Trump has begun making a serious play for not only the swing states of the recent past (Florida, Ohio), but also those that would be beyond all hope for the Republicans of the recent past (Michigan, California).
He's said that he plans to put 15 blue states into play, an announcement that is mostly designed to set the media abuzz with speculation about which 15 they are, how likely each one is to turn red for Trump, and so on. This allows him to stay in the news cycle for several more weeks.
More importantly, the announcement will have the same effect on Hillary's campaign, who will have to go into panic defense mode as they try to figure out which 15 they are, how to prevent him in each state, how much to spend doing so, etc.
So while the media gets to indulge its addiction for speculation, Team Hillary will suffer disorientation as their tried-and-true playbooks must all be thrown out the window.
Or will they? So far they appear to be stuck in the Clinton-Bush-Obama climate, where the main faultlines are between liberals and conservatives in the Culture Wars. This earlier post detailed how tone-deaf and wide-of-the-mark Hillary's attacks have been on both Bernie and Trump.
For example, polling data shows that Hillary's woman card angle has somewhat widened her lead among women, but has shrunken it by an even larger magnitude among men. And in 2016, the electorate is going to be a lot more male than it has been in recent history, given Trump's galvanizing of white working-class men, who are usually more likely to stay home on election day.
Hillary has seriously misread this change in the electorate -- her team should be able to forecast how much more male the voters will be this time, and done their best to pick off men from Trump. Instead they've chosen the exact opposite -- alienating the group that will be more important in this election.
Ditto for her alienating white voters, when the electorate will be much more white than in recent elections, given Trump's galvanizing of whites.
And ditto her alienating the working class by promoting the globalist trade deals like TPP (and NAFTA during her husband's administration), during an election that will have a more working-class electorate, given Trump's galvanizing them around tariffs, bringing back manufacturing jobs, disentangling America from the globalist bloodsuckers, and so on and so forth.
So, on each of the three major demographic changes in the electorate this year -- sex, race, and class -- she has read the changes completely backwards, and has doubled-down on the alienating strategies. She and everyone on her team are convinced that the voters who turn out during a Trump election are going to be more non-white, more female, and more elite than usual. Random error is one thing, but to assess the situation totally backwards, is a fatal mistake -- especially once those biases are put into action.
What does this mean for her defense of the "blue wall" of "guaranteed" Democrat states?
Quite simply, it means that she will take the wrong steps in every direction, and leave herself vulnerable to everything Trump says and does.
She thinks that California's voters will be more female, more non-white, and more elite -- and she will be blindsided when a YUGE bloc of white working-class men turn out, who usually would be sitting it out. California has had one of the lowest voter turnout rates in the nation (even among those who are eligible), and it is disproportionately white working-class men -- those who see little point in leaving the house to pull the lever for one elite-slurping globalist sell-out or another. They represent a massive reservoir of untapped voters who will be eager to vote for Trump.
The same is true for Oregon (where Trump and Hillary are already tied in a recent poll), and to a lesser extent Washington.
The whole complacency about the "blue wall" has insulated Democrats from having their finger on the pulse of the voters there, including which large untapped reservoirs there may be. Illegal immigrants don't get to vote in our country's elections, so that large pool of non-voters is out -- yet is the group that Hillary would tailor her message to if she had to defend California. "Let's see, Trump wants to build a wall and deport immigrants, so I'll pander to the illegal immigrants! The ads will even be written and spoken in Spanish!" Great strategy to turn out zero additional voters on your behalf.
In fairness, the typical Republican candidates -- the ones running on stale Conservatism Inc. values from the 1970s and '80s -- would be just as out-of-touch with Californian voters. What's the point in getting a feel for a population that you would never win over?
Trump, however, is the nemesis and conqueror of both the Republican and Democratic wings of the Establishment, who both push for an elite-centered globalist agenda, while offering different flavors of Culture War red meat to distract the voters with. The main barrier to Republicans campaigning in the West Coast is the cultural liberalism of the residents, who will never approve a candidate running on a platform of Conservatism (of any sub-genre).
But since Trump is running on a separate and unrelated platform of America-first (vs. globalism) and populism (vs. elitism), while sidelining the Culture War topics, he and his army have passed right through the barrier. They may not be liberals, but they're not official conservatives either, and they have tossed aside their Culture War weapons before approaching the metal detector at the gates.
Once inside, they will brutalize Team Hillary on the decline of manufacturing in California ("Apple will make their product here in the United States"), the depressed incomes of American IT workers due to both off-shoring to India and China, as well as the tsunami of foreigners who come to Silicon Valley on visas, and so many other economic issues that the Democrats never imagined would be brought up.
Picture it: the rank-and-file IT workers in Silicon Valley giving Trump a serious hearing, as he dismisses Culture War topics and focuses like a laser on how low their incomes are because of their immigration-hungry oligarch bosses looking to cut labor costs, no matter how. And how high the cost of living is because of immigration sending the demand for housing through the roof. It would be so much more affordable without all those immigrants -- which in turn drives up the demand for nice housing that lies safely away from immigrant neighborhoods.
True, Crooked Hillary has a lock on the latter-day plantation owners of Silicon Valley -- but they only get one vote per person. Opposed by their resentful rank-and-file workers, and with no Democrat votes possible from their ineligible immigrant workers, they will be swept aside in the general election.
This is just one example of how much more in-touch the Trump campaign is with the pressing issues facing real-life Californians, and not some liberal caricature from 20 years ago. They may still be mostly liberal, but that's not the faultline in this election, so lots of luck reminding them that Trump is neutral in the Culture War, while you want to drive them further into high-tech indentured servitude. Something tells me they'll vote for the candidate who will make their jobs and standard of living better, while allowing their state to determine its own culture and lifestyles.
In summary, it is not just a matter of Hillary having to "fight harder" to hang on to the West Coast. That suggests that it's the same terrain, same opponents, same weaponry, and same rules of engagement, and only having to dial up the intensity level on what has "always" worked (reminder: California voted almost exclusively Republican from 1860 until 1992). In their minds, if the Clintons had to play the woman card at level 5 to win California in the '90s, play it to level 10 to hold onto the state in 2016.
By taking the "blue wall" for granted for so many election cycles, the Democratic Establishment is no longer in touch with what voters truly want. Just throw them the liberal Culture War crumbs, and they'll happily eat that over what is, to their taste buds, poisonous conservatism. This time around, the war for the West Coast will be fought on fundamentally unfamiliar terrain, with an unfamiliar opponent wielding unfamiliar weapons, and with unfamiliar rules of engagement.
A campaign that faces such daunting unpredictabilities with such a lackadaisical attitude is going to come out of the battle with more than just a bloody nose. Bones will be broken, limbs severed -- whether or not Team Trump ultimately wins California, Crooked Hillary is going to have to exhaust massive resources in defending supposedly safe states. And there is no way she can defend them all, not with her level of insulated cluelessness and Trump's instinctive savvy and unforgiving aggression.
