As I’ve watched and read the coverage on the tape of Trump’s 2005 Access Hollywood appearance that came out yesterday, his campaigns initial response, his taped apology, and the responses to all of it I’ve seen and read several variations of the question: “why is this the incident that finally seems to have done him in?” or “why does this matter when the dozens of previous problematic statements haven’t?”. Joy Ann Reid (a National treasure in terms of American journalism) asked it this morning on her show AM Joy. Paul Campos asked it at Lawyers, Guns, and Money. I think there are actually three competing dynamics going on right now that are important to note, but before I get to them I want to make clear that I don’t think this has, necessarily, done him in as the GOP nominee. Though I do think it is unlikely he’s going to recover from this in terms of completing a successful campaign and getting elected.
I think there are three competing dynamics going on right now. The first is from the professional Republicans. This includes the elected officials such as the Senators and Congresspeople that have denounced, but not unendorsed (the majority) and that have denounced and unendorsed (the minority – for now). Josh Marshall has written a bit about this dynamic already this evening; highlighting the damage that has begun to be inflicted on Speaker Ryan and Congressman Heck. And this as new information is starting to come out as drips become streams. This includes audio (at the link) of Trump telling Howard Stern that it was okay to refer to a then 22 year old Ivanka as a “piece of ass”. And that during a 2012 legal case, Trump offered to show his “manhood” to Gloria Allred, who was representing the trans woman suing Trump, and stating that he believed Allred “would be very impressed with me, I really do”. The professional Republicans, elected officials and the professional campaign, communication, and management Republicans involved with the Republican National Committee, that work for Republican members of the House and the Senate, that work on their campaigns and for the various PACs all seem to be reacting by denouncing, with some also unendorsing and some not doing so (for now). This is one response, but it is the response of the party elites and notables.
The other two dynamics are among actual registered Republicans and conservatives that vote Republican regardless of party affiliation. These two dynamics are what is important for Trump remaining in the race, as well as for what damage he does to the professional Republicans. The first dynamic is among religious Conservatives, especially the broadly defined Evangelical Christians (Evangelicals, Charismatics, and/or Fundamentalists). Several commentators have asked how the Access Hollywood tape would play tomorrow morning when these folks are at church. I think a better analysis is this 19 tweet essay by Sarah Posner. Posner thinks that this is going to play very, very badly with Evangelical women as they’ve either experienced, or know someone who has experienced, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and/or rape by powerful men within their own communities. Men who were able to get away with it or justify it because of their power. Posner thinks the “they let you get away with it if you’re a star” portion of Trump’s remarks may be very damaging among this block of Christian women. Conservative Christian men, however, are likely to be a different story
And this is where the final dynamic comes in: Herrenvolk democracy. Herrenvolk democracy is a democracy that is defined in regard to a specific in group: the people. Its tribal. And in the US Herrenvolk democracy was and is a democracy for white Christians. And here’s where I think the second and third dynamics are going to potentially collide. As I wrote back in April after Trump’s address on foreign policy, the closest thing that Trump seems to have to a foreign policy concept is: I will ensure that America will be treated fairly or else! Specifically, the Trump Doctrine as I called it, is:
… really the animating force or theme of the entire Trump campaign. The other candidates had better treat Donald Trump fairly, the Republican National Committee better treat Donald Trump fairly, the Republican establishment better treat Donald Trump fairly, the media better treat Donald Trump fairly, the state level parties that handle the primaries and all the delegates chosen better treat Donald Trump fairly. And Donald Trump will make them treat him fairly! And the only candidate, nay the only person in America who can ensure that you are treated fairly is Donald Trump. And if he isn’t treated fairly or the US isn’t treated fairly, then he will get even!
Trump’s appeal has always been this core of the Trump Doctrine “only I (Trump) can ensure that you and America will be treated fairly, or else!” This is important within the context of American herrenvolkism. We have significant amounts of survey data that tells us that white Christian Americans believe that they and their version/understanding of Christianity’s influence is waning in the US. This includes the belief that they are themselves the most discriminated against group in the US – not African Americans or Hispanic Americans or LGBTQ Americans or Muslim Americans or those mistaken for Muslim Americans. To these Americans, the vast majority of whom are among Trump’s most fervent supporters, the Trump Doctrine and its herrenvolkish nature appeal directly to them and their fears – no matter how unfounded those fears may be in objective terms. They are scared and Trump has promised to not just fix the people, places, and things that scare them, but that he will do it quickly and without mercy. These are the people that are booing Speaker Ryan and Congressman Heck. And they are the people that Senators McCain and Ayotte, (and about a 1/2 dozen others) are scared of even as they have unendorsed Trump.
The question is going to be just how far their support for Trump will go. I’m reasonably confident it will go far enough to keep him as the candidate. His surrogates began to pivot to this message in today’s coverage, that Trump is the anti-establishment candidate and he represents all of those that have been left out and left behind. The Trump Doctrine’s promise of only “I, Trump, can ensure you and America will be treated fairly or else!” is to what the surrogates are referring. What remains to be seen is whether Trump’s herrenvolkish supporters will also punish the professional Republicans, specifically the members of the House and Senate up for reelection that pull their support from Trump, by withholding their support for them in their election and reelection bids. It is this calculus that has led dozens and dozens of professional Republicans to tie themselves into knots over the past 30 hours or so. And while that remains to be seen, the Presidential Town Hall in St. Louis approaches…
Finally, the question of why this/why now remains. I think that this dovetails with the herrenvolkish appeal of the Trump campaign. The attack on Mexican immigrants – undocumented or documented – on Syrian refugees and Muslim immigrants (and tourists for that matter), on Judge Curiel and the Khans, on Alicia Machado, and on the Central Park Five all appeal to the herrenvolkish concerns of Trump’s supporters. All of these groups or specific people are not part of the volk, the people. They are outsiders that, at best, may be tolerated. This is why Trump’s, his sons’, and sometimes his campaign’s flirtation with white supremacists/white nationalists and the alt-right was tolerated. Members of these groups are part of the volk, the people. But what did we actually have happen in that Access Hollywood video? We had Trump admitting that he aggressively pursued a married, white woman who was also, if not an elite, certainly a notable because of her celebrity. For professional Republicans and conservatives, men and women who have been incorporating and promoting the nebulous (and often not honored even in the breach) concept of family values for going on forty years, that place marriage for women and motherhood as the only acceptable sexuality for women (regardless of their own – male or female – personal behavior), and that think that one of the few actual roles for government is to regulate female sexuality and reproduction via statute and regulation – at both the Federal and state levels – Trump’s attempt at cuckoldry was too much. Here too the herrenvolkish concept comes into play. As long as Trump was being sexually crude and vulgar about non-white women, as long as his affairs and lechery seemed to be in his past, it could at least be ignored, if not tolerated by the professional Republicans and conservatives. But the Trump on the Access Hollywood video goes beyond that. Trump, on that video, is making a direct attack on marriage by admitting to trying to pursue a notable, celebrity married woman. And that was the bridge too far. Now we wait to see who wins this fight. The professional Republicans and conservatives or the members of the Republican Party that support Trump.
redshirt
I’ve been trying to figure out how Trump could win this. Let’s use the 2012 election as the baseline.
How can Trump do better than Romney?
More white guys voting who did not vote for Romney
Less African-Americans voting for Clinton(?)
Russian hackers.
How can Hillary do better than Obama?
Lower republican turnout or at least less voting for Trump
More Hispanic votes
More republican women votes
More white racist votes (those who wouldn’t vote for O because of skin color)
Those seem to be the only areas where they could be change.
Am I missing anything? If not, the ONLY way Trump can win is if there is a large group of whites who didn’t vote in 2012 but do in 2016. And I mean very large.
Seems seriously unrealistic.
schrodinger's cat
Let them destroy each other. I won’t be shedding any tears.
Baud
@schrodinger’s cat: This
redshirt
@schrodinger’s cat: There could be nothing finer. Especially if Liberals use this opportunity to progress.
But more likely, we’ll use it as a chance to get our Unicorns.
Suzanne
I have been wondering this myself. Honestly, compared to all of the other horrible shit he’s said, it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. But I realized that, in this case, he did actually describe committing a crime, he didn’t just insult people. Also, I am sure there is a racial component—the GOP is seeing that white women really are victimized, too. Alicia Machado is brown, so they can blow that off.
Having had my ass grabbed at work by my boss, and my breasts groped by a superior at a different job, I can testify that this shit is reality for many women and that we do not forget this easily. I am eagerly awaiting Ivanka’s statement.
dmsilev
@schrodinger’s cat: Do tears of laughter (or relief) count?
Corner Stone
I still have no idea what, “I went at her like a bitch” actually means. She was a bitch? He treated her like he was a PUA trying to neg her? He was the bitch? Went in trying to weedle his way inside her guard?
Suzanne
I seriously cannot say how much I have been eating this shit up all day. My God. We are back to the exciting part of this train wreck, with lots of things blowing up!
Baud
@redshirt: I would like to think we’ve learned our lesson after squandering the Obama years. But you’re probably right.
