“I’m a Trump guy, but I do like Bernie,” said Peter Vincenzo, 59, who works installing hardwood floors and traveled from Ohio for the rally. “There are a lot of parallels between these two guys. There’s a populist appeal that comes with both of them.”Are Trump and Bernie tapping the same energy?
January 8, 2016
"Bernie is my No. 1 choice, and Trump is No. 2. They’re not that different.”
Said Daniel Nadeau, 22, of St. Albans, Vt., quoted "Overflow Crowd for Donald Trump in Bernie Sanders’s Backyard," the NYT report on Trump's rally in Burlington, Vermont. There's also:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
49 comments:
Definitely some overlap. Bernie is a Senator from the whitest state in the country. He's not a globalist who thinks US jobs going overseas is progress. So he represents the white working class, the same people Trump is appealing to. Bernie also appeals to the dim-witted young progressives spread across college campuses and those living in bigger cities. These people despise Trump.
Absolutely. That would be a worthwhile poll: The number of Tump-Sanders or Sanders-Trump voters.
Why? Average people rightly feel the DC cartel and elites have failed America miserably.
Hillary and Bill are Exhibit A. They became millionaires selling political favors.
I'm predicting Hillary loses Iowa and NH.
Are Trump and Bernie tapping the same energy?
I've been saying this for months. Both parties are controlled by the Washington establishment, and the base of both parties is tired of it.
The line to get into the venue, she said, “is like nothing I’ve ever seen in Burlington.”
“Not for Phish, not on Free Cone Day, nothing,”
Heh. That's Burlington, Vt in one tidy statement.
If by "energy" you mean stupidity, then yes.
This must be a new NYT strategy to smear Trump.
Like Sanders? Sorry, no way. But if we can float that myth, maybe it will hurt Trump.
By the way, can Trump win Vermont?
After a lifetime of education and contemplation, Sanders still supports abortion rites under the pro-choice doctrine, perhaps justified by a faith in spontaneous conception.
Energy is not the right word.
A close friend of mine who is a Marshall McLuhan scholar reminds me almost daily that The Medium is the Massage. And, the medium is now the internet. The TV era is over.
Both Sanders and Trump are internet era candidates. The NYC mainstream media monopoly has ended.
Trump is especially a manifestation of the internet age. Those hated middle and lower class white Christian voters found a place to make themselves heard on the internet, and they now refuse to be silenced with the "bigot" denunciation. Trump is their voice.
McLuhan, by the way, was a devout Catholic who attended Mass every day. He regarded TV as a sort of Satanic hallucination. McLuhan's followers are active in the Old Rites Catholic Church that reveres the Latin Mass. I attend their Latin Mass at St. Anthony of Padua parish in Jersey City from time to time, followed by breakfast at a Jersey diner with the McLuhan folks. Latin Mass is an extraordinarily moving and beautiful ritual.
You've done your part here, prof. Your continued devotion to free speech remains something of a mystery given your feminist political persuasion. You haven't yet realized that those two ideas are irreconcilable. The Jihadis are on their way to disabuse you. Physical reality exists.
If you're in Vermont where Sanders is a household name, maybe. Try asking that question in Texas.
So, by Peter's assessment, if Bernie doesn't get the Dem nod, he'll vote for Trump.
That's called cross-over appeal.
Not exactly on topic, but why aren't there more Democrats running?
Is it just that the "smart money" figure that after Obama, there is going to be a Republican backlash and it is better to wait for 2020, or is it something else?
What do they know that we don't know?
For all Sanders' socialism, his fury at large banks dovetails nicely with the Tea-Party criticism of "too big too fail" financial bailouts. However, that isn't Trump's issue. It would be interesting if Sanders wandered across Mickey Kaus's economic critique of immigration from the left. You could have a double-nativist sandwich. That, of course, won't happen. The Democrats pretty much hate the working class and even Sanders can't get off that train (the problem with the proletariat is that they're so damn lumpen*).
I've tried occasionally to point out in different forums that the "too big to fail" critique is a place that Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party could meet and push a common issue, but everyone is too in love with their personal scapegoats to see the opportunity.
---
*It was Churchill who said "Fancy living in one of these streets—never seeing anything beautiful—never eating anything savoury—never saying anything clever!" In America today, that is the psychological province of the left-leaning elites. The elites are sad about the stupidity of the working class, of course, of course, but invincible in their contempt of anything the working class might think or value.
St Albans, that reminds me, I have to run to Price Chopper.
...I rest my case.