Perhaps worst of all for the other side is that Hillary is not just any old Culture War Democrat, any of whom would be unable to stop Trump, but some of whom might be humble enough to try adapting to the demand for America-first populism. This particular Democrat is such a grandiose narcissist that she will never admit to needing to adapt her entire campaign to the utterly alien arena she is about to enter. She views the entire process as a great big boring formality before her eventual anointment and coronation. Even worse that you can't teach an old dog new tricks (ARF ARF ARF).
She is going to stride smugly into the ring with Trumpzilla and get pounded into submission, never to walk again in the political world. It's gonna be epic, and we've all got ringside seats.
May 29, 2016
Democrats' Tea Party already happened -- the Obama coalition
[This is the second of two posts comparing the 2016 and 2008 electoral climates. First post here]
Who is left as the parallel for the Tea Party of the Democrats, if not the Bernie movement, which is more like the Trump phenomenon? As far away as it seems now, it was the Obama coalition -- which was contemporaneous with the failed Ron Paul movement, and two years ahead of the successful Tea Party movement.
We're hearing lots of lazy and lame comparisons of the Hillary-Obama competition in 2008 to the Hillary-Bernie contests today. But Obama was not an anti-Establishment candidate, either at the time or once he took office. He wasn't railing against Wall Street, corruption of campaign finance, widening inequality, the selling out of the American economy through globalist trade agreements, endless foreign wars, and other staples of progressive complaints. And he certainly was not openly at war with the leadership of his own party.
Just as Ron Paul represented the junior partner in the longstanding GOP coalition (the Cultural Right), while McCain represented the senior partner (Wall Street), so did Obama represent the Cultural Left as opposed to Crooked Hillary who represented the neoliberal Wall Streeters, both factions of the longstanding coalition of Democrats. Just as the Ron Paul supporters felt sick of being marginalized so long for the benefit of the neoconservative economic and governmental policies, so the Obama supporters felt sick of being marginalized for so long for the benefit of the Clintonite neoliberals, who have identical policies with the neocons on matters of economics and government.
Obama built his entire campaign around the theme of being a Social Justice Warrior in Chief, having cut his political teeth as a community organizer in Chicago. Much attention was devoted to his two books which are both masturbatory identity politics memoirs. And a large amount of his appeal was the potential to elect the First Black President -- that appealed most to the identity politics of blacks themselves, but also to Cultural Left white people, whose identity crucially includes a bullet-point about having cool minority friends and generally wanting to elevate ethnic minorities and debase their own ethnicity.
Hillary, on the other hand, tried to appeal to the more upper-middle-class white suburban soccer moms and doofus dads. Her campaign tried to portray Obama as a foreigner and a Muslim in contrast to the nice white lady (it was the origin of the birther movement), and as a radical in contrast to the reliable moderate who will be there to answer the "call at 3 AM" (unless it's coming from Benghazi). Her goal was to continue her husband's Presidency, with whatever NAFTA v.2.0 turned out to be, while making token gestures to the Cultural Left (mostly on feminist issues).
Obama winning the Democratic primaries over Hillary was like if Ron Paul had won over McCain. Both his Presidency and the Tea Party counter-reaction to it mark the high-point, or rather the low-point, of the Culture Wars, when the globalist elites have gotten their economic and governmental agendas pushed through without any opposition, while the electorate is distracted by social and cultural topics.
Obama representing the Tea Party of the Democrats becomes even more eerie if we compare him not to Ron Paul but to Mr. Tea Party himself, Lyin' Ted Cruz. Both entered the primaries as unknown freshman Senators in their 40s, plagued by doubts about being natural-born citizens, post-racial symbols who were half-white and half-Other, ostentatiously faking their religion to pander to cultural voters ("black church" and holy rollers), in general being sociopathic chameleons who grandstand to please a crowd, and promoting themselves as cultural saviors of demi-god status (magical wise Negro, Judeo-Christian theocrat).
Really the only difference is that Cruz's adultery has been with women rather than men.
And just as a hypothetical Cruz Presidency would be defined by ramming through the Wall Street globalist elite agenda, while putting on one cultural-right spectacle after another, so has the Obama administration been defined by ramming through that very same agenda, only putting on one cultural-left spectacle after another to distract the people from the wars, the corruption, and the disintegration of their economy and nation. This distraction works whether the citizen is on the Left or Right, all that differs is whether they're cheering or boo-ing while distracted.
The other major difference is that the Obama coalition voters won the Presidency, while the Tea Party voters won the Congress. But we shouldn't ignore the similarities just because the Democrats' version of the Tea Party didn't win Congressional influence -- Presidential influence is far greater. The size of the turnout for the Obama coalition was larger than for the off-year elections that brought the Tea Party to prominence, and were no less geographically widespread. And both intensely energized their demographic bases like never before -- blacks and evangelicals -- rather than being a lukewarm "go-ahead" to the Wall Street elite's preferred choices.
Everyone loves to point and laugh at how crazy the Tea Party movement looked, but it was no less of a nutjob affair than that which elected Obama to the Presidency for two terms. American voters had turned politics into such a culture war contest that only these two clown cars were the possible end-points. Their extremist nature has over-excited the populace, which is now eager to get back to basics by focusing on the government itself and its interaction with the economy.
It is no coincidence that Trump and Bernie took off against all odds during the same season, much as Obama and Ron Paul were unexpected insurgent sensations eight years ago. Only this time, the shoe will be on the other foot.
Who is left as the parallel for the Tea Party of the Democrats, if not the Bernie movement, which is more like the Trump phenomenon? As far away as it seems now, it was the Obama coalition -- which was contemporaneous with the failed Ron Paul movement, and two years ahead of the successful Tea Party movement.
We're hearing lots of lazy and lame comparisons of the Hillary-Obama competition in 2008 to the Hillary-Bernie contests today. But Obama was not an anti-Establishment candidate, either at the time or once he took office. He wasn't railing against Wall Street, corruption of campaign finance, widening inequality, the selling out of the American economy through globalist trade agreements, endless foreign wars, and other staples of progressive complaints. And he certainly was not openly at war with the leadership of his own party.
Just as Ron Paul represented the junior partner in the longstanding GOP coalition (the Cultural Right), while McCain represented the senior partner (Wall Street), so did Obama represent the Cultural Left as opposed to Crooked Hillary who represented the neoliberal Wall Streeters, both factions of the longstanding coalition of Democrats. Just as the Ron Paul supporters felt sick of being marginalized so long for the benefit of the neoconservative economic and governmental policies, so the Obama supporters felt sick of being marginalized for so long for the benefit of the Clintonite neoliberals, who have identical policies with the neocons on matters of economics and government.
Obama built his entire campaign around the theme of being a Social Justice Warrior in Chief, having cut his political teeth as a community organizer in Chicago. Much attention was devoted to his two books which are both masturbatory identity politics memoirs. And a large amount of his appeal was the potential to elect the First Black President -- that appealed most to the identity politics of blacks themselves, but also to Cultural Left white people, whose identity crucially includes a bullet-point about having cool minority friends and generally wanting to elevate ethnic minorities and debase their own ethnicity.
Hillary, on the other hand, tried to appeal to the more upper-middle-class white suburban soccer moms and doofus dads. Her campaign tried to portray Obama as a foreigner and a Muslim in contrast to the nice white lady (it was the origin of the birther movement), and as a radical in contrast to the reliable moderate who will be there to answer the "call at 3 AM" (unless it's coming from Benghazi). Her goal was to continue her husband's Presidency, with whatever NAFTA v.2.0 turned out to be, while making token gestures to the Cultural Left (mostly on feminist issues).
