GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: [Donald Trump is] just about everywhere right now. And it certainly seems to be working so far, leading, you know, the lead, which a lot of people thought would dissipate, solidifying across the summer.Yesterday on "Meet the Press":
NANCY GIBBS: When you talk about politics like physics, with immutable laws, with him, everything that was supposed to sink him has lifted him instead.
SUSAN PAGE: I think that we've been wrong from the start about Trump and the nature of his appeal and the ceiling that he's got....And while we're up there with the planets, Joe Biden is bringing out the astronomy metaphor. This morning at Politico: "Potential Biden run divides Obama orbit."
AMY WALTER: ... I think Susan's right, that all of our assumptions have been sort of blown up in our face. But some of this, still, we still have to go back to political physics. There are laws of gravity that still kick in at some point....
CHUCK TODD: Apparently we're Mars, not Earth anymore. The atmosphere is just different.
AMY WALTER: We're just floating--
CHUCK TODD: Gravity is not quite as strong on this planet we're on....
(NASA pics.)
Posts
68 comments:
"Self-professed really smart folks struggle to explain something that isn't the most boring and clichéd thing ever"
The natives are restless.
Trump surely knows that the gravity is heaviest around Uranus.
These pundits are astrologers, not physicists.
Trump is from Mars, Hillary is from Venus.
Notice the use of the words "we" ["we're"] and "our" in those talking head quotations.
For them it really is "us against the rubes".
If Trump where an interstellar object he'd probably be the white dwarf primary of a cataclysmic variable star. The media would be the secondary companion star that is having matter sucked away from it.
You watch The Big Bang Theory enough and it starts to rub off on you.
The elites are quite familiar with the unified party theory where the two Parties act and react in unison ensure the conservation of their power.
Trump is from Mars, Hillary is from Venus.
I had a different planet in mind for Hillary.
The chattering class on tv is highly disconnected from what American families are seeing, feeling and believing.
Trump may be a fad, riding a boomlet that will fizzle out. But he has tapped into the sentiment of a large segment of Americans who deeply resent Obama's blatant attempt to change the chatacter of our country through massive illegal immigration. Just sayin'.
SUSAN PAGE: I think that we've been wrong from the start about Trump and the nature of his appeal and the ceiling that he's got....
AMY WALTER: ... I think Susan's right, that all of our assumptions have been sort of blown up in our face.
Could be a clue that you should STFU because you don't know nuttin.
Din do nuffin meets don no nuttin.
King Makers Struggle to Explain Reality that Fails To Confirm Their Delusions.
The 'journalists' know as much about physics as everything else about which they opine. That they opine using the same grammatical ticks is all the necessary proof to know they are Journo-Listers.
BTW, these same brilliant people cannot realize that there is a super easy way to deal with the birthright citizenship problem.
We are not obligated to give citizenship to the parents.
Give them the option to either take their child back home with them OR leave the child here and we'll raise them as a foster child and destroy all records of who the parents are.
That'll stop a ton of abuse.
Trump is the first I can remember really discussing this abuse of our discretion He's just trying to go for a more difficult track (changing the precedent of this) and simply enforcing the Constitution verbatim. And the Constitution nowhere requires we give families citizenship.
Tank:
Page and Walter are twits.
A better political analysis of Trump might start with the premise that Trump is neither pure Republican nor pure Democrat. Then continue with facts or conjecture along the lines of "but here's why he appeals to members of both parties."
Instead, the pundits keep trying to undermine Trump by pointing out aspects which they feel sure should repulse true partisan believers. That was Megyn Kelly's mistake. That is now apparently CNN's mistake as well. The pundits need to simply ask themselves: "What aspect of Trump resonates so and is it necessarily a bad thing?" But that calls for introspection and that is something the MSM is incapable of doing.
Bobber Fleck said...
Trump is from Mars, Hillary is from Venus.
