First there was "low energy" Jeb, then "Little Marco," and still "Lyin' Ted". This weekend Trump has rolled out his damning branding of Clinton as "Crooked Hillary," which brings up her long history of corruption as well as the rigged nomination process. She'll sell out the American people to further line her pockets, and she could only receive the nomination by influencing / bribing the superdelegates rather than the actual voters.
He has yet to brand Sanders with an attack on his character, you could argue because he's not much of a threat, but more likely because that's a bridge he doesn't want to... bern. Sure, he tosses out the "socialist slash communist" line, but anyone who can't tell he's just ribbing him is a humorless nerd. It's like one buddy teasing another for being a "chubby-chaser". And "socialist" only goes to his ideology, not some fatal flaw of his personality.
Whether or not Trump would go as far as offering Bernie the VP slot, he'd have to be crazy not to include him somewhere in his administration, and to broadcast that promise in order to draw in the Sanders supporters (the normal majority of them, not the fringe leftoids).
Keep him away from a position where he could do damage, like single-payer healthcare or free college for all. Maybe head of the Federal Trade Commission, though, restoring the agency to its original function as trust-buster rather than milquetoast "consumer protection" stuff.
If Trump is going to give a list of 10-12 potential appointees to the Supreme Court, why not do likewise for other key positions, to let voters know concretely what kind of administration they'd be choosing. It would also present a challenge to Crooked Hillary:
"So who would you put at the head of the FTC? Some party hack who gave a lot of money to your Clinton Foundation? -- which is a total scam, by the way -- You see, folks, that's all she is, is crooked. I'm going to put Bernie Sanders in charge of trust-busting, and the media monopoly and Wall Street are not going to have an easy time, that I can tell you. Hey, folks, would there be any President more unifying than Trump?"
Trump has called him "Wacky Bernie" a couple times, a long time ago. Its a great nickname, but he stopped doing it quick. He obviously realized that Bernie is making life difficult for Hillary, which is a great thing, and that he can get a lot of crossover Bernie votes so its good not to be the one that kills him.
ReplyDeleteIf he even gets like 20% of Bernie lovers its gonna be a landslide.
Trump also gave credit to Bernie supporters for having "fervor" which he said Hillary supporters lacked. I think he respects Bernie for having a consistent set of principles, any principles whatsoever, which Hillary clearly does not.
ReplyDelete20% sounds like a lot to completely jump parties, although some will. And it would still be very productive if Trump can get Bernie supporters to stay home rather than begrudgingly vote Hillary.
I still think Carson needs to be involved, if not as a VP then as a Surgeon General or Secretary of Education AND with this intention being very publicized. Again, converting black votes or at least getting blacks to say "meh" and stay home rather than vote for the sociopathic cunt.
How about the Crypt Keeper? Of course for those who remember Weekend at Bernie's a nickname is superfluous.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/sanders-dismisses-trumps-ugly-attack-on-clinton/ar-BBrTWBS?li=BBnb7Kz&OCID=DELLDHP Imagine the Weekend at Bernie's poster with Hillary and Bubba holding him up
ReplyDelete(I'm the same anonymous as at 8:49am)
ReplyDeleteAgnostic, off topic but I wanted to draw attention to what I think is an important musical act -- M83 -- and see if you have any thoughts on it. I previously mentioned their (or really, his, as it's mainly one French guy named Anthony Gonzalez) song "Midnight City" as an 80s revival. You thought it was slow-paced and superficially 80s and perhaps cynical. Out of context, that is a reasonable assessment.
He has a new album out called Junk that I think is some of the best music I've heard since 2000. The reviews have been pretty mediocre but I think it's because people don't have a clear box to place it in. It spans long, slow instrumental ballads to campy/poppy dance songs, it's got self-indulgent Steve Vai guitar solos, and the whole album is based on an important theme: today, we just consume and rapidly discard, and nothing lasts -- in the end, everything is floating around in space. I think this theme applies not only to music but also our national attention, political "causes", and even our way of life. There is no secret that M83 adopts the 80s vibe 100%, but I don't think this is superficial appropriation -- he was a kid in the 80s and considers that to be the peak of music, after which it is nearly impossible to produce anything new. In fact, he points to the Punky Brewster theme song as the exact high water mark (and he even adopts the Punky font on his new album cover). This is completely without irony and this is a consummate professional -- you can see in interviews and his style of dress that he doesn't crave attention, he just produces to the best of his ability.