Obama winning the Democratic primaries over Hillary was like if Ron Paul had won over McCain. Both his Presidency and the Tea Party counter-reaction to it mark the high-point, or rather the low-point, of the Culture Wars, when the globalist elites have gotten their economic and governmental agendas pushed through without any opposition, while the electorate is distracted by social and cultural topics.
Obama representing the Tea Party of the Democrats becomes even more eerie if we compare him not to Ron Paul but to Mr. Tea Party himself, Lyin' Ted Cruz. Both entered the primaries as unknown freshman Senators in their 40s, plagued by doubts about being natural-born citizens, post-racial symbols who were half-white and half-Other, ostentatiously faking their religion to pander to cultural voters ("black church" and holy rollers), in general being sociopathic chameleons who grandstand to please a crowd, and promoting themselves as cultural saviors of demi-god status (magical wise Negro, Judeo-Christian theocrat).
Really the only difference is that Cruz's adultery has been with women rather than men.
And just as a hypothetical Cruz Presidency would be defined by ramming through the Wall Street globalist elite agenda, while putting on one cultural-right spectacle after another, so has the Obama administration been defined by ramming through that very same agenda, only putting on one cultural-left spectacle after another to distract the people from the wars, the corruption, and the disintegration of their economy and nation. This distraction works whether the citizen is on the Left or Right, all that differs is whether they're cheering or boo-ing while distracted.
The other major difference is that the Obama coalition voters won the Presidency, while the Tea Party voters won the Congress. But we shouldn't ignore the similarities just because the Democrats' version of the Tea Party didn't win Congressional influence -- Presidential influence is far greater. The size of the turnout for the Obama coalition was larger than for the off-year elections that brought the Tea Party to prominence, and were no less geographically widespread. And both intensely energized their demographic bases like never before -- blacks and evangelicals -- rather than being a lukewarm "go-ahead" to the Wall Street elite's preferred choices.
Everyone loves to point and laugh at how crazy the Tea Party movement looked, but it was no less of a nutjob affair than that which elected Obama to the Presidency for two terms. American voters had turned politics into such a culture war contest that only these two clown cars were the possible end-points. Their extremist nature has over-excited the populace, which is now eager to get back to basics by focusing on the government itself and its interaction with the economy.
It is no coincidence that Trump and Bernie took off against all odds during the same season, much as Obama and Ron Paul were unexpected insurgent sensations eight years ago. Only this time, the shoe will be on the other foot.
Bernie is not Ron Paul of the left (he's the Trump of the left)
[This is the first of two posts comparing the 2016 and 2008 electoral climates. Second post here]
What role does the Bernie phenomenon play in the current party re-alignment? The obvious, and correct, parallel is to the Trump phenomenon -- anti-Establishment, at war with their own party, bringing in loads of new voters, yuge rallies, against foreign interventionism, not beholden to Wall Street, and not in favor of globalist trade agreements.
But some on the right and the left have tried to draw parallels to the Ron Paul movement of 2008, and (if they're on the left) asking if the Dems need a Tea Party movement of their own. They point to a group of activists who despite losing the nomination process, still try to pack their own delegates into the state and national conventions, who feel betrayed by their own party's leaders, and who are treated heavy-handedly by those leaders when they act up.
Yet the Republican Tea Party movement was not anti-Establishment like the Sanders supporters are. It represented one faction of the longstanding GOP coalition feeling slighted by the other faction -- the junior partner going rogue against the senior partner.
As detailed in this earlier post, it was a civil war between the Cultural Right and the Wall Street puppets. They were not opposed to Wall Street's overall agenda -- they were content to allow that agenda as long as the Wall Street-funded power brokers allowed the Cultural Right's agenda to go forward. Since only the Wall Street agenda was actually being promoted, the Cultural Right voters rebelled and elected a wave of supposedly hardline candidates on cultural and social issues, against the RINOs.
These Tea Party politicians were all Wall Streeters in disguise, only going the extra mile to put on a convincing performance as hardline right-wingers to fool the gullible cuck voters. Ted Cruz is the epitome of this type of co-opted pseudo-conservative elected on the rise of the Tea Party voters.
The Trump movement is at war with both of those factions of the old GOP coalition, sidelining the identity politics concerns of the Cultural Right (where the identity group is natalist apocalyptic cults), while taking square aim at the globalist and elitist agenda of the Wall Streeters. Hence Trump's two main rivals being Bush early on and Cruz after that.
Sanders supporters are clearly more similar to the Trump supporters than to the Tea Party. They're largely uninterested in cultural and social issues (although they are generally liberal, just like Trump people are generally conservative). Identity politics on the Dems' side is based on racial and ethnic minorities, feminists, and homosexuals. Bernie rarely touches on those topics, other than to discuss how many blacks are locked up in jail for minor drug offenses -- but then that is really a matter of how the government works (law enforcement), rather than a matter of identity politics per se (like "being culturally marginalized in the mass media").
And certainly the Bernie crowd is taking square aim at the Wall Street donors and their legislative agenda (TPP, campaign finance, etc.). That puts them at war with both factions of the longstanding Dem coalition -- the Cultural Left and the Wall Street neoliberals.
Anyone who thinks the Cultural Left loves Bernie Sanders just has to remember those lardasses from Black Lives Matter hijacking Bernie's rally in Seattle last summer, sanctimoniously berating the whole Bernie crowd for white privilege and bla bla bla. Or the endless scolding of "Bernie bros" for not voting for the First Woman President. If Hillary were not in the closet, her supporters would also be castigating Bernie people for supporting the heterosexual candidate over the dyke.
Just like Trump is returning the Republican Party to the Progressive era of McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt, so Bernie is doing his best to return the Democrats to the era of the New Deal. Race, religion, sex, and sexuality played little or no role in defining the bases of the parties in those eras, when the focus was strictly on economic and governmental matters.
Sure, the progressives in the Bernie movement identify more with the Cultural Left, just as the Trump movement identifies more with the Cultural Right. But Bernie and Trump are both emphasizing the economy and government at the expense of social and cultural issues, which is felt as a provocation by the Cultural Left and Right, who have now turned on the class-oriented movements within each of their parties.
What role does the Bernie phenomenon play in the current party re-alignment? The obvious, and correct, parallel is to the Trump phenomenon -- anti-Establishment, at war with their own party, bringing in loads of new voters, yuge rallies, against foreign interventionism, not beholden to Wall Street, and not in favor of globalist trade agreements.
But some on the right and the left have tried to draw parallels to the Ron Paul movement of 2008, and (if they're on the left) asking if the Dems need a Tea Party movement of their own. They point to a group of activists who despite losing the nomination process, still try to pack their own delegates into the state and national conventions, who feel betrayed by their own party's leaders, and who are treated heavy-handedly by those leaders when they act up.
Yet the Republican Tea Party movement was not anti-Establishment like the Sanders supporters are. It represented one faction of the longstanding GOP coalition feeling slighted by the other faction -- the junior partner going rogue against the senior partner.
