TRUMPED! THE MUSICAL
Mar. 3rd, 2016 02:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrogGrimly amused commentary from Team Def Political Batshit curator Lucky Bensonhurst
Now that Super Tuesday is done and the field has thinned considerably – Ben “Please Attack These Hands” Carson dropped out today, and given his last few debate performances it’s a miracle anyone noticed – the GOP race is pretty much down to Trump, Cruz and Rubio. Which basically means Rubio is now the Establishment guy, since he’s the only one left that the Establishment can stand.
Not that it matters, because at this rate Trump looks as though he actually going to pull this off. Which of course no one thought he would ever do (including me), if only because the traditional rules that dictate how elections work and how nominees are chosen told us he couldn’t possibly get this far.
Those rules, obviously, no longer apply. And no one is more surprised, perhaps, than the GOP Establishment. Though, as John Scalzi has argued convincingly, they shouldn’t be surprised at all. But they are. And they seem to be at a loss as to what to do about it – provided there’s still time to do anything.
Some pundits have thrown around some entertainingly desperate suggestions, to include, bizarrely, asking liberals to help them out. The general reasoning: “Hey, you hate Trump as much as we do, how about you help us by voting for Rubio, or Kasich, or hell, anyone except Trump?!”
Scalzi has a good take on that too. Executive summary: Ummmm, no. Demos may hate Trump, but the only reason they don’t mind him winning the nomination is because it will make Hillary or Bernie’s victory that much bigger a landslide.
Which may or may not be true. Trump’s poll ratings remain strong, and while imaginary-election polls suggest both Hillary and Bernie would beat Trump today, it wouldn’t be by a huge margin, although Bernie fans will smugly point out to you that the current point spread is wider in a Sanders/Trump race than a Clinton/Trump race. If Cruz or Rubio get the nomination, Sanders’ chances are even better.
Hillary’s chances have also been called into question by the Internet rumor that if she does win the nomination, Sanders supporters – or at least the so-called Bernie Bros – who are convinced Hillary is a cheating Wall Street RINO will ragequit and either vote for Trump out of petty revenge for Hillary’s treachery or give their votes away to Jill Stein or some other left-wing indie candidate. Normally I’d say that’s a non-issue – when push comes to shove, I’m pretty sure most liberals will hold their nose and vote against the GOP. But as I said, this ain’t yr traditional election.
Which begs the question: why is that? How are candidates like Trump and Sanders bucking the Establishment to varying degrees of success? (Note: Sanders may be losing to Hillary at the moment, but he’s been far more successful than anyone who has “Socialist” on his resumé should be in the USA, according to tradition. Also, let’s not forget, he’s not actually a Democrat – he’s just borrowing their party platform.)
Social media theorist Clay Shirkey and historian Jill Lepore have offered a very interesting theory: simply put, the media has changed.
Traditionally, both the Demo and Repub establishment have been able to shape voter expectations by directing what was essentially a one-way conversation about the Big Issues – “Okay Candidate X, here’s the Party Position, here’s the bullet points, here’s what you don’t talk about if you can help it, stick to this script and we can win this.” They had help in this from the traditional media, who tended to simplify and distill the Big Issues on their op/ed pages into one side or the other.
But two things have happened in recent times: (1) the mainstream media’s role has changed from gatekeeper to bullhorn (think: Fox News, MSNBC, etc) and (2) social media is now so ingrained in our culture that it allows non-establishment candidates to bypass the party machines and take their platform direct to the voters – and engage with them in any way they see fit. The Trump and Sanders campaigns figured that out quickly and have made astonishingly good use of it.
True, Trump also has the advantage of being rich and famous and very good at trolling the media (put another way: he’s good television). Even so, his unfiltered in-your-face style would have eventually killed anyone else’s candidacy in previous election cycles. And again, the fact that Sanders advocates any kind of Socialism would have kept him Martin O’Malley territory 20 years ago.
I’m still not convinced Sanders will ultimately translate that into a nomination, barring Hillary being taken out of the picture by injury, illness or a federal indictment. But I wouldn’t rule it out. And I certainly wouldn’t rule out a Trump nomination at this stage.
Which may explain why Chris Christie decided to throw his lot in with The Donald – a decision he may already be regretting.
Anyway. Whatever the explanation for Trump’s success, I have little sympathy for the GOP Establishment’s dilemma. It’s of their own making, and they are now reaping the whirlwind, Jim.
