[Trump is] up by two points [in a new CNN poll]... This is stunning when you consider the firepower in what I call the Summer of Hate. The Summer of Hate, the hatred directed at Trump, when you look at all of the firepower from everywhere that you could find, every sector of the Drive-By Media has been launching one salvo after another at Trump....And so many of those salvos were about how hateful Trump supposedly was. I hate hate, but I heard a lot more hate against Trump than from him.
September 6, 2016
"The Summer of Hate."
An excellent coinage by Rush Limbaugh:
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While at the gym today, I saw a headline on CNN from the Clinton campaign about how there is a double standard when it comes to covering Clinton vs Trump. I assume they mean that Clinton get unfavorable coverage compared to Trump. Seriously.
Then again, any presidential election season since Reagan, but probably since Goldwater, has been a summer and fall of hate. Truman didn't exactly campaign on love either: “President Likens Dewey to Hitler as Fascist Tool.” The epithets have changed -- calling a GOPer racist might have been a little, umm, odd, in the 40s -- but the style hasn't.
I've been hearing a lot lately about unskewing the polls. And how it's nonsense. Doesn't work.
Yet, weighting the polls works just fine. What's the difference between skewing and weighting? Aren't we just using two different words to mean the same thing?
The CNN poll has it Trump 48% and Hillary 37% before they weight it. After weighting it, Trump leads by just 2.
Isn't this skewing the poll?
Don't all polsters do this?
And after an entire summer of hate, where is Trump in the skewed, weighted, polls? Tied.
Eric,
When you poll, you try to get data that mirrors past election exit polls with regards to gender, race, and party registration. In other words, you ask the respondents if they are male/female, how old they are, did they vote in previous elections, and what party they belong to. Even if you randomly get 2000 responses, it isn't out of the ordinary to get a break down of 60% female respondents and 40% male respondents, for example, or with the CNN poll this morning, 28% Democrats, 32% Republicans, and 40% independents. You then compare these results with past general elections and you weight your data to mirror those past elections.
With the CNN poll, though I haven't looked at what they are weighting towards, the breakdown of Dems, Reps, and Inds seems unusual to me- high in Inds, low in Dems. That probably explains most of the change in the raw data vs the weighted data. There isn't anything necessarily suspicious about this- all polls do this. There isn't a good way to know if the weighting is good or not for this year until you hold the actual election. It is what it is.
However, the good news for Trump out of the poll isn't the 1 or 2 point lead- it is the lead that was found with independents. If those self-reported independents were roughly balanced male/female, that is very good news for Trump, and very bad news for Clinton.
Well, maybe this particular political burger got overdone on the media grill, and now people just won't even chomp on it any more.
I think, in a way, that it helps Trump. After a steady diet of this rhetoric, anyone exposed to the actual program in his immigration speech for the first time probably experienced a degree of shock. That was not Hitleresque.
Many may wish us to believe that the claim that US immigration policy should be basically driven by the welfare of the US society is some sort of fascist hate-mongering divisive evil, but how many of the average American voters find it so?
Hate and Fear are building and building.
August was yet another record (by month, vs previous years) for gun sales (background checks). Thats 16 straight months of broken gun sales records.
Ammo is still selling out, in spite of increased production.
Jobs are still way short of population growth, and the total employment ratio has fallen this year. August jobs report should knock the trend further down.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/EMRATIO
These are their own sorts of polls.
National polls are useless for determining who is going to win. The gold standard for modern elections is Nate Silver's http://fivethirtyeight.com/. He currently has Trump's chances of winning(based on state polls) at 31%, up from 15% just 2 weeks ago. So Trump is definitely surging, but will he step into the shit once again like he always does?
The news over the last few months was that Hillary was leading BIG. Then things began to tighten up and news of polls quieted down. And now with this CNN poll showing a Trump lead, how did they report it here in D.C., at least on radio??
"A CNN poll shows the race is a statistical dead heat." Sometimes that has been followed with "Trump claiming a lead." Notice that ambiguous "claiming" to go with that obfuscation of big and fairly devastating news against Hillary.
Somebody who is right sometimes and wrong others is not a 'gold standard.'
Those prior polls showing a big Hillary lead I never did trust. Historically, the polls have skewed at least five points in favor of the Democrat from what the actual outcome has been.
Too bad Hunter S. Thompson isn't around to write Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, 2016. Think what fun he could have with HRC, DJT, and their acolytes.
Sebastian,
"Then again, any presidential election season since Reagan, but probably since Goldwater, has been a summer and fall of hate. Truman didn't exactly campaign on love either: “President Likens Dewey to Hitler as Fascist Tool.” The epithets have changed -- calling a GOPer racist might have been a little, umm, odd, in the 40s -- but the style hasn't."
