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  7. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    Jesus H. Is America, and the rest of the world with it, really staring into the abyss? Or, given what polls are saying, can we be confident the election itself will declare Trump the loser, mainly thanks to all the non-white and non-male Americans he's told everyone he has no respect for, by insulting them continually.

    But Donald Trump isn't a loser, so he has to make a Hillary win into a win for him somehow, even if it means undermining American democracy and how it's been done since George Washington stepped down.

    We've yet to see all the dark side of Trump, I reckon, he's got more to do, and it won't be nice. How did this person get to be this close, that's the scary part really. He must know that this power he has, to refuse to concede defeat, is a big threat. He must know that he's trying to threaten something, Washington, that he really shouldn't. I wonder how far away he is right now from being declared an enemy of the state?
     
  8. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Totally agree! Even if he is, as is likely, defeated, having him this close is frightening.
    America certainly needs to have a look at themselves.
     
  9. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Agreed, it is scary. But the reasons aren't too difficult to discern. Trump is a product of the right wing entertainment industry. Trump is the consumate Republican entertainer. Listen to Levin or any of the other Republican entertainers. Trump is a spitting image.
     
  10. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    The general and particular, sort of:

    (1) General: Mr. Trump is actually more representative of American values than we like to admit. That $915m write-off, for instance, that everyone is supposed to find so shocking? How did it get in the tax code that he could do that? The American people did that. They elected legislators and executives who built that up over time, because everything else was bad for business. See, that used to be our excuse. There were even apocalyptic warnings against functional living wages, that if the workers were too comfortable society would fall apart. If you were able to unravel this nest of American values, you would find greed and neurosis and horror and more greed. The American tale is one of its empowered classes attempting to wallow in sin while forgetting the horror of all the sin they see around them. And his "locker room talk"? The First Lady presented a powerful, necessary, and downright awesome response, but I do wish to dissent insofar as yes, this is locker room talk. Not every locker room, and not every locker room is a locker room; it's also pub, golf course, and watching sports with the boys talk. When I was fourteen, it started with the idea of a girl walking funny must have just lost her virginity; it couldn't possibly be that she tweaked the hell out of her knee at jazz recital last night. So, you know, fuck her 'til she walks funny. And that escalates to the idea of, fuck her 'til she can't walk. That's the one I remember from high school. And I remember being nineteen and hearing all about the bitches who don't know how to suck a cock, and how you have to grab hold of them and teach them how to do it right. That's also about the same time it was related to me―and, honestly, some of these are terrible people but some of them, to this day, are genuinely not dangerous like that, it's just that we were nineteen, male, and American―that the way to save a flagging relationship was to (cough!) "surprise" her with anal sex. And it's a brutal description winding up with the idea that if you do it right she'll thank you. The thing is, of course, don't ask me for a threshold. Fourteen? Nineteen? Yeah, well, it's just as wrong, then. Fifty-nine? Right; there seems some need for a threshold, so I'll just say that apparently the genius Donald Trump was, at fifty-nine, as stupid as my peers in a Catholic school locker room when I was fourteen, or bitterly commiserating about the unfairness of the world after work, in the all-night diner next door, because you're nineteen, that's what you do, and the boss you're hanging around with is the kind of privileged college football player who we would, these days, openly describe as a rapist. American culture does not want to admit this is where we've been.

    (2) Particular: These are Republicans. Donald Trump is actually what they like; he's just one of those ideas that they're not supposed to admit to publicly. You know, kind of like the, we're-rigging-the-election boasts from Republican politicians about voter ID laws, or the 2012 rapelove shown by Republicans ranging from Congressional wannabes in the Pacific northwest to U.S. Senate candidates in the midwest and mid-Atlantic, and even a perennial presidential loser named Ron Paul. Seriously, that whole "honest rape", "real rape", and can't-get-pregnant bit is long a belief of American social conservatives. There are a number of these arguments in the conservative matrix, and at least since the rise of the DLC―Democrats as unanchored centrists with a leftward presentation instead of a liberal party―though something goes here about the rise of CNN and the 24/7 news cycle, that Republicans have relied on to keep the base close, and Donald Trump's nomination is one of the results.​

    We've danced up to the Abyss, and though conservatives in particular stare wistfully into the darkness, wondering what might have been, it does seem society in general is inching backward, and it would probably be a bit quicker and less graceless if they turned and checked where they were going, but balzac, mate, have you seen the Show the GOP is putting― ... er ... oh.

    It's kind of weird; we cannot not pay attention, because Donald Trump is the Republican presidential nominee. But it's also true that a Donald Trump victory doesn't simply mean we re-examine the polling; if he can pull it out without some manner of exponential scandal, maybe a "hacked email" that reads like a classic supervillain monologue, we also need to re-examine pretty much everything we understand about the American people. It's possible, but unlikely that basic psychology, behavioral economics, and, say, reliable albeit overworn marketing theses and techniques really were that wrong while accidentally creating that large an illusion of functionality.

