2016 Republican Presidential Clown Car Begins!

Yep silence over at Faux. They're waiting for the official position from The Ministry of Truth before broadcasting it. How this country still treats them as a news operation and not the PR department for the Republican Party I do not know.

 

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Transitions: The More Things Change

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Mike Pence for President: Once the last, best hope, always the last, best hope.​

This cracks me up because it's one of those things I couldn't have made a huge deal about at the time; it's just one of those things I noticed, and, well, whether it's a big deal is up to any of us as ... er ... right, whatever.

For some reason―I must have abandoned a post along the way―I had it in my mind that I had already used a joke about a Kellyanne Conway sighting circa 2012↗.

Via Right Wing Watch↱, the day after Barack Obama's re-election:

Not only did Obama win big, but voters in Maine and Maryland embraced marriage equality, and Washington seems likely to join them. Minnesota voters rejected a Religious Right-backed attempt to put anti-gay discrimination into the state's constitution. Tammy Baldwin was elected to the Senate, where she will be the first openly gay member.

Well before all those results were in, it was clear that the night was not going according to what Religious Right leaders had thought was God's plan. At 10 pm, Tony Perkins and Jim Garlow held a phone call briefing for pastors. It was a very subdued affair, with representatives of the state marriage campaigns trying to sound hopeful about the then-uncalled outcomes in their states. Perkins and Garlow also held a Wednesday webcast on the "aftermath and aftershocks" as the scope of their Election Day drubbing sank in. "The problem in America is sin," said Garlow. But, he said, "we have no problem that the next Great Awakening cannot solve."

The tendency after an election defeat to avoid blame by casting it elsewhere was in full flower the day after the election. Rep. Jim Jordan, a Religious Right favorite, described Mitt Romney as "the most liberal Republican nominee in history" who had "waffled" on abortion, had passed a health care bill as governor, and had a hard time convincing conservatives on his commitments on taxing and spending. Perkins criticized Romney for not campaigning on issues of life, marriage, and religious liberty, even though Obama used them to appeal to his base. Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway agreed, saying Republicans had not done enough to draw the contrast on social and "moral" issues. Regarding the marriage wins, Perkins blamed Obama in part, saying the president's policies have had "a shaping influence on the culture." He and others also blamed marriage equality proponents' financial advantage ....

.... Some Religious Right leaders sought solace in faith that God is ultimately in control. "America as we know it may have signed its death warrant tonight," said Garlow during the pastors' briefing. But not to worry, he said, nations come and go, but God's kingdom is forever. Perkins said FRC and its allies would continue to stand strong in the face of "an increasingly hostile culture."

Others looked forward to the next political fight. Pollster Conway predicted that 2014 would bring, like 2010's Tea Party wave, a conservative resurgence and called for candidate recruitment to begin now. Perkins agreed that conservatives have never had a stronger "farm team" and touted potential conservative candidates for 2016, including Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal, Rand Paul, and Mike Pence.

(Boldface accent added)​

Strangely, it is a mere side note that Conway now serves as campaign manager for Donald Trump, but Tony Perkins, who "criticized Romney for not campaigning on issues of life, marriage, and religious liberty", now finds himself explaining that his "personal support for Donald Trump has never been based upon shared values"↑.

More to the point, the time between has seen Mike Pence's name flitting about the shadowy realm of the dark horse↗, especially as Rubio and Paul flamed out, and Chris Christie's presidential hopes tumbled―or, we are finding out, might well have simply leapt―off a bridge over troubled waters. And, you know, that "farm team" doesn't look any better, in hindsight, for the fact of Jindal. I mean, seriously, Bobby Jindal? The guy who, after the Alabama legislature watched Pence burn his presidential potential and said no to a RFRA, and then the Louisiana legislature, seeing what happened to Pence and then the Alabama legislature's hesitation also decided no, tried to sign the bill into law as an executive order? Well, at least Conway and Perkins got their contrast on social and moral issues. At the time, Ralph Reed of Faith and Freedom Coalition, played Pilate, announcing, "We did our job", explaining, "We can't do the Republican Party's job for them", and distancing conservative Christians from Republican candidates' "performance issues", as if conservative Christians have nothing to do with a conservative Christian saying really dumb things about rape that those who pay attention to what conservative Christians say already know conservative Christians frequently say. The only performance issue was being dumb enough to say it in open company, and I'm still uncertain conservative Christians can wash their moral hands of any culpability for the continuing reduction of quality about conservative Christian candidates. I mean, fuck, we all saw Ben Carson run for president, right? I mean, shit, he made his fellow X'cons Scott Walker and Mike Huckabee look like halfway decent candidates.