It goes back further than that: all the way to the very first Presidential contest in 1796, when Adams's Federalists warned that a President Jefferson would absolutely bring a Jacobin-style French Revolution to the American shores, complete with a Committee of Public Safety and guillotines, while Jefferson's Republican allies guaranteed that a President Adams would abolish democratic institutions and establish himself as King John I. I'd recommend Jeffrey Pasley's The First Presidential Contest: 1796 and the Founding of American Democracy (link to Amazon through Althouse portal) for comprehensive, well-researched and articulate history of that election.
Of course, Adams and Jefferson each was subsequently elected President and- last I checked- neither a French Revolution nor an American monarchy ever established itself in this country. It is because of these historical facts that I put very little stock (and gain quite a bit of amusement) in contemporary absurd statements that you often find from commenters on this blog like "the country will not survive four years of Hillary Clinton!" or "President Donald Trump will mean the end of American democracy!" (well, okay, the latter is usually found not here, but on blogs with equivalent left-of-center commenters).
Perhaps someday these kinds of statements might very well prove true- perhaps it might even be true in this case- but as a student of history, given 220 years of such rhetoric in Presidential contests that never proved true, it is very difficult for me to believe that this is the case.
I think the polls will turn out to be more like the Brexit polls.
Jobs are still way short of population growth, and the total employment ratio has fallen this year. August jobs report should knock the trend further down.
This is obviously horseshit because the finest minds on this site have assured us that this is the greatest recovery in, well, the world. Black unemployment , however remains at record highs.
Trump came out of nowhere to win the nomination. Due to the long lead time for movies and even tv shows, there hasn't been time enough to paint him as a villain in popular culture. I saw Batman vs Superman recently. There was one heroic Senator who was vaguely modeled after Hillary. The arch villain of the piece, Lex Luthor, didn't seem anything like Donald Trump, however. In the coming months, I'm sure this oversight will be remedied. Look forward to any number of orange haired fiends doing evil in the Marvel and DC universe.......Also Cersei in GOT gives off a Hillary vibe, but there's no corresponding Trump like villain. There's plenty of villains in Westeros. Let's hope next season they have an orange haired one who eats children. Maybe they can make the Mother of Dragons more Hillary like. Next season she can wear pantsuits and put on a little weight.
The question of this election will be how brazen the democrats are in Pennsylvania and Virginia. How many districts in Philadelphia over how many thousands of people will have 0 votes for trump?
"President Jefferson would absolutely bring a Jacobin-style French Revolution to the American shores, complete with a Committee of Public Safety and guillotines"
I would buy guillotine futures, if available.
Big difference with this present Great Depression is that of fundamental structure.
One could formerly allege the evil of a given leader, and it could even be true, but it wouldn't matter as they were insignificant vs the mass of the rest of the population and economy. They didn't really amount to much vs the collective, which was always healthy and full of animal spirits even if temporarily suppressed.
The evil of the current candidates, alleged or true, also don't amount to much vs the collective. But in this case it is the collective that is terminally diseased. Their mechanisms of suppression cannot be removed, they are of an intractable nature.
buwaya,
"I would buy guillotine futures, if available."
Yeah, so might have the Republicans in 1796 and the Federalists in 1800- both would have been quite disappointed in the economics of how their guillotine investments turned out (though, I'm sure, they would not have been disappointed that their predicted civilizational collapse never came to pass- I can't imagine anyone wanted to be correct at the expense of the French Revolution).
I get that so many of you think doom and gloom is right around the corner- I really do- but a studying more American history might allow you all to see the context and how incredibly resilient are our non-Presidential institutions (especially civil society).
But, as I have no problem profiting from others emotionalism, I am more than willing to make an even money wager with you that, regardless of who gets elected, a French Revolution will not emerge here. Interested?
It's always the time of the season for hating.
"but a studying more American history might allow you all to see the context and how incredibly resilient are our non-Presidential institutions (especially civil society)."
I don't think you have such a civil society anymore. Every non-government institution or collective has given up some degree of power to the government. Churches, the private economy, voluntary organizations (with minor exceptions like the NRA) are all much weaker, many are under the regulatory boot, or have entirely gone over to the other side. All the schools (with trivial exceptions) are part of the enemy alliance.
All the formal checks and balances are broken. These unhappy ones can elect legislators but those legislators can do nothing (as we have seen). The judiciary is also nearly entirely compromised and part of the enemy alliance.
You have a lot of unhappy people, but they have no organizations with any power.
One of Rush's most gleeful topics today was all about Trump's hiring of Dave Bossie from the Citizens United group.
I think Rush mostly understands the import of Citizens United v. FEC (he did a credible bare-bones summary of the facts in the case), but Rush seems to have completely forgotten that once upon a time, Trump was criticizing the decision:
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-08-04/trump-the-developer-loves-low-interest-rates-trump-the-candidate-sees-a-bubble-
I'll say, for my part, Trump's moves (hiring Dave Bossie being one of them) of late seem to be making I harder for me to not vote for Trump. Mostly because Trump is steadily retreating from his positions taken earlier in the campaign.
