2016 Republican Presidential Clown Car Begins!

A phrase I used a lot, once upon a time: Conceptual integrity.

The idea is simply that whatever you're arguing should remain as consistent as possible throughout.

To wit, arguing the right to discriminate under law as a term of equality under the law.

Or, you know, calling oneself a Christian and being Dr. Ben Carson.

I mean, let's just cut to the chase: Ben Carson is not a Christian.

 

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Of all the clowns to choose from, I have the least tolerance for Dr. Carson.

They way I see it, there are two alternatives - he is either insane or a greedy, narcissistic, pathological liar. I detest inconsistency and illogic - both of which the good doctor exhibits in abundance. If he really believes the Earth is only 6,000 years old and evolution is hogwash, if he is truly convinced that the pyramids are grain silos - then I'll go with the insanity plea. More likely, he is simply pandering to the base of southern evangelical fundamentalist whackos that eat that stuff for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And selling a lot of books in the process, getting rich off America's cultural underbelly.

He literally makes my skin crawl to watch - and that's before he opens his mouth. I would vote for Trump in a heartbeat if Carson was the only other choice. Hell, I'd vote for Huckabee under those circumstances and that's saying something - he turns my stomach also.

Oh, did I mention I'm not fond of ole Ben? Harumph...

 

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They are all venal scumbags. But Cruz and Rubio are in a league of their own, Rubio for his amorality and incompetence and Cruz for his blatant ignorance and immorality. Cruz has no moral integrity. Cruz is the man who thinks its a good idea to needlessly run the nation into a debt default in order to advance his political ambitions. Cruz is the only candidate to make want to take a bath after watching or hearing him. The man is a certified scumbag and number 3 or 4 in the polling.

All three of them, Carson, Rubio and Cruz are clear and present threats to the health and well-being of the nation and of every American. And I don't say that lightly. I don't think the Republican Party is dumb enough to nominate them - not that Republican voters are all that bright - and I don't think American voters are dumb enough to elect them POTUS.

 

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Hatred ♥ Huckabee

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It's true, I do↱ like the way Steve Benen↱ put it:

Mike Huckabee, who apparently is still running for president, said yesterday that President Obama's "new domestic terrorism plan probably requires Americans to memorize Koran verses." Dear Beltway pundits who told the public Huckabee is a great guy: you were wrong.​

In a way, it's kind of like the idea of a "serious candidate". Maybe it's a Democratic-sympathy thing, or perhaps it comes with being a regular reader, but sometimes it just seems absurd that John Kasich might somehow be considered a moderate, or something similar. The "great guy" idea comes up from time to time. Maybe a candidate's policy platform is weak or even dubious, but he's a great guy.

I recall the idea among an older generation of salesmen; not the front-line retail clerks but the traveling company salesmen. If the guy was good enough to have a beer with and work out a deal, it didn't matter if he hated Jews or beat his wife or whatever as long as he left it out of everything else. In this context, sure, people like Mike Huckabee or Scott Walker might be described as great guys.

In any meaningful context, though, even if we set aside the general policy framework, the point is that Mike Huckabee is a "great guy" despite being a terrible person. That is to say, sure he's a bigoted freaking wreck, but still, he's a great guy.

Y'know, dude?

To the one, this latest baiting from the Huckster isn't really new. To the other, that's kind of the point. In the end, being a "great guy" in this context is just a vague excuse to explain why someone who has no useful business running for public office might find it a good idea, anyway. What makes him attractive to voters? I don't know, but he's a great guy.

And it really is a stupid idea.
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Notes:

Benen, Steve. "Tuesday's Campaign Round-Up, 11.24.15". msnbc. 24 November 2015. msnbc.com. 24 November 2015. http://on.msnbc.com/1T0p57J

 

I think he was referring to Obama unwilling to say the term Muslim Extremists to help differentiate the terrorists from the good Muslims who are peaceful yet afraid of these thugs. Obama also can't say the black gangs who kill more blacks than anyone else in the USA. If he said that then the blacks would have to look at themselves in terms of making black lives matter. If you don't state the problem clearly , you can blame a third party. To many it appears he is scamming for the terrorists.

Huckster may be a good guy but Obama is a sleazy lawyer type seeking technicalities so criminals can escape justice. It was the fault of the French people not the Muslim extremists. The mindless democratic base will not fact check and will be told the truth is a republican trick.

The fact remains Obama and Hillary were the geniuses that caused all the ISIS problem. The blood of 100,000's of souls is on their hands. The millions who has lost their homes is also on their hands.

This dream team inherited a stable middle east, beyond the problems Israel faced. Obama thought it was so stable and cured he removed all the troops, broadcasting his timeline. He backed the thugs who tried to over thrown the Syrian Government leading to huge civilian casualties. Neither were qualified for the job. Their unwillingness to declare the enemy is a trick for the minions who will assume there is no enemy.