Hey, Professor; have you seen this? I read it this morning, and then just now Rush mentioned it.
http://spectator.org/articles/65131/bells-toll-hillary
That's some pretty bold stuff from Bob Tyrell. I know that there are few people in the world with a more finely-tuned loathing of the Clintons. I hope Bob's emotions have not gotten the better of him. I hope he's right about all of this, but I have no idea myself.
In about 90 days, Bob Tyrell is going to look like a leader, or a fool.
By the way, for those of you who don't follow the conservative media, the American Spectator is ground zero for the internal fight over the GOP nomination. The site seems populated with tons of average readers who worship Trump, as well as a tiny handful of writers who seem determined to give Trump a chance. And then there are some of the best and most conservative writers in the business who have ripped Trump's record and statements to shreds. Good reading for Althousians.
A time of national prayer.
Republicans praying that Dems nominate Sanders.
And Dems praying that Reps nominate Trump.
This idea has great appeal for voters who think that a socialist who has been in the Senate for a quarter century is an outsider and those who think a billionaire, life long Democrat is a conservative.
"Not exactly on topic, but why aren't there more Democrats running?"
They're afraid they'd end up in Fort Marcy park.
In my fascination with the two Sanders=Trump quotes, I almost overlooked the last paragraph of the story.
As a heckler was being removed from the Burlington venue, Trump spoke into his microphone to suggest that they keep the heckler's coat, and put him out into the 10-degree weather without it.
It is pure Trump. Simultaneously funny, unexpected, and also indicative of a vaguely sociopathic mindset.
There are polls that so Trump getting a lot of support from unexpected sources, such as working people, minorities, and other traditional Democrats. If that's true (never a given), then it sounds like Trump is building the kind of coalition that the GOPe claims they want. Remember "Reagan Democrats?" Could there be "Trump Democrats?" The GOPe hates Trump and Cruz because they don't own and can't control them. A lot of the GOP base hates the GOPe. This could be a very interesting year. That said, it'll be wonderful when the elections are finally over.
Well, I have remarked on it before, that in the age of Obama, other Democrat politicians have had remarkably little to say. Even Schumer and Durbin have only appeared as decorative background for Harry Reid, when Reid had a pronouncement to make on behalf of the Senate.
Remember when the most dangerous place in Washington was standing between Schumer and a microphone? Not in the age of Obama!
"Screw the establishment" sentiment seems to be running deep everywhere outside the establishment.
Chuck, Trump's suggested punishment of the heckler was not at all vaguely sociopathic, it was meant to be specifically cruel, and that is why it got applause from the people who had gathered to hear Trump speak, not listen to Bernie's brownshirts.
I wonder about Trump's game here: VT is not important to his nomination and if he wants to tweak Bernie, Burlington would be a better venue. Plus it would save him the 30 minute drive up to St. Albans.
Maybe Trump just wanted that heckler to Feel the Brrrr.
Hagar,
"Not exactly on topic, but why aren't there more Democrats running?
Is it just that the "smart money" figure that after Obama, there is going to be a Republican backlash and it is better to wait for 2020, or is it something else?
What do they know that we don't know?"
I think you're making the time-honored mistake of thinking that they think the way you do (something you'd probably reject out of hand in a different context).
I don't really follow domestic politics very much, but one thing I have been struck by this campaign season is the stark difference between how Republicans perceive Hillary's chances of being elected President versus how Democrats perceive Hillary's chances. I haven't seen any statistical research done on this, but whereas I'd say most Republicans seem to be absolutely convinced that Hillary is going to get shellacked, most Democrats seem to be conversely convinced that Hilary's election is just a foregone conclusion.
If Democratic Presidential aspirants think like Democrats and not like Republicans (a reasonable assumption), then it's likely the answer to your question is similar to why Presidential aspirants rarely challenge Presidential incumbents from their own party: they don't see the point of challenging a candidate whose nomination and subsequent election is all but certain.
You know, Mikee, I have some sympathy with your declining to find any sociopathy with Trump.
I myself have had similar feelings, to be honest.
Do you remember when Donald Trump made that crack about John McCain, saying "He’s not a war hero... He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured..."?
All that I could think of was that Trump, like McCain, was draftable age in the Vietnam era. McCain enlisted in the Navy, as had his father and grandfather. McCain flew an A-4 in bombing missions over Hanoi, was shot down and captured. He was wounded seriously, was tortured, and then offered preferential release given his father's rank as a Naval admiral. McCain refused his ticket out, out of honor and loyalty to his fellow POW's. For his trouble, McCain was awarded the Silver Star, a Purple Heart, and the Distinguished Flying Cross, among an handful of other commendations.