Blogger Yancey Ward said...
Eric,
When you poll, you try to get data that mirrors past election exit polls with regards to gender, race, and party registration. In other words, you ask the respondents if they are male/female, how old they are, did they vote in previous elections, and what party they belong to. Even if you randomly get 2000 responses, it isn't out of the ordinary to get a break down of 60% female respondents and 40% male respondents, for example, or with the CNN poll this morning, 28% Democrats, 32% Republicans, and 40% independents. You then compare these results with past general elections and you weight your data to mirror those past elections.
Yes, I realize this. The CNN poll states the five categories it weights from, age and gender being two of them. All the polls have assumptions, based off of prior elections or demographics, etc.
My point was, this is what the "Unskewers" do. They look at the internals of a poll and they say, "Wait just a second! There aren't 15% more Democrats than Republicans!" or something, and then they correct for those numbers.
Everyone has assumptions and no one really knows what's going to happen. We look at the past and we make educated guesses.
Here is my educated guess. Looking at 2008 and 2012 are not going to help. The election of Obama was a special event, in both cases. He road quite a wave of hype and good will towards people of color. It really was an historic election.
Using his numbers is not smart. Hillary is NOT Barack Obama. She is more like John Kerry. They'd be better off using those numbers. Or Al Gores numbers.
Just my never to be humble opinion.
buwaya,
Well, if that's true, then your predicting a metaphorical French Revolution is only that much more favorable a bet for you! But I'm in such a generous mood that I'm going to continue to offer you an even money wager, even though I know this puts me at a disadvantage.
So for our target: The French Revolution's Reign of Terror alone executed approximately 40,000 of a French population of about 25 million -- adapted to America's population of ~320 million, that would mean your anticipated American Reign of Terror (for which you said would would invest in metaphorical guillotine futures) should produce about 500,000 summary executions. I'm comfortable with only using the ~10 months of the Reign of Terror, even though the French Revolution actually encompassed a decade.
Shall we say $100 each? We can consummate the deal on betfair whenever you're ready.
Using his numbers is not smart. Hillary is NOT Barack Obama. She is more like John Kerry. They'd be better off using those numbers. Or Al Gores numbers.
Hillary's numbers will be adjusted after the fact to whatever she needs them to be.
By Any Means Necessary.
Bobby, I would take you up on this, but it seems a difficult bet to arrange.
Not the payment, that can be done via Paypal presumably.
But the metric.
If there were some Julian Simon-like number that would apply, well short of the general economic collapse that could bring on the guillotines of course. Nobody would be getting paid under those circumstances.
Some economic statistic as of Dec 31 2018?
buwaya,
We're using the Reign of Terror's summary execution rate of 0.16% of the total population -- the contemporary equivalent is 500,000 Americans (technically, 512,000, but I'm being very generous to you). We'll prepay the money into escrow and define the conditions of the wager: if Hillary is elected and 500,000 Americans are summarily executed by December 31, 2018, then you win the pot. If it's 499,999 or less, then I win.
Sound good?
Maybe Rush was inspired by the NYT piece about the Summer of Love:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/11/travel/haight-ashbury-san-francisco.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=mini-moth®ion=top-stories-below&WT.nav=top-stories-below&_r=0
Well if anyone knows about hate it's that bloated mushroom salad.
Limblah, that is.
Bobby. Love the terms of that wager! It's funny to see Republicans are taken up on some of the many strange things they pretend to believe in so seriously.
The question of this election will be how brazen the democrats are in Pennsylvania and Virginia. How many districts in Philadelphia over how many thousands of people will have 0 votes for trump?
Many, many! A great many, one would hope!
Although it's a bit hard to top the contempt for all those voters shown by Mittens, who wasn't "concerned" about them, or just flat-out said that it wasn't his "job to worry about those people."
I'd love to see you tell the hiring committee at your next job interview that it's "not your job to worry about" their customers. See how many vote to bring you aboard.
My prediction is ZERO. I guess the invisible hand isn't so inscrutable after all.
Rhythm and Balls,
In my experience, Democrats make even more ridiculous proclamations, dude. I just happen to be a non-partisan equal opportunity exploiter of emotionalism.
There is utility in gauging mood, though. As a matter of fact, that's the only barometer for where the electorate goes.
Trump may be no Hitler, (at least in every respect other than political style), but the points the Republicans and Democrats are raising are both relevant. The establishments of both parties have created an economy where prosperity for everyone short of the upper-middle class has vanished - for several decades now. Maybe you think that's a stable politics; I don't. Not for the long run.
And at the risk of finding the provocation of Godwin's law too "emotional", I remind you that consistent un-remedied economic discontent is the surest way to bring about a disastrous, uber-nationalistic demagogue.