As detailed in this earlier post, it was a civil war between the Cultural Right and the Wall Street puppets. They were not opposed to Wall Street's overall agenda -- they were content to allow that agenda as long as the Wall Street-funded power brokers allowed the Cultural Right's agenda to go forward. Since only the Wall Street agenda was actually being promoted, the Cultural Right voters rebelled and elected a wave of supposedly hardline candidates on cultural and social issues, against the RINOs.
These Tea Party politicians were all Wall Streeters in disguise, only going the extra mile to put on a convincing performance as hardline right-wingers to fool the gullible cuck voters. Ted Cruz is the epitome of this type of co-opted pseudo-conservative elected on the rise of the Tea Party voters.
The Trump movement is at war with both of those factions of the old GOP coalition, sidelining the identity politics concerns of the Cultural Right (where the identity group is natalist apocalyptic cults), while taking square aim at the globalist and elitist agenda of the Wall Streeters. Hence Trump's two main rivals being Bush early on and Cruz after that.
Sanders supporters are clearly more similar to the Trump supporters than to the Tea Party. They're largely uninterested in cultural and social issues (although they are generally liberal, just like Trump people are generally conservative). Identity politics on the Dems' side is based on racial and ethnic minorities, feminists, and homosexuals. Bernie rarely touches on those topics, other than to discuss how many blacks are locked up in jail for minor drug offenses -- but then that is really a matter of how the government works (law enforcement), rather than a matter of identity politics per se (like "being culturally marginalized in the mass media").
And certainly the Bernie crowd is taking square aim at the Wall Street donors and their legislative agenda (TPP, campaign finance, etc.). That puts them at war with both factions of the longstanding Dem coalition -- the Cultural Left and the Wall Street neoliberals.
Anyone who thinks the Cultural Left loves Bernie Sanders just has to remember those lardasses from Black Lives Matter hijacking Bernie's rally in Seattle last summer, sanctimoniously berating the whole Bernie crowd for white privilege and bla bla bla. Or the endless scolding of "Bernie bros" for not voting for the First Woman President. If Hillary were not in the closet, her supporters would also be castigating Bernie people for supporting the heterosexual candidate over the dyke.
Just like Trump is returning the Republican Party to the Progressive era of McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt, so Bernie is doing his best to return the Democrats to the era of the New Deal. Race, religion, sex, and sexuality played little or no role in defining the bases of the parties in those eras, when the focus was strictly on economic and governmental matters.
Sure, the progressives in the Bernie movement identify more with the Cultural Left, just as the Trump movement identifies more with the Cultural Right. But Bernie and Trump are both emphasizing the economy and government at the expense of social and cultural issues, which is felt as a provocation by the Cultural Left and Right, who have now turned on the class-oriented movements within each of their parties.
May 25, 2016
Will Trump get anti-Hillary special shows on Fox, in return for Megyn Kelly interview?
Trump is really starting to "go there" on all the topics Roger Stone promised he would -- Hillary intimidating Bill's sexual assault and rape victims so the news wouldn't thwart the Clintons' political ambitions, and the Clinton Foundation being a slush fund for grifters whereby American government access was for sale at high levels.
He's brought these topics up in rallies, interviews, internet ads, and perhaps soon his Twitter feed. This is getting them to trickle into the news cycle, although there hasn't been a full-on attack just yet.
That got me thinking how much more of a spectacle he could make out of them. We know that Stone has started a PAC that will begin hitting Hillary on her intimidation of Bill's sexual assault victims, probably including commercials at some point. Nothing at the moment suggests commercials about the Clinton Foundation.
Still, commercials only reach so many eyeballs and only have so many seconds to make an impression.
Trump could devote an entire rally to either or both of the topics, but again how to make sure that the media covered the entire thing? If they broadcast the beginning of it, they'd soon realize where he was going, and then mute his audio, and rush to the talking head panel.
I was thinking something more like the hour-long interview that he had with Hannity last week, where he launched the first warning shot about Bill being a rapist, not only a consensual adulterer.
Imagine it -- an interviewer or moderator introduces all of Bill's sexual assault victims for a general discussion of the nature and scope of what Hillary did to them to shut them up so that their political path would be clear, and then five or six specific individuals giving in-depth accounts of what happened to them first by Bill and then by Hillary, wrapping up with the take-home message that Hillary is a sociopathic bitch driven by overweening ambition, who would rather ruin the life of a rape victim than accept a rockier road to political office.
Then another special on the Clinton Foundation, and how Crooked Hillary did the bidding of various domestic and foreign interests as a Senator and then Secretary of State, in return for their contributions to the Foundation, very little of which is spent on actual charity work, and mostly serves to line the pockets of the Clintons and their various hangers-on. Some of these toadies would be profiled specifically, and specific incidents of misuse of funds would be highlighted (luxury air travel, doing nothing to help Haiti). Wrap up with the take-home message that if she was that corrupt as a Senator and member of the Cabinet, just imagine how much she'd sell out the country if she became President.
Trump made a large donation to the Clinton Foundation, and therefore has legal standing to sue their asses for charity fraud. Stone mentioned that awhile ago, and Trump himself floated that fact during his West Virginia rally. If the lawsuit has been launched at the time of the TV special, this could be worked in as well.
But how would he get such a TV special produced and broadcast, since it wouldn't be his usual monopoly over the media where he earns it by making speeches and doing interviews? That would be one expensive buy.
I'm thinking he asked for something along these lines in the negotiations with Fox where he agreed to give Megyn Kelly an exclusive 30-minute interview, ending their feud and hopefully lifting her career upward. Unfortunately it didn't work out for her, since the thing flopped with audiences, but not for want of her trying -- it even aired on Fox, not Fox News, so you didn't need cable to see it.
What does Trump get out of that deal? Not "mending his numbers with women," which he knew were already getting much better by that point, and would get better with or without some throwaway interview with Rachel Maddow's bottle-blonde sister. He didn't get access to an audience he otherwise could not have reached -- who doesn't know by now who he is and what he's about?
Part of what he asked for was clearly fairer treatment from everybody at Fox News. They aren't as nakedly hostile toward the Trump phenomenon as they used to be.
But really, what is that worth to Trump winning? The audience itself had already written off Fox News, whose ratings and profits have plummeted in the wake of their Trump-hating programming. Aside from Kelly's ambitions being served, Fox desperately hoped to restore its failing reputation among its target audience.
Something that meant that much to Fox and Megyn Kelly is worth far more than just fair treatment. It had to be something they could make happen that he couldn't do on his own, or could only do at tremendous cost -- produce and broadcast one or more TV specials aimed at Hillary's weakest vulnerabilities, to be aired when the pressure really turns up in the fall, and perhaps re-run a number of times for good measure.
Whatever it turns out to be, one thing is obvious -- a desperate Fox did not get their Megyn Kelly special from one of the greatest negotiators alive without offering something YUGE in return. I can't wait to see what it is.
He's brought these topics up in rallies, interviews, internet ads, and perhaps soon his Twitter feed. This is getting them to trickle into the news cycle, although there hasn't been a full-on attack just yet.