M83 is not religious music and for all I know he may be an atheist, but there is more spirituality and authenticity in his stuff than in anything else I've seen recently. Check out "Outro" off his previous album. Likewise, while he may identify as liberal (and probably does -- but I have no idea), I think this is a guy who truly believes that there is more to the universe than just us. He also recognizes that modern life is lacking in meaning and happiness and wonder -- and I think that explains why his albums center on dreams, childhood, and space.
This post now sounds like a wannabe album review, and maybe it is, but I just feel very strongly about this album and want to pass it along to others who might appreciate it.
Off the new album, I'd recommend "Do it, Try it" and "Go!" and "Sunday Night 1987" (how's that for a song title?).
"Bolshevik Bernie"
ReplyDelete"Bolshevik Bernie" doesn't work because no one knows who they were.
ReplyDeleteBernie isn't enough of a threat to warrant a nickname. Besides, he's fighting Hillary, no need for Trump to make it easier on her. The closer the non-superdelegate margin of victory for Hillary, the more angry Berniebros will be when Hillary obtains a majority of delegates. I doubt Trump expects to grab Bernie supporters but if they stay home instead of vote for Clinton, then that's just as good.
ReplyDeleteTrump does expect to grab Bernie voters -- how else is he going to turn blue states red, by grabbing Hillary voters?
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot of confusion about Bernie voters -- they're anyone who voted for Bernie. He did not sweep many states and achieve a narrow win in Michigan by relying on far-left SJWs with blue hair.
Trump is no fool, so he's not only not writing off the Bernie voters, he's actively courting them. "Hey, I'm no fan of Bernie Sanders, BUT..." then saying good about Bernie, and slamming the rigged system of both parties.
Remember: Trump is not a practitioner of symbolic values politics, where each side shrieks about how morally superior its values are, and then the Dems win every time because there are more libs than cons in America.
He's actually trying to win, and that means converting states that have been in the blue column into Trump states. The bulk of voters who are not voting for him in the primaries are those who voted in the Dem primaries for Bernie, but who will not be able to vote for their main guy in the general because of Crooked Hillary.
That's why Trump hasn't given him a nickname -- aside from needing his voters, he respects that Bernie isn't a sell-out and traitor like nearly all of the Dems and Repubs, that he's a populist and nationalist on economics, and that he's not an adventurist in foreign policy.
Heads up - New York dossier
ReplyDelete14 statewide delegates - 50% victory gets all 14
81 congressional district delegates - 50% victory in a district OR victory with all losers getting less than 20% means that the victor gets all 3 delegates in the district. If neither happens the winner gets 2 delegates and the runner up gets 1.
County results:
http://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president/new-york
Congress. districts map:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York's_congressional_districts
Procedures guide:
http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P16/NY-R
http://frontloading.blogspot.com/2016/03/2016-republican-delegate-allocation-new.html
Keep in mind that New York is a primary that's closed pretty tight. I heard that Registered independents and Democrats would've needed to re-register as Republicans in October of 2015 in order to be eligible to vote in the GOP primary. Not good for Reagan Democrat types, but I suppose at this point a lot of disgruntled people probably aren't even registered at all. In that case, they would've needed to register by March 25 to vote.
Ted's antics keep getting more smarmy. He insists that Colorado "voted" to give him every damn delegate. Polling seems to show that he's gotten less popular in the northeast. Maybe people can see the slime oozing out of him better now.
ReplyDeleteThe Canadian hasn't really accomplished anything. He tried to cut in line to get to the GOP elite faster by shacking up with Heidi and working for the Bushes, but pissed off insiders felt that he hadn't paid his dues. They stuck him in the FTC. A furious Cruz then began laying the groundwork for an "outsider"/tea party friendly image. Using his youth to his advantage (he could avoid blame for the system) while learning how to push the right culture war buttons, he took off, becoming a long serving Solicitor General of Texas. Eventually building enough support and recognition, he became a Texas Senator after which he developed a confrontational style so as to "prove" that he was fighting the establishment. But what has Cruz actually done?
