Trump, at 13th hole, on foreign policy advisers: "Honestly, most of them are no good. Let’s go to the 14th." pic.twitter.com/smyXzAh7Q9
— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) June 25, 2016
This is literally like he's trying to top Bush's "Now watch this drive" moment. pic.twitter.com/cOJ61UhnOg
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) June 25, 2016
When does it stop being a joke, and start being a genuine issue?
.@Acosta asked Trump during 4th Trump gaggle about his VP search: "…we have a lot of people that want that slot." pic.twitter.com/nfr8Uob7HN
— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) June 25, 2016
On 18th hole:
Me:The global markets are down. People are worried.
Trump:My timing was great because I was here. pic.twitter.com/X8J3wReQ7G— Katy Tur (@KatyTurNBC) June 25, 2016
Trump just drove Rupert Murdoch away in a golf cart w/ wife Jerry Hall. No, I am not kidding. Yes, I have video.
— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) June 25, 2016
Every GOP politico talks about Trump like a concerned uncle worried about the drugged up idiot nephew they just bailed out of jail.
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) June 23, 2016
I’d really love to see an expert in neurology or something analyze Trump interviews from 20, 10, & 5 yrs ago, & compare them to now
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) June 25, 2016
Trump Doesn't Remember the Time He Said He Has the World's Best Memory https://t.co/cbpLAcCi2K pic.twitter.com/DEjFqfmhJn
— Mediaite (@Mediaite) June 23, 2016
In which Trump is asked in deposition about his boast to @KatyTurNBC that he has the "world's greatest memory" pic.twitter.com/t5UWs5Ooxg
— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) June 23, 2016
redshirt
I literally am unsure what I’d do if this clown somehow won in November.
SFAW
Well, I can see why people say there’s no difference between Trump and Hillary.
Adam L Silverman
That picture of him with Katy Tur looks like they didn’t charge his battery and he’s frozen up.
SarahT
@SFAW: hahahahaha
Adam L Silverman
@redshirt: You, and everyone else in Maine, will be issued a name tag. It’ll say Trump Maine with your name just below it and you’ll be given a schedule on when to report to work as part of Trump Maine Resort and Links. People in Florida will get one and work at Trump Florida Resort and Seaside. Miss Bianca will get one for Trump Colorado Mountaineering Adventures and Marijuana Dispensaries. And so on and so forth. It’ll be great…
Omnes Omnibus
Okay. What is your point?
seaboogie
@Adam L Silverman: Also, I think trying to hide his gut and appear “presidential” by wearing a suit on the golf course….don’t ya just put on a damn golf/polo shirt – who wears a suit and a trucker cap with a stupid slogan on a golf course?
Felonius Monk
Once a Weasleheaded FuckNugget, always a Weasleheaded FuckNugget.
Adam L Silverman
@seaboogie: Its the reason the jackets aren’t fit properly anymore. He’s been wearing body armor, my guess is level 3, for months. You can tell from how he moves and holds himself. It doesn’t fit him too well because of his build and his joints clearly don’t like the added weight. This is why he leans on the lecterns/podiums the way he does. To relieve the extra weight from his lower back and knees.
http://www.bulletproofme.com/Ballistic_Protection_Levels.shtml
redshirt
@Adam L Silverman:
Trump 3.6.2 OS install at 87%………..
seaboogie
@Adam L Silverman: Not something I had considered – and the weight of all that (psychologically) can’t be helping his already precarious state. Thank you for your insight.
Anne Laurie
@Omnes Omnibus:
People more knowledgeable on the topic than I have raised questions about Trump’s mental deterioration. Admittedly, we’ve had impaired Presidents before — Edith Wilson ran the country for the last couple years of her husband’s tenure, and we all remember Ronald Reagan — but at least they were elected before their decline became too evident.
Saturday night’s the time for horror stories, right?
Adam L Silverman
@seaboogie: You’re welcome. Can’t say the initial observation is mine, I read a news report a month or so back indicating that he’d started wearing body armor. Though that wasn’t too hard to reckon given how the fit of his coats changed, he won’t go in just shirtsleeves, and how he’s moving.
Elie
Things are not going well and will continue to follow along in the pattern. Nothing dramatic, but he cannot keep up with the pace of events or the content and detail needed to respond appropriately and convincingly. He is not in distress himself — he is not worried or feeling that he is missing anything — just the people around him that sooner or later will have to figure out what they are gonna do — including his children. He is unfit — mentally, cognitively and the system let him slide through. However, it is going to be increasingly apparent that something will need to be done by somebody….
Besides Will, Paulsen, former Treasury Secy (?) under Bush during the meltdown said that he could not support Trump and that Republicans should choose their country over their party. There is just gonna be more and more of this. Its not in doubt. He cannot be and is unfit to be President.
redshirt
@Adam L Silverman:
Oh god, serving Trump Lobster Rolls all Summer in Kennebunkport* (*now Trumpunkport).
