In further proof of Team Hillary's tone-deaf and out-of-touch approach, they tried to brand Trump as "Dangerous Donald". The flop of this one only reminds voters by contrast how fitting and funny Trump's brandings are (like Crooked Hillary). It's like a bad SNL skit -- and Democrat voters still watch enough SNL for that association to come to mind.
Trump supporters have already remarked how badass of a nickname it is, and that it's yet another example of Trump hijacking the minds of his opponents and getting them to promote his own campaign, and on their own dime no less.
In fairness, lots of other Establishment butt-lickers have been throwing around the word "dangerous" about Trump this season -- Thomas Sowell, Paul Krugman, the Economist, AlterNet, etc.
We're lucky that our opponents are so clueless that they don't remember recent history. One of the main lines of attack that Jimmy Carter tried to use against Reagan in 1980 was that he would be "dangerous" about nuclear proliferation and related threats to mankind. They kept trying to get the word "dangerous" to stick, including Carter's performance at the Presidential debates, but it never stuck.
Why not?
Well, if someone's dangerous, their track record would reflect that -- one disaster after another. Only in 1980, Reagan had no such track record as Governor of California. No state-level equivalent of nuclear war. Contrast that to the Iranian revolutionaries taking Americans hostage on Carter's watch. Perhaps, the American public thought, impotence was more dangerous than "being dangerous".
And this time around, what track record does Trump have of people being attacked or getting plunged into violence on his watch? Zero. Crooked Hillary, on the other hand... If she even utters the word during a debate, Trump will interrupt her:
"While Benghazi was burning, she failed to [finger quote] answer the phone at 3 o' clock in the morning, and the American Ambassador was brutally murdered by radical Islamic terrorists -- I don't need to hear from this woman about being dangerous."
Trump will also bring up their records on the Iraq War -- she voted for it in the Senate, he was vociferously against it the whole time.
Hillary will want to throw our borders wide open, inviting another terrorist attack, as well as violent crime by immigrants who otherwise wouldn't be here robbing, raping, and murdering. Trump wants to close them up, especially to Muslims. Bye-bye to violent attacks by immigrants.
Hillary has enabled Bill's sexual assault crimes (actual rape, not just adultery), and hounded his victims afterward so that they wouldn't undo the ambitions of the Clintons. Trump has done no such thing.
And who has more of an evil cackling laugh?
The public will understand the "dangerous" moniker to be a case of psychological projection by Hillary, given her record and his record. No different from Lyin' Ted calling someone else a pathological liar.
It hasn't even been a week since Trump effectively clinched the nomination, and he's already getting the other side to write his material for him -- and distribute it using their own "war chest" (suicide fund, self-destruct fund).
It's looking more and more like a 1980 situation, as far as numbers go, even if the faultlines and main themes are different.
Now the only question is how bad Trump will defeat Hillary in the general -- and how much more badly he'll defeat her successor in 2020? There's no way she'd run again, there are no superstars in the party, and the previous VP will be (even more) braindead.
If the woman card and "Dangerous Donald" are the shape of things to come, we are looking at a definite eight years of Trump. It's gonna be epic.
I'm loving the FUD that is out there now about Trump losing the general election. You and to a lesser extent Scott Adams have nailed how the primaries turned out. Yet the same people who were worried that Trump was going to burn out in the fall are the same people who are worried Trump will lose in a landslide. Most Republicans are unfamiliar with a strong Republican leader and get nervous that he's not running on progressive-approved platforms or the "liberal from 10 years ago" platform that is often found in modern day cuckservatives.
ReplyDeleteThere is a key factor in all of this: nobody has ever held Hillary Clinton accountable for anything. Whatever lead she has in the polls will sink once Trump starts pulling out skeletons from the Clinton's deep and dark closet. Hillary is banking hard on identity politics but by August or September, she will be radioactive with everyone except hardcore non-white, non-male identitarians who will only vote for Hillary because they refuse to vote for a white guy and feel compelled to vote. Despite what Tumblr and Twitter represent, this is a small base of people.