I had a different planet in mind for Hillary
The surface temperatures on Venus are hot enough to melt lead. The atmospheric pressure is crushing and the atmosphere itself is caustic. Venus is a good approximation for Hell. I think saying "Hillary is from Venus" is apt. She's a lousy excuse for a human being.
One of the things that Universe-From-Nothing guy said was that there's this theory of the Universe by which travelling to its furthest extent would have you looking at the back of your head.
I don't understand that at all.
Maybe political science deserves the second word in its title, maybe it doesn't. However it seems as though the pundits nattering on Stephanopoulos are leaving a few parameters out of their equations. Millions of voters worth of parameters.
When these same laws of politics as physics didn't ever apply to Obama in any way shape or form is when they lost their status as laws.
David Begley said...
Tank:
Page and Walter are twits.
The simple answers are the best.
Invariably, there seems to be a class of camera-pointers and political hacks, bloviators and middle-manager types made up of 'the best and brightest'
Would you rather they argue over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, or how many Mars like masses can fit in Uranus?
Does it matter much?
Here's what seems important:
1. How well you appear and sound on camera
2. Who you know
3. What you think you know
4. Can you stay relevant enough to seem influential enough to get your next gig?
Its being physics explains to soap opera women why it's uninteresting that it doesn't follow their narrative.
The English scholar Walter Bagehot wrote "Physics and Politics" in 1872. This influenced Woodrow Wilson to try to do for the American Constitution what Bagehot had done for the English. I. Bernard Cohen's "Science and the Founding Fathers" deals in part with the issue of the scientific models the Framers of the Constitution might have had in their heads as they constructed that instrument.
These clowns (F. Chuck, Steffi etc) thought Trump would fall like the Hindenburg after a few well placed hits. It really shows how far they are removed from the disgust the American has for the MSM and the Washington elite.
Trump has touched a nerve the these people thought did not exist.
And then it hit me. These people all think they are in a movie. They think somebody is going to yell cut before there are and real consequences from their actions.
I understand their confusion--they're dealing with the old rulebook and the Trump supporters completely reject anything from the "old ways." A few more weeks of this and they'll start to understand that this is a reflection of a total rejection of the old rules of politics.
It doesn't matter whether Trump is sincere or whether he can actually do anything he says he will or what sort of person Trump has proven to be over the past forty years in public life. Don't bother pointing any of that out--Trumpists reject not only what you have to say but that you have the gall to say anything at all, because you're seen as part of the problem.
At this point, sit back and be amused. Whatever happens we brought it on ourselves.
Meanwhile I note China seems to be imploding at the same time as Hillary's campaign. So we may see a total upending of the old order.
chickelit said...
But that calls for introspection and that is something the MSM is incapable of doing.
I think the issue is class rather than a lack of introspection. Despite, or more likely because, of all his bling, Trump is not 'one of us' for a large fraction of the elites in both parties. That is the primary source of his current political strength.
Bay Area Guy: But he has tapped into the sentiment of a large segment of Americans who deeply resent Obama's blatant attempt to change the chatacter of our country through massive illegal immigration. Just sayin'.
"Obama's"? Obama didn't start this nonsense, he's just carrying on with his predecessors' (both Democrat and Republican) crusade. If this stuff been going on only for the last 7 years or so, very few people would even be noticing that there was a problem brewing. And if it were just Democrats flouting the law and the popular will, voters could just turn to those nice Republican candidates to address their grievances. Hmmm, wonder why they aren't biting?
This isn't just an American problem, either.
I think it’s partly a reflection of the political class’s yearning for the same scientific acceptance and credibility as the physical sciences. Will. Never. Happen. Too many bullshit studies purporting to “prove” conservatives are mentally ill.
