In the latest Republican primary poll from CNN, the clearly crazy contingent of Trump+Carson+Huckabee+Cruz totals 64% with the rest of the candidates totaling 29% (7% were unsure).
Also too, we’re nearing a government shut-down and Boehner may be ousted as speaker.
I do recognize why, after Romney and McCain won the last two GOP nominations and GOP establishment candidates did well in 2014 primaries, there are lots of smart people (e.g. everyone at 538) saying that the GOP establishment still rules the party. To me, that argument is starting to sound like the arguments that we didn’t have a housing bubble in 2008.
Many observers were talking about a housing bubble by 2005 and when there was no crash for a couple years, that was somehow proof to others that there was no bubble after all. I’d say that observers who thought that the rise of Newt/Cain/Santorum in 2012 meant something ominous for the GOP establishment were probably on to something.
Update. Okay, probably “clearly crazy” doesn’t narrow things down much among this field. Trump+Carson+Cruz+Huckabee are all candidates who frighten the GOP establishment (and rightly so).
Brandon
Why isn’t Jeb! “clearly crazy”? He just announced a tax plan that would make the underwear gnomes proud.
Fair Economist
After decades of driving republicans crazy with a never-ending stream of nonsense (currently emailgate) I don’t see how the Republicans can get their party membership sane again in time. Their problem is fundamentally that others have figured out how to exploit the crazies they’ve created, and these others aren’t trying to pass the raft of unpopular policies the Republican establishment wants (lower taxes for the rich, granny starvation, etc.)
SFAW
Maybe it’s me, but doesn’t “the clearly crazy contingent of Trump+Carson+Huckabee+Cruz totals 64%” mean that THEY are the de facto establishment now? It’s the rational GOPers (assuming such a thing even exists any more) that is the insurrection wing of the Partei.
MattF
Basic rules of breaking bubbles– 1) it’s unexpected and 2) it’s worse than you expected. Also note the unexpected hanging paradox.
Eric U.
@Fair Economist: my thought is that the establishment candidate always wins because the republican primary system is rigged. But seeing how it’s rigged by tea partiers in any number of states, that may not help John Bush or any of the other candidates that are acceptable to the establishment.
Schlemazel
@Brandon:
Because everyone knows that tax cuts all pay for themselves. The fact that tax cuts of never paid for themselves is one of those ugly facts that the media chooses to ignore. Bush knows he can get away with this crap because no one will call him out on the fact that every tax cut since Reagan has produced larger and larger deficits. And the fools line up to vote for that.
MattF
@Brandon: It’s endorsed by the ‘Committee To Unleash Prosperity.’ You have to take that seriously, or… um… at least as seriously as possible.
Brandon
@SFAW: You are correct, there is no such thing as a “rational Republican”. It just shows how much we defined deviance down when people can spout off about magic growth fairies that have been proven wrong time and again that do nothing but transfer wealth from poor to rich though budget deficits and somehow these liars are considered “sane”, “rational”, “moderate”, “policy wonks” just because they don’t publicly use the n-word or support christian sharia.
MattF
@Fair Economist: The crazies have always been there. One may argue that handing the party over to the crazies is a Bad Idea.
Calouste
Uhm, which candidate isn’t clearly crazy? Folks like Pataki and Gilmore are clearly crazy just for running they have a better chance of winning the lottery than winning the nomination.
Ok, Walker isn’t crazy, he’s just stupid.
Germy Shoemangler
@Schlemazel: They slash taxes. Then after the (inevitable) deficits they point at the libruls and scream “look! they’re spending us into bankruptcy!”
Fair Economist
@Eric U.:
Oh, absolutely. See Romney vs. Santorum in Iowa, and the tricks to kick the Paulites out of the party in Nevada. There’s limits to those kinds of tactics though, and they can’t deal with being behind 64-29.
Brandon
@MattF: I would personally use a different word than “prosperity”. But then again I am not an “economist” so what do I know, other than the bleeding obvious.
SFAW
@Calouste:
Well, I think there’s delusional (Pataki and Gilmore) and there’s fucking nuts (most of the rest of the candidates, and their supporters).
Although the DSM might include both conditions under the umbrella designation “crazy,” I would prefer to have some separation between them. (Yes, I know that “crazy” is not a DSM-approved term.)
BGinCHI
The American people will never stand for one of the political parties descending into madness. Everyone is just too engaged with the issues and details, especially after Labor Day.