Cruz is a lifelong lawyer and politician. Trump on the other hand had tangible results as a developer. Who learned how to deal with and appease people, not just pick fights opportunistically and bloviate empty rhetoric that divides people and does not solve the real problems.
Bernie had some great stances on immigration (which he pussed out on) and I love his stance on guns (he's pro) but he got alpha'd by BLM and Hillcunt. He's getting owned by the Post-Structuralist/Cultural Marxist New Left and he's not the fire-breathing Sam Gompers/Orwell/London/Long style Old Leftist that I respect and admire.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/national-results-map
ReplyDeleteWith the exception of Maine, the further East you go the more popular Trump is. I don't see how Cruz has a prayer in the remaining Eastern states. Though Indiana might be far enough west (and no doubt bludgeoned by anti-Trump propaganda) to make things a bit close.
Trump's done well with the (often Okie or at least relatively conservative) whites who moved to Arizona/Nevada and are fed up with the invasion. But how many defenders are left in California? I'm not optimistic about Oregon or Washington either. These states are more Norded up than the Southwest, and have also been relatively spared from the Mexican onslaught. Not too many blacks to intrude on the peace, either.
Trump voters are mostly no-nonsense ass kickers tired of cultural posturing. We want to get down to business and leave the moralizing behind. The further West you go, the ditzier people get not withstanding the more rooted and unpretentious white folks on the West coast, some of whom have been forced out by either California dreamin' foreigners or white yuppies.
BTW, the orthodox Jews went hard for Cruz and Kasich in NYC.
Indiana gives me a Mid-West vibe. Take from that what you will
ReplyDeleteBernie is just not going to shake the Silent curse. And frankly, an elderly Jew was not gonna have a chance with the blacks who dominate the Dem base.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, the Dem primaries give lots of power to urban machines which are heavily black. Pretty sick that blacks, who make up around 12% of the population, are the main deciders for 1 of the 2 major parties.
For what it's worth, ID politics die hard especially in the evermore frozen in time brains of the elderly and even to some extent the middle aged. Sanders' support rises that much more with every year you take off a voter. Hillary's base is literally dying as we speak. The election can't come fast enough for her. Black folk die young, too.
Once again, we see how Silents never get things right sometimes through no fault of their own. The Dems have so engineered an ID politics mandate that a candidate who represents a change from that BS doesn't have a chance. Sanders' is the better of the two, but Boomer Clinton is an architect of the fading ID regime that is sufficiently popular among the gray hairs to allow her to skate to the nom.
People are being on hard on Bernie for not pushing the right buttons, but his heart just isn't into perpetuating racial or feminist animus. He truly does want everyone to get a fair shake. But that's not what Dem yuppies and aging blacks want. They want to be placed on a pedestal from which they can celebrate and boast. Didja see the aging blacks whooping it up with Hillary after the win? Yuck. Your days are numbered.
Media frantically trying to spin another debacle for them http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/if-trump-ran-the-us-economy/ar-BBs0VWj?li=BBnb7Kz&OCID=DELLDHP
ReplyDelete"He truly does want everyone to get a fair shake. But that's not what Dem yuppies and aging blacks want. They want to be placed on a pedestal from which they can celebrate and boast."
ReplyDeleteExactly. Bernie has called their bluff. It's not about principals, principals are just a cover story for "give me mine." Blacks don't even like diversity, unless it means pro-black -- they want segregation in the form of black cops, black leaders, black support groups. You can't fault them for this, and in fact the only non-racist way to advocate for a restoration of white identity is to encourage voluntary self-segregation for all races into their own communities.
Just so the Bernie hug-fest doesn't get out of hand, lets state for the record that the blue-haired SJW barista true believers really are lost causes. But as Agnostic said, this is a small part of his support (it's just the conspicuous part, especially if you are around young people or in coffee shops). Those people would never vote Trump, and would probably begrudgingly (or happily) vote Hillary in a national election.
California's polls are encouraging. Trump is even winning with Hispanics and "Other" races, meaning various Asians (who give him the same support as whites). Pretty sure he's winning with blacks, too, but by lower margins.
