Tag Archives: 2016 Election

07.18.16
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RNC Day 1 Wrap-Up: Every Generation Thinks It’s the End Of the World

 

I mean, what the hell? 

 

So, what best summed up Day 1? Was it the hideous exploitation of the mother of a killed Benghazi soldier? The seemingly-endless recitation of that day? The parents of people murdered (or killed) by illegal immigrants? Or the constant cries that They are coming, that we’re all going to be killed? That the hordes are out there, and that America is hanging on the precipice?  That angry blacks will kill us all? That the thin line between anarchy and civilization is fraying, and we will certainly lose if Hillary wins?

I think that’s it, really: it’s the idea that America, or at least a very small sliver of it, is about to come to an end. It’s an angry yell, best personified by Rudy Guiliani, with his endless screaming rant, his screeching cry that everything is crumbling, all the hope we built up in the 90s and 2000s, apparently, and that those who hate us are slithering in. It’s all about our weakness and their strength, but that we can be just as strong, just as fierce, just as steel-forged.

You saw the theme go through the bloody tragedies from wich they squeezed out talking points, to Jeff Sessions who moved from economic insecurity to illegal immigration, smoothly and with full connective tissue, to the endless recitations of “no apologies”. To say that the night was apocalyptic is an understatement. It was all about the end.

And I think to an extent that sums up the appeal of Trump. It’s designed for people who feel that things are slipping away, and can’t possibly accept that it might be the nature of things. To be clear, the economic dislocation shouldn’tbe the nature of things. It’s a choice, and a bipartisan one, and a shame and crime. But that’s only part of it. Most of it is the idea of cultural loss, and that cultural loss can only be explained by the end of the world. And that’s what Trump gives them: the world that you knew isn’t dying. It’s being murdered. It’s being murdered by Them, and I can identify them, and no one else can. There’s a weakness in the earth, and a sniveling cosmopolitan elite who is allowing the rape and murder to happen (that Trump is the weakest-handed cosmopolitan is beside the point). He gives them the idea that strength can conquer these changes, and only the strongman can do it.

So yes: this was one of the more repulsive days in our modern political life. A broken woman was brought out for applause lines. The biggest cheers of the night were anytime someone mentioned the other candidate going to prison. The only thing that compared was when the candidate himself strode out in a cloud of light and smoke. It’s showmanship and sadism, it’s high fashion and masochism. It’s hateful apocolyptic rhetoric, it’s the mingling of low art, gore-soaked war stories, triumphalist architecture, and blood and soil racism.

And we’ve seen it before. Just not here.

07.18.16
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1968 and 2016: Convention Violence and Anger in America

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Peshtigo, 1871.

Politico

For the GOP insiders most concerned about violence in Cleveland, many cited protest groups tied to liberal causes, like the Black Lives Matter movement. Nearly a half-dozen Republicans mentioned the Hungarian-born billionaire George Soros, who is a prolific donor to liberal causes. But few thought violence would ensue from an effort to fight Trump’s nomination on the convention floor. “It’s simply too big of a target for the malcontents and violent left to miss,” said an Iowa Republican. “George Soros’ money will pay for thousands of disaffected screaming thugs. Think Seattle [1999], Chicago 1968. Riots and looting. They are the tools of the liberal left.” “I say this with no joy whatsoever,” a Republican in the host state of Ohio added, “but the far-left agitators in Cleveland will make the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago look like a fourth-grade slap fight.

Now, I don’t expect an “Iowa Republican” who thinks that George Soros is bussing anarchists to Cleveland to understand this, or for that matter an Ohio Republican, but it is worth noting that the violence in the 1968 convention did not come from the far-left. It came from the cops. There was provocation, sure, but it was the police that were rioting. As the Walker Report indicated, the refusal to allow permits, the wish to cordon American citizens away from where the powerful were meeting, led directly to the bloodshed.

I would hope that when covering the protests this week, the media remember that. There will almost certainly be Seattle-type violence (and that is the actual far left), but chances are high a lot of the violence will be coming directly from those sanctioned by the state to levy it, and who should take the responsibility seriously.