Oh well. That’s a fight for Nov 9.
Corner Stone
@Suzanne: The interesting thing is that the networks are getting exactly what they hoped for. A huge influx of ad dollars and clicks, all waiting to see what this reality show grifter is going to do next.
ETA, and I am guilty of giving them thousands of clicks this weekend. I can’t help it. It’s so good and I don’t even have to sterilize the needle first!
Baud
@Suzanne: Decision 2016. A new film my Michael Bay.
schrodinger's cat
@dmsilev: This shit has stopped being funny for me a long time ago, but let me not stop you.
Snarki, child of Loki
The RW lives in denial of all the “facts” and “evidence” that those hated coastal elites throw at them. They’d rather believe Trump than their lying eyes. That’s why previous accusations of sexual misbehavior, fraudulence, etc., haven’t stuck.
But now Trump, himself, has accused himself of sexual assault. The RW delusions don’t work so well any more.
THAT is why this scandal has legs.
jl
As a guy, I never really understood how whipping out your limp ass dick (show your ‘manhood’) proves much of anything. Unless you walk around with the permanent stiffy, but that can’t happen since unless you see a doctor, Mr Stiffy gets sick and they have to cut it off, or deflate it with extreme measures and it stays that way.
So, am I missing something? What am I not getting?
Adam L Silverman
@Corner Stone: Its the PUA thing. That’s, apparently, straight out of the pickup artist schtick.
Jeffro
Adam, I don’t see how the Establishment and the dolt-Right ever sew this back together. I’m not sure what the net effect of Establishment Rs drifting over to the D side (or becoming true ‘swing’ voters) will be, or if any of the dolt-Right will drift to the Establishment, or whatever. But it will be interested and it likely won’t be resolved in a short timeframe.
One thing is for sure, the country could use a good hard post-election look at all of the things that went into this mad campaign season: the white nationalists, the “deep bench”s and Ryan/McConnell/McCain’s craven calculations, and above all, what the Kochs and Mercers are doing to regroup.
Kolohe
Though there was also Megyn Kelly.
JMG
There is no chance the professional Republicans win. They are wildly outnumbered by the white male loser assholes at the core of Trump. Those folks aren’t going back into the box. I honestly believe that within two decades, they will have to be defeated by overwhelming military force.
Mnemosyne
Yep. Trump could viciously attack Those People as much as he wanted, but when it turned out he was shitting where he eats?
I also do think it’s partially about the language. The “tone policing” by conservatives drives us nuts, but it’s a real thing for them. They really do think it’s okay to say racist shit as long as you couch it in “polite” language like William F. Buckley did.
But Trump used Bad Words, and you can’t do that in Conservative World.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: I’m not sure how you fix this either. I’m always the guy in the briefing that interrupts to explain that 3 legged stools are unstable by design, which is why you want a 4 legged stool, but if the 3 legs of the GOP coalition’s stool are coming apart I’m not sure what their is to balance on.
Adam L Silverman
@Kolohe: Kelly’s boss Ailes provided top cover for Trump on it. That’s the difference.
Adam L Silverman
@JMG: I don’t disagree that the professional Republicans are going to loose. I don’t think they really have a good idea of what they’ve been facilitating for the past 50 or so years.
ChrisGrrr
This “tolerance,” by churchigelicals who are soooo superior to the rest of us in every way, still doesn’t jibe with their holy texts. It wasn’t enough that the GOP candidates lie constantly, or that their not-Hillary talks of deliberately ignoring Constitutional amendments and treaties…?
jl
@Mnemosyne: I did imagine Roger BSing with Trump during the ‘prep’ and burger chowdown for the first debate, and talking about that very point.
Roge: “Fricken Carlson, kept trying to get in her pants and she goes ‘but I’m married’. What kind of BS excuse is that.’
Donnie: You just move in an grab ’em. Hold tight and make ’em.
Roge: It’s like, an insult. She couldn’t even bother to come up with a good excuse.
Donnie: Yeah, it’s like an insult. so then they kick you out for getting a little respect, right. She insulted you. “Married!”. Shit.
Tim F.
Adam, I think we have very nearly reached the point where the centrifugal forces pulling on the GOP force an actual irreparable rupture. Your evangelical males are just part of the National Front wing of the GOP that Trump awakened and energized. Professional Republicans always looked down on these guys as easily distracted goobers they could manipulate into (inexplicably) supporting top-end tax cuts.
Professionals and regular folks will get shamed out of the Republican party if Trump’s Front National wing outlives Trump. But the goobers will go absolutely apeshit if the professional wing tries to stuff them back in the closet. Paul Ryan is getting hammered for not cutting Trump off completely, but if he does that the goobers will come down on his head or leave the party.
Basically I don’t see what will hold the GOP together at this point.
lamh36
Current Drudge Report headline has a picture of Paul Ryan with his tongue in his cheek and the words “P&*^y Whipped”
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
jl
@lamh36: Thank you so much. That needs to go in my soon to be released scholarly tome, ‘Annals of GOP Outreach’.. And I need to make sure I index it properly.
Adam L Silverman
@JMG: Just read the comments:
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2016/10/daniel-zimmerman/wikileaks-email-reveals-hillarys-plan-executive-orders-imposing-universal-background-checks-gun-manufacturer-liability/
Baud
@lamh36: ?
Kolohe
@Adam L Silverman:
That would enable a positive spin from Fox News, but not the entire media ecosphere.
Though is that the difference? Insulting/assaulting white women is not a deal breaker for a GOP primary, but it sure is for a general election?
Adam L Silverman
@Tim F.: They’re not mine. Its not like I have a collection or something…
scottinnj
Apparently there was quite a bit of heckling by trump supporters at Paul Ryan’s Wisconsin event.
Trump tweeted tonight (i don’t know how to embed twitter) “Thank you to my great supporters in Wisconsin. I heard that the crowd and enthusiasm was unreal!”
The GOP civil war is on.
schrodinger's cat
@Adam L Silverman: I am not a lawyer but I don’t think ignorance is a good defense.
Corner Stone
@Adam L Silverman: Maybe a binder somewhere?
Villago Delenda Est
“Where are the white women at?”
That’s what Donald was saying, and that’s what makes the difference. Groups One and Two can’t go along with that…they are of course focusing on the vulgar language, not on the fact that Drumpf was talking about sexual assault. But the fact that he’s going after a white woman is the tipping point.
As for the Heerenvolk scum, they’ll support him all the way. The MRA contingent in that group will cheer him on. “Bitch had it coming” is pretty much their attitude.
The Herrenvolk are the GOP base now. The Professional GOP told everyone over the last 35 years to fuck off and die, and embraced the Herrenvolk. Time to reap what they’ve sown.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman:
There’s nothing able to be fixed…we’re busy living history here as the GOP completely, openly, officially cracks up. And not only are the Establishment and dolt-Right not going to come back together soon, but they couldn’t stick together even if they wanted to – the post-Citizens United world means that even if they somehow come to an accord, all it takes is a couple billionaires (perhaps even one who self-finances and owes nothing to anybody?) and it’ll all get blown to pieces again in a hurry.
ETA I see Tim F and scottinnj are on the same mind meld as I am
Corner Stone
@Adam L Silverman:
They know what they did.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I will read the OP, but it does say Open Thread, so…
Adam L Silverman
@Kolohe: It depends on who closes ranks with whom. Similar dynamic with the Breitbart reporter and Lewandowski. Bannon/Breitbart like Ailes/Fox backed Trump, or in the former case Lewandowski, over the actual victims. As a result, and given where Trump’s supporters get their news, there was no there, there so to speak. It didn’t matter how it was playing on CNN or MSNBC or CBS or ABC – those sources aren’t to be trusted anyway.
Schlemazel
@schrodinger’s cat:
I will shed a lot of tears . . . of joy
Gin & Tonic
@Tim F.:
They were standing outside Trump Tower this evening and cheering him like a rockstar when he showed his face outside.
Mandalay
@ Adam L Silverman:
I think you are way over-thinking this question. This is what did him in:
[1] We saw the “real” Trump on video because he didn’t know he was being recorded. Therefore the evidence was completely credible, and impossible to deny.
[2] What he said is impossible to defend. There is no spin that works defending sexual assault.
[3] Most importantly, many people are genuinely outraged on a visceral level, regardless of party affiliation.
Baud
Digby on Twitter says they’ve brought out Scott Baio to defend Trump.
redshirt
@Gin & Tonic: Rockstar is the wrong term. Dictator? Strongman? Better choices.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodinger’s cat: You misunderstood my remark. This isn’t meant as a potential defense, but rather as simply being unaware of what the effects of their actions have really been. You can watch this with Charlie Sykes since the Republican convention. He knows there’s a problem, he knows he partially facilitated, he knows he wants nothing more to do with it, but I don’t think he understands the forest for the trees, let alone the ecosystem for the forest.
redshirt
@Baud: ZAPPED!
Mandalay
The best comment I have seen this weekend:
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: I thought about embedding that video clip at the top of the post.
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud: Oh, this ought to be good.