 

LOL....I don't suppose you can prove any of that claptrap? Of course you can't. As usual, you have been listening to too much Fox News and other forms of Republican entertainment.

 

That there is an entire political faction out there who have been told that and its antecedents by their only sources of information, continually, for a generation now, and believe it, and know no better, and have no way of knowing better,

combined with the intellectual wing of that faction, which recognizes that some other people on both sides deserve some of the blame for some of the bad stuff, and it's complicated sometimes,

is the central fact of American politics right now.

 

To Dream the Impossible Dream

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Here's a fun one:

“If you live in a society where the government creates an avenue and a way for you to peacefully change the law, then you’re called on to participate in that process to try to change it – not ignoring it, but trying to change the law.

“And that’s what we’re endeavoring to do here. I continue to believe that marriage law should be between one man and one woman.”

―Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)↱​

It's almost cute; Marco Rubio still dreams of making gay marriage go away.

There is, unfortunately, nothing cute about the Florida junior's dreams of making women's human rights go away.

The common link is the need for a do-over↱. Anti-abortion has run out of territory under Roe and Casey. Heterosupremacism lost its field with Obergefell. The dynamic, young , bumbling career politician from Florida wants nothing more than to start the whole thing over while pretending history never occurred.

As presidential planks go, that schtick don't whack.
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Notes:

Benen, Steve. "Rubio not done fighting against marriage equality". msnbc. 25 November 2015. msnbc.com. 25 November 2015. http://on.msnbc.com/1T4m4TD

 

Dear International Community: On Behalf of My Fellow Americans, I Apologize for Dr. Ben Carson

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Not that I actually can, but still.

Ben Carson has been in the Middle East as part of an effort to burnish his seemingly limited foreign-affairs knowledge, and over the weekend the Republican presidential candidate went on a "factfinding” trip to two Syrian refugee camps in Jordan. After meeting with Syrians there, the candidate came away even more convinced that America shouldn’t accept any of them. Speaking with the Associated Press after touring the camps and talking to aid workers, officials, and Syrians themselves, Carson said, “I did not detect any great desire for them to come to the United States. You've got these refugee camps that aren't completely full. And all you need is the resources to be able to run them. Why do you need to create something else?” Carson also said that his visit gave him no new confidence that potential terrorists could be screened out of the refugee population, a process he recently likened to handling “mad dogs.”

Overall, the retired neurosurgeon came away with the sense that refugee life in Jordan wasn’t so bad. “It's really quite impressive when you go over there and see it,“ Carson added, noting the some parts of the camps even had schools, electricity, and indoor plumbing. He also insisted that the refugees were “a lot happier. They were quite willing to stay there as long as it takes before they can get back home.”

(Danner↱)​

Jesus weeps.

Ben Carson is a macabre joke.

As fiction, this script would be rejected as unrealistic and even potentially dangerous.
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Notes:

Danner, Chas. "Ben Carson Prefers Syrian Refugee Camps to America — for Syrian Refugees". New York. 29 November 2015. NYMag.com. 29 November 2015. http://nym.ag/1Q7GDzq

 

this is a flat out lie. the people who joined ISIS go back to bushie boys toppling of saddam. this is not obama's fault.

you clearly a selfhish and terrible person because damn are the drugs your on good and yet your not sharing. only an idiot would have called the middle east obama inherited stable.

 

Except none of that is even remotely true. As usual you have been listening to too much entertainment again. The fact is had Baby Bush not invaded Iraq and bungled that invasion by not securing ammunition dumps and letting the nation fall into chaos and then adding insult to injury install an incompetent government, ISIS would not exist today. But you will never hear those facts from the Republican entertainers you so love.

The fact is al-Baghdadi was a prisoner in Baby Bush's prison camps and was allowed to form the organization we now know as ISIS right under Baby Bush's nose. The fact is Baby Bush negotiated and signed the status of forces agreement with Iraq which mandated the removal of all US combat forces from Iraq before Obama was even elected POTUS. The Middle East Obama inherited was far from stable as evidenced by history. The Iraqi government Baby Bush installed quickly fell apart after US troops were removed, per the status of forces agreement negotiated by and signed by Baby Bush. Baby Bush's failure to quickly restore order and secure ammunition dumps after invading Iraq left millions Iraqi's well armed and angry. When Obama inherited the "stable Middle East" unrest was boiling in Syria and Egypt and people were still blowing themselves up in the streets of Baghdad. By any normal measure and use of the language, that isn't in any way stable.

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Unfortunately for you and the Republican entertainers you so love, fact and reason do matter.

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No, Really. Lindsey Graham.

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Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC): I call him the Establishment Avenger. (Photo: Stephen Crowley/The New York Times)​

Lindsey Graham really is putting on a show.