That got me thinking how much more of a spectacle he could make out of them. We know that Stone has started a PAC that will begin hitting Hillary on her intimidation of Bill's sexual assault victims, probably including commercials at some point. Nothing at the moment suggests commercials about the Clinton Foundation.
Still, commercials only reach so many eyeballs and only have so many seconds to make an impression.
Trump could devote an entire rally to either or both of the topics, but again how to make sure that the media covered the entire thing? If they broadcast the beginning of it, they'd soon realize where he was going, and then mute his audio, and rush to the talking head panel.
I was thinking something more like the hour-long interview that he had with Hannity last week, where he launched the first warning shot about Bill being a rapist, not only a consensual adulterer.
Imagine it -- an interviewer or moderator introduces all of Bill's sexual assault victims for a general discussion of the nature and scope of what Hillary did to them to shut them up so that their political path would be clear, and then five or six specific individuals giving in-depth accounts of what happened to them first by Bill and then by Hillary, wrapping up with the take-home message that Hillary is a sociopathic bitch driven by overweening ambition, who would rather ruin the life of a rape victim than accept a rockier road to political office.
Then another special on the Clinton Foundation, and how Crooked Hillary did the bidding of various domestic and foreign interests as a Senator and then Secretary of State, in return for their contributions to the Foundation, very little of which is spent on actual charity work, and mostly serves to line the pockets of the Clintons and their various hangers-on. Some of these toadies would be profiled specifically, and specific incidents of misuse of funds would be highlighted (luxury air travel, doing nothing to help Haiti). Wrap up with the take-home message that if she was that corrupt as a Senator and member of the Cabinet, just imagine how much she'd sell out the country if she became President.
Trump made a large donation to the Clinton Foundation, and therefore has legal standing to sue their asses for charity fraud. Stone mentioned that awhile ago, and Trump himself floated that fact during his West Virginia rally. If the lawsuit has been launched at the time of the TV special, this could be worked in as well.
But how would he get such a TV special produced and broadcast, since it wouldn't be his usual monopoly over the media where he earns it by making speeches and doing interviews? That would be one expensive buy.
I'm thinking he asked for something along these lines in the negotiations with Fox where he agreed to give Megyn Kelly an exclusive 30-minute interview, ending their feud and hopefully lifting her career upward. Unfortunately it didn't work out for her, since the thing flopped with audiences, but not for want of her trying -- it even aired on Fox, not Fox News, so you didn't need cable to see it.
What does Trump get out of that deal? Not "mending his numbers with women," which he knew were already getting much better by that point, and would get better with or without some throwaway interview with Rachel Maddow's bottle-blonde sister. He didn't get access to an audience he otherwise could not have reached -- who doesn't know by now who he is and what he's about?
Part of what he asked for was clearly fairer treatment from everybody at Fox News. They aren't as nakedly hostile toward the Trump phenomenon as they used to be.
But really, what is that worth to Trump winning? The audience itself had already written off Fox News, whose ratings and profits have plummeted in the wake of their Trump-hating programming. Aside from Kelly's ambitions being served, Fox desperately hoped to restore its failing reputation among its target audience.
Something that meant that much to Fox and Megyn Kelly is worth far more than just fair treatment. It had to be something they could make happen that he couldn't do on his own, or could only do at tremendous cost -- produce and broadcast one or more TV specials aimed at Hillary's weakest vulnerabilities, to be aired when the pressure really turns up in the fall, and perhaps re-run a number of times for good measure.
Whatever it turns out to be, one thing is obvious -- a desperate Fox did not get their Megyn Kelly special from one of the greatest negotiators alive without offering something YUGE in return. I can't wait to see what it is.
May 24, 2016
Trump's VP will be Jeff Sessions (reminder, and further analysis)
With the topic reaching a fever pitch lately, let's just make it clear. I've been saying off and on since late February that Trump's criteria for VP, which he has repeatedly gone through to interviewers, lead toward Jeff Sessions.
He's the most similar to the future President on policy, and Trump has said that's the most important thing -- to be a faithful back-up, just in case.
He has decades of experience in the Senate, which experience Trump wants in order to hit the ground running on passing legislation.
He's been working with Trump for over a year, before the campaign was formally announced, meaning they have history and loyalty, something Trump requires.
He doesn't pick up any swing states, but voters are choosing Trump at any rate, not the VP.
He does provide geographic balance, and personality balance, being a soft-spoken Southerner.
Many people thought this as well, so it did not take any brilliance on my part -- just putting two and two together. This recent tweet by Roger Stone would seem to confirm it.
These clues are based on substance (who stands where on which policies), but you could also have figured it out from the showmanship that Trump is also an expert at. Back in late February when Sessions formally endorsed Trump, he was brought out to a massive rally in his home state of Alabama.
Most folks at home aren't political junkies, and would have had little idea who he was or what he stood for. So why was Trump shining such a spotlight on him, and at such an early stage? He wanted us to get familiar with him, something that he's enhanced over the months by naming him as a top policy advisor (gets him into the news cycle), and sending him to do interviews on the cable news circuit.
Why else would Trump want us to get so familiar with Sessions? He wants the VP announcement to be somewhat of a surprise -- hence feeding the gullible media all sorts of red herrings -- but he doesn't want that person to be an unknown, which would disorient the voters and perhaps start us worrying about who this guy is and what he stands for.
Come the Convention in Cleveland, voters will have seen and heard enough from Sessions himself, to feel familiar with the choice.
Trump knows how to tell a proper story and put on a good show, so he made sure to set up the announcement of Sessions as VP way back during the early primary stage, like Chekhov's gun. Notice that the other major endorsements did not receive as much fanfare, and the endorsers have not been a recurring presence in the media to stump for Trump. They have been important additions to the story, but not absolutely crucial like the role of Sessions.
He's the most similar to the future President on policy, and Trump has said that's the most important thing -- to be a faithful back-up, just in case.
He has decades of experience in the Senate, which experience Trump wants in order to hit the ground running on passing legislation.
He's been working with Trump for over a year, before the campaign was formally announced, meaning they have history and loyalty, something Trump requires.
He doesn't pick up any swing states, but voters are choosing Trump at any rate, not the VP.
He does provide geographic balance, and personality balance, being a soft-spoken Southerner.
Many people thought this as well, so it did not take any brilliance on my part -- just putting two and two together. This recent tweet by Roger Stone would seem to confirm it.
These clues are based on substance (who stands where on which policies), but you could also have figured it out from the showmanship that Trump is also an expert at. Back in late February when Sessions formally endorsed Trump, he was brought out to a massive rally in his home state of Alabama.
Most folks at home aren't political junkies, and would have had little idea who he was or what he stood for. So why was Trump shining such a spotlight on him, and at such an early stage? He wanted us to get familiar with him, something that he's enhanced over the months by naming him as a top policy advisor (gets him into the news cycle), and sending him to do interviews on the cable news circuit.
Why else would Trump want us to get so familiar with Sessions? He wants the VP announcement to be somewhat of a surprise -- hence feeding the gullible media all sorts of red herrings -- but he doesn't want that person to be an unknown, which would disorient the voters and perhaps start us worrying about who this guy is and what he stands for.