Felonius Monk
@Anne Laurie: In other words, the Scotsman was correct. Trump is a Clueless Numpty.
gf120581
@Elie: Paulson was indeed the TS under Dubya, the third and last one (and the only one with any degree of competence).
I’m still trying to process Will no longer being a Republican. The guy was Grand Pooba of the Reagan Cult. It’s surreal to see him quit the party.
Of course, I suspect Will’s problem with Trump is not with any of his views, but because he’s simply too uncouth for a stiff self-styled aristocrat like Will. Will probably regrets he wasn’t some feudal lord in medieval Europe who never had to mix with the rabble.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
I’ve posted this before:
Donnie being interviewed on German TV in September 2001 (11:38) – he was pretty sharp and coherent then.
It seems to me (as I’ve said before) that he’s suffering some sort of dementia now…
Cheers,
Scott.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: Does that mean I can stop job hunting?
danielx
Goodness gracious, the hits do just keep coming, don’t they? I remember reading something recently to the effect that in a normal, that is, a non-Trump family, the ongoing discussion would be about taking away grandpa’s keys and credit cards before something terrible happens.
It does make me wonder what it must be like inside the head of a man whose entire thought process seems to be a fact-free stream of consciousness. The while spouting a stream of lies, nonsense and insults to somebody on an almost daily basis.
seaboogie
@Adam L Silverman: Any bets on what his SS codename is? My money is on “Dickwad”.*
*Meant to be descriptive and not misandryst – I’m generally a big fan of the man-bits of any current paramour.
ETA: The Scots are supplying us with a bunch of bracing options on Twitter
Adam L Silverman
@Elie: I will say he is not necessarily wrong about the foreign policy establishment and the advisors and advice they have provided over the past several decades. That he thinks he’s better informed than them, regardless of how poorly they’ve done, is laughable. That he thinks he can do better is simply delusional. They may have been galactically wrong, but they are, at least, educated and often experienced. He is neither.
seaboogie
@Felonius Monk: Ahem…it’s spelled “weas-el” – you have to get that bit right, and also, one of my favorite Scottish disses du jour. /pedant
My current fave: Ludicrous Tangerine Ballsack.
Adam L Silverman
@redshirt: The good news is he’s going to make the Bushes greeters at the new Trump Resort at the Bush Kenebunkport Seaside. I realize that’s small consolation, but…
Adam L Silverman
@gf120581: The first one was okay, but he left real quick. He was also the only member of the cabinet in 2001 that wasn’t delusional.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: Depends, can you live on 50 cents an hour? Remember what he said about wages being too high now.
Adam L Silverman
@seaboogie: I have no idea. I have a friend who is a Secret Service Agent, though I haven’t seen or spoken to him in years. I get the impression they have their sense of humor removed until they retire.
redshirt
@Adam L Silverman: Can you imagine if President Trump tried to…. wait. I can’t. I just can’t even pretend. It’s too horrid to even think about for fear our thoughts shape the future.
redshirt
@Adam L Silverman: It’s probably 100% American Dad cartoons and that’s it.
Jay Noble
Taking away the keys on the other side of the aisle – Why is anyone suggesting ANY current Dem. Senator for Hillary’s VP slot??? I just saw post header suggesting Al Franken. And let Scott Walker appoint a replacement? I didn’t even think about reading the whole article.
Felonius Monk
@seaboogie: Thank you for the correction. Sometimes my typing is faster than my spelling.
OTOH, Touped FuckTrumpet and Buttplug Face were also among my faves.
Major Major Major Major
@seaboogie: don’t worry. Misandry is made-up.
seaboogie
@Adam L Silverman: Seems logical. Watching them around the President or a candidate at a public event is really interesting…
seaboogie
@Jay Noble: Franken is MN, Walker is WI.
seaboogie
@Major Major Major Major: Yeah, kind of what I thought too, but I respect you fellers here too much to not use some qualifiers around those terms. The wimmens here wouldn’t support it, and neither should you, even with history and context.
Major Major Major Major
@seaboogie: what I really want is a male version of ‘butterface’, like for this guy standing in front of me.
seaboogie
@Felonius Monk: If you are on Netflix and possibly a fan of Anthony Bourdain, he did an episode of Parts Unknown in Glasgow, and it was wonderfully prescient of what has just transpired, Trump-wise.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: There will be in the United States of Trump! Chin up noble citizen…
Or is this because the governor’s wife took the last open waitress job?
Villago Delenda Est
If you want to see some choice excerpts by Scots from Trump’s twitter feed, go here.
Villago Delenda Est
@efgoldman: “Mercurial”
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I hope to hell what happened in Britain this week wakes some people here up fast.
Adam L Silverman
@seaboogie: Actually, I’m sure they actually have good senses of humor. You have to to do that kind of work. Though I’m sure its a bit dark and gallows. But when they’re working, they’re serious and they’re very, very good at what they do.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: It wasn’t specified.
Major Major Major Major
@seaboogie: Now I’m imagining a Glaswegian cooking show called Parts Unknown that’s about their ingredients.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: I believe the term you want is arseface.