    What would it take? What do people really, honestly expect to find? Raping kittens for Allah? At this point, if the traditional omens and portents and even, these days, somewhat reliable calculations are all that wrong, and Donald Trump is actually on a winning pathway―i.e. leap into the Abyss―everything Americans think they know about themselves and human beings so goddamn wrong we might want to revisit Creationism, because, you know, the idea of "God's will" would better explain such an outcome.
     
  11. Dr_Toad It's green! Valued Senior Member

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    A bit off-topic, if I may: I used to have a button that read "Nuke a Gay Whale for Jesus."

    People were shocked.

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  12. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    And American women will haul you back from the precipice.

    You cannot not be nice to women and get elected president. Donald Trump is not nice to women, but that's what being a sexual predator will get you. He more egregiously, wears his disrespect like a badge of honour.
    Now that he's had to play his hand by having it played for him, it's over, and he's officially a creep. His cuddling up to children is already getting a bit strained.
    Being a closet pedophile gets you a slam dunk.

    He is truly yukky.

    That said, there will remain a dedicated core of believers in the man, he's a Big man, he says Big Things. He could rape a 12 year old and nobody would care. He's a bit like Idi.
     
  13. Dr_Toad It's green! Valued Senior Member

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    Or Bill...
     
  14. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    No, Bill wasn't not nice. Bill is a man who is nice to women. Although Bill might be a sexual predator too, he isn't a Sith Lord.
     
  15. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    After more than a year of touting his polling numbers at every opportunity, suddenly Trump no longer believes the polling numbers. I wonder why. You don't suppose Trump's sudden turnabout on polling has anything to do with his decline in the polling numbers?
     
  16. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Honey Chil' Don' Play That Way

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    Don't ask why: Click for Patricia.

    I remember versions of that one. You know the gay whale joke, right? In San Francisco Bay?

    • • •​

    I'm not entirely certain where to start.

    Look, even as vapid humor, this just isn't the time in general. I'm not certain that it ever necessarily will be; there are times in the past when this sort of thing would have passed muster. I mean, there was the one judge who became infamous some years ago when he handed out an extraordinarily light sentence to a child rapist on the grounds that Bill Clinton got away with adultery. You know, because calling down a Supreme Court justice to convene a trial that wouldn't be happening without the juristic sleight of rhetoric and process undertaken by, well, the Supreme Court is what most of us would call getting away with it.

    That's why. He played word games in a deposition that never should have been allowed except for a Supreme Court justice writing an infamous carveout that will probably never be used again in particular, and in general only a right-leaning or right-wing court would ever follow the precedent structure for any similar reason. (Prior precedent and subsequent case law prescribe that presidents should not have to sit for such depositions while in office; Bill Clinton was a deliberate and calculated exception.)

    Bill Clinton got hauled out and raked over the coals like few ever are. Nobody has to believe it was enough, but the truth of the matter is that we're also rushing to save ourselves in our denunciations of Donald Trump. I mean, think of some of the misogyny threads and, well, how those go over and what so many men around here think of how I see masculinity in my time and place. A major problem I have with the cultural masculinity of my lifetime is that it includes this framework:

    It is true that my American society was during this time such that it could all be true and Bill end up being a perfectly nice guy, as well-balanced as an ex-president can be. Seriously, that is the larger cultural problem, here. Juanita Broaddrick accuses a rape in 1978. That could be true in some context that society at large is more willing to recognize. That could very easily be true. 1978? The Deep South? In truth, I'm hard-pressed to think of where in the U.S., but come on, if there's one bit of Bill's reputation that sticks it's a Southern Bubba stereotype. Yeah, that kind of (cough!) "seduction" (hack! wheeze!) ... er ... ah ... right. But, well, y'know, it was kind of normalized. And that's the thing. We're reaching back to the days when the stupid idea that it's not rape unless you [escalation] actually held sway. If Bill Clinton is the kind of ... look, if he's the kind of stylish, charming, harassing philanderer that really was some manner of (cough! hack! retch!) role model―seriously, why is James Bond admirable? or, you know, consider the whole Porky's generation and how society wrangled with the morality of whether such films mucked up Christian mores while we completely ignored the fact that it was pretty much all objectifying and denigrating toward women and, though not universal, a very powerful paean to rape cult―that can stay just this side of it's not rape unless, well, at that point he is within range of masculinist defense, which still isn't especially useful. But the idea basically goes that, sure, he's in some degree of denial insofar as he will tomato-tomahto something about seduction and rape, but does evolve with the times, essentially rendering him a grotesquely emblematic symptom of society. It's actually part of what a lot of men are protecting when they freak out about feminism. To the one, yeah, sure, it sucks to acknowledge (ahem!) the fun is over, but, to the other, it can be really hard to countenance the things we've said and done. It's easy enough when it's Donald Trump. Bill Clinton's sins wouldn't pass muster in today's court of public opinion, but at the actual clinical level, we're looking at an apparently different behavioral phenomenon than what we see in Trump. Bill had his day in the dock versus the public opinion, and it was, to be certain, a far more sympathetic court back then than anyone would face today. As it is, Bill Clinton could easily be guilty of predatory and criminal behavior, have gotten away with it, and, having survived his public trial by Congress, remain in good standing among decent people today. Is there something new to unsettle that? If so, the People might well decide to go there. But until then, he gets to have this shiny, nearly sublime, Zen Bubba reputation. Them's the terms.​

    Donald Trump is also familiar with the era; it lasted into my lifetime such that part of it is indelibly stamped on my conscience. That is to say, had I been out of the closet in my twenties, I doubt I could have met the obligations I believed for receiving partners; I easily could have gotten myself killed.