Come the Convention in Cleveland, voters will have seen and heard enough from Sessions himself, to feel familiar with the choice.
Trump knows how to tell a proper story and put on a good show, so he made sure to set up the announcement of Sessions as VP way back during the early primary stage, like Chekhov's gun. Notice that the other major endorsements did not receive as much fanfare, and the endorsers have not been a recurring presence in the media to stump for Trump. They have been important additions to the story, but not absolutely crucial like the role of Sessions.
May 23, 2016
The most insightful commercial
The personification of persistent diarrhea is a stereotypical Millennial:
May 21, 2016
Clinton machine's attacks on Bernie aren't working (bodes well for when Trump faces it)
The schism within the Democrats began to visibly widen last weekend at the Nevada Convention where the Establishment marginalized the Sanders supporters, who raised a great hue and cry at the Convention itself and during the past week.
The DNC and the Clinton machine responded by attacking the Bernie movement on cable news, political websites, and social media. His supporters went too far, they're inciting violence and intimidation, the process is not rigged by Hillary's surrogates, they need to beg forgiveness for acting so horribly, etc etc etc.
Sanders supporters gave the obligatory empty denunciations of violence (who will condone?), and stood their ground against the Dem Establishment. They aren't being transparent, they use arcane procedural rules to circumvent popular participation, they're treating the primaries as a coronation of Crooked Hillary, the major controllers of the process have been in favor of Clinton ever since the beginning, and so on and so forth.
This fight has been going on all day, every day for the past week, with unrelenting media propaganda boosting Hillary and telling Bernie to be quiet, lest the contest damage Hillary too much before she even goes one-on-one against Trump.
What has been the effect of all this anti-anti-Establishment "messaging" on those involved in the primary? Zero -- if anything, it has helped Bernie's numbers.
Reuters polling for the Democratic primary shows no down-turn for Bernie over the past week. In fact, from Monday through Friday his numbers rose day after day, standing now at 44%. Crooked Hillary's numbers have steadily fallen to 38%. Those saying they wouldn't vote for either of them have fallen as well, so the Clinton machine's propaganda has provoked some sitting on the sidelines to choose Bernie.
The past week's trends are part of a longer pattern over all of May, of Sanders rising and Clinton falling. So we can't say that the media shaming blitz backfired and caused his numbers to go up. That was already happening. Still, it does show that it didn't have much of a negative impact, although they didn't totally unload on him, let alone take out attack ads.
Trump will face a higher level of intensity from the Clinton propaganda machine when it's just the two of them. But if they are having zero effect on one anti-Establishment candidate, a higher intensity of zero will still equal zero on the other anti-Establishment candidate. Certainly that was the outcome of all the Trump-hating propaganda during the Republican primary season, much of which did not come from his Republican rivals but from the Clinton-friendly cable news channels and major newspapers and websites.
Trump keeps taunting Team Hillary that they still can't put Bernie away and close the deal. He's making a larger point, though, aside from demoralizing them -- they've proven to be weak and ineffective against a weaker opponent than they will face in Trump.
Trump may have a lot of work to do to persuade voters around the country that he's not the typical Republican candidate, a job he's been working on since the beginning (most notably on trade issues). But he will not have much to worry about from the Clinton machine, who are already proving how inept they are. One less major danger to worry that much about.
Now he can focus more on appealing directly to the voters in each of the states, and not have to do much defense. Onward to victory.
The DNC and the Clinton machine responded by attacking the Bernie movement on cable news, political websites, and social media. His supporters went too far, they're inciting violence and intimidation, the process is not rigged by Hillary's surrogates, they need to beg forgiveness for acting so horribly, etc etc etc.
Sanders supporters gave the obligatory empty denunciations of violence (who will condone?), and stood their ground against the Dem Establishment. They aren't being transparent, they use arcane procedural rules to circumvent popular participation, they're treating the primaries as a coronation of Crooked Hillary, the major controllers of the process have been in favor of Clinton ever since the beginning, and so on and so forth.
This fight has been going on all day, every day for the past week, with unrelenting media propaganda boosting Hillary and telling Bernie to be quiet, lest the contest damage Hillary too much before she even goes one-on-one against Trump.
What has been the effect of all this anti-anti-Establishment "messaging" on those involved in the primary? Zero -- if anything, it has helped Bernie's numbers.
Reuters polling for the Democratic primary shows no down-turn for Bernie over the past week. In fact, from Monday through Friday his numbers rose day after day, standing now at 44%. Crooked Hillary's numbers have steadily fallen to 38%. Those saying they wouldn't vote for either of them have fallen as well, so the Clinton machine's propaganda has provoked some sitting on the sidelines to choose Bernie.
The past week's trends are part of a longer pattern over all of May, of Sanders rising and Clinton falling. So we can't say that the media shaming blitz backfired and caused his numbers to go up. That was already happening. Still, it does show that it didn't have much of a negative impact, although they didn't totally unload on him, let alone take out attack ads.
Trump will face a higher level of intensity from the Clinton propaganda machine when it's just the two of them. But if they are having zero effect on one anti-Establishment candidate, a higher intensity of zero will still equal zero on the other anti-Establishment candidate. Certainly that was the outcome of all the Trump-hating propaganda during the Republican primary season, much of which did not come from his Republican rivals but from the Clinton-friendly cable news channels and major newspapers and websites.
Trump keeps taunting Team Hillary that they still can't put Bernie away and close the deal. He's making a larger point, though, aside from demoralizing them -- they've proven to be weak and ineffective against a weaker opponent than they will face in Trump.
Trump may have a lot of work to do to persuade voters around the country that he's not the typical Republican candidate, a job he's been working on since the beginning (most notably on trade issues). But he will not have much to worry about from the Clinton machine, who are already proving how inept they are. One less major danger to worry that much about.
Now he can focus more on appealing directly to the voters in each of the states, and not have to do much defense. Onward to victory.
May 20, 2016
Trump would win even if third-party cuck sent election to House of Representatives
The Never Trump crowd is finding out just how small it will be by November. But that isn't stopping some of the more autistic and delusional ones from playing with their electoral tinker-toy sets to show how their Rube Goldberg device just might become reality and send a hardcore right-wing nutjob into the Presidency.
Typical is this recent post by a resident genius from The Federalist:
We can ignore the quantitative part of his argument, since he can't count (e.g., assumes that all non-Trump voters in early primaries won't vote for Trump in general, despite a complete consolidation by the Convention -- witness the capitulation of Nebraska voters, who are in the heart of the Cuck Belt yet voted Trump at over 60% once he was the only candidate left running).
Instead, let's just grant that by a miracle, no single candidate gets 270 electoral votes in a three-way race between Clinton, Trump, and Cuckenheimer. The election goes to the House of Representatives, where the Representatives vote as a single state bloc, and where 26 states are needed to win. Highly blue states make up a little under 20, in the House.
So, Cuckenheimer might receive as many as 10 states during the first ballot, Trump 20, and Clinton 20. No majority, go to second ballot -- where the 10 cuck states gradually, or all at once, capitulate and vote Trump. No cuck state is going to be instrumental in sending Crooked Hillary to the presidency.