And even if they were inclined to let this happen, our vigilant and ethical media would come to the rescue.
dedc79
@Schlemazel: Every GOP candidate’s tax plan needs to be called out for what it is – a variant on the Brownback plan. And we need to make sure every American is aware of what a disaster the Brownback plan has been.
Peale
@BGinCHI: In other words…buy gold!
Gin & Tonic
@Schlemazel: Wasn’t there a presidential candidate who referred to that as “voodoo economics”?
SFAW
@Brandon:
With the Rethugs, and their fake organizations, it’s always a combination of projection and Bizarro World.
But you knew that.
EdTheRed
Every time I plant a seed,
He said “Kill it before it grow,”
He said “Kill them before they grow.”
Peale
@dedc79: problem is most people do think roads and schools are a waste of money. Extras that were nice to have but we shouldn’t spend money on as long as there are people out of work.
dedc79
@Peale: Do most people think roads are a waste of money? I feel like it’s an issue where there’s widespread agreement that improvements are needed. The disconnect is that most people don’t put a lot of thought into how we pay for roads and how expensive they are to maintain.
bupalos
I’ll hop in on the side of the argument that this crazy/not-crazy division doesn’t really work. They’re all crazy in this or that way. Trump is probably the least crazy of the lot. It’s weird that this particular weirdo celebrity is the one embodying it, but nationalist/protectionist/populist/bombast is really one of the most standard of political flavors in existence.
rk
Just a minute! I thought 27% is the crazification factor. But here it’s 29% which are for the non crazy (comparatively) candidates. What gives? Can anyone explain that? This is almost as weird as the tides. No one can explain that either.
Woodrowfan
@Peale: privatize! let the magic of the free market (all praise to its name) work!
Seriously, I’ve been told that by righties. privatize the roads!
MattF
I won’t link to it, but note that George Will has gone full-metal on Trump. His latest column ends by quoting Mary McCarthy’s infamous line about Lillian Hellman:
Georgie really doesn’t like Mr. Trump.
Cervantes
@rk:
Yes, it’s done with mirrors.
And smoke.
Omnes Omnibus
@BGinCHI: You’ve been out of the country for a while, haven’t you?
SatanicPanic
We should probably accept that the GOP is being run by ignorant morons. What do we do with this fact? I’m hoping they punch themselves out, but who knows.
Chris
It’s not exactly wrong to say that McCain and Romney proved the establishment still ruled the party. But McCain and Romney’s failure to defeat Obama made the establishment much less credible, partly explaining the current situation.
SatanicPanic
@bupalos: He did refer to himself and Cruz as having the highest IQs, which is evidence of delusion
NonyNony
@rk:
I’ll give a shot –
Roughly 27% of the Republican Party is so crazy, they still think that moderate center-right Republicans exist and want to vote for them. But will turn around and vote for whoever the nutters nominate rather than vote for a moderate center-left Democrat.
Mike J
@dedc79:
Sure, they need roads out in the hinterlands where it’s 50 miles to the grocery store, but the state insists on fixing roads in Northern Virginia/King County WA/NYC. For some reason the parts of the state that generate all the taxes need to have money spent on them and they resist giving 100% of the money to the common clay of the new west.
Peale
@rk: about 45% of the electorate identifies as Republican. 64% of 45% is 28.8%. The 64% of the party who is going against the establishment is very close to the 27% in national polls. There have always been far fewer “establishment” republicans than we think there are.
BGinCHI
@Omnes Omnibus: Optimism is compulsory here.
kindness
Yea I’ve gotten into a ruckus with a couple of distant old friends via facebook regarding Trump. They’ll post something saying how great he is in not being politically correct and I post something snarky calling them on bullshit and they think I’m an asshole. Such is life I guess. How anyone can see Trump as any material for leadership is beyond my limited world view I guess.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Go back one. Palin, 2008. Showed the party had changed from a party of governance to a party of looters. And even then, that was a simply a symptom of rot that had been festering since the Supremes anointed Bush the winner back in 2000.
ThresherK (GPad)
@dedc79: I would add: Plenty of public infra have cornerstones or plaques reading 193x -196x. The idea that these things aren’t gonna magically stay usable forever is not known to some folks. We are living off the good investments made before us, and we are trying not to be the wastrel children if we’re smart.
