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defrog[Political shenanigans from Team Def Shenanigans Orchestrator Lucky Bensonhurst]
So. Ted Cruz has taken his toys and gone home, and John Kasich has decided there’s no point in pretending, which pretty much ensures Donald J Trump, billionaire, is going to be the GOP nominee.
The freakout on my FB feed is amazing. Demos are dithering over the prospects of a Trumpdictatorship presidency. Establishment Repubs are lamenting the imminent death of the GOP. Tea Partiers are lamenting the fact that it’s Trump wrecking the GOP Establishment and not Ted Cruz.
And so I must blog about this.
1. It’s been said elsewhere and better, but both the Establishment GOP and the Tea Party crowd only have themselves to blame for this. The GOP has been stoking and exploiting conservative anger, fear, xenophobia and anti-Washington sentiment ever since Bill Clinton won his first term, and the Tea Party kicked that up a few gears after Obama won his, aided and abetted by the most popular cable TV news outlet in America. A rabblerousing demagogue nominee was inevitable. It just turned out to be one the GOP couldn’t control and didn’t fit the Tea Party’s Hardcore Never Compromise Conservative template.
2. Trump may be the new face of the GOP, but so is Ted Cruz. They were arguably the two most extreme candidates in the 2016 field, and they were the two candidates that the Establishment hates the most (in many cases on a personal level). Yet they’ve accounted for around 2/3 of GOP polls since March. The GOP voter base decided they were more preferable to anyone the Establishment had to offer. That is yr GOP now.
3. There are rumors that the #NeverTrump crowd are seriously considering voting for Hillary Clinton in the general election if she wins the Demo nomination. Some probably will, but I have my doubts it will be in significant numbers. I can tell you that my friends who wanted Ted Cruz to win are actually referring to Trump as “Obama 2.0”. Given Hillary’s affiliation with Obama (say it with me: BENGHAZZZIIIIIIIIIIIIII!), I don’t see them giving her the nod under any circumstances. They’re more likely to sit it out. Or maybe they’ll back Gary Johnson. Who knows?
Also, the #NeverTrump votes for Hillary may be balanced out by the Bernie fans claiming that if Hillary wins they will ragequit and vote for Trump out of spite, even though some experts say that’s not likely anyway, but then the “experts” said Trump had no hope in hell and Bernie would never make it past Super Tuesday, so who knows?.
Anyway, it will be a great source of amusement for my colleagues out here in HK who find it funny that in American democracy, you don’t vote for who you feel is best qualified, you vote to get revenge on the candidate who defeated yr preferred candidate.
4. What happens from here? Who the hell knows? A Trump/Clinton race seems likely at this stage, and despite the polls suggesting Hillary would win that race today, I can’t say for sure who would win that battle. We still have a long way to go to November, and anything can happen. Honestly, I would not rule out a Trump presidency at this stage.
And I can only think of a few positive outcomes of that: (1) he’s still not Ted Cruz, (2) he’ll be such a disaster that everyone who supported him will realize the horrible thing they've done and vote him out for someone more sensible in 2020, and (3) if he does bring about Armageddon, at least it will be good television.
It's always possible too that Trump won’t be nearly as bad a POTUS as he seems. I do think he won’t live up to everyone’s worst-case scenarios because no POTUS in my lifetime ever has. Still, there’s not a lot to look forward to there, I’ll admit.
5. For the Bernie fans tempted to point out Bernie currently fares better than Trump in head-to-head election polls and the Demos should elect him instead of Hillary, I would repeat what I just said about Hillary: we still have a long way to go to November, and anything can happen.
Also, one reason Sanders does well in a hypothetical match with Trump – or indeed any GOP candidate – is because none of them have paid that much attention to Bernie. They’ve been too busy ripping on each other or on Hillarybama. Why spend a lot of time and effort on someone who doesn’t look like they’re going to win the nomination anyway?
But I can guarantee you if Sanders does somehow beat Hillary, Trump will rip into every plank of his platform like you wouldn't believe. He’s already got the GOP base riled up over Mexicans, Muslims, the media and uppity women – I’m pretty sure he can get them riled up about a Jewish Socialist trying to take over the country and turn it into Sweden.
It wouldn’t make him right. But it conceivably could make him POTUS. And yr fooling yrself if you think otherwise, Jim. Trump has been driving the Batshit Outrage Express from the start, and look where it’s got him. Railing on Bernie’s socialist tendencies isn't going to hurt him any.