I wish I'd done the joke at the time; this is a hell of an effort to put Pence in the White House, just like it would have seemed a really hard way to go about the reluctant↑ president↗ joke of mine↱. It's weird, because Pence has hung around the periphery of possiblility not on any real merit, but, rather, by the fact of the Republicans having so wrecked themselves that they think the dark horse fantasy with the right-wing hardliner is somehow going to work. That is to say, I get why he is the vice presidential nominee; Pence is the nearest thing to a credible candidate they can find who is willing to run with Trump.

And, yeah, it seems obvious that Republicans can win back a lot of credibility if Donald Trump wins by impeaching him and putting Mike "the Bewildered Dumbass" Pence in charge. It's amazing how averages work if we lower the bar enough.

Still, there are far too many moving parts. I think that's the problem with wishing I had done the joke; no joke I write will match whatever they actually come up with.
____________________

Notes:

Montgomery, Peter. "Ralph Reed: It’s Not My Fault". Right Wing Watch. 7 November 2016. RightWingWatch.org. 7 November 2016. http://bit.ly/1WhGOdb

 

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Toe blown off, week seven.

Three to go. Cross your fingers.

btw: Here's the "responsible" core voter talking :

It says here that pretty much every potential Trump voter already understands what "champion and revere" from the podium sounds like on the bus, in the locker room. So the question is whether simply being embarrassed by that will lead them to not vote, or vote for a "liberal", or most dissonant of all: vote a woman into the Presidency.

 

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I heard another Republican talk show host this morning tell his listeners that they should cancel the election and take a do over. Well that's an interesting take, but the Constitution doesn't allow for mulligans.

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Republicans are now floating the "faithless" elector idea. In essence, they are floating the idea of electing or appointing electors which will vote against the person they have pledged to support. Instead of voting for Trump, Electoral College electors would vote for Pence. Now how they would pull this off is a bit of a mystery at the moment. But if Republicans attempted this, it wouldn't go down well with Trump and his supporters. It might even produce violence. It would certainly rip the Republican Party in two, and for those reasons I don't think this option likely. But it does show the desperation within Republican ranks.

 

Some Republicans have figured out a spin on Trump's comments that should appeal to the Faux news segment of 'Murica:

Washington state's GOP chair responded to Donald Trump's sexually aggressive remarks about pursuing and groping women by pointing out they "were made when he was a Democrat."
http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/10/washington_gop_chair_trumps_le.html
​

Chachi too:

Scott Baio ✔ @ScottBaio
I believe every Liberal should give @realDonaldTrump a pass. 11 years ago he was a Democrat.
1:36 PM - 8 Oct 2016
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...s-video_us_57f86f44e4b068ecb5debe51?section=&​

See, Trump would never say those things now, he was just infected with that "leftie libral" disease back then - everything's fine now...

 

Additional Trump tapes turned up today, 23 years worth of Trump tapes to be more exact. This makes Trump's previous "more than a decade old" single event story a little less credible and excusable. This is the choice of the right wing Christians. It bobbles the mind. The Donald refers to his daughter as a piece of ass. I think that guy really has sexual fantasies about his daughter. That's pretty damn sick. Apparently, The Donald isn't much interested in women over the age of 35.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...29cea2-8d92-11e6-bff0-d53f592f176e_story.html

My guess is this isn't the last of The Donald's sex tapes. Pence seems to be very upset. After Ryan withdrew Trump's invitation to appear at previously scheduled rally today with him, Pence was to appear in Trump's stead; but Pence refused. That's an ouch. That's also unprecedented.

Does Pence resign from the ticket at a time when the Republican establishment wants Trump to resign and to replace Trump with Pence? I don't think Trump is going to resign. If you believe Trump, he won't resign. He released a statement today saying that he would never resign. I think Trump's refusal to resign is very consistent with narcissistic personality disorder. Trump cannot admit failure and a withdrawal from the race would mean failure. We have all seen how much trouble Trump has making apologies. He needs to rationalize his failures, and he has already started that process. First, it was the "rigged" voting system. Now it's the "establishment" conspiring with the media to bring about Trump's demise. You gotta give him credit, he is very good at finding people, organizations, things, and events to blame for his failures.