Cervantes
@SatanicPanic:
Meanwhile in the United States of America:
Republican governors rule 31 of 50 states.
Republicans control 69 of 99 legislative chambers.
More precisely, Republicans control both legislative chambers in 30 states and they control Nebraska’s unicameral legislature as well. Democrats control both chambers in only 11 states. (A few years ago Republicans completely controlled only 14 state legislatures while Democrats controlled 28.)
Question it.
RL Harrngton
@Brandon: Jeb is conventional establishment crazy, the others are a tea party flavor of crazy
MattF
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Bear in mind that there was the very odd idea in some quarters that putting Palin on the ticket would help McCain. In the real world, one could see the gas from fever swamp escaping.
Citizen_X
The establishment GOP isn’t crazy at all–at least, as far as rich people are concerned. The GOP ideas don’t work, but who cares? Their wealth is going to increase; their kids aren’t going to bleed out in some desert shithole. As long as the con worked, the rubes would keep voting for their candidates (Praise Reagan!).
But now the con is failing, and the rubes want what they’ve always been promised, whatever that is. I hope they fail.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@dedc79: Sure they do. Ask any American!
“Hurrrr, yeah, roads are expensive, you got one guy working and nine guys standing around leaning on shovels. Fire ’em and let chain gangs do it like the useta. Fucking unions are killing this country.”
They already know why the roads are so expensive. It’s not only true, but TRUTHY. I don’t know how you fight that.
gene108
@SatanicPanic:
Nope. The GOP is run by guys, who are sharp and know how to win elections.
They may not be able to govern for nuts, but the folks in charge are damn good at getting their voters worked up, working the new found lack of campaign finance limitations to outspend Democrats and keep their guys in power.
@dedc79:
Brownback won re-election. I fail to see what is wrong with his tax plan. He put it in place. He won re-election. Republicans still control the Kansas state government.
Seems to be no downside to Brownback’s plan.
And yes, for Republicans winning elections is all that matters. Governing is a secondary concern.
Marmot
@rk: Oh! Oh! Let me try. The crazification factor is 27% of the general population , not the Repub Party.
Give or take.
Omnes Omnibus
@BGinCHI: Head across the border to Sweden where the Bergman films will knock you back into shape.
Keith G
@SFAW:
I think that depends on the definitions of both establishment and political party.
Years ago, the ‘establishment’ of a political party was the collection of power brokers and gatekeepers who had a lot of say in the functions of the party and who the candidates were and how much party resources they had access to.
The establishment of the primary system in the early 70s, dealt quite a blow to the once strong party establishments. Changes in technology and the presence and use of money are among a long list of other factors that have further withered political party establishments.
I am curious as to who would be contained in a quickly devised but shortlist of people making up the political establishments of both their respective political parties.
RaflW
@Schlemazel: The Brownback mess obviously hasn’t gotten through to Jeb. and his rediscovered Laffer-curve pals, but I think a slice of the so-called middle in America has actually seen the budget carnage in Kansas and has a sense that they don’t want that repeated across the land.
Maybe I’m too optimistic about my fellow voters and their media habits — and of course the 27% crazification factor won’t care one whit about facts — but we don’t need to reach them, just a few percentage points of leaners.
SatanicPanic
@Cervantes: I don’t understand what you’re trying to say
CONGRATULATIONS!
@MattF: Of course he doesn’t. Trump puts the lie to George’s entire life. Will has always dreamed and relentlessly opined that the GOP were the party of adults, the ones who have serious discussions in quiet rooms, the thoughtful intellectuals who know better than to yield to the coarse, ignorant, lazy, violent rabble.
A Trump win would probably cause him to hang himself by his fucking lame-ass bowtie.
RP
this reminds me of a great exchange in Cloud Atlas:
Fantasy. Lunacy.
All revolutions are, until they happen, then they are historical inevitabilities.
SatanicPanic
@gene108:
I don’t know if it takes brains to win elections appealing to morons anymore than it takes any smarts to get people to buy crack.
bupalos
@SatanicPanic: everything is relative.
seriously, none of these guys are straight up stupid. Trump and Cruz least of all. More’s the pity.
different-church-lady
President
HillarySanders in a walk.srv
@MattF: 3) It takes a lot longer than you think
Those of us calling the bubble the bubble in 2005 couldn’t make a dime shorting anything back then. You had to be Goldman Sachs or Michael Burry smaht.