I've spoken in generalities that hopefully avoid the ridicule invited by proposals of "guillotine futures." But how stable do you think America's current trajectory has been, over the long-term?
My prediction: Course correction will take place, or you might become a little less confident in your retort to buwaya.
Although it's a bit hard to top the contempt for all those voters shown by Mittens,
The contempt I see this time around is contempt by the Democrats for working class whites, and working class blacks for that matter, who are made to compete with the millions of illegal scabs the Democrats and Republicans are bringing in, one for the cheap labor, the other for the unquestioning votes.
A picket line is a small, symbolic border. If somebody crosses it to work for the wages the company is willing to pay, the wages on offer, they are called "scabs" and reviled by Democrats. But if somebody illegally crosses the real border, who is willing to work for the low wages on offer, and under the conditions employers are willing to provide, undercutting the working class of all colors here in the US, they are called "immigrants" who are making America strong.
Nope, they are illegal scabs, and it is no more racist to oppose flooding the labor market with them than it is racist to oppose scabs in an strike.
But go ahead and replay ancient history.
"Hate" = disagreeing with a liberal. So by that standard, Limbaugh is a hater. I don't hear the hate from him, but then, I disagree with liberals all the time.
I didn't hear any hate from Trump at all on anything.
All the hate was just dispassionate analysis of how this or that social system works.
"Hate" means it wasn't politically correct to notice that.
The only reason that you'd analyze something is because you hate it, is the reasoning.
Men are haters when they guffaw at a feminist. They know how women work.
Women particularize and so never see the big picture that men work with.
It matters because women are the MSM narrative audience.
"We'll prepay the money into escrow and define the conditions of the wager"
If people are cutting off heads by that time there will be no such thing as "escrow".
How about - Population-employment ratio worse than today by 12/31/2018?
Defined here - presumably the Fed will still be functioning then -
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/EMRATIO
"Hate" = disagreeing with a liberal. So by that standard, Limbaugh is a hater.
Limblah's a hateful man. Well, at the least, he's a truly tasteless man.
I don't hear the hate from him, but then, I disagree with liberals all the time.
I'm surprised you hear anything listening to him. The only think I hear from him sounds like the original Alexander Graham Bell recording wired through a guitar amplifier distorted to 11 a la Spinal Tap. Every now and then a consonant squeaks out through the gravelly chalk-board machine sitting where his voice box should be.
R&B,
See, this is what I'm talking about. Take just one sentence right there: "The establishments of both parties have created an economy where prosperity for everyone short of the upper-middle class has vanished - for several decades now." (bold added for emphasis)
The definition I have for "vanish" is "disappear suddenly and completely." In mathematics, become zero. I would be willing to bet you that prosperity for everyone short of the upper-middle class has NOT in fact vanished - not now and not for several decades, either.
The contempt I see this time around is contempt by the Democrats for working class whites, and working class blacks for that matter, who are made to compete with the millions of illegal scabs the Democrats and Republicans are bringing in, one for the cheap labor, the other for the unquestioning votes.
Lol. You can see what you want to see.
Everyone else hears, "I'm not concerned about the very poor," and knows the guy's too out of touch to be president of anything but the country club.
Everyone else hears, "My job is not to worry about" half the country and realizes that he cares even less about their jobs than the jobs the Republicans all of a sudden believe they're going to protect.
Nice job, Republicans. But you're a little too little, too late. And with too much hate. Or at least disregard. I saw Van Jones debating Ann Coulter and thanking her for doing something Democrats could never do before: Uniting "Latinos" into a single coherent, political voting bloc. Never before could Democrats get the crazy, anti-communist Cubans on board. But this time it's different. I wonder why.
Well Bobby you just don't look around much do you?
The definition I have for "vanish" is "disappear suddenly and completely." In mathematics, become zero. I would be willing to bet you that prosperity for everyone short of the upper-middle class has NOT in fact vanished - not now and not for several decades, either.
Prosperity is something that is built - usually through growing wages. My sentence was one that takes the political necessity of widely shared economic growth as a given. So perhaps I was sloppy in applying the word "vanished" to what should have been a reference about stagnant or declining living standards, but hopefully this response would help you get the point.
Economic mobility in America is now lower than in much of Europe, including the Netherlands. These are realities with real-life political consequences. Semantics are important, but I'm not trying to mislead you at all.
"The French Revolution's Reign of Terror alone executed approximately 40,000 of a French population of about 25 million -"
Not true. There is a pretty good book about the French Revolution titled "12 who ruled."
Better read it.
buwaya,
"If people are cutting off heads by that time there will be no such thing as "escrow".
How about - Population-employment ratio worse than today by 12/31/2018?"
Betfair is in West London, so unless Clinton's Reign of Terror crosses the Atlantic and destroys their institutions as well, our escrow will be protected.