Or hell, it might come from all the armed lunatics gathering in an open carry state, many of whom feel that these far-left weirdoes and blacks are threatening America and conspiring to ruin Donald Trump’s chances. Would you be surprised if these patriots opened fire? If they saw, incredibly, an anarchist of a Black Panther with a gun, and had to protect themselves? Does any of this seem implausible? A firefight between on-edge police, right-wing militia types, angry protestors, and lone gunmen types like in Dallas and Baton Rouge?  This is Peshtigo in the hot summer of 1871. The sawdust is baking in the heat, and the firestorms are being born.

Cleveland is on Lake Erie, but the closet analogy is up the Great Lakes system, up Michigan, near Green Bay. This is Peshtigo in the hot summer of 1871. We’re on the edge on conflagration. Little fires burst every day. The skies are increasingly choked with soot. The sawdust is baking in the heat, and the devouring and murderous firestorms are being born.

07.18.16
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After Weeks of Violence, What Is Legitimate Protest In The Age of Trump?

 

Oh beautiful, for spacious skies…

 

Sunday struggled awake to the news of another mass, targeted killing of police by a lone gunman, trained by the military and motivated by racial, anti-police anger. This time it was in Baton Rouge, one of those American cities that is a simmering racial flashpoint, as we’ve all learned in these last few hot, tense weeks.  It already feels like we’re living in a documentary about that terrible year, 2016, where everything sped up, where the divisions between white and black, between those who believed in the police and those who believed the police were just a tool of oppression, boiled over. Where economic anger, racial hatred, xenophobia, and several strands of populism

It already feels like we’re living in a documentary about that terrible year, 2016, where everything sped up, where the divisions between white and black, between those who believed in the police and those who believed the police were just a tool of oppression, boiled over. Where economic anger, racial hatred, xenophobia, and several strands of populism distorted our politics. Reading the news has the uneasy feeling of watching that documentary, that every day is part of the central montage of an uneasy summer. We’re watching the flash points scroll by in real time, all leading up to that violent week in Cleveland, where the least-qualified and most dangerous candidate in American history grabbed his nomination, against a backdrop of horrible violence.

Obviously, as Sunday gave way to Monday, that hasn’t happened yet. But everyone believes it is going to. The Cleveland police certainly do, as Reason reports. 

To prepare for that, Cleveland has reportedly purchased over three miles of “Blockader” steel barricades, plus over 3,000 feet worth of six foot-high barricades, over 2,000 sets of riot gear, and 10,000 sets of plastic handcuffs.

Almost half of downtown Cleveland, roughly 1.7 square miles, will be under major restrictions as the designated “event zone.” Within that area, according to the New York Times, everything from glass bottles and tennis balls to “large bags and backpacks, mace, loudspeakers, tents, coolers and canned goods” will be prohibited. The Washington Postnotes that it has provided a “standard kit” to its staff attending the RNC, including “helmets, gas masks and flak jackets,” but gas masks are among the items banned from the event zone.

That is, simply put, a police state. And maybe it is needed. There is no doubt that this year is a far angrier one than 2012, or even 2008, when the world was collapsing. We say every four years “this is the worst”, but things are qualitatively different this year. For one thing, you no longer have Barack Obama. For another, you have Donald Trump, and that leads to the question: what is legitimate protests in the face of a quasi-fascist, white nationalist campaign?

For many people, the only good form of protest is peaceful, maybe marching in the designated areas, maybe giving a speech to fellow freaks at some kind of jazz club, but preferably at home. Anything else — anything that smacks of violence, or even without humble acqueisence to the men in the riot gear, pushing back with their truncheons — is beyond the pale of reasonable discourse. This year, after the killings, the desire by the media and all the establishment for absolute calm will be even more severe. We’re too divided and too on edge, and the natural deference toward law and order will be a full-throated scream.

Even anti-Trump Democrats and liberals are hoping for nothing distracting in the streets, nothing to take away from the spectacle of watching Donald Trump become the candidate, hoping that the mere sight of that will jar people into awareness that this is really happening. And I’m in that camp as well. I’m hoping that the focus will be on the surreal nightmare that is the Trump candidacy, and not on juvenile anarchists thinking that smashing up a Starbucks is a counterstrike against Trump, or really against Trumpism (neither, by the way, is the naked woman protest, as the libertine Trump won’t exactly be scandalized. Still, highlighting female autonomy to the GOP is always a good idea).