SFAW
@SatanicPanic:
I think you mean “elected by,” not “run by.”
Of course, there are also plenty of moronic Rethug “leaders” to go around. Although now that Louie Gohmert is going to retire, there will be one fewer.
Belafon
@dedc79:
We have an overpass that crosses the highway that sees way more semi traffic than it was originally designed for (there’s a truck stop at one corner. About every 4 or 5 months a crew has to come out and repave it and fill the holes.
What needs to happen is to swap and have the highway cross over the street. I’ve talked to people about it, and their answer is that it’s just government taking their money and wasting it.
different-church-lady
@SFAW:
Not mutually exclusive.
SatanicPanic
@SFAW:
This feels more and more like a distinction without a difference
SFAW
@gene108:
Not even close. Ruling, however, is right up there with winning elections.
Anoniminous
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Truly it is said, every dark cloud has a silver lining.
Amir Khalid
The Republican party base is responding to the noisiest and most colourful presidential candidate in sight, Trump. Right after him is one of the quietest and, er, least colourful, Carson. Trump is somewhat to the left of the party mainstream politically, Carson is bang in its middle. These candidates have nothing in common except that they are the two seeking public office for the very first time.
I think these numbers hint that the party base feels alienated from its professional politicians. The ones in Congress have proven themselves a bumbling, ineffectual lot; the presidential candidates have twice lost to That Man. So the base presumably figures the party couldn’t do any worse with amateurs like Trump and Carson.
dedc79
@gene108:
This might make sense if the Kansas electorate mirrored the national electorate. If it did, we’d be screwed. Fortunately, it doesn’t.
Bobby Thomson
@SatanicPanic: this.
Geoduck
As others have said, Trump isn’t crazy, and he’s not a True Believer. He’s a sleazy, pompous blowhard demagogue who would be a disaster as president, but he’s clearly just shoveling the red meat the rubes want, and getting his ego stoked in the process.
dedc79
@Belafon: I hear you. And these same people will also insist that public transportation should turn a profit or it’s not worth investing in.
SFAW
@different-church-lady:
Not necessarily, that’s true. However, “elected by” is significantly closer to reality than “run by,” at least these days.
@SatanicPanic:
I realize you probably felt you needed to respond, but I’m hoping you realize that there is a big difference, at least as far as the modern Rethug Partei goes. I mean, MarciaMarciaMarcia Jindal is a moron – and him a Rhodes Scholar and all! – but a significant number of them are certainly not. Evil, yes. Crazy, probably. Stupid, less likely.
different-church-lady
@SFAW:
I suppose the best argument would be that nobody at all is running the thing nowadays.
Mike J
@Amir Khalid:
The party leaders told them they didn’t have to compromise, they could get everything they ever wanted with enough will. At some point, the Republicans are going to have to re-learn what compromise means. It’s ironic because they got far more than they should have out of the Democrats, but their constituents still view it as a loss since they didn’t get everything.
Once they lose the all or nothing mentality, the pros can rein in the crazies again.
Paul in KY
@BGinCHI: Have you started drinking again?
DougJ
@EdTheRed:
Yup, that’s what it’s from!
Jeffro
@MattF: I had not heard that one (the unexpected hanging paradox) before – good to know.
We have been seeing the slow-motion splintering of the GOP for 20 years now, with each election producing more and more craziness. I would argue that this started with the rise of Gingrich (chief Congressional bomb-thrower becomes speaker, legitimizing the crazy) and the Clinton impeachment (showing both sides that the GOP was fully prepared to stretch an otherwise relatively innocuous independent counsel investigation into a vehicle to illegitimately attempt to oust a sitting president – also ‘legitimizing the crazy’)
After that, you have W’s up-is-down, massive-tax-cuts-will-pay-for-themselves, the-war-will-be-over-before-you-know-it, administration. Look at the video the White House just put out about Dick Cheney being wrong: he wasn’t just wrong, he was actively denying reality before, during, and after it happened. Don Rumsfeld: not in touch with reality, either. Then a real crisis (Katrina) came and nobody knew how to deal with…reality. (See also, Rove’s quote about them making their own reality.) Not recognizing reality…that’s crazy.