Lolis
I’m currently in Mexico and nobody has asked me about Trump. Just a couple months ago, I was in Europe and was asked about him constantly. Since he has spoken so poorly of Mexicans, I’m surprised.
Major Major Major Major
I just saw somebody kick a homeless person’s tent down and yell at them to “get the fuck out.” Pride!
sigaba
@Adam L Silverman: He looks like Kim Jong Un.
redshirt
@Adam L Silverman: +1 for waitress joke awareness.
seaboogie
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): It can only possibly wake up the party-hardliners/pols that support party above country. The real man/woman in the street Trump supporters are so far beyond reason it is kind of astonishing….
Adam L Silverman
@sigaba: In lifts!
Adam L Silverman
@redshirt: I read that in the news this morning. Apparently the Maine governorship doesn’t pay very well according to the report. Also, the highest paying governorship is PA at $187K and change according to the same news report.
seaboogie
@Major Major Major Major: Heh! Actually, Bourdain did a bit of a tribute to haggis…deep fried.
sigaba
@Adam L Silverman: ” I get the impression [Secret Service agents] have their sense of humor removed until they retire”
I bet a few Colombian sex workers would beg to differ!
Also, I’m pretty sure the Kim family members are BORN with lifts or have them surgically attached in infancy.
pseudonymous in nc
The Scot who rubbed a balloon to generate static and held it up near the Hairpiece gets a box of Tunnock’s Teacakes next time I’m back there.
Adam L Silverman
@seaboogie: Speaking of which, does anyone/any front pager that reads this have any idea why there’s a Happy Burns Day post scheduled for publication at 6:30 PM on January 25, 2015 sitting in the dashboard?
Its just been sitting there since I came aboard as a front pager last Fall and clearly for about 8 months before that!
redshirt
@Adam L Silverman: It pays well enough not to have to have your wife waitressing on the side of being First Lady in the state. As with everything LePage, it’s a stunt. A crude political gesture.
Villago Delenda Est
@Major Major Major Major: Where is this going on? SF?
redshirt
@Adam L Silverman: Perhaps it was supposed to be Happy BOOOO-urns Day! post?
Adam L Silverman
@sigaba: I was kidding. As I clarified in a follow up, based on the type of work they day, I’m sure they have very good senses of humor, but that they probably tend to the dark/gallows type. I can’t imagine you could do that type of work without one.
Adam L Silverman
@pseudonymous in nc: Did someone actually do that?
seaboogie
@Adam L Silverman: Shall we blame Tommy? Haven’t seen nor heard from him in a while…
Mnemosyne
As I said when the Brexit results first came in, we have a choice between a former Secretary of State who is familiar with all of the issues around the EU and personally knows most of the major players, or a game show host.
Sadly, because of our racial history, almost half of our country is going to vote for the game show host.
Anne Laurie
@danielx:
After Lewandowski’s (temporary) defenestration from the Trump campaign last Monday, I got a distinct “we’re worried about the old man’s competency” vibe from the newsclips/stories involving Ivanka,
Uday & QusayDon Jr & Eric. (Ivanka actually seemed worried about the old coot; the boys just want three hours’ warning to loot the strongroom if the peasants start to assault the compound.)That’s when I realized how much Trump is shielded from the results of his own weakness, right now — unlike most failing geriatrics, he’s chauffeured everywhere, the Secret Service doesn’t allow him to wander off unattended, he never has to pay for anything so he doesn’t have to know that his credit cards & checking accounts have been cancelled. And he’s always babbled a non-stop string of self-aggrandizing bullshit, so if he can no longer tune his BS responses to a particular interrogator, people will blame the questioner or “interpret” the nonsense as crafty political spin. He’s not gonna get ‘caught out’ by the usual minor tragedies that expose other people when their minds start to fail.
Which is genuinely scary… how can we know whether the guy the Repubs want to put in charge of the last remaining superpower is compos mentis? I’m a partisan Democrat, of course I’m going to think Trump’s incompent; his handlers are partisan Repubs, and we’ve established (pace Reagan) that as long as The Donald can make it from the wings to the podium & back without getting lost, and produce a string of English words even if they don’t really make sense, he’ll be propped up as their candidate.
Adam L Silverman
@redshirt: Okay, that was not made clear in the article. Just that it doesn’t pay that well and she decided that she needed to do this to bring in some extra funds. I’m sure we didn’t get the whole story down here.
Major Major Major Major
@Villago Delenda Est: Yeah.
Adam L Silverman
@redshirt: I have no idea, but its just been sitting there. If its still there by the next Burns Day, I’m just going to hit publish. I kind of feel bad, like its an abandoned and orphaned post lost in time and with no way to get home.
Major Major Major Major
@Anne Laurie:
Hilldo. *spits*
Adam L Silverman
@seaboogie: Nope its a Tim F. one.
nutella
@Anne Laurie:
A very low bar but some of his primary competitors missed it!ETA: Opps, I forgot it was both Trump and Carson who got stuck in the hallway. “They looked like two old men waiting for a bus.”
link
Mnemosyne
Speaking of Pride parades, here’s an adorable picture from London of a police officer using the parade to propose to his boyfriend. (Judging by the photo, I’m assuming the answer was “yes.”)