This could be a blowout year for Democrats. If the Republican Party splits, as appears increasingly likely, Democrats could conceivable take both the Senate and the House. I only expected Democrats to take that Senate.

And then there is the matter of the long term effects such a split would have on the party, Trump would take half of the party with him in a split. Democrats could control Washington for decades to come. This might be the death of the Republican Party as we have known it. What affect would that have on the Republican entertainment industry?

 

The sad part about it is right wingers really believe this crap.

 

Does that excuse Joanie Loves Chachi or Charles In Charge?

 

Ryan is meeting with congressional Republicans now and it sounds like he is cutting congressional Republicans loose to do whatever they need to do in order to get elected. If it means distancing themselves from Trump, they should do so. It's now every man and woman for themselves within the Republican Party. That's clearly unmitigated panic. It sounds like Ryan and other Republican leaders are now writing off Trump's presidential prospects.

Ryan hasn't yet reneged on his endorsement of Trump. But he has told Republicans he is done defending Trump. He's only going to focus on keeping Republican control of the House. It would be very difficult for Ryan to renege on his endorsement of Trump, because Trump is still very popular with the Republican base.

 

After losing 2 out of 2 debates, Trump might be looking to not attend the final debate. Wouldn't that be interesting? Trump has called for the ouster of the Republican debate committee co-chairman, claiming the debates are rigged. Well, at least Trump is consistent if nothing else. When he loses as he frequently does, it's because something was rigged against him.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...-step-down/ar-BBxfreK?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=UP21DHP

 

Republican Senator Jeff Sessions doesn't think what Trump described in the taped amounts to sexual assault...hmm. I don't know, but he unwanted grabbing of women by their private parts sounds like sexual assault to me.

http://www.attn.com/stories/11973/sen-jeff-sessions-wont-say-donald-trump-described-sexual-assault

 

Who knew The Donald would declare war on his party? But he did. Trump is now calling for the defeat of Republicans who don't support him.

Wow! It should be very clear to everyone, Trump's a nut! The guy has become unhinged because Ryan refused to appear with him.

 

One of the amazing things about Trump's campaign is Trump's followers. Trump's followers believe he will end what they perceive as corruption in Washington because Trump tells them so. But the odd thing is Trump has not a single plan to fix corruption in Washington,DC. You would think if Trump is really serious about fighting corruption he would have at least one plan as to how he would do it. But for all his rhetoric Trump doesn't have even one plan to address perceived corruption in Washington.

He's got a position paper on his wall, but not a single position paper of fixing corruption. That should tell Trump's followers a lot. But it doesn't.

 

The danger of Trump: Trump has been saying some very dangerous things. He says if he loses it's because the system was rigged. If he wins he says he will lock up his opposition. That's not the America I have known. It a lot like Putin's Russia. I guess that is one reason both men like each other so much. Who would have thought the Republican Party would come to this?

 

Trump and Pence had promised to release materials yesterday which would debunk his accusers, but yesterday came and went and the promised evidence failed to materialize.

 

I was waiting for that too . Was it this?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ng-boys-UK-politicians-sex-parties-1980s.html

Oh and ,of course he didn't find therm attractive etc etc.

Of course they are still just allegations but the way he deals with them tells a lot(as if we needed that) .

 

Apparently his defense is the women are just too ugly to muster his attention. And "The Donald" keeps digging his hole deeper and deeper. He's got another 3 weeks to go. We'll just have see how low he will go. I wouldn't be surprised to see him in Russia sometime soon.

 

Careful with your language now

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(does he need some help?)

 

There is a certain morbid fascination. I've escalated from "pro wrestling" to describing the Trump campaign one for the internet troll. This has pretty much explained most of what I'm seeing; he really does seem to be imitating the conservative internet discourse bubble.

But this? If I had said, even as my "candidate of the internet troll" rhetoric came together, the phrase, "President Gaslight", I don't know, it just seems like I would have been pushing too hard.

But the deep-throated flame jobs Trump has been putting up pretty much brings the point home.