And then through Obama’s two terms…what else can we say except that with both the media’s ineptitude/complicity and the GOP Establishment’s desperate attempts to cling to power, we’ve seen countless examples of pure, uncut crazy being legitimized. Any & everything that Joni Ernst, Tom Cotton, Mike “Ovens” Huckabee, and so many others have thrown out there without being slapped down, hard by our lame both-sides-do-it media…it’s just another way of quietly legitimizing their craziness.
Legitimizing the crazy. Whipping up the base time and again without delivering. Billionaires openly buying their candidates thanks to Citizens United. A withered party establishment desperately clinging to power – just look at all the compromises, fights, and lip service Boehner and McConnell have had with the TP wing. The GOP doesn’t really exist as a party anymore. Sooner or later something big will happen and make it clear to everyone, definitively.
Keith G
@different-church-lady:
Precisely. Yes, there are constituent groups that have a hierarchical organization where some type of decision making is possible, but the national party is in deep, deep disarray.
Elie
@gene108:
I know what you are trying to say and I will grant that the GOP are cunning at reading human nature and vulnerabilities. They have also been lucky. No one has seen what is under the masks until now. My thought is that this will not go well for them, even though there will be an appeal to some for a while longer. There will be great chaos for the GOP but also for our system as it deals with the fallout from all of this..
As for the Democrats, we have big problems at even the grassroots level standing for what we believe and making coherent , practical stands on anything. Some of us are us rigid as the GOP
The world is in a period of great chaos and transformation. Lots of stuff is not going to follow the old ways so we had better watch out. I am very concerned about Hillary and Bernie. Whoever wins that is going to have quite a load, and its not clear to me that either “has the right stuff” yet. I pray a lot…
SatanicPanic
@SFAW: My point is that if you’re running these parties as a democracy (in some sense) and the vast majority of your voters are ignorant morons, then you end up either with ignorant morons in charge, or people who have to act like they are. Look at Cruz- he may be very smart, and his behavior may be beneficial to him, but if you replaced him with Louie Gohmert or Michelle Bachmann, would he be acting any differently? I doubt it. So what difference does it really make?
Jeffro
@MattF:
I’m sure he’s convinced that if it weren’t for Trump, Walker would be halfway to the nom by now. George does like his little soirees with Republican presidents, and I’m sure he’s seeing that dissolve with the rise of Trump.
MomSense
Trump doesn’t use the Luntz focus group approved language but I hardly see how his proposals are “crazier” than any of the other candidates. Perhaps the one exception is his deporting all the “illegals” although he doesn’t say how he will do this.
This is the Republican party now.
bupalos
The line early on (I know it’s still early on) was that the Trumpening was an unmitigated delight for Dems. I’m just wondering if people still feel that way and what they think the outcome of this whole muckus will be.
Personally it starts to look to me like this could be a genuine realignment type dealio where the composition of both parties actually changes somewhat. If Trump actually comes out of this thing, a lot of the money currently locked up with Republicans probably quietly grows somewhat of a roving eye, and at the same time Clinton is going to be pretty free to bend rightward to pick it up. That won’t be a great mix. Trump I’ll still believe can’t win, just on the “national embarrassment” factor, but he is going to pick up a fair number of working class dems and god only knows what happens with them in future cycles. I could see this whole thing making both parties the worse, in addition to the way it makes things generally coarser and more explicitly racist.
BGinCHI
@Paul in KY: You scared me for a minute. Then I realized I never stopped.
catbirdman
Talking Heads saw this coming in 1980.
A Terrible Signal
Too Weak To Even Recognize
A Gentle Collapsing
The Removal Of The Insides…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QBFMmIZTVs
Peale
@Mike J: Yep. They are utterly convinced that the hippies won even though no such thing came close to happening.
Paul in KY
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Wow, a guy can dream, can’t he….
Jeffro
@bupalos:
Why would both parties “realign”? The Dems are pretty solidly in the center and have a big enough tent to include Nancy Pelosi, Joe Manchin, Chuck Schumer, the Castro brothers, and Cory Booker. Kaisch could probably switch parties and be fine as a D. Clinton has no inclinations nor incentive to ‘bend rightward’.
Turgidson
@MattF:
Mr. “Trains are Collectivism and Global Warming is a Hoax” Will can cram it up his ass. He was a big contributor to the 30-year full-blast fire hose of bullshit and hate that has led us to this point.