Anne Laurie
@Major Major Major Major: The British have a term, po-faced. ‘Po’ being slang for a chamber pot. Perhaps that would be useful under the circumstances?
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: That’s how they’re saying ‘no’ this year in London.
redshirt
@Adam L Silverman: You know you have to help her now. It’s up to you, Adam. Take her towards the light.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: Yeah, I read that in a comment section somewhere…
Adam L Silverman
@redshirt: I will ensure she goes to her proper reward.
Major Major Major Major
Should I play Warcraft of watch season 2 of Psycho-Pass?
Anne Laurie
@Adam L Silverman: I think the front-pager put it together in advance, something else came up (on the blog or IRL), and he hasn’t gotten around to moving it elsewhere. Since it’s a music embed, he may have intended to revisit it in 2016, or 2017, or…
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
So hard to keep up with London fashion.
redshirt
@Anne Laurie: Well why doesn’t one of you just publish it so we can all enjoy?
Ian
@Adam L Silverman:
Almost worth a Trump presidency. Almost.
Ian
@Jay Noble:
link
Edit: And Al Franken is from Minnesota.
Mnemosyne
@Ian:
Doesn’t matter — Franken is a senator from Minnesota, which currently has a Democratic governor.
seaboogie
@efgoldman: Hokay – giving it another shot...I should never take up a martial art if I cannot manage the link-fu….
This one worked.
Also love how the lady in the sleeveless plaid shirt is sporting one of those trendy sideways crosses on her necklace – quite the Xtian!
Anne Laurie
@Adam L Silverman:
Could just be that Gov. Mucilage (h/t Charlie Pierce) is the sort of 1950s-era “Head of Household” who figures if it’s his paycheck, why should she get to waste it on frills like fancy clothes and eating out and going to the movies with her goddamned useless friends — so she actually ‘needs’ the side job if she’s not going to be a prisoner in her own home. If they have kids (I can’t be arsed to look it up), I’ve actually known upper-middle-class families where Mommy hung onto her “little part-time job” to keep Daddy from using money as a weapon against “his” kids if they didn’t obey his precepts, or if they chose the “wrong” course of study. When a tenured professor won’t let his daughter take the ACTs because “it’s not worth paying for a girl to get more than a basic teaching degree anyways”, or won’t pay for his son attend an advanced-enrichment camp because Daddy never got to go to anything that frivolous…
Vor
@Anne Laurie: sad, but I have no doubt it is true.
seaboogie
@Adam L Silverman: Little kids can be a bit of a distraction. Or so I’ve heard.
redshirt
@Anne Laurie: It’s a stunt, Anne. Right Wing Theater.
redshirt
@efgoldman: I’ll second your claim.
seaboogie
@efgoldman: mucilage is super-evocative. Also, mercurochome. Both for the substance and the application methods.
Adam L Silverman
@Anne Laurie: Daughter waitresses at the same restaurant. LePage made a big to do last summer that she was making $28 an hour doing it.
Adam L Silverman
And a good night to all. Time for my next extended bout of trying to sleep off this respiratory infection. Also, I’m all souped out.
Major Major Major Major
Looks like it’s just me and us chickens.
amk
when did it ever?
amk
corbyn is fucked.
Major Major Major Major
@amk: this is perhaps unsurprising.
Steeplejack
@efgoldman:
Can’t find a link, but I seem to remember reading a story that it was at the behest of the Secret Service.
Emma
And the Cannibals’ feast begins.
amk
@Emma:
All 3 parties brexiting. Wonder nigel and boris will form another party.
Anne Laurie
@Major Major Major Major: You don’t wanna be here, believe me. The Dog Who Bites is having digestive issues, and she managed to crawl into our bed before we could hustle her into the tub. At least she’s smart enough to be reasonably philosophical about letting the Spousal Unit (her great love) very carefully put the muzzle on her…
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
Cluck, cluck.
Off for some WoW time as well. Cannot pass up essentially free gold for going around clicking on Midsummer Festival fires.
TriassicSands
The lesson for the US in the UK vote? The turnout of young people could be crucial to the outcome of the election. Only 36% of those in the 18-24 group cast ballots. The older the voter the better the turnout and the fewer voters supported the “remain” position.
In the US, it will be the young people who have to suffer the consequences of a Republican victory the longest, but they will almost certainly follow the same pattern as young voters in the UK — voting is just too difficult. (Oh, do I have to get out of bed? Really? Set the snooze alarm for 24 hours. Zzzzz.) Turnout in general in the US is shameful, but despite having potentially serious obstacles to voting old timers tend to be the most reliable voters. In the UK election, the only age cohort that failed to reach 50% was the youngest. Fifty-eight percent of the 25-34 year-old voters managed to cast ballots. Turn out for voters older than 55 was over 80%!