Baud
@Villago Delenda Est:
He’ll take charge!
kevin
Adam, I think you are dreaming if you really think there is some bar low enough that sinking below it will convince these so-called “Christians” on the right to make a negative judgment or withhold their political support. These people exceed hypocrisy like wall street exceeds greedy. They will stick with Trump longer and harder than anyone else does. And, sadly, will not even realize they should feel shame, let alone feel it.
Schlemazel
@jl:
Oscar Wilde
dmsilev
@Gin & Tonic: I have this vision of the day after election day when a boisterous mob storms Trump Palace and topples his statues and tears down his paid-for-by-“charity” portraits.
Also, remember a long-ago more innocent time when we were all eagerly awaiting how Trump would handle debate questions …about his lack of paying income taxes? You know, two or three days ago? Ah, those were the days.
Villago Delenda Est
@redshirt: Short fingered cheeto faced ferret wearing shitgibbon on a balcony.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: Terrific actor, tremendous, you all remember Potsie from the Fonzie show, right? Won all at the emmas
raven
@dmsilev: And hits them with their shoes.
Gin & Tonic
In more important news, Dick Wallace won today’s Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Warren, RI with a 2,261 lb entry. Not a national record, unfortunately, but apparently the largest of the year in North America.
Corner Stone
The last couple of days have really driven me insane. I’ve been clicking on everything I could find, trying to understand what the hell was going on. Gleeful at so much confusion and weirdness.
I have decided it’s time to retreat back to something more grounded in reality. Something that makes sense with the world we are living in. So I will be watching a few episodes of Supernatural until SNL comes on.
Because that world makes a shitload more sense than this one at the moment.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Baio didn’t play Potsie. He was Chachi. He loved Joanie.
dmsilev
@Baud: There’s scraping the bottom of the barrel, and then there’s building another barrel underneath the first one just so you can scrape _its_ bottom.
Miss Bianca
Why is it that every time I go off hunting these days, I come back to find the world turned upside down?
Felonius Monk
The non-crazy, main-stream part of the Republican party doesn’t seem to get the idea that in the context of this election their only hope of salvaging their party and getting it back on the rails is to ensure that Hillary Clinton is elected President. If Trump wins they are dead meat and so are we.
hellslittlestangel
@Jeffro: The next Republican autopsy will be an actual autopsy.
Villago Delenda Est
@kevin: These “Christians” have their roots in the breakup of mainstream denominations in the 1850s, over the question of slavery, and by implication, the notion of white supremacy. All the trends Adam mentioned are what drive their fear…they are afraid that they will be treated when they’re in minority status as they treated the minorities. Just treating the brown, the black, the Asian, the gay, THE FEMALE, as equals is beyond what they are willing to do.
Anoniminous
@redshirt:
The governing coalition is the Obama Coalition. When “white, Christian Americans believe that they and their version/understanding of Christianity’s influence is waning in the US” they are grasping a fact. The white America they knew is gone, their ability to absolutely control the political power of the US is gone. Under the new political reality it would have taken a miracle for Reagan Revolution to come to power and what they got was an ignorant buffoon.
Baud
@Felonius Monk: Agreed.
lollipopguild
@Mandalay: Loud laughter.
redshirt
@Baud: Did he really though?
Adam L Silverman
@kevin: I don’t think the conservative Christian males will. I’m not sure about the women, hence why I said we need to consider Sarah Posner’s argument.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: Did you get anything? Is Hillary R going to have to write a nasty post about you and your planet defiling ways?
SciNY
I’m seeing a lot of chatter among the punditry & Trump campaign surrogates (including Ben Carson) that we should expect other shoes to drop that are even worse than depicted in this video. Maybe this refers to outtakes from the Apprentice, but somehow I don’t think so. Any guesses about what everyone is winking & nodding about, but not yet discussing openly?
Baud
@redshirt: I wished they had a “very special” episode when it was revealed that Big Al was Chachi’s father.
Baud
@SciNY: Paid for an abortion.
It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@SciNY: an crew member from the Apprentice tweeted today that there’s a lot more out there. I’ll see if I can find it
Mike J
Cold, tired, wired, happy.
Raced today, 18kts, gusting 30. The Jeanneau 44 and J/33 we were up against both had the rail buried, so it was extra fun on our Ranger 24. We did not finish well today, but we had more fun. Now time for a bourbon, beer, and some home made salmon cakes.
I’ll read about politics after I have fish.
p.a.
@Gin & Tonic: You sure that wasn’t Pence’s head? Granite is dense.
Baud
lollipopguild
@Baud: But, but, but…………
jayjaybear
@Baud: And now, he loves baloney.
redshirt
@SciNY: Raped a 13 year old?
Omnes Omnibus
@SciNY: The producer, Mark Burnett, supposedly has control over the b-roll. He is not responding to requests for it as of now.
sigaba
@Adam L Silverman: Only comment I needed to see: “America needs a Pinochet.” Gulp.
(I can direct the gentle reader to a recollection of Pinochet’s Chile by one Phil Ochs, who watched his best friend, a Chilean folk musician, garroted to death by police, while a thousand of his best friends were forced to watch from the bleachers of a sports stadium, waiting their turn.)
I don’t like the Herrenvolk theory, just because it’s so ideological and it reads more like an historian explaining something that’s happened, as opposed to a social movement before us today. It’s much more parsimonious to say that the reaction to P-gate is simply the result of the fact that Trump is losing, and losing hard, and we’re at the point where he’s unlikely to reverse the situation and has shown no aptitude to do so, and this particular event provides Republican politicians with a pretext to write him off. It’s like the grocery store that’s losing money, and they manage to hold out until there’s a fire one night, and they tell everyone the fire is the reason they had to declare bankruptcy.
Internet commenters comment about Hillary and gun grabs and the coming revolution, that’s what they do. We’ve been reading these people spin their little webs for a decade now.
p.a.
An outhouse divided against itself cannot stand. It collapses into a pool of shit.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Keep in mind when Trump grabs ass on a guys wife, he’s symbolically grabbing that guy’s ass too. Trump’s basically saying the guy is to weak to defend her, That the true moment Trump dies when that realization sets into the Conservatives.
Baud
@redshirt: No way that story gets by our crack media.
dmsilev
@SciNY: Video of him _actually_ grabbing at someone’s pu$$y? Video of him bragging about committing full-out rape? Proof of an …intimate relationship with his daughter? We’ve gone so far down it’s hard to see how things can go any lower.
Schlemazel
@Baud:
He pays for nothing, probably made the woman pay for it but forced her into it.
redshirt
@Baud: You mean the original Arnold, right?
Jeffro
@hellslittlestangel:
That’s a great way to put it.
Rs around the country are going to have to clearly stand for something, instead of just going with more CDS (or retro-ODS). The can go with Establishment frames or dolt-Right frames, but they won’t be able to have it both ways and that will keep their dimwit supporters fractured and out of power for a while.
Until they can make a coherent case for conservative principles and re-engage the country in civil governance, instead of just hating on everyone who isn’t a white male, they deserve to wander a bit. And then perhaps a bit more.
redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus: Probably trying to figure out how to make a reality show of it.
Baud
@redshirt: I did, but I like your idea better.
sigaba
@Omnes Omnibus: You wonder what sort of NDA Mark Burnett’s production company is under w/r/t Trump B-roll. I’ve worked in the film industry for 20 years and while I’ve signed millions of NDAs to production companies, I’ve only heard of NDAs from talent binding upon the crew. Michael Jackson used to have an NDA everyone who came into contact with him had to sign, with a complex rider stipulating you couldn’t make child molestation jokes around him, under penalty of cash payment to him (seriously).
? Martin
I’m curious what Adam’s views are on the consequence of this. We have an incredibly angry electorate that has retreated to the 2nd amendment as a salve for their perceived lack of liberty. They are overwhelmingly inclined to believe that the media is corrupt and that the election is rigged. They believe that the Democratic candidate is a war criminal and working for terrorists. Their savior is in the process of being torn apart by the very forces they believe are part of any number of grand conspiracies. And they have a candidate that is emotionally unable to talk them down off the ledge, and worse, is inclined to incite them even more. The other GOPers are proving unable to quell the crowd. Sensenbrenner – hardly a squish is getting shouted down by the mob. Ryan is as well. And the media finally have blood in the water and they’re going to open everything up against Trump/Pence.
I’m getting this knot in my stomach that we are on the verge of violence breaking out. I don’t know how this gets contained. It seems unable to self-contain.
lollipopguild
@Baud: Our media on Trump Crack(TM)?
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@Adam L Silverman: I think that depends on who you mean by professional Republicans, and from where. I find it highly unlikely that Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, or Steve King don’t understand the nature of the beast they’ve helped nurture or its role in their futures. For all I know in both their cases their public lives are animated by the Herrenvolk cause almost exclusively. It certainly seems that way in King’s case, but then again he may just be throwing bombs to keep his name in the news knowing he’s in a safe district no matter what he says. Guys like that will always have a home in politics, unfortunately. The related question to me, in terms of the possible collapse of the Republican party, is what does the Democratic party become? I’m not saying that from a purity pony angle necessarily, because even Dems I disagree with about stuff are generally serious about governing, and that automatically makes them better than the proto-Calhoun hordes by default. But I don’t think the great ideological sorting in the US is done yet. Might not even be halfway there.