Your alternative - "Population-employment ratio worse than today by 12/31/2018" - doesn't approximate Reign of Terror levels, at all. That's just saying population-employment ratios are going to get worse under Hillary in her first two years in office. I'd call that, duh. Let's stick to the summary executions of Hillary's Reign of Terror because you're confident that's going to happen and I'm confident it will not.
"I would be willing to bet you that prosperity for everyone short of the upper-middle class has NOT in fact vanished "
You would first have to define "prosperity" and then define "vanish".
Both seem unnecessarily imprecise.
Lets say rather that median household income has fallen substantially from its peak, this situation has not really improved in the last two business cycles and doesn't seem likely to.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N
I'm waiting for 2015 data, though at this point it seems that a further decline is in progress based on more immediate indicators.
"That's just saying population-employment ratios are going to get worse under Hillary in her first two years in office. I'd call that, duh."
That not duh (other than being a sure thing), thats the stuff of revolutions.
I'll have a look at betfair. But I'd push it out to 2020 and I will redefine it as political executions. Americans like their guns and will probably be happier using them.
Well, Bobby's obviously got a point. And I agree with everything he said in his wager.
But as for buwaya and his talk of "revolutions..." That's also fair. A 76-year old white haired socialist nearly splitting the Democratic vote and getting respect from Republicans who are involved in their own populist overthrow of their party's establishment along lines of economic discontent. Two third parties approaching 20% combined support.
Yes, these are not normal times. The primaries alone have proved it.
Mass executions are not on the horizon but those messages will be heard. Or it will be worse/weirder next time.
Michael K,
I went with the lowest estimates, Greer's numbers of 41,000 executions. I read that others, for example Pierre Chaunu claimed as many as 500,000 executions, and that Jean-Clément Martin, suggested up to 250,000 insurgents and 200,000 republicans. Using either of these estimates yields a summary execution rate of as high as 2%, which if applied to contemporary America would mean we'd have to see 6.4-million summary executions in Hilary's America. I'm going with the lower estimate because it's more generous to buwaya's claim. Just trying to be fair.
"splitting the Democratic vote and getting respect from Republicans who are involved in their own populist overthrow of their party's establishment along lines of economic discontent. Two third parties approaching 20% combined support. "
Thats just a bunch of early stage symptoms. The problem there is that none of these political realignments will do squat to resolve the fundamental economic malaise. Thats because it doesn't matter, very much, what happens in politics, because the overwhelming problem can't be touched by it. The state structure is the paralyzer, and corruptor of the private sector, and it is more powerful than democratic politics.
Schumpeter is your prophet of doom.
I'm going to be nice to myself and specify a mere five political executions by Dec 31 2020. We will have to carefully define "political executions" of course.
Hopefully some betting agent will still be in a position to pay out at such an early stage. Britain is not likely to be exempt from the effects of international chaos.
Balls- Limbaugh is a mushroom salad, but he certainly is not hate-filled.
He's lazy.
He cannot get the facts right about Citizens United - which is wholly about Hillary and her right to shut anyone down who dare speaketh about her in a negative way.
Is it hateful to call her a corrupt dictator?
IIR Trump did hate one man: Ted Cruz.
But then so does every other person who has ever dealt with Ted and his methods.
If you look at the state-by-state polling, HRC is still 'leading.' That's why Silver projects her as a more likely favorite. National polling really doesn't capture the electoral vote angle.
Rhythm and Balls said...
Well if anyone knows about hate it's that bloated mushroom salad.
Ann Althouse said...
That's my dear departed friend Puffball [the mushroom].
And doesn't Rush refer to himself as a "harmless, lovable fuzzball"?
Leviathan must be rooted out of the many nooks and crannies into which it has insinuated itself. The people who maintain Leviathan's power are unlikely to allow the transition be painless.
If Leviathan continues to advance, there will be no outlets and buwaya puti will eventually be correct. Predicting the timing is a fool's errand.
The center cannot hold on the current trajectory.
Is it hateful to call her a corrupt dictator?
Nope.
“I’m in this race because I care about Americans. I’m not concerned about the very poor — we have a safety net there,” he said. “If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich — they’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of America, the 90-95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling. - Mitt Romney
Of course R&B only hears one clause of one sentence, and completely ignores his meaning, which is echoed in his other sentence "I’m not concerned about the very rich — they’re doing just fine."
But if you wish to invidiously interpret his words, take them completely out of context, so you can ignore the actual, demonstrable contempt that the Democrats have for the working class, that's fine if it helps you sleep at night.
The problem is that Democrats like R&B can't understand complicated sentences.
The problem is that Democrats like R&B can't understand complicated sentences.
The problem is that Republicans like tim in vermont put their faith in people who talk out of both sides of their mouths.
Romney was shitting in his pants once that video came out. The one that was secretly recorded in a large donor meeting, supposedly behind closed doors.