So, instead of railing against young Democrats for clinging to Sanders, it would behoove us to do everything we can to encourage young Dems to vote. The future of this country may well be in their hands. Those of us supporting Clinton have a choice. I’d recommend the option that eschews insults and tries to encourage young Sanders supporters to vote for the good of the country and their own best interests. We don’t need to convince them before or even during the convention. The deadline is election day (assuming they’re all registered.)
Emma
@TriassicSands: The lesson to be learned, if all the people who are babbling about how all they wanted to do was send a message and they didn’t think their one vote was going to change anything, is that protest voting is a piss-poor way to get good results. You want to send a message, call Western Union.
sukabi
@danielx: turn on Fox “news” for an hour, you’d get the same feeling.
TriassicSands
@Emma:
I heard someone on the radio (an British “expert” of some sort) say that after the vote was over there was a spike in Internet searches for the “EU.” It seems likely that many of the protest voters didn’t even have a basic understanding of what the EU is and what it does. That sounds very much like large numbers of American voters.
Using one’s vote to protest is an act of significant ignorance.
Emma
@TriassicSands: In all fairness, I think a lot of those were from people who were suddenly trying to figure out how the new world would apply to them. The Daily Birdcage published (after the vote)an article discussing what would happen to people and it triggered a panic attack among its readers. All they had heard was the bullshit from Boris and his gang, and now they were facing reality.
Brachiator
@TriassicSands:
Sometimes protest is all you’ve got, especially when your elected leaders ignore you. I agree and have written that some of the people who voted for Brexit were dopes, but Cameron and some of the other leaders were playing some asinine political game in which they ended up outsmarting themselves. And this includes some of the Remain supporters. No one seemed to want to clearly explain the consequences of the vote. I also find it astounding that Cameron allowed himself to be lulled into complacency by polling which showed that people wanted Remain.
You are almost guaranteed disaster when the ignorance of leaders matches that of voters. By comparison consider the GOP leadership fantasy that they will be able to work with Trump if he is elected, and the voter delusion that he can actually deliver on his promises to them.
NotMax
@Emma
Second most popular search was “What is the EU?” After the vote.
See citation from yesterday.
sm*t cl*de
@Anne Laurie:
Abbreviation of poker-face.
Emma
@NotMax: True. But I didn’t claim they were all suddenly startled. Only that a lot of them were.
sm*t cl*de
@Adam L Silverman:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/jamieross/the-ballooning-of-donald-trump
sm*t cl*de
@Emma:
That Daily Torygraph item manages to fit in remarkably many different ways of saying “Nigel Farage is a sh1t-faced drunkard”.
Brachiator
@TriassicSands:
I agree with you here, but some people seem to feel that Bernie supporters are not fit company for “real Democrats,” and should be shunned.
JWR
@Emma:
A frikin’ men!, mostly for personal reasons. I know one of these ‘protest voters’, and can’t wait to hit ’em with this same, exact message, be it by voting, or via Western Union.
Aimai
@Anne Laurie: my next door neighbor, in fact. Right now. She ended up divorcing him. Then he really wouldnt pay for dance, or camp, or college.
PaulW
@Adam L Silverman:
That was O’neill, I think, he was the one who told Bush and Cheney that if they were going to invade Iraq they couldn’t sustain their massive tax cut pkan. And Cheney told him “deficits don’t matter this is our due”
Aimai
@TriassicSands: sure. Of course. What do you think people in the real world–meat space–have been doing this whole time? The internet interactiins are not reflective of the real world. But, on the whole, young voters are most responsive to other young voters, peer leadership, and respected authorities and celebrities that they have chosen. So hillary et al have to work theough channels to drag that vote to the polls.
TriassicSands
@Brachiator:
I certainly don’t like all of my fellow Democrats, but we have a common goal that is critical — defeat any Republican presidential candidate. That goal becomes even more vital in the event either Trump or Cruz is that candidate. Each poses his own special, if not unique, threat.
If diehard Sanders supporters are slow to support Clinton, that is all the more reason for me to be patient. They are unlikely to be Clinton donors or campaign volunteers, but what Clinton needs from them is their vote on election day. She is smart enough to understand that we’re not going to insult or coerce them into voting for her. That seems to have escaped many regular BJ commenters, including the site’s founder. I took a trip down memory lane the day and read some of what JC had to say about Clinton as she refused to abandon her 2008 campaign. It’s hard to believe that John is now supporting the “racist” Clinton and directing his 2008-like vitriol at her opponent and/or his supporters.
I’ll do whatever I can to persuade reluctant Democrats to vote for HRC in November, but trying to convince them that they should be overjoyed — as many voters will be — to vote for her won’t be my goal. They, and we, have a responsibility to defend this country against domestic enemies who threaten to destroy the best of what this country is and could be. This year the Republicans can, in my opinion be considered not just political opponents, but true enemies.
Gvg
Are those searches about the EU really known to be originating in the UK? Because I find it far more likely that it’s the rest of the world after the not as predicted news. It did not get that much coverage here beforehand. I think this supposed example may have just fit media narrative prejudices too well.