That said, I would actually find a meeting between Paul Ryan and Raul Labrador held right after the election to be interesting viewing. Then again, Ryan’s seat is fairly suburban. If enough Republicans stay home, does he have to sweat out election night? That’d be a delicious extra.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@jl:
Maybe Trump is gay? Even when I was 18 I wouldn’t have a hard on in a room full of guys.
? Martin
@SciNY: Jill Harth
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: Nope, too warm for a scent to follow – just some hard riding with the hounds. Hillary R has no need to worry – no actual coyotes or hares were harmed. Hounds did go after a mountain lion last week when we were out on what was supposed to be a relaxing trail ride, but everyone came back unscathed.
ETA: So I just read your post more carefully after doing a very quick scan of headlines and other BJ posts, because I honestly went “WTF!? What’s happened *now* that’s suddenly sticking to the Teflon Shitgibbon?” All I can say is…wow.
ET
I am going to assume Trump did a lot of the same vulgar things on The Apprentice – so will that video ever come to light? Will any of the women (and men who may have witnessed) talk?
redshirt
@? Martin: What kind of violence are you thinking? Lone wolves shooting up this or that? Or organized groups of wingnuts?
Hal
@Baud: The same Scott Baio who basically called Michelle Obama ugly, and posted a meme calling Hillary Clinton a c**t? That should work out well. BTW folks, he just was joking! Ha!
Omnes Omnibus
@sigaba: Trump’s supporters are the people who oppose birth right citizenship. They are the people who will never accept Blacks, Latinos, Jews, etc., as equals. I don’t see why Herrenvolk doesn’t apply.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@? Martin: I do think the sovereign citizen stuff is going to get a lot worse before it gets better, and the impact on the broader political culture of the country is rather unpredictable. Archie Bunker: Minuteman is not going to go quietly into that good night. We can only hope that the bulk of the action is more Bundy flavored than McVeigh flavored
sigaba
@? Martin:
Literally the only evidence I have of this is people commenting on the Internet, photos of dudes with ARs and shovels’ have you seen anything more than this?
People were swearing on Bibles that if that joker John Quincy Adams stole the presidency from Andrew Jackson they’d blow up the capitol, and in THAT election the House chose the winner AGAINST the popular vote in a quid pro quo, and yet nothing happened. People say a lot of things.
raven
@? Martin: Don’t oversell it
SciNY
I was thinking about Trump “pursuing” (up to & including sexual assault/rape) a young woman who turned out to be underage, maybe while he was coked up at Studio 54. That would take his skeeviness to a whole new level. Whatever it is, Hugh Hewitt cited it as a reason for Trump to get out.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@sigaba: I’m not expecting a second civil war anytime soon, but I do think that the ATF and the National Guard could have a very busy 20 years or so.
redshirt
@Get Smart:
Welcome back! I’ve been missing you.
I see you’ve honed your political chops in your absence.
Miss Bianca
@Mike J: Yum! That all sounds awesome!
? Martin
@redshirt: I don’t know. Not organized in the larger sense. It seems to me that we have a cohort of Americans that are terrified of the world beyond their porch and their last hope is going to be hung in the village square. I worry they will lash out, fueled by countless Republican grifters who get paid by ED companies and prepper firms to fan the flames.
Felonius Monk
Digby wrote this yesterday:
But it isn’t just Trump. If he really starts ranting, there is a pretty good probability that some of his more rabid and dim-witted supporters are going to cause a lot of trouble.
Mnemosyne
@Get Smart:
Adam, cleanup needed on aisle #102. The banned troll barfed again.
Baud
@redshirt: Great. Now “get” and “smart” will be added to the spam filter.
Villago Delenda Est
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Assumes facts not in evidence…that the Herrenvolk have the awareness that he’s dissing them almost as much as he’s dissing the woman.
Villago Delenda Est
@Get Smart: Not Smart. Very dumb, in fact.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@raven: Ah, hahahahaahaa, the ideas of Republicans. That Paul Ryan, what a silly goose. Just because Atlas Shrugged gave him a hardon 30 years ago doesn’t mean that applies to normal people that might vote Republican. When Adam was talking about professional Republicans not fully appreciating what they’re now dealing with, he’s the lead example.
Mnemosyne
@SciNY:
Already happened — a lawsuit trial starts next week with a 13-year-old victim.
lgerard
Ted Cruz is reportedly now “reconsidering” his endorsement!
what an idiot
? Martin
@raven: I’m only going on what I’ve read. That’s the first to suggest that it wasn’t so negative against Ryan. I find that somewhat comforting, actually.
Mandalay
John McCain is the only politician I have found to cite this Trump comment as one of the reasons for withdrawing his support:
Good for McCain.
dmsilev
What deity did we piss off to somehow bring Brinks Truck Boy back to us?
Baud
@lgerard: I wonder if he’ll call all those people back.
redshirt
@Baud: By 2024 we will be reduced to around 300 words we can use without replies disappearing.
dmsilev
@lgerard:
Even with all of the anti-Trump schadenfreude going around, I feel it’s important for people to reserve at least a little bit of time to laugh at Ted Cruz’s pain.
smintheus
This one is sinking him because it follows so closely after the news that Trump pays no taxes, and thinks that avoiding taxes makes him smart. That proved to people who wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt that Trump is all about himself and proudly takes advantage of others.
The tape shows him bragging about doing the same thing, but in a way that makes his sociopathy more personal and more visceral. So the taxes and the Billy Bush tape are a one-two punch to Trump’s claim that he cares about standing up for ordinary people.
Omnes Omnibus
@Get Smart: RTR is back.
raven
@? Martin: Good, I just don’t think there are that many of these dopes.
mike in dc
It’s not inconceivable that this will become violent, either before, during or after the election. I can’t see Fox news surviving intraparty conflict like this.
Felonius Monk
@Get Smart: So you’ve been eating these Smart Pills again, huh?
redshirt
@? Martin: I don’t see how their violence to come will differ that much from the violence we already suffer at their hands.
dmsilev
@Omnes Omnibus: The Brinks Trucks aren’t laughing.
SciNY
@Mnemosyne: damn, I forgot about that. Just when you think there’s no room for this sleazeball to go lower, he finds a way to do it. Yes, that might be what turns enough stomachs for the GOP to dump him. But still the establishment folks could have anticipated this from public records, right? So why are they so surprised & without a planned response? Maybe this points to something that wasn’t on their or anyone’s radar.
raven
@mike in dc: Violence is as American as apple pie .
J Rap Brown
gf120581
@lgerard: Ted still wants Trump’s voters.
Smiling Mortician
@Adam L Silverman: Ugh. I really wish I hadn’t clicked that.
Walker
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink:
This is a civil COLD war. And we are already in it.
raven
@raven: H
sigaba
@Omnes Omnibus: It makes sense but it seems more inchoate than that; “herrenvolk” is a very sophisticated and overt philosophy. Nobody who would subscribe to herrenvolk democracy would say they weren’t racist, that’s the whole point, and I know a lot of these dudes would say they didn’t have a racist bone in their body. They’d be wrong but Volkish political movements are overtly and unapologetically racist, and happily call themselves that, I don’t see that here.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@mike in dc:
Don’t tease me
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@Walker: The cold war has been active since at least 1992.
scottinnj
@SciNY: Google Kathy Shelton, yes, Trump is going there
Mandalay
@dmsilev:
There are some good replies to Cruz’s pompous pro forma tweets, the best being “Go get your shine box”.
Omnes Omnibus
@sigaba: A lot of Trump’s alt-right supporters are proudly racist. I got in a Twitter fight with a couple of week ago who objected to be called an neo-Nazi. He preferred white supremacist.*
*Anecdata.
redshirt
@Walker: This is the Civil War that’s never ended. The structural reasons for that war remain, but now infused throughout the country.
Jack the Second
@Corner Stone: I’m still stuck on “grab her by the p****”. I can’t figure out if that’s like when ten-year-olds make up fake sexual exploits to brag about, and just completely nonsensical, or if it represents what it appears to, a level of depravity and harassment I was previously unaware of. I know people grab, slap, and pinch butts they shouldn’t, and am vaguely aware that the more brazen perverts will go for the breasts, but is there really an even more absurd level of depraved individual who runs around trying to grab strange women by the p****?
It always makes me sad to learn I’m leaving in a world that is worse than I previously realized.
Chyron HR
@Get Smart:
It’s worth a shot. I mean, you’ve completely failed to predict the results of the last 5 primaries/presidential elections, so you have to be right eventually.
redshirt
@Get Smart: What’s your prediction for the election? Trump? Clinton?
Mnemosyne
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink:
That reminds me of one of my favorite P.G. Wodehouse stories, where Bertie and a Rt. Honorable get treed by a nasty swan in the middle of a rainstorm, so Bertie throws a rock at the swan:
Rt. Honorable: “Don’t tease it!”