I think he will end up with over 400 electoral votes. At the very minimum, he will flip Florida, Virginia, Ohio, and Nevada, which will get him to victory with that alone.
Will the FBI indict Hillary Clinton before November?
ReplyDeleteI'm more skeptical about Virginia. It was a swing state under the old liberal vs. conservative contest.
ReplyDeleteBut now that the contest is rapidly shifting toward Establishment vs. common citizens, elitism vs. populism, and globalism vs. America first, you're going to see a different calculation among voters.
For example, Michigan is all but a sure thing for Trump, as opposed to untouchable for a conservative Republican platform.
On the other hand, Virginia was within reach of conservatives, but a lot of them will respond with anxiety and repulsion when Trump promises to clean up the Fed Gov for real. Northern VA is just an outgrowth of DC, and although previously not so big is size, has exploded over the last 20 years.
Other Establishment types, like defense contractors (who Trump has promised to cut down to size, and ruthlessly bid out everything the Fed Gov pays for), will run for the hills.
About the only Virginians that Trump can count on are the Appalachians, but they're not the majority.
There's a lot of gravy train jobs in North Carolina, too, also a big change from 20 or more years ago. Not as bad as Virginia, but I'd put that still in swing state territory.
Trump has already started to unload the Roger Stone material on Crooked Hillary. At the WV rally, he said that the Clinton Foundation is a scam and, oh by the way, did I mention that I gave a lot of money to what I thought was a legit charity?
ReplyDelete(He'll hold off for awhile before adding, "I think I'll sue her ass for charity fraud! I wonder what kind of information we'll find out about during discovery...")
Then last night in OR, he went after her for hounding the victims of Bill's affairs. He didn't name names, or call them rape victims just yet, but again, let the basic idea percolate, and before long everyone will know the names of his sexual assault victims.
If Hillary sticks with culture war stuff, she's toast. She'd be angling for the handful of states where liberals are highly concentrated, and where they're so culture war-oriented that they're going to ignore Make America Great Again.
ReplyDeleteReagan wiped out Carter in 1980, with 489 electoral votes, even though the winner got "only" 50.7% of the popular vote (in a three-man race). Most of Anderson's voters were disaffected former Carter voters, so at best Reagan would have gone 53-47 against Carter alone.
But his support was spread more or less evenly around the country, so he won almost every state, despite being only a little ahead in most of them.
If your 53% is more heavily concentrated, then you win fewer states and electoral votes, a la Obama in 2012.
Trump's appeal is so broad, and Hillary's so narrow, that it's hard to imagine him not taking at least 400 electoral votes, even if he's only ahead by a little in most of those states. I don't think 500 is out of the question either.
The libertarian nervous breakdown in response to the Trump movement - for example, Thomas Sowell's - strikes me for the irony.
ReplyDeleteIn other contexts these guys invoke Hayek's argument about how social phenomena emerge organically, without central planning. In fact, these phenomena resist central planning.
So what would you have to call the Trump Revolution? Despite all the propaganda about the wonders of democracy and the evils of social engineering, our elites use centralized command-and-control mechanisms to manage the Presidential election process to get the outcomes they want.
The Trump Revolution came out of the blue and blew up this system, at least this time around. It vindicates Hayek's view of how social order arises from below without someone at the top giving orders, indeed, in defiance of the attempted central planning by powerful elites. I laugh at those Republican moneybags who wasted fortunes on the loser candidates they wanted to foist upon us as "leaders."
Team Hillary, and Hillary supporters, still doesn't understand that -- that you can win all 538 electoral votes by getting 50% + 1 of the popular vote in every state. You don't need some lopsided popular vote to make a clean sweep in the Electoral College.