SiubhanDuinne
@Gvg:
Also, people “search” for many benign reasons — to confirm a date or name, say, or check the exact wording of a definition. The mere fact of googling something doesn’t necessarily mean that the searcher is starting from utter ignorance.
SFAW
@efgoldman:
I guess I’m of that certain age. Damn.
Jeffro
@Mnemosyne:
We all know racism is part of Trump’s appeal – or to put it better, it’s a major part of his appeal to a majority of his supporters. But there are other factors. There’s a reason that ‘the game is rigged’ appeals to many of them (and many Dems too). And the weight of 30+ years of anti-HRC propaganda. I think we’d be wise to address the ‘rigged’ and point out the propaganda.
aimai
@Jeffro: This all comes down to a concrete analysis of who the Trump and Sanders voters are. There is a venn diagram, no doubt, that will show you how many of those voters are “gettable” and with what appeals. Some irreducible number of Trump voters are both screwed by the rigged economy/political system and also racist. Some large number of them are perfectly well off assholes who are racist and extremely stupid. Some number of Sanders voters are new to politics and easily led by demagoguery. Some number of Sanders voters are stone white radicals whose own, unaddressed, covert, misogyny and territorialism have led them to reject the leadership of a black man as President and a white woman as his successor. Some number are simply ordinary left of center democrats who supported Sanders and will now support Clinton. Not all of these voters will be persuaded to vote for Clinton because she steps forward and directly addrssess the “rigged” and propaganda aspects of Sanders and Trumps campaigns for the Presidency. Some will, but some will straightaway fall back on one of their other reasons for opposing Clinton. For the most part its going to be a rotating stock of excuses and reasons–knock one down and another will take its place. That is certainly what has been happening with the most virulent Sanders supporters. Their reasons for “never hillary” will always pop up, like mushrooms, as soon as you’ve cut one down.
Kay
@Jeffro:
There is also widespread elite agreement that it’s a factor:
That’s the US trade negotiator. Obama appointed him. He’s a multi-millionaire who came from finance. Recognizing that widening income inequality and wage stagnation has consequences is not at all “far Left” or “out there”. They are all saying it and have been saying it for years. Larry Summers warned that this would be a problem back in 2009, he warned of “unrest” unless people started seeing gains. It was obvious even to him.
Kay
@Jeffro:
I’m trying to figure out how the position of the Obama Administration (and 99% of Democratic electeds) have somehow become the sole province of “Berniebros”, and therefore to be dismissed.
Obama Administration:
They think the concerns are very legitimate. They’re right.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@TriassicSands: Beware the geek fallacies, especially GSF1.
What I’ve been seeing the last few weeks from what’s left of the Bernie side is an abusive dynamic. I’m supposed to cower in fear of them not giving Hillary their precious vote that they never had any intention of giving her in the first place. If we “establishment” types would just say the right thing and behave the right way, the Bernistas won’t punish us. We’re making them do it with what we say.
Fuck that shit.
Courting the dead-enders is a completely different thing from fighting young voter apathy. The dead-enders are largely the trolls and the ratfuckers and the displaced Paulistas. We don’t have to plead with them to not hit us in order to motivate the college-age voters.
catclub
@Adam L Silverman: Yes, but if all meals and housing and transportation are provided, that is much better than House Of Reps at the same nominal salary.
Iowa Old Lady
At least Trump is completely disproving the naïve belief that if you’re rich, you must be smart and know what you’re talking about.
rikyrah
@Anne Laurie:
I always chuckle at the Uday and Qusay reference.
rikyrah
@Brachiator:
The whole thing was a cluster phuq, but have a vote like this decided on 50%+1, instead of, say 60% or 2/3?
Phuck.outta.here!!!!!????
Matt McIrvin
@TriassicSands:
We may be too strongly equating “diehard Sanders supporters” with people who post prominent Bernie-or-Bust rants on the Internet. There is absolutely no way we are going to convince HA Goodman or Freddie deBoer to support voting for Clinton in the fall. But most of these folks are not necessarily HA Goodman or Freddie deBoer.
The Lawyers, Guns and Money front-pagers are an instructive bunch. Most of them endorsed Bernie Sanders in the primary months, for detailed reasons of principle, sometimes vehemently. They also specified that they’d support Clinton if she were nominated, because they weren’t nihilist clowns. Currently they’re getting flak from a few truly nasty Sanders dead-enders for being brainwashed Hillbots.
aimai
@Brachiator: That’s not true. I mean–sure Cameron and Corbyn, from two different parties, were both incompetent. But its also the case that you can’t tell a stupid person anything. That’s what makes them stupid. Farage and Cove and the others lied outright about what they would achieve and what would happen, and when anyone tried to counteract that they were ignored,treated as liars, and etc… Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.
aimai
@Matt McIrvin: Speaking as one of the people who got plenty of flak–this is exactly right.