But then, what is? This is a completely different candidacy than we’ve ever had, one that is explicitly trying to divide the nation into “us vs. them”, with “them” being everyone who isn’t white, Christian, and already a Trump voter. I don’t feel like we have a duty to treat this as politics as normal, to respect the process, and to assume that this convention is, well, conventional. I feel that the media, and the protestors, should do everything they can to highlight the grotesque nature of what is happening, and just how dangerous it is.

To me, I think that means following the letter of the rules, but not the spirit. Don’t bring in any restricted items, and don’t throw down the barricades, but protest everywhere. Make it so that people can’t go anywhere without seeing protestors, being strong and forceful, though not violent. Make every street corner an area for speeches. Make all of Cleveland one big bughouse square. Drown out the lunacy inside Quicken. Hold a mirror to the wild madness inside.

Because, to be clear, the violence that is spreading in America is reflected in the gaping, stupid mouth of Donald Trump. Elections matter, and he’s legitimized the howl. He’s the candidate of the authoritarian right. He’s the candidate of having armed goons and rabbled supporters brutalize anyone who dares question him. He’s the candidate of the truncheon and the flak jacket, of the newly-deputized posse, of the flurry of arms and legs pummeling the prone and terrified outsiders. He’s cranking the wheel on the projector, speeding up this documentary, to where all the images blur together. The people marching in the center of the frame move toward a lockstep while around them the film burns att he edges. It is his carnival, and the only response seems to be just as mad.

There are smart responses to Trumpism, and intelligent, helpful ways to protest this week. There are ways that can make everything worse, and heighten this unbearable tension. There are ways that can empower the candidate of “law and order” (his law, and his order). But when it comes down to it, there are no illegitmate ways to protest this candidacy. Its very existence is already a protest against reason and decency. It’s a savage axe-blow to the heart of the American experiment, and any reaction pouring from that supperating wound is justified.

07.15.16
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Guys, I Don’t Think Trump Knows What He’s Doing

 

Pictured: Trump HQ

 

Here’s what you do when you’re running a con: delay, delay, delay. When the weight of your own failure (to build an actual campaign, to attract any potential partners worth a good goddamn, to actually think about the magnitude of what you are trying to do, to engage in even a second of reflection and realize that your life is a cruel karmic joke played upon the American people as revenge for our greed and inability to pay attention) catches up with you, you have to flailingly hope something better comes along. And hope that the people you pay to make you look good spin it as deliberate wisdom.

“I think that Mr. Trump has reached a decision, but he hasn’t — he isn’t prepared to announce it yet,” Paul Manafort told “Fox & Friends.” “Until he announces it, there’s no formal nominee.”

I don’t think he’s made a decision. I think he assumes that if he delays and says he’s going to have the greatest VP pick ever, something good will happen. I’m sure at some point between now and Monday they’ll make an announcement and say it’s what they were thinking all along, but I doubt there is any semblance of an actual campaign, an actual strategy. It’s all nonsense and misdirection. They can’t even get Tim Tebow to commit. He was their star!

The thing is, the terrorist attack in Nice is a reason not to announce, but does anyone believe that a delay wouldn’t have happened anyway? This isn’t a serious operation. It’s a family business in a business where the family has literally no experience. The kids probably settled on Pence because Ivanka read “most of an article” in National Review that said he was a smart choice.

This isn’t the gang that couldn’t shoot straight. This is the gang with fingers in their jackets telling you they have a tank, ok?

Although even throughout this, Manafort’s a pro.

“And you’re not worried about compromising Mike Pence’s opportunity to run for governor?” asked “New Day” host Chris Cuomo.

“Donald Trump, whoever he selects, and whoever he says is the selection, will honor his word,” Manafort responded. “That’s who he is.”

The fun of screwing over Pence aside, can you even imagine being able to say that with a straight face? Remarkable!

Update: It’s Pence. But come on: do you really think this was part of the plan, or any plan at all? Let’s have our top surrogate come out on Friday and say he has no idea what I’m doing and then an hour later tweet out a major announcement. Because that’s the smart way smart and successful businesspeople and serious politicians do stuff!

I still hold out some hope that next Wednesday Pence is going to stand up there and then a giant hook will yank him away and Sarah Palin will walk out. That “it’s a long flight” thing seems suspicious, doesn’t it?  I’d give eight dollars to see that.