People who live in self selecting-reinforcing bubbles can never properly analyze or predict events and are always blindsided by them. They simply are not privy to critical data. They haughtily dismiss the views and knowledge of the the non-elites who are simply more grounded and intuitive than they are. It doesn't matter if the bubble is the MSM, Beltway, or the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
It requires a deeper grasp of human nature than the elites with their sham equalist misconceptions can muster to see why Trump is surging in popularity, and how he has the potential to actually be a great president. He is the classic case of someone who can do the right thing for the wrong reasons (at least to a degree as his patriotism seems genuine). The greatest achievement possible for the Trump brand would be to rescue the country from it's current trajectory of implosion, and he may just have the winner's attitude and problem solving acumen to do this. The fact that he's a big fan of John Bolton is encouraging.
No one knows yet, but the dimwits who predict he would be worse than Obama deserve all the derision they have coming.
This isn't just an American problem, either.
Not so much a “problem” as a ‘course correction.’ Otherwise I agree with the comment.
To quote Rev. Wright: “Chickens coming home to roost.”
Political Science is still scientific isn't it?
Also he is a true Alpha Male and the feminized elites simply don't get it. Throughout human history people instinctively rally around the AM in times of crisis and for good reason.
Look how the world plays the weak, vain, gamma Obama like the shallow, gutless tool he is.
Mao preached physics too. He summed Governance up saying, "Political Power comes from the barrel of a gun."
The other factor is the number of the young men men who are using the guns. The 18 to 28 year old Armies are always going to beat a retirement age Army.
It's funny how those political laws of physics seem to be exactly congruent with the Left's laws of politics. If it opposes whatever they declare, then it must be against the physical law, and therefore impossible. And yet it moves.
AReasonableMan said...
chickelit said...
But that calls for introspection and that is something the MSM is incapable of doing.
I think the issue is class rather than a lack of introspection. Despite, or more likely because, of all his bling, Trump is not 'one of us' for a large fraction of the elites in both parties. That is the primary source of his current political strength.
8/24/15, 10:02 AM"
Who would have imagined that a loud mouth, self-promoting NYC real estate developer billionaire would become the authentic man-of-the people populist candidate? Only in America. Intellectually I know Trump isn't the candidate yet by kicking the smug elites I cheer him on.
ARM: "I think the issue is class rather than a lack of introspection."
Well, yes, of course you would.
ARM: "Despite, or more likely because, of all his bling, Trump is not 'one of us' for a large fraction of the elites in both parties. That is the primary source of his current political strength."
LOL
The primary source of Trump's political strength directly correlates with the volume of speeches/interviews he gives where he utters basic, easily understood indisputable "truths" regarding some of the most politically contentious issues of our time. And he utters these ideas in an unfiltered way.
Trump only has power because the other candidates/parties/lobbyists have been dumbing down and watering down and softening their messages for so long they have no idea (well, they do now) simply how ridiculous they all sound.
This failure on the part of the other candidates to openly deal with the day to day realities being experienced by people has given, on a golden platter (silver isn't good enough for Trump!) an opening for Trump to appear as some sort of magical political genius and courageous truth teller for simply saying 2+2=4.
The numbers on crime being committed by illegals in the US, the massive and growing incarceration rates for horrendous and violent crimes, the cartel/gang activity, the driving of African-americans out of neighborhoods in LA, etc, are right in front of everyone. Before Trump, you were not allowed to mention any of that. You were only allowed to talk about this "Dreamer" or that who successfully got into medical school.
This is where Trump gets his political "power".
But to ARM, it's somehow all about "class". Naturally.
2+2=4 is way beyond most politicians.
I'd be happy with 1+1=2, or 1+0=1, or even 0+0=0, because I haven't heard the political equivalent of those smaller sums since, oh, maybe GW Bush talking from the rubble of the WTC, and even that clarity of thought disappeared rather quickly.
They might as well be describing leftist views on things like sex/gender. We are clearly on a different planet.
It doesn't matter whether Trump is sincere or whether he can actually do anything he says he will or what sort of person Trump has proven to be over the past forty years in public life. Don't bother pointing any of that out--Trumpists reject not only what you have to say but that you have the gall to say anything at all, because you're seen as part of the problem.
The old way had that the President couldn't just open the borders for whomever he wants. Or that a President can unilaterally change a law's meaning and get the Courts to side with him on it.