But also, and I said this upthread, these are not all the same voters and we shouldn’t let the Sanders die hard assholes hid behind the simply ignorant or youthful Sanders voter. I see the really bitter enders treated their fellow Sanders supporters as a kind of human shield. And we can’t afford to shoot the hostages but we also can’t give in to extortionate hostage demands.
Matt McIrvin
@aimai: Also, though, I’ve noticed that in the LGM comments there are a lot of people who say they decamped from reading Balloon Juice because they found the atmosphere here way too toxic for someone who leaned toward Bernie.
Miss Bianca
@amk:
OK, two things: first, my inner Beavis and Butthead are sniggering over “Ed Balls”.
Second, what he said…oh, ouch! It does seem from this side of the ocean that Corbyn has been a bit of a sad sack as a Leader – more squeak than wool. More suggestive evidence of what a Sanders presidency might have looked like…
Matt McIrvin
…Also, I think some of the “hostage demands” are fine. I heard the DNC just put a $15 minimum wage line in as a platform plank, as a concession to the Sanders camp. That’s probably not politically realistic, Clinton doesn’t have to promise it, but it’s a fine thing to have as a shiny goal in your party platform.
smith
Speaking of Brexit, I see that Nicola Sturgeon, first minister of Scotland may be offering a lifeline to the UK establishment, by suggesting that the Scottish parliament could veto Brexit by simply refusing to pass the legislation necessary for implementing it.
Jeffro
@Kay:
Who said it was ‘far left’ or ‘out there’? Not me. My comment was geared more towards, “Sure hope Dems/progressives/lefties (of which I am one) don’t write off all of Trump’s supporters as racists.”
Miss Bianca
@Brachiator: @TriassicSands: Seriously, both of you. Enough. You seem to think that those of us who are actively working to get Hillary Clinton elected can’t tell the difference between sparring on the Internet and actual voter outreach. Has it never occurred to either one of you that we might be coming here for a *break* from having to be all sweet reason to the Sanders supporters and Trump-curious in our lives, both professional and personal? Thank you for your advice on how to do our work. We’re already doing it, but thank you. Now, ENOUGH.
aimai
@Matt McIrvin: Those aren’t the hostage demands–the hostage demands are that they won’t vote for the nominee at all if they don’t get everything. And right now there are splitters saying they can’t brook the failure of the platform to issue a stinging attack on Obama over TPP, that argle bargle Israel and Palestine make the platform corrupt, that something else makes them unable to be in coalition with Hillary Clinton. IT never stops. Or, if it does, it will only stop being relevant after the convention itself when the die hards will wander off shrieking into the woods and everyone else will forget, five minutes after, what is in the platform at all.
Kay
@Jeffro:
I think it would be serious political error for Democrats to downplay or write off those concerns. It’s also, frankly, not fact-based. It’s real, economic insecurity. They’re not imaging it. Democrats made a mistake not recognizing it earlier. They insisted on focusing on “opportunity” for both the 2010 and 2014 midterms and it wasn’t effective. It didn’t reach people. I actually think Clinton gets it better than the Obama people, but the Obama people have the natural human tendency to defend their own work. She’s not as defensive.
aimai
@Miss Bianca: Prezackly! This!
aimai
@Kay: Obama won and that is what matters in a presidential election. But then he couldn’t fix the massive economic crash of the Bush Era–although he did an astounding job of turning things around– and he can’t singlehandedly fix the global economy which is crushing economically uncompetitive areas of the country. I fail to see how better sloganeering effects this. Certainly Trump and Bernie are speaking for a wide swathe of the country that is not being served by the economy but NO ONE has a good answer for how to fix things and they may not be fixable. Trump and Bernie can both rely on the fact that they don’t have to think about how they will deliver on their promises, like the leaders of the Breixit movement who either lied outright about what would happen or left it to the day after to start worrying. But any responsible leader–like Obama or Hillary–has to be extremely wary of entering into a war of hyperbolic promises with demagogues like Sanders and Trump. Because they will inevitably be left holding the bag for policies which they don’t think will work or which can’t be implemented.
sigaba
@smith: I am impressed with the Nicola Sturgeon person.
aimai
Look at what I found!
Kay
@aimai:
I’m not talking about hyperbolic promises. I think recognizing the fears as real goes a long way. In my view, there’s two kinds of people who take huge risks, and Trump (and Sanders, to a lesser extent) are a huge risk. There’s people who are insulated from any downside but there are also people who feel they have nothing to lose. I’d like to know why they feel they have nothing to lose, because that’s pretty desperate and should probably be addressed.
Kay
@aimai:
I get this in my practice. I have two kinds of juveniles who want to go to hearing- literally “roll the dice”. I have the juveniles who will win and I have the juveniles who believe (sometimes rightly!) that they are so screwed they couldn’t possibly get a worse deal. Same risky approach, vastly different reasons for taking it. One thinks they’ll be insulated from downside risk (rightly) and the other are so desperate risk doesn’t matter. I think that second group of voters are reachable. It COULD get worse for them. They’re wrong :)
pat
@Jay Noble:
Al Franken is from Minnesota. Scott Walker is in Wisconsin. Easy to get them confused, I know……
Matt McIrvin
@aimai: True–I’m seeing one complaining that the DNC is too corrupt to adopt the $15 plank, after they adopted the $15 plank.