ReplyDeleteMind you, these are non-whites who are voting in a closed Republican primary.
Plus there's going to be a steady story about Cruz being mathematically eliminated -- Californians will be hearing that for over a month. Plus more delegate shenanigans he's up to in Pennsylvania -- it'll put them off even more.
One way to corral Bernie supporters, or even Bernie himself, would be to look at Ralph Nader's stance on immigration back in 2000 when he was on the progressives' electoral radar.
ReplyDeleteNot very different from Trump's assessment of the problem, although he didn't propose building a wall, deporting all illegals, ending anchor babies, etc.
It'll be enough of a change if we can just get the good Bernie people to recognize and accept how disastrous unchecked immigration is -- for workers (higher supply of labor = lower wages and incomes, more inequality), for the environment (invasive species, overpopulation), and for public health (epidemic diseases more likely, and more virulent with a larger population size from international inter-connectedness).
Interestingly Nader is of older immigrant Leb Christian stock, much like Pirro and Faris
ReplyDeleteTrump easily wins the 5 primaries next week. Since Cruz has been mathematically eliminated from winning, many of the anti-Trump people will be discouraged, which will give Trump another victory in Indiana. Trump won the bordering states, Michigan to the north, Kentucky to the South and Illinois to the West. this bodes well for Trump , plus the Kasich supporters will dilute the anti-Trump voters. Trump will have over 1000 bounded delegates on May 3. then he easily wins West Virginia. after all these Trump wins it will be clear that Trump will win the nomination.
ReplyDelete@agnostic
ReplyDeleteOne way to corral Bernie supporters, or even Bernie himself, .
Lefties theorized at the start that Bill Clinton conned/paid Trump to enter the race for the Repubs just to clear a path for Hillary. But what if Trump is working secretly keeping Bernie in to make his path easier?
Not a bad plan for the Master Persuader---Bernie forces Hilary left to define herself as leftist, muddles up the D primaries, and exposes the lack of enthusiasm for her (voters are more enthusiastic for an old political hack who's done nothing in his decades in Congress but talks big than for her); she can't consolidate the party early enough to win.
This would be a business strategy Trump would have used against a real estate rival---keep the rival bogged down with a trivial matter that won't go away and threatens to get big (e.g. Trump gets a lone city councilman to hold up his opponents necessary permits on a technicality, but the councilman is a loud mouth idealist type who uses the hold up to rail against the development for ideological reasons/"racism"), all the while Trump gets his ducks in a row.
Wouldn't surprise me: Bernie's a rich man's fool who talks a good socialist game but doesn't even have good internal socialist logic--he basically got this job (his only real one in life) from rich white VT retirees/transplants listening to him rail about "the little guy" and "Wall Street" and donating and voting him in. His immigration stance is so backward to his other ideas that it seems all for show. He seems easy to keep in the game just so he can hear his own voice. He's an old porn writing hack with no real idea what he's saying.
would be to look at Ralph Nader's stance on immigration back in 2000 when he was on the progressives' electoral radar. Not very different from Trump's assessment of the problem, although he didn't propose building a wall, deporting all illegals, ending anchor babies, etc.
The thinking left has all but disappeared; they at least tried to reconcile the problems of immigration and socialism. The left has been replaced with the George Soros left---non-thinking and contradictory at all turns.
Would Nader ever come out for Trump? That might kick some lefties in the shin.
It'll be enough of a change if we can just get the good Bernie people to recognize and accept how disastrous unchecked immigration is -- for workers (higher supply of labor = lower wages and incomes, more inequality), for the environment (invasive species, overpopulation), and for public health (epidemic diseases more likely, and more virulent with a larger population size from international inter-connectedness).
Basic Rational Socialist Economics is: you can have a welfare state (as we do), you can have open borders, but you can't have both. And you can't have a welfare state without a nation.
not that I agree with socialism, but at least some of them tried to figure out how to make it work on macro and micro scales.
P.S. This election is a Realignment Election: the parties are realigning among different groups.
ReplyDeleteThe Repubs' coalition of Big Business, Friedman-capitalism, and social conservatives is breaking apart.