Bertie: “It teased me!”
schrodinger's cat
Weren’t we supposed to be quaking in our boots about master debater, Harvard Lawyer Ted Cruz. Turns out he has the political instincts of a potato and is not that smart after all.
Villago Delenda Est
I’m sure you all recall, all you old timers, RtR’s gleeful gloating that the “Please Clap” campaign was going to drop a bomb 10 months ago that would send the SS Trump to the bottom of the Laurentian Abyss. But they did not. Why? Was this tape that bomb, or one of the other ones that his own campaign surrogates have been alluding to…as bad, or…hold on to your butts…worse! Perhaps because they knew that the GOP base that they thought they could control was out of control and would support him anyways? We’re seeing that right now…they love him even more for it.
As for “Get Smart”, well, bubba, you’d better get used to hearing “Madam President” for the next eight years.
? Martin
@sigaba:
I think this piece by Frum from a few years ago was interesting.
The number of gun owners has declined while the average number of guns has increased from about 4 to about 8 per household. There’s a stratification taking place. And gun rights is far and away the most successful policy position the right has and politicians are most loyal on the gun issue. They’re losing on almost every other front.
Mnemosyne
@Jack the Second:
Unfortunately, yes.
Adam L Silverman
@? Martin: I have been saying for a while now that I am 1) surprised we have not seen more violence so far, which I think is a good sign and 2) fully expect to see sporadic, low intensity violence on and after Election Day regardless of the outcome.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chyron HR: Yeah, take that Mittens victory in the Colorado primary in 2012 to the bank! Where they’ll have the Pinkertons escort you out to the street for trying.
Baud
@? Martin: So they cling to their guns, eh?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Mandalay: All of those are accurate and well stated. I also think part of it is also the drip, drip, drip of horribles got to a tipping point, and the tipping point is often not apparently rational in the face of what preceded it – Kay noted that there are times when women will be “he beat me and tried to burn the house down, but now he took my car without asking” and that’s what made them done with him.
I offered the same thought last night, but Kay said it so much better that I’ll outsource my thoughts to her:
As appalled (but completely unsurprised) as I am that he boasted about sexual assault, I am more disturbed by his comments about innocent me who were locked up as teenagers based on coerced confessions.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: so Reynard the Fox is safe for another week?
? Martin
@Mandalay: Trump publicly made the same comments years ago when the 5 boys were exonerated. Fuck McCain for ignoring the issue until it was convenient for him.
Jeffro
Evan McMullin on Twitter: “GOP leaders’ power before principle mentality is a central cause of this fiasco because it promotes inferior leaders like Trump”
Well, at least one person is getting the message here…
lgerard
@dmsilev:
I am reserving most of my glee for the captain of the Titanic, Reince Priebus.
The GOP’s golden boy, who was going to show everyone how to elect Republicans in blue states, ala Scott Walker has instead presided over the most spectacular immolation of a political party since the Whigs in 1852.
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: I see it, give me a sec.
rikyrah
@lamh36:
LOL????
? Martin
@Baud: One might say that…
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Do it. Do it! FUCKING DO IT!
Adam L Silverman
@Get Smart: back in the box with you
redshirt
@Adam L Silverman: Ah, so good. I got his prediction in before the banhammer fell.
Nice.
Baud
@efgoldman: I didn’t read that as cowering. If Trump were to win, the country would be in a world of hurt. That’s basically a fact.
Omnes Omnibus
Can we still say smart?
ETA: Can we still refer to the 1960s TV series, Get Smart?
ETAA: Yep.
sigaba
@? Martin: This is a good article, though it’s describing a political phenomenon a lot like Trump, in that, a ton of people don’t actually seem to care what they’re buying, they just buy the gun (or take the vote) for totemic of consumerist reasons.
People go to Home Depot and buy the grouter tool for their Dremel because they think they’re going to remodel their own bathroom. People go buy a Wildey .475 because they fear the Black Uprising. But are these people actually willing to kill? Are these people soldiers? Are they Stalhelm? Or just mall ninjas?
I mean like, the biggest difference between Weimar and the US today is 75% of our male population aren’t unemployed war vets who had their entire moral worldview destroyed in a foxhole in Ypres.
ETA> BTW I’m looking for a .22 for plinking, anyone have a recommendation?
gf120581
@lgerard: Bad Scrabble Hands is going for a long stint in detox after this election, I think.
amk
@Baud: More likely the rape case hearing in October surprise.
schrodinger's cat
@Baud: The world would be in world of hurt with the orange one having his short finger on the nuclear trigger.
ruemara
I’ve had the window open on this since it first came up and had zero comments.
The funny thing about being raised in a religious family is you have some serious upfront perspective on this. I’m not surprised at the way religious leaders and his faithful are backing Trump. I’ve seen how it works. The female body is there to be used by the male. If he sins, it’s the fault of the female. Your silence is the price of being accepted, even of salvation. And if you’re abused, then you need to understand your complicit sin in causing the abuse. We didn’t get “what were you wearing” from nowhere. If you’re the right man, with the signs of the Lord’s favor (money, status, community power), you can never, ever be wrong. And if you’re perceived as a tool of GOD, heaven help those you prey on. Because no one in the group will help you. If you’re lucky, they won’t condemn you for the unconfessed sin you must have committed that allowed you to be abused. If you’re unlucky, well, you’re more likely to have the counseling, the calls for confession and the community censure. They will fall in line. They have come to the conclusion that Trump is doing God’s work to allow Pence to take over and punish the sluts, the queers, the fucking lesser races. It’ll take a lot more than bragging about committing sexual assaults with the power that comes of being a rich jackoff to dissuade people.
Baud
@amk: Not much of a surprise.
Jeffro
@? Martin:
I would say, “had”…the numbers on some common-sense issues like universal background checks are off the charts in the Dems’ favor; the problem is that a) it’s not a top priority for most, and b) addressing the issue is not very clear-cut when it comes to federal/state/local action.
I think GOP politicians are most loyal on not raising taxes of any kind, for any reason, period. It’s almost as if someone has made this a priority for them…hmmm…
But yes, the gun issue (and the NRA’s whip) does cause most Goopers to fall in line right quick.
On the tax issue: it would be interesting to see a concerted effort (by reporters, and/or in Dem campaign ads) to ask GOP office holders: “if you had a chance to pass a small middle-class tax cut with a cap on it – no benefit to the top 20%, say – would you do it?” “Would you do it even if it added to the national deficit/debt?”
(Spoiler: we already know the answer here…)
geg6
@Adam L Silverman:
OMG, yes!!!! I keep yelling at the teevee when he’s on: you’re almost there, Charlie!!! Just swerve a little to the left and you’ll get it right away!
Baud
@schrodinger’s cat: Agree. We must win.
? Martin
@Baud: As I read on twitter. It’s as if a group of friends are trying to decide what to have for dinner. 3 suggest ‘pizza’, while the remaining two say ‘kill you and eat you’. Even though pizza won, you’re still left with a pretty big fucking problem.
Even if Trump loses, we’ve got some major shit to sort out.
Frank Wilhoit
@Jeffro: What “conservative” “principles”? Unaccountability for business? Unaccountability for the Church? Unaccountability for police and prosecutors? Unaccountability for the military? Unaccountability for individuals such as the Bundys? Unaccountability for fillintheblank?
What else is there? Nothing: and this is not a matter of conservatism having decayed or having been corrupted; it is all that conservatism has ever been, back to the days when it had no name, because it had no competition. Back then it was the divine right of kings: which only meant unaccountability for the King and his friends. Today the King is a faction rather than an individual, and the King’s friends are groups such as i have enumerated above; but nothing else has changed. This is why conservatism has neither actual validity nor hypothetical validity. Weg damit.
lgerard
@Jeffro:
The GOP is fond of means testing, so why not apply that concept to tax cuts
sukabi
@Suzanne: it reminds me of the scene in Bridesmaids after the Brazilian restaurant at the posh wedding dress shop where they all end up with food poisoning… Melissa McCartney on the sink “Look away! Look away!”
? Martin
@sigaba: Oh, I’m not talking about a Weimar situation or civil war. But I don’t think they will go so quietly into the night. There’s anger.
Baud
@? Martin: Agree. There will be another, better Trump now that Trump has shown the way.
Jack the Second
@Mnemosyne: :-(
I miss the happier world I lived in before I knew this was a thing. It’s like whenever I read what the HRW is campaigning against.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
this is interesting
Adam L Silverman
@redshirt: actually I have a temporary yank on him. I’m away from my desk and WP won’t let me use the blacklist function from my phone. I’ll do a proper ban when I get home later.
Jesse
@Get Smart: Your guy’s gonna lose. His “brand” isn’t worth shit any more. He’s done winning, for the rest of his life. He gets to be a sad, shriveled-up has-been now. He’ll carry a bunch of states, make some kind of incoherent “I wuz robbed!” speech, and then it’s off to the modern-entertainment version of playing his “greatest hits” for retirement tour buses full of bigoted assholes for the rest of his life.