Clearly, the old ways aren't in play now.
Perhaps Trump is the first one to realize that.
The primary source of Trump's political strength directly correlates with the volume of speeches/interviews he gives where he utters basic, easily understood indisputable "truths" regarding some of the most politically contentious issues of our time. And he utters these ideas in an unfiltered way.
I loved him refusing to back off of "anchor babies" and challenging the whiner to provide a better term which he failed to do.
traditionalguy said...
Political Science is still scientific isn't it?
"Political Science" is and always has been an oxymoron. It isn't as big an oxymoron as "civil war" but it ranks up there with "government worker" and "civil servant."
damikesc,
"I loved him refusing to back off of 'anchor babies' and challenging the whiner to provide a better term which he failed to do so."
I might be twisted here, but the article I read said that was Jeb, not Trump.
"The old way had that the President couldn't just open the borders for whomever he wants. Or that a President can unilaterally change a law's meaning and get the Courts to side with him on it."
I recognize the problem--we have a Congress that cannot pass a real budget (only stopgap CRs at most) for several years, a president who has stretched his executive authority beyond constitutional limits, still huge deficits even though we're supposed to be in a recovery, and a foreign policy that is a complete mess--and that's just a sample. We're also facing structural problems that no one seems to have an answer to (the Left wants to redistribute what they see as finite, dwindling national wealth; the Right thinks more tax cuts are needed but neither seems convincing in terms of bringing back a strong job market) and the GOP has at best prevented any further ACAs from getting passed. Everyone's angry, depressed, or cynical (I'm a little of each).
I don't buy the Trump solution, but I can understand what's driving it. The old institutions are being challenged.
Trump has momentum and increasing mass to overcome the established inertia in order to restore an equilibrium that maximizes evolutionary fitness.
Newtonian Physics is mechanical and boring like a Midwestern Walker. And Eienstein seems so relative these days. The Trump preaches a String Theory that says while JEB and Hillary are relativity based, they actually have puppet strings on them to move them. And Quantum borders walls are in.
Rupert Murdoch: With Trump becoming a very serious candidate, it's time for Bloomberg to step into the ring.
It is genuinely incredible how arrogant Murdoch is. He'll just push another pawn into play when the game turns against him. Doesn't say much for his opinion of the fifteen dwarves.
ARMeltdown: "It is genuinely incredible how arrogant Murdoch is. He'll just push another pawn into play when the game turns against him. Doesn't say much for his opinion of the fifteen dwarves."
The dems are giants! Giants I tell ya!
Murdock, pawns.
Soros. Obama. Pawn.
Care to go there?
Blogger Anglelyne said...
Bay Area Guy: But he has tapped into the sentiment of a large segment of Americans who deeply resent Obama's blatant attempt to change the chatacter of our country through massive illegal immigration. Just sayin'.
"Obama's"? Obama didn't start this nonsense, he's just carrying on with his predecessors' (both Democrat and Republican) crusade. If this stuff been going on only for the last 7 years or so, very few people would even be noticing that there was a problem brewing. And if it were just Democrats flouting the law and the popular will, voters could just turn to those nice Republican candidates to address their grievances. Hmmm, wonder why they aren't biting?
This isn't just an American problem, either.
It's a matter of degrees.
When I started working immigration back during the Clinton administration, the law got a lot tougher, thanks to the Republican Congress. However, the policy was abused. We would do all sorts of things that were beneficial to illegal immigrants that were extra legal. I remember one time, about 6 months before an election, there were something like 5,000 applicants for US Citizenship rushed through the process. We were pulled to help expedite and clear them, but we really couldn't. We didn't have the time or the resources to make sure these people should be getting US Citizenship. But they were being sworn in by record numbers.