The Dems coalition of Identity politics versus economic socialism is breaking apart.
The parties are realigning between Nationalists (Repubs, or whatever replaces them) and Globalists/Internationalists (Dems).
That does not bode well for our future, however. If you look at the 20th Century, whenever a country's political factions divided in such a way, the country was plunged into war and rioting on home soil. The Nazis (Nationalists) fought German Communists and liquidated them; The Soviet-Communists (internationalists) revolted and fought against Russian Nationalists and Ukranian Nationalists and, later, Polish, Lithuanian, and other nationalists (again, liquidation and starvation); The Chinese Commies (Internationalists) fought the Chinese Nationalists and other nationalistic groups and won (Chiang Kai-shek and the mass starvations). All had bloody bloody consequences.
Bullets, Beans, and Whiskey, boys.
"But what if Trump is working secretly keeping Bernie in to make his path easier?"
ReplyDeleteBernie and Trump -- the Andy Kaufman and Jerry Lawler of presidential politics.
We had a populist/nationalist re-alignment in America beginning in 1896 with McKinley, and although we did sort-of get into WWI, we didn't get in bad. We did have lots of riots and unrest at home -- anarchists lobbing bombs on Wall Street, race riots where the Great Migration was leading blacks outside the South, striking workers vs. paramilitary Pinkerton armies, and so on and so forth.
ReplyDeleteThere will probably be collective unrest circa 2020, but who knows what scale the damage will be on compared to 1920.
WRT the momentum thing, I dunno if I buy it. Let's not forget that 40% of reg. Republicans in New York did not vote Trump. Yuppies and pious hyphenated Americans (like Mormon-Americans in Utah, Jew-Americans in New York, and Lutheran/Nord. Americans in Wisconsin, and Amway-Americans in Michigan) still are grossed out by him. Even in Kentucky, he didn't do that well in the transplant heavy over educated suburbs.
ReplyDeleteIt's all about demographics and culture of a state. Trump does well in the Southwestern states that have been bludgeoned by immigrants. He does well among Scots/Irish deep South ass kickers. His bravado plays well to the mostly non Nordic Northeast whose people place getting results ahead of plains/mountain Jesus freakery and upper Midwestern taciturn civility (beneath which years of pent up angst and judgments boil).
A Trump victory in the GOP and in the general election is gonna take a massive surge of disgruntled Reagan Democrats and non moralistic/un-PC populist Republicans. Most these (but not necessarily all) will be lower class types. The media isn't really talking about the fact that in closed GOP primaries, we're not getting a taste of the Reagan Democrats. Should Hillary run V. Trump, I predict massive levels of cross-over voting due to disgust at HIllary's pandering and God knows how many other serious flaws she has.
The Dem divide is mostly generational while the GOP divide is between timid Nice People/RINO yuppies (some people are both) on one side and yearning warriors on the other.
Sanders himself is something of a yearning warrior (he clearly believes that WE can make things better and he's fought to not sell out) and so is Nader. But they both suffer from the Left being utterly consumed by ID politics through which nothing is done to unite everyone. Since ID politics invariably surrender into camps fighting over the spoils.
Both would've been better off defecting to the GOP ages ago. Aging racial and feminist agitators, and elites anxious to imports brown and yellow voters, have corrupted the Dems. At least some GOP elites are trying to stick up for regular Americans by opposing treasonous immigration laws.
How shitty could things get? Who knows. At least in the early 1900's, we didn't have hordes of sneaky Asians and deranged Muslims. Every empire invariably collapses under the weight of it's pretentions and excesses.
ReplyDeleteIn the event of chaos, we'll have to reallocate our human resources. In other words, make America White Again. Just shoving black people into the North did enough damage. By now America has become the most diverse place to ever exist. Previous empires would've also descended into this madness had the transportation means existed during those times.
The more vibrant America gets, the lesser the possibility of a viable country. Already, just watching TV news, it's alarming to see all the skin tones and weird-ass names. Boomers are the last American gen. to not feel under siege, to not feel like they don't even have a country. Some millennials and X-ers don't really get what Trump means when he talks about greatness, about restoration. Boomers do to a greater degree.