ReplyDeleteIn fairness, the Establishment Republicans don't get that either. They doubled down on appealing to a highly limited range of states, and none of them other than Texas had any big electoral prizes. Brilliant strategy if your goal is to lose forever.
Somehow I think Make America Great Again is going to play better around the country than "Why Texas, Kansas, and Utah are morally superior to you evil devils in California, New York, and Illinois".
But what do I know, I'm not a professional strategist.
"The libertarian nervous breakdown in response to the Trump movement - for example, Thomas Sowell's - strikes me for the irony."
ReplyDeleteRight, here's the first non-politician, and even better, he's a self-made multi-billionaire who earned it through actually building and making things, and employing people as a great big Boss Man. He's not a parasite or a decomposer.
And there's the problem with Trump in the eyes of libertarians -- he's not sociopathically selfish. Just the opposite, he seems to enjoy having so many people depending on him in one way or another, without lording it over them.
Libertarians are mentally disordered to one degree or another, and only appreciate anti-heroes. They must be ruthlessly selfish, and be seeking to sever as many dependencies as possible -- both they on others, and others on them.
The mere idea of magnanimity strikes them as thinly veiled paternalism, which is an instant disqualifier in the "fuck you dad" school of ethics.
So many phonies being revealed by the Trump phenomenon -- it's the gift that keeps on giving.
The difference is the millennials didn't exist in 1980. They are like mind numbed robots repeating "Trump is a racist". The way the media portrays Trump sets off red flags in their heavily programmed, politically correct minds. Sure they strongly prefer Bernie to Hillary. Yet I fear enough will turn out for Hillary to ruin Trump's chances.
ReplyDeleteMillennials didn't exist in 1980 but baby boomers certainly did.
ReplyDeleteIn the realignment of left vs. right to nationalism vs. globalism, libertarianism will eventually side with the globalists. We're seeing that with Charles Koch already; he is mulling the idea of donating to Hillary this time around. That is another feather in Donald's cap: Hillary is trying to tap into GOPe donor networks and the Koch brothers, not realizing she's setting a trap for herself.
By November, the Millennials will know the names of Bill's sexual assault victims, and how Hillary tore into them in order to keep them quiet, lest they ruin the Clintons' ambitions.
ReplyDeleteMillennials already hate Hillary enough, that will put them over the edge.
They'll stay home or vote Trump, especially when he unveils his student debt plan -- even if it's only a 50% forgiveness, they'll pull that lever so fast it'll make ya head spin.
"Racist schmacist -- my Republican uncle President is about to make half of my student loan debt disappear!"
That would be a genius strategy.I hope he does it.
Delete"Hillary is trying to tap into GOPe donor networks and the Koch brothers, not realizing she's setting a trap for herself."
ReplyDeleteThat's the silver lining to all this hyper-competitiveness. It kept Trump's opposition divided and hostile among themselves. And now it's leading Crooked Hillary to prove Trump and Bernie right about how mega-donors buy politicians who will do their bidding. Money money money.
I wouldn't worry about Millennials being sensitive to allegations of racism. Go back just three years ago they were thought to be the most politically apathetic generation yet, unrebellious towards older generations and also overly positive. It's funny how people have shifted to viewing them as ultra Leftist brainwashed witch hunters, when a little while ago the same people were seen as not giving a shit. They're mostly just responding to people on today's crappy social media of choice, particularly twitter, realizing they can do public shaming, more than it's in character and principle. And even then it's overblown by stodgy, threatened establishment Baby Boomers. If Trump stands up to that sort of shaming, which he will, the whole thing will fall.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know Millennials ever had a reputation for being politically apathetic. I heard that more about Gen X when they were young. Millennials turned out in huge numbers for Obama in 2008 . I recall some even crying in joy when he was elected. Older generations were too cynical to believe he was a Savior. Their enthusiasm seemed to dampen a bit by 2012 but 2008 will define the Millennials as being leftists not apolitical.
DeleteSpeaking as a millennial, it's a lot easier than people think to turn them into The Donald's Shitlord Army.