But the waiter heard him, and videotaped him. His writing off of half the country. And Romney could never contain his anxiety afterward. The pall of fear was written all over his elite country club face. The fear of losing what he had no right to claim - a willingness to speak for ALL Americans, regardless of income.
Good to know that the Republican establishment still represents you well, tim. But apparently you already lost your party, so no need for you to lecture THIS NON-Republican.
When the party's over, don't forget to turn off the lights.
You are the one giving an incomplete and dishonest version of a quote from Romney.
Here is what Democrats are doing for the very poor:
Low skill native-born Americans are dropping out of the workforce in record numbers, and those jobs are being filled with immigrants under an unspoken practice by government and business leaders eager for cheaper labor instead of helping get Americans back to work, according to a new study.
Federal data analyzed by the Center for Immigration Studies found that since 1994, when separate immigrant and native employment estimates first became available, the percentage of native-born high school dropouts not in the labor force rose from 26 percent to 35 percent. The percentage of immigrant dropouts not in the labor force decreased to a low mark of 8 percent.
Realistically noting that 47% of Americans would never vote for him no matter what is not the same thing as saying that he didn't care about them, except in your fever dreams, R&B.
Or do you expect Hillary to claim that 100% of Americans will vote for her at some point if asked?
Geez, tim. You're pretty late to the party, aren't you?
Yep. Let's hear those Republican apologists for labor. They sure were all over the concerns of labor all this time, and especially now - figuring out which unions to keep on crushing.
Keep changing the subject. Am I an apologist for the Clintons? Nope. Apologia is for you, and how blind you are to the burning shambles of your party. Bill Clinton's wonderful contribution to the left was to move the Democratic party to the right - in nearly every way, shape and form - as that's where the strength and momentum still was in the 1990s. DOMA, Welfare reform, crime bill, Glass-Steagall repeal, NAFTA - where is the leftism in any of that? Oh yeah, you need a supposed phony "commie" to bash so apparently he would do; when in reality he was just a big phony opportunist. Changing his colors like a chameleon to make the most out of the people he used. Much like your party's always done!
But that'd done, and over. And now a socialist was poised to and probably could have taken over the party, and got the most progressive platform in history, and would have wiped the floor with your candidate as all the polls showed. But you don't have time for that. As the duopoly still (barely) lingers on, moribund, you're making the hard decision to STAND UP as a rank partisan for the even deader party than the Democrats. Oh, tim. That must take some real courage and insight. Here I am fiendishly licking my chops at the prospect of smashing the DNC, and there you are standing up for the rank partisans of the worthless and pointless and useless RNC. Give Reince Priebus a call, tim. He's looking for a few good partisans. Large donor contributions optional.
Is it fanciful to consider those killed in the Napoleonic Wars as casualties of the French Revolution?.......I know that current liberal thinking regarding the deaths in Libya and Syria is that all those deaths are solely and exclusively due to Bush's invasion of Iraq........The world will go its way. Both Hillary and Trump will screw up. Perhaps Trump will screw up less. In any event, if he does screw up, the press will tell us about it, and we won't have to gnash our teeth when Trump delivers some horseshit Nobel acceptance speech.
union interests =/= interests of laborers
It is a nice rhetorical trick to assert a Democrat interest group represents the broad interests of people who work, despite those very people voting with their feet and dollars that the claim is untrue.
Dishonesty suits you just as well as feigned credulity.
Althouse could win some points by finding her own hate monger to support be doing the old "I know you are, but what am I?" strategy.
Rush already has Trump on lockdown. So where can Althouse look for originality points? Hint: have folks seen how much hate has been targeted at LePage? A bona fide hater of hate should be all over that.
Dishonesty suits you just as well as feigned credulity.
I only got the later assessment from B. Presumably this was just an oversight. Surely, I'm dishonest, too.
Running out of material?
I like being comment number 69. I'm a giver.
That's just about the only open VHF channel that I can remember. It's my go to.
Just sayin'.
Am I an apologist for the Clintons? Nope. Apologia is for you, and how blind you are to the burning shambles of your party.
All I am doing is pointing out the dishonesty of your rhetoric. If the truth is so bad, why do you have to be dishonest.
What the fuck have I been dishonest about? What are you running from? YOU'RE the one who seems to have no criticism for the union-bashing, welfare-bashing Republicans - while pretending to be an establishment GOPe conservative who somehow cares oh so much about the working class.
Give me a break. I might as well watch a gorilla play chess. Stop wasting my time.
What the fuck have I been dishonest about?
You repeated misrepresentations of both of those Romney quotes quite faithfully, I will give you that. It does seem, however, that you could have taken a look at the source and applied a small modicum of critical thinking before repeating that propaganda.
You seem to think that words are more important than actions. That rhetoric outweighs logic, that the Democrats' words outweigh their actions which objectively harm the poor. You can't get past that, are you high or something right now?
tcrosse said...