Meanwhile Donald Trump avoided military service with student draft deferments and, it appears, a medical certification that he had bone spurs in his feet (for which he appears to never have undergone any treatment).
Now my thought was that if I ever had an occasion to meet Trump in person, I'd punch him in the face, for what he said about John McCain.
Do you think that's a sociopathic urge on my part?
I bet the guy exists. There is a certain kind of guy in Vermont, maybe he spends February and March in the woods on his four wheeler tending his small scale but modestly profitable maple syrup operation, maybe he spends January ice fishing and plowing snow, the fall duck hunting and deer hunting, and delivering firewood, the summer mowing lawns and cutting firewood for heat and for sugaring. A free man, in other words, in the way many of us can no longer understand, who would vote for either Trump or Sanders.
The Trump and Sanders plot lines perhaps converge on the word "populism"?
Chuck, for what it is worth, you have my agreement that you are prone to sociopathic urges, and my permission, again for what it is worth, to punch Trump in the face if you ever meet him. Say "Hi!" from me, too, ok?
My wife follows prepper blogs on the far left and right spectrum, and she noticed that both sides think a lot alike.
Both mistrust the government, particularly its ability to gather information on everyone and its inability to react in a serious crisis (I mean EMP or terror attack on the grid, the latter which we've had already).
The only difference is that the left isn't armed, and the right is very.
So, yeah, I can see Bernie and Donald drawing from the same well.
The line to get into the venue, she said, “is like nothing I’ve ever seen in Burlington.”
“Not for Phish, not on Free Cone Day, nothing,”
The line for Heady Topper is longer.
So he's saying Trump is a socialist with complete ignorance of basic economics--like Bernie? Could be. I'm a libertarian (you know, one of those weirdoes who think their lives and property belong to themselves, and not the whatever gang is currently running the State), and judging from REASON.com libertarians don't like Trump much.
But what I deem crucial is where a politician stands on the (patent pending) Bilwick Statist Scale. At one end, zero, are libertarian anarchists such as Murray Rothbard; at the opposite end, ten, are Hitler, Mao, Stalin, etc. I put the Red Diaper Baby in the White House at about eight and the Alinskyite Dowager Empress of Chappaqua about the same. Sanders is supposed to be good on gun control so maybe he'd be 7.5. Would Trump be right there on the Statist Scale with Bernie? Inquiring minds want to know.
The line for Heady Topper is longer
LOL, so true. I like Switchback much better though. It's legitimate good beer. HT is hipster crapola, IMHO.
"GOPe claims they want. Remember "Reagan Democrats?"
The GOPe of the time, 1976 and 1979, definitely did not support Reagan. They feared and hated him. That is the only reason Bush was on the ticket with him. A sop to the progressives in the GOP.
The GOPe of the time, 1976 and 1979, definitely did not support Reagan. They feared and hated him. That is the only reason Bush was on the ticket with him. A sop to the progressives in the GOP.
Exactly. I mean seriously, they don't get any more establishment than Bush 41. But because the party (eventually) supported us and Reagan, we were willing to support Bush in 88. If not for Perot, we would have re-elected him in 92. We have been loyal to the party.
When is the party going to be loyal to us?
Chuck,
What Trump said about McCain was cruel but funny. McCain was not exactly Eddie Rickenbacker and would not have been admitted to the Naval Academy, where he was almost last in his class, without his family connection. There was a reason he was shot down -- he was a poor pilot. But he's courage as a POW is unassailable and is a good lesson that you never want to be caught by the enemy.
Trump picks on those who have the power to fight back. This is not bullying. Anymore than people who say mean things about Trump are bullying. McCain can kick Trump's ass if he wants. Don't know why you would fight McCain's battle for him.
Do you remember when Donald Trump made that crack about John McCain, saying "He’s not a war hero... He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured..."?
Hey another reason I like Trump. Not because he dissed McCain, but because of the refreshingly honest way he speaks to people.
For example, from memory, he said McCain isn't a war hero, but then went on to grudgingly admit that he was. Something like, OK, maybe he's a war hero, OK? He's a war hero.
Something like that. Not the canned, have to phrase things a certain way, politician speak. But instead the kind of conversation you have with your neighbor through the backyard fence.
As for not serving, again, another reason I like Trump. He said recently he always felt guilty about not serving, which is why, back in 1980, he donated 1 million dollars to the Vietnam war memorial in New York to be built. He admits it was wrong not to serve. We all make mistakes in our youth. It's refreshing that he recognizes it as a mistake.