07.14.16
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Tim Tebow, Dana White, And More Trump Convention Madness

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The electrocution of Topsy was called an “actuality” film by Edison, less a documentary than what we would now call a reality show, given that it was staged. Seem about right.

Hey, remember in 2012, when the RNC scrambled to build an entire night out of a ripped-from-context and intentionally dishonest interpretation of “you didn’t build that”? They had signs and decorations and chants, and a whole lineup of speakers assuring the American public that there was no such thing as the communitarian spirit in American history, and every success story was entirely individualistic. I thought it was the most absurd thing I’ve ever seen in politics.

Well…

There are plans to emphasize different themes each night of the convention. Mr. Trump wants to touch on a few of his favorite hot-button issues, like the 2012 attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, former President Clinton’s infidelities and border security.

“Border security” is a thing, of course. I think an overblown thing, and an issue which Trump reduces to vile caricatures and demagogic European-style race-hatred, but at least it’s an issue. Clinton’s infidelities? Does he really think that’s going to help him capture any more voters? I know that the yapping and erect idiots in Cleveland will be salivating at the scandal, a chance to chap up and groove back into their salacious 90s heyday, but everyone else? They know this was a losing bet, right?

Also, is marital infidelity really the card Trump wants to play?

And the less said about Benghazi the better. The Republicans love it, because then the party of the Iraq war can pretend they care about Americans dying in the Middle East.

OK, but: the lineup. Peter Theil! It’ll be exciting hearing him tell the crowd that he, as a rich person, has the right to destroy any media he doesn’t care for. Tim Tebow, who, I guess, is a good guy, really. And it’s in theory good to expand the rostrum away from politicians. And maybe a guy with such a squeaky clean and evangelically-loved image as Tebow might help soften Trump’s image, but I doubt it. It’ll allow the already-convinced to rationalize their vote, and maybe that’s good enough.

THe best might be Day 2, with it’s Focus On The Economy. The first listen speaker is Dana White, the President of the UFC. You might think, well, that’s ridiculous. What does he know about the economy? He’s actually perfect. The UFC is an organization known for hardballing its workers and punishing any employees who stray. It has a slavish devotion to wringing out maximum profits from its soon-to-be-broken fighters, demanding complete and total subservience, and then casting them aside the moment they stop being useful. It’s why the model is breaking, as fighters like Conor McGregor try to leverage their own power. But really, it’s the Republican economic apotheosis. Just as you can say that boxing/MMA is sport at its most basic, the UFC is capitalism at its finest: workers should have no rights, should be bled dry, and then discarded, all in the name of huge profits. Don’t be surprised if Dana White is named Secretary of Labor in a Trump administration.

Also, Night 3 is going to have both Newt (scheduled, so if he’s VP he’ll speak anyway) and Ted Cruz. Do you think that Cleveland can handle such collective self-regard? Such faux-intellectual preening and self-righteous anger on cue. I am glad I have softball on Wednesday nights. I don’t know if I could handle the two back-to-back. Although Cruz’s speech might be a masterpiece of self-regard and self-interest. There’s no doubt he sees his speech as nothing more than a launch for 2020. It’s going to be maddening and fantastic.

Oh! And did you think there wouldn’t be diversity? There is, you idiot. There is. “There are a few African-Americans, like Jamiel Shaw Sr., who became an outspoken advocate for tougher immigration laws after his son was killed in 2008 by an undocumented immigrant…” See? Trump knows he needs minority outreach. So let’s get a black guy who hates Mexicans!

(That isn’t totally fair. This man suffered a hideous tragedy. But still: reducing immigration to a series of bloody handbills is dangerous nonsense, and Trump’s idea of minority outreach is pitting them against each other.)

I’ll give Trump credit. He seems to have backed off on his “loud people that everyone hates” strategy, as Don King and Sarah Palin seem to be off, and there’s no Mike Tyson, either. But still. This is going to swing between surreal lunacy and scratchy, hateful, pseudo-tough chest-thumping anger. They’ll denounce the lies of Hillary and how she, and she alone, is responsible for Americans dying in the Middle East. We’ll hear about how Bill once had sex about a million times. It’ll be a carnival of juvenalia, projected paranoia, fear-mongering, race-baiting, and hate. It’s a nightmare vision of a broken America, beaming from a possible future, coming at you in primetime, four days next week.