Paul in KY
@BGinCHI: Oh, whew! Glad you didn’t stop :-)
SFAW
@SatanicPanic:
Acting like a moron – or like a moron’s idea of a smart person – is just to get one’s foot in the door. Romney’s a reasonably apt example: to get the nomination, he said the words the morons wanted to hear, then when the general rolled around, he 180’d. Remember how he played Mr. Moderate Centrist in his first debate with Obama, and his poll numbers jumped?
The Rethug-voting morons didn’t disappear, but now Rmoney had to play to a different audience.
This is how it goes, and how it would have gone again, had Trump not dived in.
SFAW
@Jeffro:
Is that what we’re now calling the tongue-baths/blowjobs he gives to Rethugs in power? “Soirees”?
sukabi
@BGinCHI: Wishing for a sane world, hoping for redemption, or drowning in snark?
bupalos
@Jeffro: I guess the supposition would be that if the R’s really do incorporate a serious economic populist element, that will peel off a significant chunk of working class and former union guys. That would be the incentive, and I think the Clintons are (in ways good and bad) complete political opportunists and money is money, so I don’t put that much stock in the “inclination” side of that argument either.
Jeffro
@SFAW: No – he used to be a regular in the Reagan White House, for teas with Nancy and such.
SatanicPanic
@SFAW: But Romney would have governed as a moron who believe climate change wasn’t real, tax cuts pay for themselves, etc. I’m not sure he could even get the nomination this election either.
Jeffro
@bupalos: I think “Reagan Democrats” became pretty solidly GOP decades ago. Trump would have to peel off a lot of women (unlikely), college/young voters (unlikely), and/or minority voters (unlikely) in order to put a dent in the Dem coalition at this point. Nickel bet that doesn’t happen.
Wait, what am I saying – Trump won’t get the GOP nom anyway
Peale
@Jeffro: Yep. I don’t see the alignment. The way to soothe those disaffected republican voters over to the party is to promise to rule in a bi-partisan way, reaching across the aisle to get things done.
I would laugh until sheep laid eggs if she ran as a “healer”.
SFAW
@SatanicPanic:
We have no idea how Romney would have governed. He changed his tune so many times over the years – going back to when he ran against Teddy in 1994 – that one can try to guess how he’d rule, but it would just be a guess.
Brachiator
@SFAW:
Well, yeah, in the sense of the lunatics running the asylum.
And a lot of this is still theoretical. Trump has not won a single vote in any primary. Boehner has not been ousted. And incumbent politicians seem to be safe at the federal, state and local level.
And I give Trump this much credit. The various moneybags who have staked the various GOP hopefuls have so far been stymied. They are not getting their money’s worth.
Who would have predicted that this political circus would be so much fun?
fidelio
@Mike J: I’d like to petition the management to add “The common clay of the New West” to the Lexicon. It’s just so helpful a term.
Jeffro
As a side note back to DougJ about this:
I can see Huck’s supporters migrating to most any GOP candidate with significant evangelical credentials (Carson, Cruz, maybe Walker) once he gives up the grift for this cycle.
Unfortunately, I can see quite a bit of this support eventually coming Cruz’s way if each/all of these other guys were to drop out. He is in tight with the Tea Party wing and the religious right; he knows exactly what buttons to push to get those sections of the base riled up; he already has a good chunk of super PAC money (and could easily sweet-talk a sugar daddy or three into supporting him as well); and he simply doesn’t care about the party or country.
benw
@Brachiator:
We have no idea how the 2016 election is going to play out. But I enjoy shooting my mouth off as much as anyone:
SANDERS/DUCKWORTH vs PALIN/HUCKABEE 2016!
FlipYrWhig
@bupalos:
Those guys have been voting for Republicans for 40 years. That’s already baked into the cake.
sukabi
@CONGRATULATIONS!: sloop,you’re saying we should be hoping for a Trump win?
sukabi
@sukabi: should have been , so you’re saying… f ing auto correct.
Schlemazel
@Germy Shoemangler:
And the media is too polite to point out the obvious
sukabi
@Schlemazel: polite? Pretty sure the word you’re looking for is complicit.
Kay
It’s been so funny to watch. It started with a couple of hesitant paragraphs here and there and now he’s Woody Guthrie :)
SFAW
@sukabi:
Thanks, Obama!