ReplyDeleteMillennials had two opportunities to vote for Hillary in the primaries (2008 and 2016) and both times, they did not vote for her by overwhelming numbers. Since the youth vote was so critical for Obama's successes, this really leaves her vulnerable in the general election. I don't expect a huge conversion of Sanders to Trump voters but I don't expect many Sanders to Clinton conversions either.
I think the Berniebros are far more likely to stay at home, especially when Trump begins rolling out the many instances of corruption. She's everything that young liberals hate about the 1% and the politicians that serve them. Donald Trump may be a billionaire but Hillary is the one who reeks of corruption. You're not going to get the OWS crowd to enthusiastically vote for someone they're 100% against. #CrookedHillary and #DropOutHillary are going to be haunting her for the next six months. She will find herself cornered on multiple occasions and that's when her polling will collapse. She could barely keep herself together when Sanders threw out the occasional tough talking point.
That's why I still laugh when I read the handwringing from the right about Trump losing the election. In the very rare off chance that he loses, he has rung so many bells that can't be unrung that he has changed American politics for the next several years. The days of identity politics are coming to an end, the days of stuffing the country with non-whites in hopes they form a solid Democratic bloc are coming to an end.
Sorry for the double post but when considering it further, you may also see a sizable chunk of disgruntled millennial Sanders voters to vote for a third party. Trump has tweeted before that Sanders should consider an independent run. He knows that there's going to be a lot of angst when Clinton wins the primaries because the margin of pledged delegates between her and Sanders is so low.
ReplyDeleteEither Sanders could mount an independent bid or they could look into something like the Green Party. Looking at the recent elections in Europe, both the far right parties and the green parties are gaining parliamentary seats. Jill Stein and the Green Party could position themselves to scoop up some of the more evangelistic Sanders supporters who could never vote for #CrookedHillary or Donald "Drumpf". She could gain a couple million votes that way, effectively pulling the rug out from under Hillary in certain states that were once Democratic strongholds but are now in play (like Michigan or Pennsylvania).
On another note, Trump is already reaching out to the Teamsters. Trump is laying down the groundwork to capture Democratic leaning unions, essential to flip rust belt and New England states.
OT: Agnostic, what do you make of the idea of giving American citizens a basic income?
ReplyDeleteThis strikes me as potentially a really bad idea unless you put some boundaries on it. Close the borders, restrict the basic income to American citizens, and make it universal for men but conditional for women. Women can only receive the basic income if they get and stay married to male American citizens - not to other women or to "transgender" lunatics, misfits and mistakes of nature.
Otherwise the single women who receive the basic income will just use it as a subsidy for producing more bastard children and accelerate the decline of civilization.
The Green Party or Bernie running third-party would do best out West, not so much back East (maybe New England). See map of Nader 2000 as % of popular vote.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it wouldn't help with PA or MI, it would definitely help split up the Dem vote in CA, OR, WA, and CO. Of those, I think Trump has the hardest shot in CO, so with a strong third-party progressive vote, it would become within reach.
This should be spread far and wide to humiliate the desperate "fiscal conservative" attacks. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/election-2016-campaign-money-race.html?_r=0
ReplyDeletehttp://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/total-ad-spending-includes-striking-figures
Personally I'm amazed Hillary is still vertical. I can't imagine how many drugs and meds they'll need to prop her up with to make it through November. But the real reason Hillary is so desperate to be President is because she knows it's her only chance to stay out of Prison. I predict that if she loses, the axe will fall.
ReplyDeleteRoger Stone thinks that Obama will give her a full and unconditional pardon, covering all criminal acts related to the secret server.
ReplyDeleteBut then if Trump proves that Obama wasn't a natural-born citizen, or that he forged the relevant documents, his whole presidency is null and void -- including any pardons he issues.
Then it's gonna be Hillary in the hot seat with Giuliani bringing the gavel down.