He’s a loser. I wanted you to know that. Enjoy your seat on the tour bus.
catclub
@SciNY:
wow. that surprised me. The ambulatory cream cheese sculpture.
? Martin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yep. That’s always been the risk. When you concentrate liberals into the fewest number of possible districts, it means that the conservative districts are winning by narrow margins. In a blowout, they lose everything.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: Reynard the Fox is pretty safe from us most days of the week. ; )
Now the Arapahoe Hunt, on the other hand…that is a fast and furious hunt, and they get a kill more often than not. They run an old bombing range, and they know that territory well. The Master has with that Hunt ever since he was a boy, and he’s in his 80s. I’m hoping to rid with Arapahoe this year – well back in the second field tho’, because the first fielders are nuts!
PhoenixRising
@Jack the Second:
This is my hypothesis, and my sister (who is a PhD/MSN/CNM, or ‘junk doctor’ as our teens refer to her) may come along and correct me for your entertainment: If I understand what the term ‘pu–y’ is meant to refer to–which I may not; it’s…not in common usage in my culture–Trump is displaying a deep ignorance of female anatomy here, along with the abuse and arrogance.
One can grab another’s crotch, but unless you’re ElastiGirl…look, not to be indelicate but there are some basic knowledge items as well as a basic level of skill that one builds with familiarity with the female anatomy, and I think Donald lacks sufficient contact with ‘p—y’ to even realize that this expression of his id makes as much sense as ‘On her like a bitch’. Which also made me feel like Billy Crystal in ‘…When Harry Met Sally’: ‘Does it mean that they should be forgotten? Which clearly they’re not….’ etc
To Adam’s point: Ethnic nationalism as a strategy to attain power at the ballot box is a thing I know something about, and…exactly. This is going to kill the GOP, with the operative query from here being, What’s next?
I don’t understand German, so I can’t verify the analogy that many have made from my own reading; but Trump sounds alarmingly like Franco before the shooting part of the Spanish Civil War. More troubling is that the GOP sound alarmingly like the party that refused to believe the Republic was a legitimate government. Until the election they refused to accept.
schrodinger's cat
@Baud: Not if GOP is annihilated at the polls.
Adam L Silverman
@sigaba: shoot me an email and let’s talk offline about the plinkster
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca:
How is this a problem? Everyone here is nuts.
mike in dc
The Night of the Long Sporks will soon be upon us.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Miss Bianca: Isn’t cubbing season interesting!?!
sigaba
@Jeffro:
Marginal gun regulation measures always poll really well but it rarely translates into votes or legislation. It’s not some new thing. It’s a lot easier for lobbyists to maintain a status quo than get bills passed and the NRA loves the status quo; thanks Scalia.
Baud
@schrodinger’s cat: They were annihilated in 2008. They’d have to be out of power for at least 3 consecutive elections for them to change IMHO.
catclub
@lgerard: Michael Steele was chairman of RNC in 2010 when they had huge gains. They threw him out for the white guy in 2012.
he could be angry.
Mandalay
@? Martin:
You’re seriously holding a grudge against McCain for not condemning Trump’s remarks five years ago? Did Clinton? Did Sanders? Did Obama? Or did they all maybe decide that the comments of an entertainer/businessman weren’t worthy of a reply?
But what distinguishes McCain now from everyone else disowning Trump is that none of them have cited (AFAIK) any reason other than the p***y video, yet he specifically cited the Central Park 5 issue.
So I’ll say it again: good for McCain.
gogol's wife
@Mnemosyne:
Try the Moscow metro at rush hour. You’ll find quite a few of them.
schrodinger's cat
@Baud: Agreed. Let’s win this one first then worry about the next two later.
redshirt
@Adam L Silverman: So we still might lose use of the words “Get” and “Smart”?
That’s gonna hamper discussion!
Suffragette City
What gets me are the women who are still standing for this pervert.
I’m seeing memes on facebook of “Bill did it w a cigar” posted by women.
PhoenixRising
@Omnes Omnibus: True, but if we’re also hammered on bloody marys and riding 1300-pound animals that spook at a plastic bag in the wind, we’re covering it up well.
Jesse
@Baud: I’m done rolling over for these people. Barack Obama, the best president of my lifetime, spent a term and a half trying to get asshole bigots to come be decent Americans with the rest of us, and they metaphorically spat in his face. Now, they’re proud of being racist, hateful “deplorables”.
Message received, Trump voters. Message received.
? Martin
@Mandalay:
Did Clinton endorse Trump? Did Sanders? Did Obama?
sukabi
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Chachi, not Potsie
Baud
@Jesse: Agree.
burnspbesq
@scottinnj:
Oh, the horrah. A Yale Law grad turned out to be a competent criminal defense attorney, complete with lawyer’s sense of gallows humor.
sigaba
@Omnes Omnibus: As I said, people on the Internet.
Generally speaking, you can get ideas from people on the Internet, they can turn you on to things and give you things to see and watch, but no one reads enough Internet to know what the Real World is actually like.
Voices on the Internet are Characters, not people. Sigaba is a character, a person writes Sigaba but that person can throw him away tomorrow and post as someone else. Sigaba sometimes says things that are false, or at least wishful, to see how people respond. There are no people on the Internet. There are no opinions on the Internet, only tropes, only representations.
piratedan
Adam, ty for sharing that link. Is hopeful that most of what I read there is just talk, but those folks are pretty scary.
Omnes Omnibus
@sigaba: If you aren’t looking for something new, take a look at the Remington Nylon 66. Light weight, low maintenance, and accurate.
Adam L Silverman
@redshirt: I know what I’m doing.
redshirt
@Suffragette City: If nothing else, maybe some “Christians” will stay home as a protest against all these vulgar words.
redshirt
@Adam L Silverman: Glad someone does!
Miss Bianca
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): yes, it is!
@Adam L Silverman: I think my reply to this got eated…but I’ll try it again. Reynard the Fox is safe from us most days of the week. : )
The Arapahoe Hunt, on the other hand, a fast and furious hunt, unlike us, get a kill more often than not. I’m hoping to ride with them some time this year – well back in the second field, tho’, because the first fielders are nuts!
amk
here comes kasich’s gloat.
sigaba
@Adam L Silverman: I’m unclear on how to obtain the email address of an FPer.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@sukabi: I was Trumping. I’ll have you know I am familiar with the Garry Marshall Canon. I was a fat kid in the seventies
GregB
Apparently the Republican Party has collectively adopted the ‘R. Bud Dwyer’s last press conference’ strategy.
Omnes Omnibus
@PhoenixRising:
Sounds like fun. But I really am nuts.
Dog Dawg Damn
Several pundits commenting that the avalanche of Trump repudiation must surely have been precipitated by the grim internal polling both campaigns leaked about last week. An epic collapse in their internals would be the only thing that would give these craven hucksters the will to resist the Trump wraith.
Expect to see some really awful polling coming out tomorrow…..and a possible Mike Pence move Monday morning after the debate. Big things are churning, and Trump pissed A LOT of people off. These people think they now have cover to fuck him over good.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay:
I remember a certain WHCD a few years ago.
sigaba
@Omnes Omnibus: This is informative, thanks.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@amk: I would still bet money that Kasich has won his last election ( think he’s term-limited)
hueyplong
@Dog Dawg Damn:
If party types “make a move” on Trump, we’ll see some serious Dolchstoßlegende action from the Herrenvolk people discussed in this thread. They don’t seem to be the forgiving type.
sigaba
@Mandalay: Yeah Wait are you saying Obama never denounced Donald Trump? The man INVENTED denouncing Donald Trump. The political denuding of Donald Trump is taught under the rubric “Obamology” at several accredited universities.
Lizzy L
@ruemara: That is — incredibly disturbing.
Miss Bianca
All right, the site is proving so glitchy for me tonight that I’m off to try “Luther” again – tho’ I am sorely puzzled by this second season. There are only two disks in the DVD case from the library, and it seems like I started in medias res. Luther fans out there (you know who you are) – are there really only four episodes in the second season? Did things really start with Creepy Clown Mask Killer Dude and Alice in the “hospital”, or am I missing something? Signed, Puzzled
Jeffro
@Frank Wilhoit: Wow, easy there. What you’re describing is what the GOP has been practicing, not what a non-racist, non-1%er, small-c conservative would believe.
In fact, if you think about it, when it comes to fiscal responsibility, a strong (and smart) national defense, and family values…which party has been practicing these small-c conservative values? And knowing that, can you think of at least part of the reason why Obama (and soon, Hillary) drives the large-C Cons nuts?
Mandalay
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): As offensive as Trump’s ecent comments on the innocence of the Central Park 5 may be, they are surely a deliberate political calculation. I have no idea what he truly believes about their guilt or innocence. (Trump’s position bears interesting similarities to Al Sharpton over the Tawana Brawley case.)
But the p***y video leaves us in no doubt about what Trump truly feels about women, since he didn’t know he was being recorded and he wasn’t a politician at the time.