– L. Bensonhurst
So. Ted Cruz has taken his toys and gone home, and John Kasich has decided there’s no point in pretending, which pretty much ensures Donald J Trump, billionaire, is going to be the GOP nominee.
The freakout on my FB feed is amazing. Demos are dithering over the prospects of a Trump
And so I must blog about this.
1. It’s been said elsewhere and better, but both the Establishment GOP and the Tea Party crowd only have themselves to blame for this. The GOP has been stoking and exploiting conservative anger, fear, xenophobia and anti-Washington sentiment ever since Bill Clinton won his first term, and the Tea Party kicked that up a few gears after Obama won his, aided and abetted by the most popular cable TV news outlet in America. A rabblerousing demagogue nominee was inevitable. It just turned out to be one the GOP couldn’t control and didn’t fit the Tea Party’s Hardcore Never Compromise Conservative template.
2. Trump may be the new face of the GOP, but so is Ted Cruz. They were arguably the two most extreme candidates in the 2016 field, and they were the two candidates that the Establishment hates the most (in many cases on a personal level). Yet they’ve accounted for around 2/3 of GOP polls since March. The GOP voter base decided they were more preferable to anyone the Establishment had to offer. That is yr GOP now.
3. There are rumors that the #NeverTrump crowd are seriously considering voting for Hillary Clinton in the general election if she wins the Demo nomination. Some probably will, but I have my doubts it will be in significant numbers. I can tell you that my friends who wanted Ted Cruz to win are actually referring to Trump as “Obama 2.0”. Given Hillary’s affiliation with Obama (say it with me: BENGHAZZZIIIIIIIIIIIIII!), I don’t see them giving her the nod under any circumstances. They’re more likely to sit it out. Or maybe they’ll back Gary Johnson. Who knows?
Also, the #NeverTrump votes for Hillary may be balanced out by the Bernie fans claiming that if Hillary wins they will ragequit and vote for Trump out of spite, even though some experts say that’s not likely anyway, but then the “experts” said Trump had no hope in hell and Bernie would never make it past Super Tuesday, so who knows?.
Anyway, it will be a great source of amusement for my colleagues out here in HK who find it funny that in American democracy, you don’t vote for who you feel is best qualified, you vote to get revenge on the candidate who defeated yr preferred candidate.
4. What happens from here? Who the hell knows? A Trump/Clinton race seems likely at this stage, and despite the polls suggesting Hillary would win that race today, I can’t say for sure who would win that battle. We still have a long way to go to November, and anything can happen. Honestly, I would not rule out a Trump presidency at this stage.
And I can only think of a few positive outcomes of that: (1) he’s still not Ted Cruz, (2) he’ll be such a disaster that everyone who supported him will realize the horrible thing they've done and vote him out for someone more sensible in 2020, and (3) if he does bring about Armageddon, at least it will be good television.
It's always possible too that Trump won’t be nearly as bad a POTUS as he seems. I do think he won’t live up to everyone’s worst-case scenarios because no POTUS in my lifetime ever has. Still, there’s not a lot to look forward to there, I’ll admit.
5. For the Bernie fans tempted to point out Bernie currently fares better than Trump in head-to-head election polls and the Demos should elect him instead of Hillary, I would repeat what I just said about Hillary: we still have a long way to go to November, and anything can happen.
Also, one reason Sanders does well in a hypothetical match with Trump – or indeed any GOP candidate – is because none of them have paid that much attention to Bernie. They’ve been too busy ripping on each other or on Hillarybama. Why spend a lot of time and effort on someone who doesn’t look like they’re going to win the nomination anyway?
But I can guarantee you if Sanders does somehow beat Hillary, Trump will rip into every plank of his platform like you wouldn't believe. He’s already got the GOP base riled up over Mexicans, Muslims, the media and uppity women – I’m pretty sure he can get them riled up about a Jewish Socialist trying to take over the country and turn it into Sweden.
It wouldn’t make him right. But it conceivably could make him POTUS. And yr fooling yrself if you think otherwise, Jim. Trump has been driving the Batshit Outrage Express from the start, and look where it’s got him. Railing on Bernie’s socialist tendencies isn't going to hurt him any.
– L. Bensonhurst