After Bush came into office, he seemed to want to go easy on immigrants of both varieties, legal and illegal. At least, that's how he came off to me. But our detention centers were full, the law was upheld to the highest standard, and orders and policy that trickled down from D.C. were always strong on enforcement, not weak. By the end of the Bush administration, my team of 5 were catching and processing about 350 a year, and this was outside of our regular job duties. A year after Obama came into office, we were completely shut down.
And that wasn't all that was shut down after Obama came into office. Work site enforcement got shut down. If you wanted to do any work site enforcement, you had to ask permission directly from Napolitano. And the process was so long and so cumbersome, everyone turned to more administration fines and I-9 audits, rather than actually prosecuting the businesses that hired illegals.
Having worked immigration through the last three presidents, I'd say it's been pretty clear to me that the Bush administration cared about the rule of law, at least, in so far as Immigration law mattered.
Clinton and Obama? Not so much.
Physics is just new newspeak for gravitas to appeal to the metric minded moneyballers.
Trump is doing well because he appears authentic. He is by far the best public speaker in politics today. I don't watch his shows and have not seen him in debates, that Alabama speech blew me away. He is so comfortable in his skin, it's hard not to like him, even if he is talking nonsense.
I might be twisted here, but the article I read said that was Jeb, not Trump.
Trump did it at a televised press conference. Jeb might have ALSO done it, but I watched Trump do it.
It is genuinely incredible how arrogant Murdoch is. He'll just push another pawn into play when the game turns against him. Doesn't say much for his opinion of the fifteen dwarves.
If he thinks Bloomberg is the answer, he doesn't know the question.
Trump's speech is repetitious but it gets inside you and re-builds walls on issues based on his concepts. That is a leadership skill.
The only threat to Trump is a negative reaction to repetition. The Media seems to be trying that out. But when people see the world through Trump's concepts, then he has won until a better set of propaganda concepts comes down the road at a teachable moment.
The best explanation of Trump's appeal is his resumé.
Gov. Scott Walker released the following statement.
“Americans are struggling to cope with the fall in today's markets driven in part by China's slowing economy and the fact that they actively manipulate their economy. Rather than honoring Chinese President Xi Jinping with an official state visit next month, President Obama should focus on holding China accountable over its increasing attempts to undermine U.S. interests."
What a dummy this guy is. China's economy is finally showing weakness, which considerably strengthens our hand both now and in the long term, and Scotty thinks that now is a bad time to talk to them. What about the last two decades?
I don't think Scotty really understands what Trump means when he uses the word leverage.
Journolist lives. This is today's talking point, to be parroted by the media puppets.
Traditionalguy: "The only threat to Trump is a negative reaction to repetition."
Winston Churchill: "If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time -- a tremendous whack.”
The best explanation of Trump's appeal is his resumé.
And what exactly about his resume is appealing? The number of companies he has taken into bankruptcy? His manipulation of the political system to suit his own ends? His privileged upbringing that he managed to parlay into even greater wealth?
Please do tell.
it's hard not to like him, even if he is talking nonsense.
Really?! I see him and I think (actually I say it out loud), "What a total asshole".
Granted, there is a part of the population that is impressed by assholes. But just because you think he is likable, don't delude yourself that your attraction to assholes is anywhere near a majority fetish.
China's economy is finally showing weakness, which considerably strengthens our hand both now and in the long term, and Scotty thinks that now is a bad time to talk to them. What about the last two decades?
I would have to say, he knows more than you do. This economy resembles 1929 in most respects. For China, think Weimar Germany. We are in another situation like 1929 with Obama playing the role of World War I.
Freder Frederson said...
Really?! I see him and I think (actually I say it out loud), "What a total asshole".
That's exactly what I think and feel when I read 99% of your comments.
Trump ought to compile a digest of Freder Frederson's comments on Althouse over the years, then publish them under a banner in 96-point type: This Guy Think's I'm An Asshole. That alone should put him over the top.
Granted, there is a part of the population that is impressed by assholes. But just because you think he is likable, don't delude yourself that your attraction to assholes is anywhere near a majority fetish.
Mind you, plenty think Obama is a raging asshole.
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