Instead of joining the other candidates in jockeying over whose pro-Israel credentials are the greatest, underdog candidate Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) took an unusual approach. For the first 20 minutes of his remarks, he eviscerated rival candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) for what he described as Cruz’s alienating stance on abortion and other social issues.

“How many of you believe we’ve got a problem with young women as Republicans?” Graham asked the RJC crowd, which was largely old, white and male.

“How about abortion?” continued the anti-abortion senator. “I believe that you can be pro-life and win an election. But if you are going to tell a woman who has been raped she has to carry the child of a rapist, you’re losing most Americans,” he said to a cheering room. “Good luck with that.”

“Not the speech you thought you were going to hear?” Graham asked the audience. “[It’s] not the speech I thought I was going to give.”

(Schulberg↱)​

This is what slays me: The guy can't get any traction in the Republican Party, but he really is their only hope. His whole purpose is to hang in long enough to harangue Ted Cruz and the hardliner crazy bloc of his Party, which in turn is why nobody is paying attention to him.

Still, though: How does Lindsey Graham become the sane Republican in the room?

And for me, in truth, there is a specific strategic calculation: If it resolves that Americans decide they absolutely need a Republican president, Lindsey Graham is the one I'd rather lose to, because―and this is the almost mind-boggling kick in the whatnow―he is the safest by proxy of being the least dangerous. To me, to the nation, to the world.

To the one, how does this happen? How is the senior U.S. Senator from the Palmetto State the sane Republican in the room?

To the other, Lindsey Graham is putting on a show.
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Notes:

Schulberg, Jessica. "A GOP Presidential Candidate Just Told A Room Full Of Donors To Get Real About Rape and Abortion". The Huffington Post. 3 December 2015. HuffingtonPost.com. 4 December 2015. http://huff.to/1Rrvzy2

 

What was your first thought after San Bernadino? The oily clown's mind works differently:

GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz is moving forward with an event at an Iowa shooting range -- just two days after a shooting spree in California left 14 dead and 21 injured.

"Fourteen people just lost their lives in a shooting, and Ted Cruz’s first thought is, 'Oh, that reminds me, gotta send out my invites to my gun party,’" Trevor Noah said on "The Daily Show" on Thursday night. "Yeah, that seems like something you’d only do if you were an asshole."



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What Manner of Gaffe?

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Once upon a time, the "disconnect" between what a politician said and the reality we exist in didn't seem so great. When I was a kid, the idea that "all politicians lie" had to do with not believing them during election season, but these were still good men attempting good work, so lay off, eh? True, that standard died when Bill Clinton was elected, and Republicans tried hard to ressurect it during George W. Bush's presidency, but much like the iconic comedian Dennis Miller, could only pull it off if everybody ignored the four gorillas and six elephants in the room.

And at the time, the disconnection seemed deliberate, like conservatives were attempting some sort of complicated political maneuver. And, yes, in a way, they have.

But they've been at it so long, it's not a complicated maneuver; it seems as if the disconnectedness of all things reigns supreme in conservative minds. We might look to Donald Trump for a striking iteration:

On MSNBC this morning, Trump himself drew the same WWII comparison. Asked if his proposal goes against long-held American values, the Republican frontrunner responded: “No, because FDR did it!” It led to this exchange between Trump and Mark Halperin:​

HALPERIN: Did the Japanese internment camps go against American values?​

TRUMP: We have to be smart, Mark, and we have to be vigilant. And if we're not going to be smart and vigilant, and honestly we also have to be tough. And if we're not going to be those three things, we're not going to have a country left.​

HALPERIN: Did the internment of the Japanese violate American values?​

TRUMP: We're not talking about internment; this is a whole different thing.​

Pressed on whether he believes internment camps were at odds with American values, Trump refused to say, telling Halperin, “Mark, what about Franklin Roosevelt's presidential proclamations 2525, 2526, and 2527? Take a look at it, Mark.”​

Just so we're clear, asked about his anti-Muslim plan, Trump initally pointed to FDR and internment. Pressed further, he insisted, “We're not talking about internment.” And when pressed further still, Trump pointed for FDR's executive actions on – you guessed it – internment.​

Think of it this way: I'm not talking about internment; I'm talking about executive orders.

Kind of like the question whether one tells a rape joke or a gorilla joke. Okay, well, what's the gorilla joke? It's about a gorilla raping a woman, so it's not a rape joke, it's a gorilla joke.

Trump isn't talking about internment? He's just talking about executive orders. Okay, well, what executive orders? The ones interning American citizens for having Japanese ancestry.

This really is an unhealthy disconnection with powerful practical implications. I might think it more normal than it seems had the behavior emerged on a large scale in a different way; that is, I'm only seeing it proximally after years of accentuation in the distal. The chicken and egg question is not exactly simple.