Too bad Hunter S. Thompson isn't around to write Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, 2016. Think what fun he could have with HRC, DJT, and their acolytes.
Gonzo journalism at its finest:
"The press is a gang of cruel faggots. Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits- a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage." ~ Hunter S Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."
Donald Trump
As I've considered why I will not be voting for Donald Trump, these nouns and adjectives came to mind: demagogue, egomaniac, liar, bigot, narcissist, bully, blowhard, welsher (on payments), vague, thin-skinned, intemperate, vulgar, unscrupulous.
Have Americans forgotten the essential values of character and integrity?
PERRY L. WEED
Annapolis
The Lament of a Pro-Trump Psychiatrist (or someone with his tongue inserted firmly in his cheek):
I think the majority of my psychiatrist, psychologist, and psychiatric social worker colleagues feel dislike, disdain and antipathy towards Donald Trump. Many psychologists state that he is mentally ill and could damage mental health in America. I disagree with these colleagues.
American voters usually are exposed to a variety of clever political demagoguery, obfuscations, deceptions, and a spectrum of lies from little white ones to whoppers. With Donald Trump’s bombastic campaign style, a new glossary of terms . . . [that] include words and concepts such as bombast, sarcasm (cruel at times), overt insults, crude personal verbal attack, hyperbolic impulsive statements . . . And, extemporaneous free associations about the powerful emotions beneath political issues, ambivalent political relationships and evolving policy statements.
Defending Mitt Romney is a fools errand. Mitt is a clown and a douche that has tried to get Hillary elected this cycle. He wrote, passed, and implemented Obamacare in his own state before the democrats thought it was cool. He ran the GOP like a patrician elitist. Of course he would write off 47% of the electorate because he didn't know what the fuck was going on out here in the country.
Trump won the primary because Mitt was so pathetic. Even though Trump endorsed Mitt when Mitt was the nominee after Trump won Mitt lost the rest of his marbles and embarrassed himself and everyone who defends him.
But this is clearly a different election with a far more intelligent and useful republican nominee who has infinitely more class than Mitt Romney.
gadfly said...
....
That looked like a bot generated list of copy pastes. I doubt those posts could have passed the Turing test.
Hillary's shills are running out of steam. Just like her. Will she even live to the election? She is trying to do a very stressful thing while she is obviously not healthy.
You seem to think that words are more important than actions.
I assume they match. How far up Mitt Romney and Reince Priebus' butts has your tongue been? Because that would be an action, of sorts.
That rhetoric outweighs logic, that the Democrats' words outweigh their actions which objectively harm the poor.
You are one blind idiot. Democrats controlled the U.S. government from 1933 through 1952 with only a two year break and the country boomed. Republicans gave us the Great Depression. Democratic policies were so successful and became so popular that Eisenhower had no choice but to continue them. Again, everything was great. It's only once Republicans took over in the 1980s and deregulated everything that a permanently declining living standard took hold for everyone not in the top 1%. Nice job. You guys hate labor, you've always been anti-union, you were isolationists and anti-worker during the Depression and WWII, it was your idea to deregulate Wall Street in the 1990s that led to the crash, you deliberately tried to derail Obama's efforts to fix the economy you broke, and admitted that's what you were doing, you haven't reduced the debt in 36 years (except when Democrats Clinton and Carter were in office, you push low-growth austerity measures in crises to punish the working class even though stimulus is superior. In short, there's almost nothing you ever do right. Anything you manage to avoid doing wrong is when there's a Democrat there watching your back and everything that goes wrong when a Democrat occupies the Oval Office can be tracked back to an obstinate, politically-motivated Republican Congress and its machinations.
How's that for specific? Not the best but a hell of a lot better than your inability to figure out which policy led to what and need to blame Democrats for everything from 1990 onward, regardless of who was in office doing what.
But you hate reality so all that obvious retelling is for the benefit of the record and others reading this.
Fuck things up, blame the guy the voters call in to fix it while you do everything you can to get in his way and prevent him from succeeding at it. That's the Republican way and if you don't get it by now then you deserve every bit of economic mediocrity in life that comes your way.
Good bye and go away you political hack.
Defending Mitt Romney is a fools errand.
tim in vermont, you hear that? He says you're a fool. Or maybe you're just running the fool's errands. Something like that.
Either way, your party's split. I'm glad to know you seem to be picking the elitist anti-populist side of the squabble. Which is important. How much do you earn a year, like $50,000? $60,000? Less? It's important for the RNC to have people on the lower and middle rungs of the economic ladder like you arguing against your own economic interests. They couldn't do it without you, tim. There's no way they could pull it over on the public otherwise.
tim in vermont read Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations and figured that the most important part was where Smith said that if middle to lower class employees like him don't vote against his own economic interests, then Russians will take over his country. tim is doing it for the 1% so that Putin doesn't have to. Something like that. If tim weren't shilling for CEOs, who would? It's not they already have enough power and voice. tim anonymously sends Christmas cards to various CEOs thanking them for creating jobs... in other countries. tim likes capitalism so much that he's willing to see his own country suffer for it. tim's taking one for the team. Over and over again.