Stock up on a good bourbon and a lot of cheap beer, America. It’s gonna be ugly.

07.13.16
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“Blacks? They Love Me. Blacks All Love Trump.”

Consolidating the African-American vote.*

Trump, to O’Reilly:

Asked what he would say to African Americans who feel as though the system was biased against them, Trump drew an analogy with his own campaign.

“Well, I’ve been saying, even against me the system is rigged,” Trump told O’Reilly. “When I ran for president I could see what is going on with the system, and the system is rigged.

“I can really relate it very much to myself.”

So sayeth the man who has been bailed out of every spectacular failure, every collassoal money loss, and who has used every trick available only to the rich to stay our of debtor’s prison and, indeed, make even more money. The system is rigged against him. He can relate.

In other news, Trump is polling at 1% with African-Americans.  And that’s Trump-outlier Quinnipiac, which has him at 33% of Hispanics, which is…not generally considered accurate. So I’m guessing 1% was as low as they could go, after getting a thumbs-up from Dennis Rodman, who wasn’t even asked. He just showed up.

It gets better!

Donald Trump is wildly unpopular among young adults, in particular young people of color, and nearly two-thirds of Americans between the ages of 18 and 30 believe the presumptive Republican nominee is racist.

Of course, as Twitter has shown us time and time again, believing someone is racist and believing that’s a bad thing are not always hand-in-hand, even distressingly among younger people.  Still, it doesn’t seem like there are enough.

That’s (note: above quote) the finding of a new GenForward poll that also found just 19 percent of young people have a favorable opinion of Trump compared to the three-quarters of young adults who hold a dim view of the New York billionaire.

S that’s reassuring at least. It’s sort of like when Adlai Stevenson was told he had the support of “all thinking people”, and he replied that while that was great, he needed a majority (how did he not win, again?). Except it’s the opposite, and can make us all feel a little better.

 

*Dennis Rodman is one of my favorite basketball players of all time. No disrespect intended.

07.13.16
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Trump’s “Moment of Silence” Lies on Dallas Shooter: Race Baiting Coming Loose and Dangerous

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Not Bobby Kennedy

On April 4th, 1968, Bobby Kennedy was set to give a speech in Indianapolis, to a largely black crowd, most of whom had not yet heard that Martin Luther King, Jr. was gunned down earlier that evening, shattering the last dreams of peace. If you listen to the speech, you can hear the shock and anger and despair billowing through the crowd as he breaks the news. He goes on the speak of love and anger, of violence and forgiveness. To quote him that night:

For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I can only say that I feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man. But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times.

My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: “In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.

And now Trump, last night, in nearby Westfield, to a crowd that was, I am assuming, not mostly black.

“The other night you had 11 cities potentially in a blow-up stage,” he said. “Marches all over the United States—and tough marches. Anger. Hatred. Hatred! Started by a maniac! And some people ask for a moment of silence for him. For the killer!”

There’s a lot going on there. Look at how he conflates the Black Lives Matter marches, post-Dallas, with the killed. They were “started by a maniac”. This is more than just saying that BLM should stop all activity in the face of the slaughter, as if injustice went away. That’s a common tactic. He’s not even saying that Micah Johnson was inspired by BLM: he’s saying BLM was further inspired by him.

That’s dangerous. Just as dangerous is his entirely bullshit claim that some people asked for a moment of silence for the killer. As TPM explains, this wasn’t even the only time he said it that day. He mentioned it to O’Reilly as well.

“It’s getting more and more obvious and it’s very sad, very sad,” Trump went on. “When somebody called for a moment of silence to this maniac that shot the five police, you just see what’s going on. It’s a very, very sad situation.”

So this isn’t an accident. TPM said “There were no media reports about anyone calling for a moment of silence for gunman Micah Johnson, though groups from Congress to the New York Stock Exchange held moments of silence for the victims of last Thursday’s mass shooting. Searches on social media for people making such calls also came up short.”