And the weird thing is that this really is too simplistic. After watching the racist ejaculations from the right in response to Barack Obama's candidacy, election, and presidency, it would have been very easy to suggest, even with the standard bigotry of Walker, Huckabee, and Carson, at least, that Republicans would respond to Hillary Clinton's candidacy with sexism and chauvinism, really, at what point before it started happening would it have been not inappropriate to predict that the Republican path to victory against the likely first female president of the United States would, in the Republican candidate's eyes, run straight through the the gasfields.

Donald Trump's campaign is simply about traditional subject classes getting too uppity. As women verge on electing themselves a female president, traditionalist angrily scramble to find a way to beat them back into place. And that beating will become literal.

But while it's true that we really, really need to sit down, as a society, and talk this part out―I'm sorry, conservatives, this isn't one of those things where you can demand compromise, so get it through your skulls that human rights are human rights are human rights and get the hell off your mothers and sisters and daughters, a'ight?―we also need to make clear that exactly none of that discussion should pretend that there is anything acceptable about the spectacle the GOP is putting on. Even the factions of the Party that are fleeing the Donald are managing to achieve a certain lack of grace.

That is to say, we get that Donald Trump is extreme, that he is shocking and horrifying and appalling and worse than anyone could have reasonably imagined, but it behooves us to bear in mind at all times that when the arsonist says he's sorry, that he didn't mean to blow up six blocks of the city, (A) he's not actually sorry, because that was a hell of a gratifying inferno; (B) nothing about that apology should skip over the fact that regardless of the subsequent explosion, he was setting the building on fire with the intention of destroying it.

I get that even conservatives are taken aback by the magnitude of the spectacle, and discovering what these attitudes sound like when promoted from such prestigious pulpits as the threshold of the presidency. But that doesn't change the fact that there is nothing surprising about the fact that American conservative is saturated with such hatred and greed.

Donald Trump is essentially not afraid to say all the things Republicans know shouldn't be said in public.

Grab her by the pussy? Because you can? Because you're too rich and famous and powerful for them to fight back? Yeah, that's my Republican Party, right there. I'm forty-three, and there isn't a day when my American experience has been devoid of this simmering hatred. Donald Trump simply isn't afraid to say what he thinks, and unlike a Todd Akin or Richard Mourdock or Josh Koster or Tom Smith, this is a presidential candidate, so the GOP can't paper it over. Because all Donald Trump is actually saying is what traditional American male chauvinism has believed pretty much the whole time. When it's some dumbassed House or Senate candidate, there is some room to maneuver and pretend the Party doesn't really believe or think like that. But this?

Donald Trump has pushed so hard as to shame those who would still support him. They're only abandoning ship when they run out of ways to defend him; as much as many Republicans would have us believe this isn't really part of the Party, it is, and it's been here my whole life, and it's strong enough to secure Donald Trump a presidential nomination.

Something goes here about the number of conservatives I've encountered over the years, including some of our neighbors at Sciforums through the years who showed bruised, even weeping egos because it's just not fair to use dirty words like "misogynist", and so on. It's not so much that "I was right" or anything like that; being "right" on this occasion would make me approximately average for people who aren't conservatives, and the thing about shooting fish in a barrel is that it still feels like a bully routine―kind of like it becomes possible to feel sorry for your college football rival―despite the perception of genuine high stakes. And there really is no satisfaction in thinking back on those self-righteous assholes; those scrambling to figure out what just happened to their Party will only be able to do so if they are honest enough―a trait absent from what I have witnessed―with themselves about the history and nature of their beliefs, and those whose egos are irreparably contused because someone called them a bigot for defending misogyny or racism or other forms of supremacism are probably enraged, because how dare those dirty liberals something something something.

What isn't really happening is some warped-genius plot to identify and excise the dangerous elements in the Republican Party. That is to say, these voters will remain in good stead with the Party, who will still want their ballots again in two years.

Many Republicans will try to tell us about how they stood up to Donald Trump, and maybe a few of them will have some aspect of honor to stand on for how and when they stood up. We'll know, though, by the midterm whether this significant swath of Republican support pretending to be appalled is genuine or not.

I'm guessing the midterm is going to be ugly as hell. All of this GOP denunciation of Trump is a swindle.

But I really do hope my conservative neighbors prove me wrong.