Also, the constant invasions of all manner of ethnic groups make a Brazil/Mexico style mixing impossible. We're balkanized, and besides, Anglo countries have always kept up racial separation, even to this day (white people want to have white kids. An amorphous mass of browness seems unique to Latin America and not something that the majority of human societies will ever succumb to. Who wants kids who aren't really yours?
"Let's not forget that 40% of reg. Republicans in New York did not vote Trump."
ReplyDeleteThree-way race. Equal shares would give him 33%, and he nearly doubled that. And considering how much negative press, ads, etc., he continues to get, that's an awesome result.
"A Trump victory in the GOP and in the general election is gonna take a massive surge of disgruntled Reagan Democrats and non moralistic/un-PC populist Republicans."
That's one side -- winning a higher share of voters in one group or another.
But perhaps a more important side is bringing out the people who never vote (like me, other than Nader 2000). It's tended to bounce around between 50-59%. Dial it up several points in blue states for Trump, and they get competitive.
And who in the world is going to stay home this November? Trump is making such a spectacle out of the whole season, and his opponent couldn't be any more crooked.
Hillary supporters will feel demoralized, and no one goes to vote against a candidate. Big chunks of Bernie voters in key blue states will feel demoralized or cross over. And that 40-50% that usually stays home will get out of the house to help Trump hammer Hillary.
Turnout in primaries (for Trump) so far is up double-digits. We could see fall turnout of 70% or more, and at that point, it's nearly a clean sweep.
"Sanders himself is something of a yearning warrior"
ReplyDeleteHe's a prophet, not a warrior. He can get worked up into a righteous anger, but he can't harness it and win victories at the level of President.
That will be a good talking point for converting the Sanders voters -- Trump has a very similar vision on many important issues, but he's more of a warrior and will not get defeated by the Establishment of either party.
No need to rub their faces in Bernie's ultimate wimpiness and ineffectualness. "On several key issues, he has the right vision, but Trump shares that vision and can actually take on the Establishment and win the necessary changes."
"Both would've been better off defecting to the GOP ages ago."
Why? For ages, the GOP has only fought for neocon foreign policy, weak government at home, laissez-faire economics, and apocalyptic nutjob identity politics.
The message to Bernie voters should be:
"Hey, I wouldn't have wanted anything to do with those losers either, but Trump is clearing the Augean Stables of the party. The crowd that makes you queasy is quietly being marginalized, or leaving in bitterness.
"And in fairness, your guys' Establishment is just as rotten, and I'd want nothing to do with that either. But unfortunately, Bernie hasn't managed to clear out the stables of the Democrats as well as Trump has for the Republicans.
"I normally wouldn't want anything to do with either party, but one is in the process of being cleared out of all its baggage and dead weight, while the other is not so much. You don't have to commit yourself to being a die-hard lifelong Republican, but how can we not vote Trump in 2016?"
"Also, the constant invasions of all manner of ethnic groups make a Brazil/Mexico style mixing impossible."
ReplyDeleteWe're gonna build a wall, goddammit, and we're gonna make Mexico pay for it!
Deport the illegals, anchor babies, families of anchor babies, reduce visas, no Muslim immigration, reduce/pause all immigration -- presto.
Most of the brown-ification of America stems from open borders. Blacks don't form large population sizes. They get enough gubmint benefits in the North and Midwest to hold on to their ghetto territory, where they live like animals in a semi-stewarded zoo, but they don't expand like the Aztecs or the Chinese.
Yes blacks have higher fertility rates, but they aren't sky-high, and they have such high levels of interpersonal violence that they keep their own numbers down (winding up dead or in jail). The men mostly don't work, which means only half as much wealth that could sustain population growth.
The black crime problem can be worked on by thinning out their concentrations. Not sending them out from city to suburb, but from east to west.
It's similar to Germany -- they've had their Kurdish population for awhile, but it's not that bad. The real problem is the current flood. If a German Trump could send them all back, Germany would be ethnically fine again, albeit with pockets of Kurds here and there.