Now, maybe someone somewhere said something that only Trump was privy to, but even so, why bring this up? What purpose does this serve except to further stoke white anger and the law-and-order backlash? It seems likely that it is made up, like his “thousands of Muslims” celebrating 9/11, and it is cut from that same cloth. It is meant to stir up racial hatred and anger, and he knows that facts won’t matter. It’s a lie that can be repeated. And if someone dredges up some dark corner of the internet or some random tweet that makes it seem almost plausible, well, all the better for him. If they can’t, no big deal. It’s already out there.

There is no way to overestimate how dangerous this kind of rhetoric is. It’s not even a dog whistle. It’s pure division (while of course decrying division). It’s absolute race-mongering, and would make George Wallace proud. It’s appealing to the darkest heart of America. It’s jamming a knife in a suppurating wound, just to see what will happen.

You can’t get further away from Bobby Kennedy, and not just due to Kennedy’s eloquence and Trump’s monosyllabic turnip-truck pratter. (“Aeschylus? Good poet. Not great. Not classy.”) One man speaks to the best of America hoping to be worthy of it. The other speaks to the worst, hoping to drag us down daily into his despair, hoping to forever lost wisdom under the vengeful eye of a graceless god.

07.12.16
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A few thoughts on Mike Pence, Veep

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If you are quiet, you can hear the youth flocking!

So the speculation tonight is reaching a fever pitch that Donald Trump is going to go with Mike Pence, the Indiana governor, as his VP pick. They are having a joint rally tonight, but Trump isn’t announcing him. Honestly, I’ll believe it when I see, and that it isn’t happening tonight is, to me, a sign that it might not. It’s just too…Indiana for Trump. There’s not a lot of pizzazz here, is there?  A VP announcement of a boring Indiana dude in suburban Indianapolis? In Westfield, home of overpriced malls? I guess it’s tacky enough, and Trump should have some good feelings for Indiana, which is where his dark path became inevitable.

Of course, Pence is still what all the smart set is speculating, and with good cause. Pence is the choice to reassure people that Trump is on the straight and narrow, and will pick someone who knows Washington, and can get things done. He’s the guy to make Trump seem like a normal candidate, who can be trusted. A few thoughts on that.

  • I know that thinking Pence provides balance — in this case emotional and experiential balance — makes sense, but is that what makes anyone on the fence about Trump? Is there someone out there thinking “Well, I agree with everything Trump says about Mexicans being rapists and about how with him we’re going to start winning so much we’re gonna puke our friggin guts out, but I want someone with him who can be a solid congressional liaison.” I suppose that person exists, and that Luntz will find him, but still…
  • That said, the fear is that the media will start treating Trump like a normal candidate, even though they’ve made tentative steps toward showing that he is equal parts wildly unqualified and dangerously fascistic. They’ve been looking for an excuse to make this a normal race, god knows. And if there is one thing Trump knows, it is how the media works. He knows that this would be a great way to play them.
  • Still, not exciting, right?
  • And not exciting in a very exact way: the base likes Pence, because he hates taxes and gays with equal fervor, but the base isn’t leaning toward Hillary. You aren’t going to sway youth or immigrants with someone who has the grim mien of Palpatine’s dad.
  • Yeah, the gay thing. Pence is so anti-gay that he managed to make NASCAR anti-Indiana, and just avoided Wal-Mart’s wrath. NASCAR and Wal-Mart! They are both on the Indiana state flag!
  • Yes, I know, NASCAR vs Indy Car, etc. NASCAR is very big in Indiana now. You get my point.

So yeah, overall, I don’t think Pence is a particularly good pick. The people who it will sway are, I think, virtually non-existent. It won’t help him crossover very much. I don’t know if Pence has the chops to stand up to the national spotlight, anyway. It will just highlight the incredible anti-gay coalition, including James Dobson and Michelle Bachman, he’s assembled around him. It would be a dumb pick. So please don’t actually take this as a prediction that he won’t.

So, maybe, Marsha Blackburn? That would be outstanding.

07.07.16
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Response to Conor Friedersdorf on Stopping Trump

In The Atlantic yesterday, Conor Friedersdorf asked the question on everyone’s mind: is it legitimate to stop Donald Trump from getting the nomination. You can even take it a step further and ask if it is, indeed, incumbent upon GOP delegates to not let a wildly unqualified, know-nothing, hateful, tyrant-praising white-nationalist-courting giant dummy one step away from being the most powerful person in the world?