Jay Noble
@seaboogie: Ooops! that’s what happens when I post past my bedtime!
scav
@Matt McIrvin: Low Information — it’s a lifestyle choice.
Jay Noble
@Mnemosyne: and Ian
Thanks! I was up too late and misread my fact checking. But my point is still why take Senators who are doing such good jobs where they are and put them in as VP where the only plus I see is we have a really good replacement should the worst ever happen.
Adam L Silverman
@PaulW: That’s the one. Was the Alcoa CEO before Treasury Secretary.
Jay Noble
@pat: Yea – big and cold and lakes . . . :-)
Villago Delenda Est
@PaulW: One of many reasons why Cheney needs to be put to a very slow, excruciating death.
Villago Delenda Est
@aimai: Math (or Maths, if you prefer the British term) is hard when you’re dead set to ignore it because of what your gut tells you.
Villago Delenda Est
@Matt McIrvin: Makes me want to get all slappy on some Berniebros, it does.
J R in WV
@Adam L Silverman:
Well, of course Governator salaries are highest in PA….think of how expensive it is to live in Harrisburg!!
Importing cavier all the way from NYC, and Stake Subs all the way from Philly. Can you even get Stillers gear in H’burg???
Plus the shame of being governator of the state where Joe Paterno and what’s ‘is name Sandusky ran the special pederasty summer camp foundation! How much did that cover-up cost??? And Then How much did it cost when the coverup failed!
;-)
Ya’all know I take that stuff seriously, right? Making stupid jokes helps me cope with the nasty of it all. Same with the burning house floating down stream – eases the pain to joke around. But, I got to say, the guy who joked about 200 houses lost must have meant 6 toothbrushes lost, that was a bridge too far ~!! If ya knows what I mean. :{0)
Miss Bianca
@J R in WV: there are some WV jokes that right now, only West Virginians get to make.
Hope you and yours are all all right.
Cermet
At least the chump is sliding in the polls thanks to his unchecked mouth; also, actually glad the media is trying to keep the race close via lies, falsehoods and out-right money grubbing – it will help force dems to go to the polls to prevent an accidental win by the tRump.
Lizzy L
Visiting TPM this morning, I was met by the headline: “Hilary Cinton leads Donald Trump 51/39 in ABC News/WaPo Poll.” And even though I KNOW that polls this far out are meaningless, that national polls are worse than meaningless, that the numbers are going to jump wildly between now and October 15th, and that I should just chill, I still had a moment of pure relief seeing that number for Hilary get over 50%. I want to see it rise steadily, and I want to see Trump’s number fall until it’s right around, oh, let’s say 27%. Because no matter how much of a joke Trump seems to be (especially now that he’s irritated a bunch of eloquent Scots) he’s still got a following.
Is there any way we can get him to just stay in Scotland? They sure seem to know how to deal with him…
daves09
@redshirt: To be honest, it would probably be a good idea to retire most of the”foreign policy experts. They do have a lot of f***ed up stuff to answer for.
I know, I know, dangling participles. But ‘for which to answer’ just sounds so meh.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@redshirt: Going to Canada isn’t really an option since Trump’s the kind of idiot to start a nuclear war over the size of his dick.
Matt McIrvin
@Villago Delenda Est: The Sanders camp deserves some credit here–it’s thanks to their people on the platform committee that the $15 plank got in.
Matt McIrvin
@Lizzy L: “Meaningless” is an exaggeration; better to say they’re no guarantee at this point (after the convention a big lead is much harder to blow).
The other thing to remember is that there’s a lot of spread in these polls. There was an NYT one out around the same time that only had Clinton +5.
But even now, a bunch of points up is way better than the opposite.
Ian
@rikyrah:
I disagree. Democracy needs checks and balances, but what your supporting is essentially a filibuster. A population of 75 million, or for us 350 million, will not break 60-40% for anything important.
xian
@srv: those dissents that have been considered and found wanting for years, yes.
Ian
I don’t agree with this assesment, but for a medical doctor to do this on television would probably violate their oaths of ethics.
Uncle Cosmo
@Miss Bianca:
You mean, like–
Or–
NB I claim Hillbilly citizenship as the spawn of Appalachian refugees: Ma grew up in Fairmont WV, Pa just over the PA border but went to HS in Morgantown & worked in the coal mine in Grant Town, & after they decamped for factory work in Baltimore I was born in the World’s Largest Hillbilly Resettlement Camp (whose 1950 population of >82,000 made it, IIRC from my 9th-grade civics course, the largest unincorporated metropolitan area in the US at the time).
(Yinz may scoff at the inbreeding ridicule…but I have a good friend whose WV-born ex-wife married & reproduced with her first cousin…& yes, anecdote =/= data, but still…)