We can each pick which of Trump’s two positions is the more offensive, but they are qualitatively different.
burnspbesq
Dang. “Sherlock Holmes” is actually pretty good.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Miss Bianca: DOn’t remember Clown Mask (though just reading that, in light of what’s going on, makes me want to watch it again that much more) but I do remember Alice in the “hospital”.
Geoduck
@Mandalay: He mentions the Central Park 5, but not Trump’s “only losers end up as POWs” comment? Odd.
sukabi
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: ok, just be careful. Not all Trumping is legal.
amk
@Mandalay: you are arguing about donnie sucks on which issues? all of ’em, katie.
Omnes Omnibus
@Geoduck: That actually reflects well on him.
Mandalay
@sigaba:
No.
Jeffro
@lgerard:
Oh I agree completely. It was like that silly, “Would you agree to $1 in tax increases for every $10 in budget cuts, to get the deficit under control?” that the Rs had to deal with during their primaries. By and large they couldn’t agree, even though it was a fantastic deal, because they knew that the $1 in tax increases would in some way impact the 1% (even if they were only paying $.10 of that dollar, or whatever). The Kochs and Grover Norquist drew a line in the sand, and the country’s been paying for it ever since.
TS
@scottinnj:
And reading reports – some of them didn’t live in Wisconsin which has me wondering are there Trumpists following the rallies around from state to state?
RK
For many, especially on the right, Christianity is about patriarchy not morality. And it’s from this that much of their hypocrisy stems.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Omnes Omnibus: somewhere deep inside, underneath all the vindictive rage, the relentless war-mongering, the self-aggrandizing delusion and shape-shifting opportunism that services it, John McCain is a decent human being
GregB
@hueyplong:
A Night of the Short Fingers may ensue.
sigaba
@ruemara: Counterargument: There Is No More Religious Right
He’s wrong. But he understands that the idealism behind the Religious Right is severely damaged.
Arguably the religious right in the US was at its most powerful when it got Prohibition passed. A simple law, that banned a traditional practice central to American culture, passed with the help of progressives, Dry Democrats and newly minted women voters. And it was a catastrophe, arguably the Religious Right never recovered. Trumps’s implosion is a slightly smaller catastrophe than Prohibition, but it’s one of those moments where all the pious fellow travelers, the people who may not go to church every sunday but feel a twinge whenever “People of Faith” are mentioned, get a gut check and realize the people running the show are nuts.
Fair Economist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
This is wrong. The Republican gerrymanders aren’t creating 52-48 districts. 60-40 is more typical. It’s hard to look at because “fair” districts aren’t defined in gerrymandered states but I think you’d need the election to break something like 65-35 in favor of the Democrats before the gerrymandering worked against them, which is to say produced fewer Republicans than a fair map would. At that point it wouldn’t make any difference anyway.
The House gerrymander can be overwhelmed by a moderate wave election, but it won’t backfire.
Jeffro
@sigaba: didn’t say the relative lack of action on gun control was a new thing…but the increasing disparity between gun owners and non-owners, and the increasing numbers of folks who are good with common sense gun control measures, is new. Meaning it might provide some additional momentum to get things done.
Lyrebird
@jl: You left out some words:
The only thing “whipping it out” to prove something shows is that you (well fortunately NOT you… try again…) ..is that the person doing so is a blockhead and quite possibly also a creep.
sinnedbackward
@SciNY: Jeffrey Epstein was secretly videotaping the bedrooms in his mansion of sin?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think some folk here need to take their snark-o-meters in for service.
Corner Stone
I just fainted. And may be dead.
sigaba
Rob Portman has revoked his endorsement of Trump. He is of course a Class 3 Senator and not up for election until 2018.
@Jeffro: I am doubtful, the dynamics of fan communities is immutable. If you tried to ban Firefly episodes, most people wouldn’t care, but you’d be getting candlelight vigils in your office lobby daily. This a group of people who are numerically small but deeply committed.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Miss Bianca: Damn but the first flight is so much fun. I couldn’t tolerate the obnoxious social structure of our hunt, – “comes with the red coats” my father always said – so I wouldn’t join but knew the master so could cap as often as invited by the many members I knew, and got mounted (often on idiots, to help out!) by the huntsman, so I had a good deal. I miss capping, but then I miss riding in general.
::pouts::
While enjoying the reports from fun with coyotes, make no mistake! And chuckling about the stuff that blows up while you’re in the field…
@Omnes Omnibus: It is fun, but some of us persuaded said animals that plastic bags were not the menace they seemed… Except when that persuasion was forgotten.
Corner Stone
@Corner Stone: Nope. Dead. I am dead.
Timurid
@Get Smart:
So how are those bath salts treating you?
Mandalay
@Geoduck:
Not really, since he had already objected to the POW several months ago (as he explained in his un-endorsement), but Trump’s Central Park 5 comments were earlier this week.
This is McCain’s detailed statement explaining why he is no longer endorsing Trump.
It’s a shame that other politicians seem to think disavowing Trump through a tweet is adequate, and no further explanation is needed.
Lizzy L
@Adam L Silverman: Ugh. A little of that goes a long way… However, looking at the numbers at 538 & PEC, it does not seem that the Herrenvolk (male & female, but especially male) make up enough of the country by themselves to give Trump a win; he would need the support of other tranches of Rs, and it’s those other groups who could be moving away from him. Do you concur?
BillinGlendaleCA
@TS: Trump groupies?
Fair Economist
@efgoldman: The Florida State Seminoles have their name by mutual agreement with the Seminole Tribe. They have a positive working relationship. It’s not a racial slur at all. Yes, a lot of other Indian-themed sports teams are disrespectful or worse, but not the Seminoles.
redshirt
@Jeffro: Maine is voting on a gun regulation this year. Question 3 would implement background checks on ALL gun purchases and transfers in the state, including flea market and online sales.
I see so many NO signs where I live. So very many.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@sigaba: Portman’s winning his 2016 race pretty easily. And may have some ‘splaining to do to his (gay) son about supporting Pence while disavowing the sex assailant.
He was once a decent guy; I knew him when, though not well.
Frank Wilhoit
@Jeffro: No. Conservatism in every time and place has been about stratifying society into in groups, who are protected by the law but not bound by it, and out groups, who are bound by the law but not protected by it. This is nothing new, it has nothing to do with the Republican Party or with America. For thousands of years of human history, over most of the Earth, it was the only thing on offer; there were no competing models of polity. The only thing sought to be conserved was/is the unaccountability of the in groups.
(And before you throw Burke at me, there always has to be a pseudophilosophy and a propaganda, and they never mean anything.)
The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: SNL?
redshirt
@Fair Economist: Yeah, if it’s the actual tribe’s name and they themselves are for it, and it’s respectful (to whatever degree), why not? Seminole is a tribe; Chiefs, Braves, Squaws, Indians, Redskins, etc, are not. There’s a difference.
Anoniminous
@sigaba:
Ruger 10/22. Absolutely the best semi-auto rifle on the market in .22 caliber.
Mandalay
@sigaba:
Not quite. Portman’s up for election this year.
Felonius Monk
@sigaba:
I think you are mistaken. Portman is indeed a Class 3 Senator. He is currently running for re-election on Nov. 8.
gogol's wife
LMM KILLED IT!
What a genius.
edited to remove spoiler
gogol's wife
@gogol’s wife:
Hope that’s not a spoiler!
amk
The sunday night
debaterantmeltdown will be epic.Adam L Silverman
@sigaba: there’s a drop down box over on the right.
Omnes Omnibus
@gogol’s wife: That was brilliant.
redshirt
@amk: I’m kinda overexcited at this point. I can’t even imagine how awesome it could be.
Which makes me worried.
Jeffro
@Frank Wilhoit: um ok, I think I’m going to pass here. And I most certainly won’t be throwing any Burke around. Have a good one!
amk
@redshirt: the big Q is will he wait till sunday night?
BR
@redshirt:
Yeah, same. The debate is going to be a total mess. But on one hand, I actually expect it to harden Trump’s support. He’s not going below 40%. The thing is it may also increase third party voting as well by boosting Clinton’s negatives as well. I don’t think the debate is going to make things worse for him but it’s also not going to help him. Which is why I’m expecting an Obama 2012 level win in the EC but a larger win in the popular vote (GOPer in safe states are just going to stay home).
Mandalay
@Adam L Silverman: The NYT has had a stab at answering the question you asked in the OP: why is this the incident that finally seems to have done him in?…
Why did a decade-old three-minute video provoke a sudden revolt by party officials against their nominee…?
Prescott Cactus
@Anoniminous: Agree. Solid, consistent & reasonably priced. Tons of accessories available.
gogol's wife
@Omnes Omnibus:
Then there was a very bad sketch, but that last one was great.
Adam L Silverman
@Lizzy L: yes, but we won’t know for sure till the votes are counted.
Omnes Omnibus
@BR:
Explain. The simple statement makes no sense.
Jeffro
Thank you LMM and SNL – a little “Crucible Cast Party” just lightened the load here ;)
Barbara
@hueyplong: All they have to do is not show up. These are not by and large committed social conservatives worried about the Supreme Court and the national debt.
redshirt
@amk: Sunday night is not very far away.