When you put it that way, the question kind of answers itself. But Conor is more fair than I am, and sketches out four possibilities.

Are you a democrat who believes that, regardless of Donald Trump’s fitness for office, the nomination is rightfully his, because he won the most primary votes and delegates?

Are you a republican who believes that delegates aren’t mere vestiges of an antiquated system, that they’re around for a reason, and that they have a moral obligation to vote their conscience, at least when it is in radical conflict with voter preferences?

Are you a formalist who believes in strict adherence to rules, whether their character is democratic or republican, and that any outcome consistent with the rules is legitimate?

Are you a consequentialist whose position is determined by comparing, say, the likely cost of a Trump presidency with the likely cost of the anti-democratic actions that would be required to deny him the nomination and any chance at victory?

I don’t know if I fall into any of those camps, though if I did it would be more of the “republican” side (as hard as it was to type that). I don’t even know about voting their conscience, even though that plays a role. It’s more about wanting to win, which I think is the right thing for the party to do. The lack of a party establishment, having been reformed away, was one of Conor’s colleague John Rauch’s arguments about why we’re in the mess we’re in. Or, as I argued back in April when talking about superdelegates and “Stop Trump”:

Because that’s the thing with superdelegates, or the Daley/Meany branch. They are very, very concerned with winning elections, which means putting their support behind the candidate they think gives them the best shot. Of course there is corruption and incest and greed in the selection, and they aren’t going to be right all of the time, either. But that’s part of having a party system. The party wants to pick a candidate it thinks can win, and the primary process is designed to give them an idea of how to do that. It isn’t designed to bind them to the passion of a minority. It makes it incumbent upon the lesser-known candidate prove they can appeal to the most people, which is what Obama did in 2008, and Howard Dean failed to do in 2004.

So I think I am a structuralist. There is a moral reason to not want Trump to be President, but the delegates should also think of the best interest of the Party (which to them is the best interest of the nation, even though I wildly disagree and wouldn’t mind seeing them broke into a thousand pieces on the shores of Lake Erie, like the wreck of the PS Atlantic). Thinking of the best interest of the party isn’t cynical; parties exist,or they should, because they represent the interests of the most people. They are unwieldy, cobbled-together nightmares, and they should be. That can cause problems — like the hideous moral compromises inherent in the Democratic Coalition before the Civil Rights Bill — but at its heart it is about trying to do what’s best for the most people.

Even though I do believe that a lot of GOP office-holders are true believers, they balk at a ravening white nationalist taking over the party by empowering a minority of voters, even if they have benefited from the passionate intensity of the worst. That’s why I think “Stop Trump” is ok. Convention laws aren’t written from on high; they are chosen by the party in a way that benefits them. That’s good. They have a right to alter them to stop Trump.

Trump says the system is rigged. It might be. But it is rigged by the parties to try to win elections, which you can’t do if you are rightfully hated by women, Latinos, gays, youth, blacks, the educated, etc, and which you shouldn’t do if you are only loved by tyrants and by terrorists for recruiting purposes. The system is rigged to try to pick a winner, and you pick a winner by choosing someone who can appeal to the most voters. That person isn’t always the best choice, and is frequently a rotten one. But delegates blocking a sure loser isn’t anti-democratic. In a system where votes are the final currency, it is the bulwark of democracy.

07.07.16
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Let’s Play A Game: It’s Called “How Is Trump Ridiculous?”

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“I think it went really well.”

So, what do you think are the most ridiculous and terrifying parts of his meeting with the House and Senate Republicans today?  What do you think speaks most clearly to his immense disqualifications? Let’s see! (All quotes are from WaPo or TPM)

Bonus points if you remember that in literally two weeks from tonight he’s going to be accepting the nomination.

A Complete Inability To Recognize That He’s Hated, And Therefore The Unwillingness To Change?

Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA) said that members asked about his effect on the House and Senate races. One member asked pointedly about Trump’s comments about Hispanic voters.

“He said Hispanics love him,” Dent said, noting that the polls showed no such thing. “All I can say is that I haven’t endorsed him. I believe he has a lot of persuading to do.”

A Lack Of Ability To Take Any Criticism Or Opposition, And A Childlike Need To Bully?