    No, seriously, I think of all the dumbassed shit we might ask of women in my lifetime, and there is no way I can possibly give all that to a partner.

    I can't. I just ... fucking ... can't.

    It really does add up.

    But that's the thing; my lifetime includes a defining arc of masculinity over time that does, in fact, allow Bill Clinton to be both rapist in 1978 and fine human being in 2016.

    To Arfa Brane's point, there is (cough!) something of a conflict between terms, but there is also an extraordinarily dangerous region of the discussion. The thing is that with rape there is no "worse". But at the level of discourse in which a society is collectively trying to understand itself, we do make distinctions. Not all of them are accurate. Nor are they all fair. Nor should we allow ourselves to believe they are all necessary; we can neither presume to have accounted for them all.

    And within this range, well, right: Bill Clinton has endured his trial by public opinion, does not currently display dangerous attitudes, and should not be held as some debit against his wife's human decency. Donald Trump simply continues to display dangerous attitudes and behave pretty much according to type. These are the gaslight days of the Trump campaign, and we might reflect for a moment on masculine privilege: It's insane. And astounding. And breathtaking. And thoroughly unbelievable except it's happening. And it's not me.

    I get to witness this.

    My mother, my daughter, my friends who just happen to be female―they're living through this.

    That's not me he's torching. I get to witness this. I get to watch and hear and analyze and I do not have to take a single one of these blows. These are not my impacts to bear.

    Then again, they're American women. They'll get through this just fine. They'll carry on. It's what they do. (If I'm not tapping my foot at that last, it's because technically She's already glaring at me and tapping Her foot just fine for Herself.)

    But, really, this is what the next four to eight years are going to look like. And not all of the bruises are going to be rhetorical. Trump? Maybe; we'll have to see who's in charge of the take-our-country-back noise and fury. But the fire and thunder Donald Trump has put on so far is nothing compared to how traditional male chauvinism and supremacism will respond to Hillary Clinton's election and inauguration.
     
  17. Dr_Toad It's green! Valued Senior Member

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    On point, as usual, Tiassa.

    No, but I'll search for it right now.. He was from Sausalito was he? The whale?

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    Edit: Oh, god. I looked...

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  18. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    No, don't bother; it's tragic. Swam into the Bay, got rear-ended by a ferry, died of AIDS.

    Circa 1985. What was that, sixth, seventh grade?

    Edit: Okay, well, yeah, there's that.
     
  19. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Before the debate last evening the University of Virginia's Center for Politics has given Clinton 352 electoral votes. She only needs 270 to win and most polling is now giving her at least 270 electoral votes. After Trump's debate performance last evening, I expect Trump's polling numbers to only get worse. How much worse remains to be seen. Trump is currently polling at 42%. I think before this is over he could go down to 35%. That would be a Democratic landslide.

    http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/
     
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  20. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    According to the Trump campaign they will introduce a new kinder and gentler Trump today for the umpteenth time.

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    Yeah, we have seen the new kinder gentler Trump many times before and he never hangs around long, if he ever shows up. At this late stage in the game I find it difficult to believe Trump will suddenly change his stripes. And no sooner had the Trump campaign announced the new and kinder Trump, Trump was twittering about the demon possessed Hilary.

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  21. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    So much for the kinder and gentler Trump, there wasn't anything kinder or gentler in Trump's reset speech today. It was more of the same. It has all the requisite right wing red meat. He began with a placid affect and then launched into his normal stump speech.

    Trump is again playing to his base. He promised to sue everybody he didn't like. Well, at least Trump's lawyers will still have jobs after the election is over...maybe.

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  22. douwd20 Registered Senior Member

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    Kinder gentler Trump only can last about an hour before his many character flaws tired of being suppressed stage a coup. And then the real thin skinned psychopathic 14 year old bully come bulldozing out.

    Had anyone noted the sons are just as bad? Bill Mayer calls them Douchbag Von Fuckface and Thurston Shitbag. If there's any better proof than there is no "presidential" Donald waiting in the wings just look at the sons.
     
  23. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Republicans have a long history of trying to intimidate voters. Back in 1981 Republicans formed groups to do exactly what Trump has and continues to encourage his supporters to do, to intimidate likely Democratic voters in minority precincts. Since then the Republican Party has been bound by a consent decree and prevented from engaging in this kind of activity. Because of Trump's transgressions Democrats have filed suit seeking an injunction and and extension of the consent decree.

    http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/voter-intimidation-democrats-rnc-230352

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballot_Security_Task_Force
     

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