Mike J
@BR:
So is there something you suggest we do to help drive Clinton votes up?
Lizzy L
@Adam L Silverman: Oh, I know. GOTV.
Adam L Silverman
@Anoniminous: yep!
BR
@Omnes Omnibus:
What I mean is that there are probably some GOP women voters who aren’t happy with Trump and are thinking they might vote for Clinton now, but after Trump throws the kitchen sink at her and Bill in the debate, they might feel “both candidates are terrible, I will vote for Mr. Aleppo, he seems nice and dumb”.
@Mike J:
Not sure. I don’t think this link would be useful, but you would have to click it to find out.
lamh36
“A Day off with KellyAnne Conway”
BWHAHAHAHAHA
Alright SNL
DCrefugee
@sigaba:
Hard to go wrong with a Ruger 10/22. Put a scope on it…
amk
@redshirt: you know that, I know that, but does donnie know that? he.will.not.be.leashed.
Omnes Omnibus
@BR: She’s got this. She will crush him Sunday night. As much as your calls to volunteer are appreciated, your panic is silly. The only person who was able to defeat her was an once in a century person. And she learned from him. As I said: she’s got this.
Steve in the ATL
@amk: that’s nice and all, but Kasich is still a right wing extremist retrograde asshole. Fuck him. He doesn’t get a pass for making one good call in his multi-decade political career. Fuck him.
amk
@Steve in the ATL: I am all for piling on and burying the carnival barker at this point.
redshirt
@amk: Heh. Some 2:47 AM Tweets this morning would be sweet.
Donald (@ 2:47 EDT): Hillary not up for 3 AM Tweet. Sad!
TS
@BillinGlendaleCA: good description
AnotherBruce
@BR: I really do not think you know what is currently happening. Hillary Clinton is bleeding Trump to death. He is being set up to fall in more traps, and he’s already a dead man walking. The thing is, she is doing it with a smile. She is one of the most ruthless politicians of this century, and is by far more intelligent than Trump or any other Republican politician. I can see why she is not popular with a lot of people, but I’m glad she’s on our team.
Omnes Omnibus
@BR: You are a concern troll. I am sorry I spent any time on you.
AnotherBruce
Replying to my own comment. She is a ruthless politician, but a compassionate human being.
Mike G
@JMG:
Thirty-five years of Reaganist trickle-down economics has come home to roost. It has impoverished so many formerly prosperous Reagan-Democrat working-class males that they’ve finally woken up to the economic rogering they’ve been given by the Repuke party they loyally supported.
An economic system that makes so many people into losers is not politically sustainable.
Original Lee
@ruemara: This. The best example I can give is of a friend who was married for 20 years to a man who eventually became the senior pastor of a large church. She had many responsibilities as the (unpaid) pastor’s wife and by all accounts was respected in the church as a hard worker and a good wife. Until the day her husband was arrested for selling kiddie porn. Then it was suddenly all her fault. She ended up divorcing the sleaze ball, which of course got her shunned, and suddenly she was called a bitter woman, a terrible wife and mother, and a slut.
dianne
I worked in an office full of country club Republican types who seemed to hold themselves as a cut above us Dems.They considered us a bunch of mopes who didn’t have enough sense to see the light. I think Trump has
made them feel a little less special and that is his real crime. They can’t deny anymore what the Rs really stand for.
JR in WV
@sigaba:
ETA> BTW I’m looking for a .22 for plinking, anyone have a recommendation?
Ruger is well made and less strange than smaller companies. Stevens is cheaper, a little, but not as well manufactured. You can get A Ruger revolver that will let you change the cylinder and use .22 Mag rounds, which are sometimes easier to find.
I actually buy guns because I’m afraid of the racists and Nazis – black folks don’t scare me so much as the tattooed skinheads if I’m on the road a long ways from home.
Applejinx
@sinnedbackward:
Bingo.
Mickee
I think a lot of the Trump campaign obituaries are premature–witness the reaction from Trump supporters in WI yesterday. The base of people who don’t care at all about his vulgar character and ill-informed policy notions is as strong today as it was two months ago and is sitting at 40% of likely voters (40%?–how is this even possible in modern America?).
Analysis of the state of the Republic party often misses some critical facts. First, the civil war within the party is over and the metaphorical South (bigots, white nationalists, patriarchal misogynists) has won. The GOP establishment may be continuing to make feckless attempts at reining in their new overlords, but the balance of power has shifted and they will never have the upper hand again. This isn’t an ongoing civil war. It is the absolute victory of Lee Atwater’s vile Southern Strategy. So all the breathless cataloging of which establishment power player has denounced or unendorsed Trump is pointless. These people no longer matter to the voters of the GOP base and their words and actions are about as impactful on the Trump voter as a fart in a whirlwind.
To the second point, as someone raised in a patriarchal Evangelical home I think that Sarah Posner is right about how these women feel about abusive men, but wrong about how they will vote. This is a generalization–not all of these groups are the same–but in general, years of brainwashing convinces Evangelical/fundamentalist women that submission to an often hideously flawed patriarchal figure is God’s will and failing to be submissive to said brutal, ignorant bastard (who inexplicably holds some power in your world) will put you on the outs with God–something many of them will worry about before registering a protest vote against Trump. Many Evangelical women are, in fact, far worse misogynists than their male counterparts and may feel uncomfortable with the very notion of a woman as president (in my childhood home, which I acknowledge is an extreme example, whenever a woman needed to assume authority she was required to put on a head covering of some sort to make it clear she still understood she was under the authority of a male and just usurping that authority due to some unforeseen necessity. Other sects may not be quite as overt about the second-class status of women, but they pretty much all practice gender bias). It’s kind of an ‘if I’m going to be abused, I’m going to damn well make sure all other women are, as well’ thing. The primary problem with analysis from those outside these ideologies is that they attempt to apply logic to belief systems where logic plays no role. Of course a vote for Trump is a vote against women’s self-interest and is entirely illogical. However, if you believe that your relationship with God, indeed the disposition of your very soul, depends on voting against your own self-interest, you will do it.
We’ve seen the rallies where supporters proudly declare their bigotry and violence, and we’ve witnessed the pretzel logic of Christians who have somehow convinced themselves that a thrice married, cheating, lying, no-nothing is a man of God. There are none so blind as those who will not see–and 40% of likely voters are apparently blinded by their allegiance to repugnant ideologies. I think it’s important to not presume anything Trump does will impact his electability with this base. This should scare the bejeezus out of all of us.
Spanky
@SciNY: That’s what I would like to know.
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: Way dead thread… we usually get hammered (or not) afterwards, not before…but yes. It is fun. Bloody great fun. Judging from what you’ve said about the sort of sport you enjoy, I daresay you’d take to foxhunting like the proverbial duck to water.
Spanky
@Mickee: I agree with most of what you have said. I too spent way too much of my life believing in the bullshit so called evangelicals teach. I truly believed all the crap they were teaching about a woman’s place in the kingdom of God. But here’s the thing, a lot of women know this is bullshit. I believe that private voting booth is the one place where she can have a say and there is nothing her husband or anyone else can do to stop her. She will pray about it,but she will do what she knows is right.
Miss Bianca
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): you’d like our hunt. We’re pretty laid-back about the “red coat” stuff…we’ve got fielders coming out in Western saddles, we don’t care, we’re a cowboy-ish sort of hunt in a way – hell, we’re actively recruiting cowboys (and their handy cow ponies!) to come out with us!
We had a foxhunter from the UK with us yesterday, runs a racing stable, didn’t ride with us, just wanted to hang out – rode the four-wheeler, carried water for hounds and toook photos. He drove up with me and we ended up talking about that social structure stuff – there’s a stuffy traditional hunt in his area and a new one, run by a huntsman they sacked, which sounds a lot more like ours – just into the riding and the animals and the camaraderie. He seemed to approve of the second hunt. ; )
Mickee
@Spanky: I think the notion of doing ‘what is right’ is exactly the problem. When you’ve been mind-fucked for decades to believe that accepting yourself as a second-class human being is God’s will, that becomes ‘right’ for you, even if your gut is telling you different. Maybe not for all women, but in the sect I was raised in the privacy of the voting booth meant nothing. God could see what you were doing everywhere and decisions were to be made with your eternal salvation in in God’s kingdom in mind, not the particular issues of any human election. If preserving your salvation for eternity meant supporting someone repugnant temporarily, there really was no contest. I don’t think this is as easy a decision for Evangelical women as it should be. I think a lot of them will be conflicted, but that doesn’t necessarily ensure a vote against Trump from this voting block. Hope I’m wrong…
Carol
Do the herrenvolk allow their women to vote?
Malovich
An aside, this is a link pointing at the cultural underpinnings in the misunderstanding between Left and Right regarding the timing of the Right’s freak-out over Trump’s ‘You can grab her by the pussy’ comment:
http://siderea.livejournal.com/1310713.html
tldr; Treating women like chattel is a feature, not a bug of Trump’s behaviour. It’s only offensive to the right when he’s treating another *man’s* chattel with total disregard.