– L. Bensonhurst
Now that Super Tuesday is done and the field has thinned considerably – Ben “Please Attack These Hands” Carson dropped out today, and given his last few debate performances it’s a miracle anyone noticed – the GOP race is pretty much down to Trump, Cruz and Rubio. Which basically means Rubio is now the Establishment guy, since he’s the only one left that the Establishment can stand.
Not that it matters, because at this rate Trump looks as though he actually going to pull this off. Which of course no one thought he would ever do (including me), if only because the traditional rules that dictate how elections work and how nominees are chosen told us he couldn’t possibly get this far.
Those rules, obviously, no longer apply. And no one is more surprised, perhaps, than the GOP Establishment. Though, as John Scalzi has argued convincingly, they shouldn’t be surprised at all. But they are. And they seem to be at a loss as to what to do about it – provided there’s still time to do anything.
Some pundits have thrown around some entertainingly desperate suggestions, to include, bizarrely, asking liberals to help them out. The general reasoning: “Hey, you hate Trump as much as we do, how about you help us by voting for Rubio, or Kasich, or hell, anyone except Trump?!”
Scalzi has a good take on that too. Executive summary: Ummmm, no. Demos may hate Trump, but the only reason they don’t mind him winning the nomination is because it will make Hillary or Bernie’s victory that much bigger a landslide.
Which may or may not be true. Trump’s poll ratings remain strong, and while imaginary-election polls suggest both Hillary and Bernie would beat Trump today, it wouldn’t be by a huge margin, although Bernie fans will smugly point out to you that the current point spread is wider in a Sanders/Trump race than a Clinton/Trump race. If Cruz or Rubio get the nomination, Sanders’ chances are even better.
Hillary’s chances have also been called into question by the Internet rumor that if she does win the nomination, Sanders supporters – or at least the so-called Bernie Bros – who are convinced Hillary is a cheating Wall Street RINO will ragequit and either vote for Trump out of petty revenge for Hillary’s treachery or give their votes away to Jill Stein or some other left-wing indie candidate. Normally I’d say that’s a non-issue – when push comes to shove, I’m pretty sure most liberals will hold their nose and vote against the GOP. But as I said, this ain’t yr traditional election.
Which begs the question: why is that? How are candidates like Trump and Sanders bucking the Establishment to varying degrees of success? (Note: Sanders may be losing to Hillary at the moment, but he’s been far more successful than anyone who has “Socialist” on his resumé should be in the USA, according to tradition. Also, let’s not forget, he’s not actually a Democrat – he’s just borrowing their party platform.)
Social media theorist Clay Shirkey and historian Jill Lepore have offered a very interesting theory: simply put, the media has changed.
Traditionally, both the Demo and Repub establishment have been able to shape voter expectations by directing what was essentially a one-way conversation about the Big Issues – “Okay Candidate X, here’s the Party Position, here’s the bullet points, here’s what you don’t talk about if you can help it, stick to this script and we can win this.” They had help in this from the traditional media, who tended to simplify and distill the Big Issues on their op/ed pages into one side or the other.
But two things have happened in recent times: (1) the mainstream media’s role has changed from gatekeeper to bullhorn (think: Fox News, MSNBC, etc) and (2) social media is now so ingrained in our culture that it allows non-establishment candidates to bypass the party machines and take their platform direct to the voters – and engage with them in any way they see fit. The Trump and Sanders campaigns figured that out quickly and have made astonishingly good use of it.
True, Trump also has the advantage of being rich and famous and very good at trolling the media (put another way: he’s good television). Even so, his unfiltered in-your-face style would have eventually killed anyone else’s candidacy in previous election cycles. And again, the fact that Sanders advocates any kind of Socialism would have kept him Martin O’Malley territory 20 years ago.
I’m still not convinced Sanders will ultimately translate that into a nomination, barring Hillary being taken out of the picture by injury, illness or a federal indictment. But I wouldn’t rule it out. And I certainly wouldn’t rule out a Trump nomination at this stage.
Which may explain why Chris Christie decided to throw his lot in with The Donald – a decision he may already be regretting.
Anyway. Whatever the explanation for Trump’s success, I have little sympathy for the GOP Establishment’s dilemma. It’s of their own making, and they are now reaping the whirlwind, Jim.
– L. Bensonhurst