What about the current ethnic enclaves from post-90's immigration? Many urban areas are already lost, I read about this especially repugnant example a few weeks ago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langley_Park,_Maryland I guess it's possible that with an economic downturn, the wealthier recent revivals will go back home, but the poorer ones won't.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things that taking a hard line on immigration will do is encourage current immigrants to ASSIMILATE.
ReplyDeleteDeep down, most immigrants want to assimilate. Even if you live in an ethnic enclave, if you are a recent immigrant, you know that you're in a foreign country. If you live in a mostly Hispanic neighborhood like El Sereno in Los Angeles, you're still living in California, USA, not Mexico. California feels like a foreign country, because it is. Sure, lots of people speak Spanish and the grocery store carries familiar foods, but everything else is foreign. You are surrounded by Americans (of many different ethnicities), you don't speak the language, etc., etc. Living in an ethnic enclave in the US is like visiting a McDonald's in Paris, it's something that reminds you of home but it doesn't mean that you are home. You still feel alienated.
Once you assimilate, you feel less alienated because America feels less foreign to you. It's home. Sure, you'll probably always be nostalgic for the place where you grew up, and you're not going to completely abandon your culture, history, and the things you grew up with, but when you assimilate, America becomes your home. For this reason, assimilation is a good thing. It helps immigrants, and we should encourage it.
Also, most immigrants don't really want to play ethnic grievance politics. They see Americans doing it, and sometimes it leads to goodies from the government, but you can tell that their hearts aren't really in it. The La Raza and Azlan folks are just cosplaying the black power radicals of the 1960's so that they can get tenure in the Latino Studies department, there isn't really a "brown power" movement, nor will there ever be.
So what will happen once Trump builds the wall? The immigrants will start assimilating and drop their halfhearted attempts at playing the ethnic grievance game. Asians assimilate into the upper middle and middle class white culture and Hispanics will become working and lower-middle class white ethnics, the Italians and Irish of the present day. The problem of multiculturalism will be solved just like that.
All of this is inevitable anyway. Hispanics were never going to be the new blacks, and Asians were always going to assimilate into the middle and upper middle class mainstream. Trump will simply speed up the process by removing the incentive for these groups to make a half-hearted attempt to play the ethnic grievance game.
Yeah, as a whole the "Hispanics" seem apathetic. Aztec wannabes are a loud but small (and comical) group.
ReplyDeletemany of the demoralized Sanders supporters will stay home on election day. Hillary will also not get 90% of the Black vote, even her husband only received 84% of the Black vote , partly because Perot got 6% of the black vote which bodes well for Trump. even George W. Bush for 12% of the black vote. Trump should get 15% of the black vote. Black turnout will be millions less than when Obama ran, which will hurt Hillary.
ReplyDeletePerot only got 2-3% of blacks, with Bush and then Dole getting about 5%.
ReplyDeleteH.W. Bush got 20% in 1988, but then nobody liked Dukakis. As pathetically as Republicans have run campaigns over the last 25 years, the Dems were just as out of touch during the '70s and '80s.
Reagan only got 3% in '80, but picked up 12% in '84.
Nixon got 11% and 14% in '68 and '72.
We don't need a huge chunk of the black vote to win, but it'll be nice to see them voting for Trump at 15% or so. They don't think he's just another worthless country club Republican, but President P.I.M.P. -- a Big Man who's going to share the wealth (by bringing back good jobs, though, not hand-outs).
Trump hasn't branded Crazy Uncle Bernie (hey ... there's one!) because Bernie is a religious leader and Trump doesn't want to alienate the devotees. In a funny way, I'd be more comfortable with Hillary. She is just corrupt without any underlying ideology as far as I can tell.
ReplyDeleteNon-ideological corruption still makes us circle the drain. Anyone *with* an elitist and globalist ideology simply buys the policies of the non-ideological corrupt politician.
ReplyDeleteBernie is not corrupt, therefore cannot be bought by the elitist and globalist lobbyists. He is ideological, but not in a way that makes us circle the drain. His main policy achievements, if he were President, would be breaking up Wall Street banks, getting big money out of the political process, ending ruinous foreign policy adventurism, ending elite-centric trade policies / using tariffs to bring back high-paying jobs, and doing something about student loan debt.
Single-payer healthcare wouldn't get through, and neither would "free" higher ed for every person.