Even as I believe this disconnection, when it occurs among politicians, is cultivated―and, at some valence, accidentally―the question of whether its legitimacy percolates or trickles down is likely inaccurate; the question has to do with the relationship between related groups. To wit, we on the left occasionally refer to dialectics; people on the right largely disdain the idea of dialectics, but much like the widespread distrust of psychology and the social sciences, the doubters and disdainers still try to use these concepts as if they believed in them.

A simplistic illustration is whether corruption among politicians is an expression of the culture, or an influence thereupon; do politicians behave badly as a reflection of the examples set in our societal communities, or do politicians establish and present poor role models for society? The real answer is somewhere in between, and probably ten miles off the line in some imaginary direction, like Tuesday.

But Donald Trump's rhetorical device on this occasion is exactly obvious: He's not referring to internment, but, rather, executive orders, and never mind that these particular executive orders are the infamous internment proclamations.

That he leads the GOP presidential field is, at the very least, suggestive of the condition of conservative voters in the U.S. If he actually wins the nomination, that would probably count as indicative.
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Notes:

Benen, Steve. "The wrong historical example to follow". msnbc. 8 December 2015. msnbc.com. 8 December 2015. http://on.msnbc.com/1TyZS4m

 

Well, it is interesting to say the least. We may be the witnessing the demise of the Republican Party or at least we can hope. What emerges from the rubble will be even more interesting as all the things which have led the Republican Party to this state remain alive and well.

 

What freaks me out is the serious lack of scholarship and disrespect for logic in the Americam electorate. Ari Melber on msnbc discussed the constitutionality of Trumps plans for Muslims with a Constitutional scholar. He said it was illegal, not just unconstitutional, and beyond stupid.

 

Here in America everything is Obama's fault. Seems like 1/2 the electorate are booger eating scholarship deficients. So this type of analysis, non analysis, becomes typical. I'm a bitter old hippie.

 

J

I share that concern. It's a well founded concern. It almost caused some very serious catastrophic economic missteps in 2008--2009 and in the years which followed.

The Republican entertainment industry thrives on the backs of uninformed voters, and that isn't good for the nation or the world for that matter. It's a very serious existential threat to the nation.

 

I do actually perceive a "fire burns brightest", or "night is darkest", notion in effect.

Certain prominent, traditional factions in the American conservative coalition are about to lose pretty much everything. They are freaking out about like we might expect, and then some.

There are other prominent factions, though, that historically depend on these elements in order to carry through the general election. To wit, the marriage of convenience 'twixt fiscal and economic conservatives with their post-Machiavellian assertion of capitalism and the Christianist social conservatives. Republicans have long needed both factons to score large electoral wins, but the two elements actually oppose one another; we appear to have sidestepped this problem sometime around 1954, when Americans consecrated this marriage of "capitalism" and "Christianity" by rejecting the Apostles. Nonetheless, this rejection isn't widely recognized, in large part because so many people have a vested interest through identity politics.

The fiscal conservatives reeled after their policies imploded the American economy; they were in no condition to help carry the soccons. The Christianists, to the other, found themselves increasingly isolated, desperately scrabbling for traction as their political influence tumbled from grace. Recent years have seen soccons so hobbled by their fight that they are no condition to help carry the fiscons.

The last thing social-conservative traditionalists have is the subjugation of women. Then again, that's all they really had, since every one of these fights stems from the purity/ownership culture complex. Overall, though, they're losing that one, too; petty gains regarding birth control are temporary, so the only joy they have left is inflicting a bit more suffering on women.

And this has been coming for a while. It was back in the mid-nineties that a Republican hand penned an article about the death of intellectual conservatism; ten years later the phenomenon was clearly on display, and by 2008, with the rise of Sarah Palin as the GOP vice presidential nominee, its prominence was undeniable.

True, we've seen a rapid decline in conservative faculties since 2009, but historical analysis in coming decades will resolve more and more clearly that we're in the closing days of a cycle that began in 1962, or perhaps as far back as the 1940s. I tend toward the Sexual Revolution, but it is at least arguable that 1962 was a result of World War II, and the inevitable end of the Long Decade that followed the increased demand for women's participation in the workforce.

Right now the social conservatives are stumbling; the fiscal conservatives do not have their back because they presently cannot. The conservative model straining but maintaining throughout my entire life is collapsing; some of those invested in this human debacle see the end of the world, which, for the Christianists, should actually be a good thing, since they look forward to it. But they are nonetheless human, and in this testing hour fail to faithlessness.

It's the end of the world; they're panicking.

The substantial question seems to be how much of the rest of humanity they intend to take down in the process.

 

"the death of intellectual conservatism". Well written. Thanks for the history lessen. " ..... Intellectual conservatism". LOL