Brandon
@RL Harrngton: The fact that somehow tax cuts will unleash a magical 4% economic growth fairy is only “establishment crazy” truly frightens me. Like if it was that easy, why hasn’t any else ever tried it before? Oh wait… they have? And the only thing it did was bust the budget? Can’t be right.
Another Holocene Human
@dedc79:
Right, “I pay gas tax, that should pay for everything!” No.
One big error, never considering future cost of maintenance. Another error, sprawling it up. They think their users fees should be a trifle, well, look at the state of things.
bupalos
@Jeffro: Well you may be right, I dunno. Trump is polling at like 15% among Democrats against pretty much anybody. That’s fully twice the number of Dems that Romney ended up pulling, running against an African American. So I’m not so sure there’s nothing there. I think it’s pretty easy to underestimate the immigration/protectionist thing among underclass/working class dems. But I don’t really know, it’s early.
Another Holocene Human
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I don’t even think it’s that. There used to be a big road constituency on the local level.
Now you have the Chamber of Commerce (representing construction and business interests).
The others–not all conservatives, btw–have not seen any travel time improvements from road projects that they can remember. All those easy gains were long, long ago. Unless they’re dodging potholes on a daily basis, they feel like tax increases for roads go nowhere. They are clueless about issues like stormwater and sewage and other expenses of sprawling it up and infill development.
I think Millennials actually care more. They’re into stuff like bike lanes and complete streets and road diets and such. A road diet is a palpable improvement if you’re a transit user or pedestrian or bicyclist. Most car users even if they benefit from the road diet (easy to get in/out of business parking lots, less confusion, less wrecks) think it’s vaguely suspicious if not downright foolish.
Brachiator
@benw:
Oh, I agree! I also meant that no one has voted in any primary, so we don’t know how committed Trump’s supporters really are.
Cervantes
@SatanicPanic:
No? That’s OK.
I’ll tell you a joke instead:
What’s round and purple and commutes to work?
Cervantes
Answer:
An Abelian grape.
Roger Moore
@Cervantes:
I want some of what they’re smoking.
Another Holocene Human
@Belafon:
Americans are fucking clueless about how the US economy and commerce works. They don’t know what our industrial policy is and they don’t even know what an industrial policy is. American Exceptionalism means never having to trouble your mind with such details.
It’s one thing to build 500 unnecessary bypasses, but it’s something else when you’re missing critical transportation links. They’re like the sine qua non of commerce. And Americans’ studied stupidity on such issues is what’s helping to send us down the economic ladder. How many Americans realize those midcentury factories were shuttered because the factory machines inside were obsolete? How many realize Germany builds those machines? Germans know.
It kills me to talk to Europeans, from large and tiny countries alike, who can clearly describe their nations’ exports and their industrial policy while grown people in the US can tell just so stories that would embarrass a 3rd grade and then smile, all proud of themselves like a toddler who made a dookie.
FlipYrWhig
@Another Holocene Human:
It’s far simpler than that. They feel like they pay plenty and that the government at all levels would have plenty of money to do nice things EXCEPT that the Democrats keep wasting it giving goodies to Those People so that they’ll vote for them. So vote for Republicans to cut off the moochers and, having saved all that money, there will be both first-class public services AND heaps of savings for all the hardworking taxpaying citizens who get stuck footing the bill for all the lazy chumps and losers. It feels true so it must be!
boatboy_srq
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Further. 1994 and Gingrich’s Contract On America. The one difference was that the looting and pillaging wasn’t quite so marketable that time around: a good number of the Congresscritters’ Class of ’94 did not survive the ’96 election thanks to their
greed and stupidityovereagerness.boatboy_srq
@gene108:
Fixt.
Another Holocene Human
@SFAW: Based on his time as Mass Gov, I’d say he’d do whatever was easiest for him personally and politically, then whip out his dick and spell his name on something. Reorganize a few Exec agencies to show what an awesome manager he is and rename something he looks at every day, spraypaint to come out of your tax dollars.
Roger Moore
@SFAW:
Sure we do. He would have governed as head of the Republican party. Maybe there would be some small differences between Romney, McCain, GW Bush, etc. but all of them are mainstream Republicans who would have gone along with general party preferences. They would have appointed more people like Roberts and Alito to the Supreme Court, rubber stamped whatever the Republicans in Congress passed, etc. The differences between candidates within a party are tiny compared to the differences between the parties.