The reason that the House of Representatives would never choose a hardcore right-wing nutjob third party candidate, just because they technically could with a solid Republican majority of states, is that there would be bloody revolution all throughout the land -- beginning with the Representatives themselves. Cuckenheimer would have hardly any electoral votes, few states, and a pitiful share of the popular vote. Everyone would be agin' 'im, and no one fer 'im. To parachute him in through technicalities would trigger our sense of injustice, and we would put an end to it.
Only an insulated nerd like the Federalist cuck can believe in these outlandish scenarios. They live in a "revenge of the nerds" fantasy land, where they never get punched in the face for taunting a crowd while hiding behind legal technicalities.
The only viable solution left for them is to prove how not-racist and principle-driven they are, and relocate en masse to Mexico, where they can assimilate into their "natural conservative" neighbors. Vaya con dios, faggots!
Typical is this recent post by a resident genius from The Federalist:
Heh, you Trumpkins underestimate this 19 year-old
closeted Young Republican at your peril...
We can ignore the quantitative part of his argument, since he can't count (e.g., assumes that all non-Trump voters in early primaries won't vote for Trump in general, despite a complete consolidation by the Convention -- witness the capitulation of Nebraska voters, who are in the heart of the Cuck Belt yet voted Trump at over 60% once he was the only candidate left running).
Instead, let's just grant that by a miracle, no single candidate gets 270 electoral votes in a three-way race between Clinton, Trump, and Cuckenheimer. The election goes to the House of Representatives, where the Representatives vote as a single state bloc, and where 26 states are needed to win. Highly blue states make up a little under 20, in the House.
So, Cuckenheimer might receive as many as 10 states during the first ballot, Trump 20, and Clinton 20. No majority, go to second ballot -- where the 10 cuck states gradually, or all at once, capitulate and vote Trump. No cuck state is going to be instrumental in sending Crooked Hillary to the presidency.
The reason that the House of Representatives would never choose a hardcore right-wing nutjob third party candidate, just because they technically could with a solid Republican majority of states, is that there would be bloody revolution all throughout the land -- beginning with the Representatives themselves. Cuckenheimer would have hardly any electoral votes, few states, and a pitiful share of the popular vote. Everyone would be agin' 'im, and no one fer 'im. To parachute him in through technicalities would trigger our sense of injustice, and we would put an end to it.
Only an insulated nerd like the Federalist cuck can believe in these outlandish scenarios. They live in a "revenge of the nerds" fantasy land, where they never get punched in the face for taunting a crowd while hiding behind legal technicalities.
The only viable solution left for them is to prove how not-racist and principle-driven they are, and relocate en masse to Mexico, where they can assimilate into their "natural conservative" neighbors. Vaya con dios, faggots!
May 15, 2016
The American multi-party system of shifting coalitions, and third party prospects today
The topic of third parties is coming up, what with the empty talk of the Conservative Movement (TM) running an independent candidate, and the more realistic prospect of Bernie running as an independent (or at any rate, his supporters choosing him as a write-in candidate rather than Crooked Hillary).
Many on the progressive side wish there were more than just the two national parties -- "like they have in Sweden," or wherever else they imagine electoral utopia exists.
But America already has a multi-party system -- each of the two parties is always a coalition of several distinct factions. Before the recent disruptions of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, the Republicans were a coalition of the US Chamber of Commerce, the Cultural Right, and the neoconservative warhawks, while the Democrats were a coalition of the US Chamber of Commerce, the Cultural Left, and neoliberal regime-changers.
Even the Cultural Left and Right are coalitions of distinct factions who don't have anything immediately in common, and have to convince each other that there's a bigger cause uniting them all -- pro-lifers, preppers, gun nuts, apocalyptic cults, etc. on the Right, and AIDS propagators, feminazis, aggrieved racial minorities, cosplay environmentalists, etc. on the Left.
"In Sweden" (or wherever), each of these narrowly focused groups might found their own party and run their own candidates. Given how narrow their focus is, they would likely form coalition governments after the election was held.
In America, they form coalitions before the election, and each of these coalitions runs in the general election. It seems better to build the coalition first, so you can hit the ground running if you win the election, rather than cultivate relationships and ties with a coalition government after the election, wasting precious time when you're already in office.
Still, why not three major parties, each of them a coalition as now? Probably to prevent yet another level of coalition-building. With three equally strong major parties, two would probably have to join up in a super-coalition against the third. This would be another case of having to establish links, build relationships, and so on, after the election, wasting time while in office.
And why not just one party? That might work during exceptionally harmonious periods, like the Era of Good Feelings when the Democratic-Republican Party went unopposed at the national level. Otherwise, we're going to need some choice between competing interests.
The other knock against the two-party system is that it encourages ossification of whose interests are represented by the only effective parties. But that's not true either, because the composition of either party's coalition is always subject to change, or re-alignment.
The Republican coalition during the Bush Sr. and Jr. era would have looked utterly alien to the Republican coalition of the Eisenhower and Nixon era. Back then, it was the Democrats who were more established in the Deep South, and who were interventionist warhawks. Likewise the Democrat coalition of the Clinton and Obama era would look totally foreign to the Democrat coalition of the FDR and JFK era -- what happened to the working class and labor unions, the backbone of the New Deal coalition?
Third parties do occasionally achieve national success, but they are short-lived reactions by defectors from one of the two parties, intended to punish the other members of the coalition who have betrayed the defecting group. They realize they will not win the general election as a break-off faction of one of the two parties -- the point is to punish past wrongdoing within the party, and serve as a credible threat against any future betrayal within the party.
Importantly, they are swift responses against the incumbent party -- not delayed grudges.
Nader 2000 was mostly a reaction against the Democrats selling out during the Clinton era of elitist and globalist New Democrats. Perot '92 and '96 was a reaction against both the elitist / globalist policies of the Bush Sr. party, as well as the incipient New Democrats. Anderson '80 was a reaction by former Carter voters who wanted more of a moderate who didn't mention he was a born-again Christian. Wallace '68 and Thurmond '48 were both reactions by Deep Southerners who didn't like where the Democrats were headed with desegregation, during and after WWII, when the Democrat administration desegregated the Army. Progressive Party runs by Roosevelt '12 and La Follette '24 were both reactions against the Republicans for becoming too conservative.
Really the only third-party campaign that consistently broke into single digits with the national popular vote was the Socialist Party in the early 20th C., a social-democratic party that was not a break-away from either the Democrats or Republicans. But with both major parties including the working class in their coalitions -- first the progressive Republicans, and later the New Deal Democrats -- there wasn't enough reason to go outside into a third party based mostly on labor rights, with no broader coalition to build. No broad coalition means no chance at the national level.
So what does this bode for the current season? If anyone is going to break off from the Republicans, it's the Cultural Right / Tea Party. Enough of them seem to be on board the Trump train, though (maybe 50%), that they aren't cohesive enough to make a run of their own. If they did, it would be in the heart of the Cuck Belt, the Plains, a la Ben Sasse continuing to pipe up about a "consistent conservative" candidate.
However, the Republicans haven't held the Presidency for eight years, so it's a bit late to launch a retaliation to punish a betrayal from the '00s. That was the Tea Party Congressional landslide of 2010, and that's already run out of gas, not to mention getting eclipsed by the Trump phenomenon at the national level in 2016.