Trump’s most tense exchange was with Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who has been vocal in his concerns about the business mogul’s candidacy, especially his rhetoric and policies on immigration that the senator argues alienate many Latino voters and others in Arizona.

When Flake stood up and introduced himself, Trump told him, “You’ve been very critical of me.”

“Yes, I’m the other senator from Arizona — the one who didn’t get captured — and I want to talk to you about statements like that,” Flake responded, according to two Republican officials.

Trump said at the meeting that he has yet to attack Flake hard but threatened to begin doing so. Flake stood up to Trump by urging him to stop attacking Mexicans. Trump predicted that Flake would lose his reelection, at which point Flake informed Trump that he was not on the ballot this year, the sources said.

(Note: a corollary to this is His Ability To Make Otherwise Terrible People Seem Noble)

A Total Lack Of Concern For Any Details?

“I wasn’t particularly impressed,” Sanford said. “It was the normal stream of consciousness that’s long on hyperbole and short on facts. At one point, somebody asked about Article I powers: What will you do to protect them? I think his response was, ‘I want to protect Article I, Article II, Article XII,’ going down the list. There is no Article XII.”

(Now, you can say that’s a flub, and that, as some people said, he was probably thinking of Amendments, but still: someone who has ever actually thought about the Constitution knows that Articles and Amendments are different things, and so wouldn’t confuse them, really. But also, do you really think Trump knows which is which, or which Amendment is what, other than maybe the 1st and 2nd? Does anyone believe that?)

How Anyone Who Defends Him Sounds Like A Fucking Moron?

“He was just listing out numbers,” Farenthold said. “I think he was confusing Articles and Amendments. Remember, this guy doesn’t speak from a TelePrompter. He speaks from the heart.”

(To be Perfectly Fair, Blake Farenthold always sounds like a fucking moron)

How He Makes People Repeat The Same Sweatily Desperate Claims They Have Time And Time Again?

Other members expressed confidence that Trump understands he needs to tone down his rhetoric.

“If you look at the trajectory of his unforced errors, he’s getting better,” said Rep. Bill Flores (R-Tex.). “I mean, he’s not where we want him to be, but he’s getting better.”

How Everything That Goes Wrong Is Because Someone Is Unfair To Him, Because Mr. Trump Can Never Be Wrong, Just Ask Anyone On My Payroll?

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said Trump brought up his recent comments about Saddam Hussein “in the context of how unfair the media has been to him.” Trump has praised the former Iraqi dictator for being “so good” at killing terrorists, while adding that is all he thinks was good about a “bad guy, really bad guy.”

(He didn’t address the white nationalist retweets, but I’m sure that’ll come up again.)

How He Makes Paul Ryan Look Like The World’s Biggest Jackass?

“What I thought was especially helpful today was our members just got access and got to ask their questions and talk about their issues,” said House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.). “I thought he did a great job engaging with our members, and I think our members appreciated it.”

(OK, well, that’s a point in his favor, I guess.)

So which of these wildly-disqualifying things scares you the most? If you answered “all of them!” you still aren’t close to terrified enough.

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Bonus Section In Which I Praise Trump

So, Eric Trump, the Patrick Bateman-esque son of Donald, was asked today about his sister Ivanka being Trump’s pick for Vice President (which was Bob Corker’s idea). He answered in typically-creepy Trump fashion:

“I agree, right? She’s got the beautiful looks. She’s got — she’s smart. She’s smart smart smart smart,” Trump said.

He obviously starts with the looks, and then right after the second “got” realized he shouldn’t say “legs” or “breasts” or anything, and compensated with a ton of “smarts”. Which, I mean, this is normal for Trump-world, where even your own sister is judged primarily on being boneworthy. So whatever.

But really, can’t you see it? Trump picking Ivanka? I’d be behind this, because I bet Newt still thinks the VP is his to lose. Joni dropped out; so I bet he thinks it’s between him and Christie. Trump, the consummate bully, might just be stringing him along, telling him, sure Newt, it’ll be you, for sure. You’ll get to run the country as you see fit, I’ll just play golf and judge Miss America, and now it’ll be legally binding. It’s gonna be you, and you’re gonna be great, and then- bam! Dropping him like a first wife. I’d love to see ol’ Newt’s face if that happened. It would be fantastic. Hell, I might even vote for Trump just out of gratitude.