SFAW
@Another Holocene Human:
A not-unreasonable assessment.
retiredeng
@SFAW:
Romney would phone it in just like he did as governor of MA.
Tom Q
First, I want to thank DougJ for coming up with the analogy to the housing bubble. I’ve been arguing in vain with people for months — including here — who keep coming back to “in the end, the establishment always gets their man”. The trajectory of housing bubble talk is a perfect parallel, and explains why the quote should end “…until they don’t”.
The thing is, I think not only the GOP establishment can’t accept that things have changed, the professional analysts are stuck in the same old-knowledge trap. I heard Charlie Cook 2-3 months ago say that the far-out faction accounted for 40 percent of GOPers, that the sane portion still had the dominant 60 percent. Even at the time, I thought he was pulling the numbers out of his butt. But now, I don’t see how you can make that argument: the crazies have been comprising 60-65 percent of the polling data for months now — the fact that Trump/Carson have managed such a big share makes it obvious, but it’s been there all along. And the fact that the (relatively) digestibles continue to divide their vote make the establishment position look all the more dire.
Roger Moore
@Another Holocene Human:
There’s a lot of truth to that, though. One of the lessons of sprawl is that building out a massive road network doesn’t really buy you anything in terms of getting people where they want to go. All the expected gains in travel speed get eaten up, either because people sprawl and need to travel farther to get anywhere or because the roads fill up and traffic kills the speed. Building your way out of traffic simply doesn’t work in anything beyond the very short term, so it’s understandable that people would be frustrated that all our construction hasn’t made things better.
Heliopause
Using the Nate Silver Venn diagram and Pollster averages, the “moderate” and “establishment” candidates = 28.7%, Trump + Carson + Cruz + Huckabee + Santorum + Paul = 65.2%. We can even be generous and give the establishment side Gov.Huckabee & Sens. Santorum & Paul, and it’s still 57.4 – 36.5%.
Comparing to 2012 keep in mind that Romney was consistently in the 20s or better even when one of the others had a mini-surge, and that Silver judged Perry and Gingrich to be borderline establishment figures. That means for a good chunk of the early race establishment candidates were drawing a solid plurality to slight majority of polling support. For all the laughs we had back then about nutjobs having poll surges, in reality Romney’s biggest threats in the early going were conservative but establishment candidates.
Another fun fact; in the latest CNN poll Trump 1st choice + 2nd choice = 50%. That is to say, at least half of GOP voters (for now) are just ducky with Trump as their leader. His “surge” is two months old and still growing. He just called Carly Fiorina ugly and Ben Carson a fake doctor and Christian, so I fully expect the next poll to be even better for him.
SFAW
@retiredeng:
He did a lot of that, but he also found time to “come up with” Romneycare. Also was able to jet around the country, telling the Red stated what a bunch of commies those Massholes were/are.
He wasn’t completely uninterested in governing, but it was obvious that he was just going to use MA as a stepping stone, and had his collaborators force out Jane Swift, etc., etc.
Calouste
@Heliopause: I think the main difference between 2012 and 2016 is that in 2012 there was a clear establishment candidate (Romney) that the base didn’t really want, so they flirted with a multitude of other candidates, because they so much didn’t want Romney. A clear example of this is Santorum, who didn’t get above 4% (except for about 5 polls) until Christmas, and was leading with 30%+ by mid February. In 2016 however, there are a multitude of establishment candidates (Bush, Walker, Kasich, maybe Rubio), neither of whom has a really solid level of support, but there is one non-establishment candidate the base really likes, or maybe even two with Carson.
dww44
@Roger Moore: Thanks. And I agree about the governing. That’s why it literally frightens me to death to imagine all 3 branches of the government controlled by the GOP. Just horrifying.
It used to be said that it really didn’t matter who was in charge;the country would survive. Not so any more. A victorious GOB in January 2017 will transport us back to the gilded age, if not to the plantation era, so fast it would make our heads spin.
redshirt
@dww44:
Or the actual apocalypse so many of them are eager for.
WaterGirl
@sukabi: The answer to your question is surely door #3.
sukabi
@CONGRATULATIONS!: need to go back farther than that… Gingrich, Tom Delay, and Phil Graham helped set up the previous grift op.
groucho48
@bupalos:
If I was to be polled, I’d say I would vote for Trump. Or whichever Rep I thought would cause the most problems for Republicans in the elections. I’m sure I’m not the only one who would do that.