If anything, it would be progressives bolting the Democrats to punish getting sold out by Obama and Crooked Hillary. Unlike the Tea Partiers, the "Bernie or bust" people still have fresh wounds and a bad taste in their mouths. Whether they draft Bernie to run as an independent, write him in, or flock to the Green Party, remains to be seen. A good chunk of blue-collar Sanders supporters will come around to Trump, another good chunk will stay home, and only a handful will turn out for Clinton.
The progressives, though, are a separate faction within the Bernie coalition. They won't vote for Trump, and they seem too energized to wind up staying home in November, after the superdelegates deliver the nomination to Crooked Hillary on a silver platter. It could be a Perot-sized rift on the Democrats' side, which would help Trump pick up divided blue states that would otherwise be an uphill battle (Colorado, Washington), in the same way Bill Clinton picked up red states that were divided by Perot (Georgia in '92, Arizona in '96).
Everything is lining up for a wipe-out victory for the Trump movement. The only likely third-party rift is on the Democrats' side, and the Republicans are quickly re-aligning to shed dead weight and appeal to a much wider base, who are growing the party in record numbers. The Democrat Establishment is only bent on worsening their own problems -- antagonizing the Bernie crowd (e.g., the Nevada Convention this weekend), defending the superdelegate process, and courting neocons and Wall Street mega-donors from the Establishment Republicans who are leaving the inchoate Party of Trump.
It's gonna be epic.
Many on the progressive side wish there were more than just the two national parties -- "like they have in Sweden," or wherever else they imagine electoral utopia exists.
But America already has a multi-party system -- each of the two parties is always a coalition of several distinct factions. Before the recent disruptions of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, the Republicans were a coalition of the US Chamber of Commerce, the Cultural Right, and the neoconservative warhawks, while the Democrats were a coalition of the US Chamber of Commerce, the Cultural Left, and neoliberal regime-changers.
Even the Cultural Left and Right are coalitions of distinct factions who don't have anything immediately in common, and have to convince each other that there's a bigger cause uniting them all -- pro-lifers, preppers, gun nuts, apocalyptic cults, etc. on the Right, and AIDS propagators, feminazis, aggrieved racial minorities, cosplay environmentalists, etc. on the Left.
"In Sweden" (or wherever), each of these narrowly focused groups might found their own party and run their own candidates. Given how narrow their focus is, they would likely form coalition governments after the election was held.
In America, they form coalitions before the election, and each of these coalitions runs in the general election. It seems better to build the coalition first, so you can hit the ground running if you win the election, rather than cultivate relationships and ties with a coalition government after the election, wasting precious time when you're already in office.
Still, why not three major parties, each of them a coalition as now? Probably to prevent yet another level of coalition-building. With three equally strong major parties, two would probably have to join up in a super-coalition against the third. This would be another case of having to establish links, build relationships, and so on, after the election, wasting time while in office.
And why not just one party? That might work during exceptionally harmonious periods, like the Era of Good Feelings when the Democratic-Republican Party went unopposed at the national level. Otherwise, we're going to need some choice between competing interests.
The other knock against the two-party system is that it encourages ossification of whose interests are represented by the only effective parties. But that's not true either, because the composition of either party's coalition is always subject to change, or re-alignment.
The Republican coalition during the Bush Sr. and Jr. era would have looked utterly alien to the Republican coalition of the Eisenhower and Nixon era. Back then, it was the Democrats who were more established in the Deep South, and who were interventionist warhawks. Likewise the Democrat coalition of the Clinton and Obama era would look totally foreign to the Democrat coalition of the FDR and JFK era -- what happened to the working class and labor unions, the backbone of the New Deal coalition?
Third parties do occasionally achieve national success, but they are short-lived reactions by defectors from one of the two parties, intended to punish the other members of the coalition who have betrayed the defecting group. They realize they will not win the general election as a break-off faction of one of the two parties -- the point is to punish past wrongdoing within the party, and serve as a credible threat against any future betrayal within the party.
Importantly, they are swift responses against the incumbent party -- not delayed grudges.
Nader 2000 was mostly a reaction against the Democrats selling out during the Clinton era of elitist and globalist New Democrats. Perot '92 and '96 was a reaction against both the elitist / globalist policies of the Bush Sr. party, as well as the incipient New Democrats. Anderson '80 was a reaction by former Carter voters who wanted more of a moderate who didn't mention he was a born-again Christian. Wallace '68 and Thurmond '48 were both reactions by Deep Southerners who didn't like where the Democrats were headed with desegregation, during and after WWII, when the Democrat administration desegregated the Army. Progressive Party runs by Roosevelt '12 and La Follette '24 were both reactions against the Republicans for becoming too conservative.
Really the only third-party campaign that consistently broke into single digits with the national popular vote was the Socialist Party in the early 20th C., a social-democratic party that was not a break-away from either the Democrats or Republicans. But with both major parties including the working class in their coalitions -- first the progressive Republicans, and later the New Deal Democrats -- there wasn't enough reason to go outside into a third party based mostly on labor rights, with no broader coalition to build. No broad coalition means no chance at the national level.
So what does this bode for the current season? If anyone is going to break off from the Republicans, it's the Cultural Right / Tea Party. Enough of them seem to be on board the Trump train, though (maybe 50%), that they aren't cohesive enough to make a run of their own. If they did, it would be in the heart of the Cuck Belt, the Plains, a la Ben Sasse continuing to pipe up about a "consistent conservative" candidate.
However, the Republicans haven't held the Presidency for eight years, so it's a bit late to launch a retaliation to punish a betrayal from the '00s. That was the Tea Party Congressional landslide of 2010, and that's already run out of gas, not to mention getting eclipsed by the Trump phenomenon at the national level in 2016.
If anything, it would be progressives bolting the Democrats to punish getting sold out by Obama and Crooked Hillary. Unlike the Tea Partiers, the "Bernie or bust" people still have fresh wounds and a bad taste in their mouths. Whether they draft Bernie to run as an independent, write him in, or flock to the Green Party, remains to be seen. A good chunk of blue-collar Sanders supporters will come around to Trump, another good chunk will stay home, and only a handful will turn out for Clinton.
The progressives, though, are a separate faction within the Bernie coalition. They won't vote for Trump, and they seem too energized to wind up staying home in November, after the superdelegates deliver the nomination to Crooked Hillary on a silver platter. It could be a Perot-sized rift on the Democrats' side, which would help Trump pick up divided blue states that would otherwise be an uphill battle (Colorado, Washington), in the same way Bill Clinton picked up red states that were divided by Perot (Georgia in '92, Arizona in '96).
Everything is lining up for a wipe-out victory for the Trump movement. The only likely third-party rift is on the Democrats' side, and the Republicans are quickly re-aligning to shed dead weight and appeal to a much wider base, who are growing the party in record numbers. The Democrat Establishment is only bent on worsening their own problems -- antagonizing the Bernie crowd (e.g., the Nevada Convention this weekend), defending the superdelegate process, and courting neocons and Wall Street mega-donors from the Establishment Republicans who are leaving the inchoate Party of Trump.
It's gonna be epic.
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