Have you heard him talk about veterans? He really cares about those who serve. Which, I believe, goes back to his feeling guilty.
I can see why some would hold these things against him. But I find it a part of his charm.
Every dog has his day, and this was my day. Time for a couple fingers of Mad River small batch rum.
Not exactly on topic, but why aren't there more Democrats running?
Short answer: Potential viable candidates have declined so far to enter the race. Not that there’s many of those.
The Democrats started out this campaign season with six candidates. Three of these were not able to generate any support and dropped out.
That leaves Hillary, Sanders and O’Malley.
Barring a political earthquake, such as an indictment because of the private server, Hillary will get the nomination.
Some think Elizabeth Warren should jump in but I think she’s too smart to expose herself to Terminator Trump, the slayer of candidates. Ms. Fauxcahontas would be red meat to the Trumpster; it wouldn’t take him long to destroy her. She’s got a reputation to uphold and her political future to protect.
Speaking of destruction – Hillary is destroyed already. Her game was up when Trump shut the Clintons up with a few well-placed words. She was always a weak, flawed candidate and now anyone paying attention knows just how weak.
The Clintons have shut up about Trump but I think Trump will prick their balloon from time to time just for fun and as an object lesson to others. And those Clinton surrogates – they cannot seem to realize they are not helping Hillary by attacking Trump. But it’s what they do – they can’t help themselves.
Biden’s making noises of regret that he did not decide to run when offered the opportunity. I believe he would be a better candidate than the chastened and silenced Hillary. But it’s a little late to jump in with any hope of winning. Perhaps if he had entered the race in the beginning …
If Hillary is indicted, a move I cannot imagine an Obama AG making, Biden could move in and receive widespread Democrat support.
Finally, on the question of the populist similarities between Trump and Sanders: I think ideology matters less in this race than any I’ve ever witnessed. So … I believe there could very well be crossover for Trump to feed on from Sanders supporters, despite the fact that one is a capitalist and the other is a socialist. But that’s not the whole story on crossover. Yes, the phrase, “Trump Democrats,” could become very familiar in the coming months before the general election.
I actually thought in the height their power the Tea Party was very similar to the Occupy folks - one coming from the right and the other coming from the left but they had many of the same goals.
Blogger tim in vermont said...
LOL, so true. I like Switchback much better though. It's legitimate good beer. HT is hipster crapola, IMHO.
In some states Moosehead is just a beer. In places like Vermont, it is a crime.
Completely off topic, but does Vermont have a Walmart yet? Or do you still have to go across the lake to shop?
John Henry
Biden is a sitting VP. We only elect those about every 150 years. Next one is due in about 2138.
I've never understood why people think VPs shoudl run for prez. They are never successful.
When they do get in by presidential death or failure, they always do a really crappy job. Coolidge is about the only exception in the past couple centuries.
John Henry
"I've never understood why people think VPs shoudl run for prez. They are never successful. "
Nixon was actually pretty successful.
"Coolidge is about the only exception in the past couple centuries.", other than Teddy and Chester
I agree with Bill Peschel and his comments about his wife who follows prepper blogs,,,, they are not that much apart.
Both Bernie and Trump are campaigning on the death of the American Dream.
Bernie says "Elect me and we'll find a way to stop the pain of the death of the American Dream"
Trump says "The pain is over - We'll get the American Dream myth all cooked up again"
This would actually be a fun match. It would be maybe the death of the professional sycophant party loyalist (corrupted) group which would be refreshing no matter who wins.
"For example, from memory, he said McCain isn't a war hero, but then went on to grudgingly admit that he was. Something like, OK, maybe he's a war hero, OK? He's a war hero."
Trump said McCain was a war hero "because he was captured". Trump is an ass, which is apparently what attracts a lot of people. It's possible to be honest without being an ass, but that's not Trump.
There is, in fact, a Wall Mart in the aforementioned St Albans, not without a protracted battle. There is another near Burlington, but not in Burlington, where fast food drive up windows are not allowed either.
Brattleboro banned them and they built their store right across the river in sales tax free New Hampshire instead.
"I actually thought in the height their power the Tea Party was very similar to the Occupy folks - one coming from the right and the other coming from the left but they had many of the same goals."
Really? Could you provide specifics? All I saw was one group (Tea Party) trying to limit the coercive powers of the State, while another group (OWS) wanted to expand it--after they became the Ruling Class.)
Post a Comment