Good night, tim in vermont.
Don't forget to write your Christmas cards to Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon.
Tell them that you can't thank them enough... for seeking to control Hillary as completely as they do your Republicans.
There's always another American worker you can outsource, a union of his you can crush, and a global company whose American CEO makes it all worth it.
Adam Smith wouldn't have it any other way. You are the invisible hand, personified.
Rhythm and Balls said...
"Either way, your party's split. I'm glad to know you seem to be picking the elitist anti-populist side of the squabble."
Both parties have a populist split. Also know as the actual voters. The democrat party brazenly rigged their primary to screw their voters. The republican party was taken over by their voters.
This is what led Mitt Romney to support Hillary Clinton. In the end Mitt and the rest of the GOPe are more like Hillary than they are like us. Bernie supporters will eventually realize they are more like us, the Trump supporters, than Hillary as well.
Hunter Thompson was writing in the days when the press had some value and it served the public interest, even if it was only in passing.
Some of the foreign press is still like this, slimy but useful, such as the British. And then there is that most reliable and ethical journal in the US, the National Enquirer.
The rest is a political instrument.
As for the Great Depression - the Roosevelt administration screwed up at least as much or more than Hoovers, keeping the US economy in a hole from 1933-1940, when it started climbing out purely because of Allied war spending -i.e., foreigners buying war material. Most other major nations had pulled out of the Depression years before the US (France took as long, but suffered much less). Heck, even the Philippines was out of the Depression by 1936. Roosevelts Depression accomplishments were pure PR and spin by a largely sympathetic press and establishment. Entrenched financial interests supported Roosevelt, as usual against "main street".
Not all that different from today, with the exception of the bloated regulatory state and the disappearance of checks and balances.
Eric,
"Unskewers" often "unskew" polls that have already been weighted before publication. Not all of them, but enough for me to almost immediately dismiss all such reanalyses, including the one MSNBC tried this afternoon with the CNN poll.
One has to look at the raw data and and all the answers to the questions asked. Some pollsters do this honestly, some don't. If I don't have complete access to the internals, I often just ask myself what bias I would expect from the pollster's organization- if the data runs against that bias, I tend to trust it more as for gross direction, and less otherwise. The CNN poll is a poll that I trusted a little more today for that reason- I just assume the data was massaged in any way possible to look better for Clinton.
I do think using the 2012/2008 elections as a weighting factor is going to lead to erroneous poll data, however, I can make an argument for the error running in both directions, though I think the argument for it to favor Democrats this cycle is higher. Obama was an anomaly. I don't think African-American turnout will be even 90% of what it was those two elections, and that could reduce Clinton's total vote by 5% or more. Also, I can't tell what is going to happen to Republican turnout compared to 2012- higher or lower? You tell me. I do think you are going to see more votes from people who didn't vote in either one of those elections, and that definitely will favor Trump and the two independent candidates.
"I hate hate," sounds like a riff to me on "What is is?"
Good to see that Dr K is still lurking about. Hope we get him back here on a more full time basis after the election, when all of the Crooked Hillary trolls and shills have gone back to their parents' basements.
Methinks R&B is a Democrat...so much so he doesn't seem to realize which party has been presiding over the chaos of our big cities for the last 40+ years.
The wealth of America's middle class has been transferred to insurance companies.
Can we call this what it is, Lap Dog Bullying. Hillary or her campaign says something and then, one by one, the school yard, lap dog, media, starts to pile on, one by one, repeating the meme from the campaign. It's pretty amazing to watch this in action. The words are the same, the thoughts are the same, for the most part it's line for line whatever the campaign wants said.
I'm waiting for something other than Pravda and Izvestia, but I'm going to have to wait a while.
You are one blind idiot. Democrats controlled the U.S. government from 1933 through 1952 with only a two year break and the country boomed.
It was in the toilet until about 1946-7, then there was that whole "The Western World was destroyed by a massive war while we were basically unscathed" thing. It's not a situation likely to replicate itself, so the policies that "worked" back then won't work now.
Democratic policies were so successful and became so popular that Eisenhower had no choice but to continue them. Again, everything was great.
...unless you were black. Then Democrat-led state legislatures made them all second class citizens and Democrats in the Senate killed bills to deal with such things as lynching for decades.
it was your idea to deregulate Wall Street in the 1990s that led to the crash
About 20 years later?
Yet the changes and demands of loosening mortgage requirements, demanded by the Left, had no bearing on the 2008 crash.
you deliberately tried to derail Obama's efforts to fix the economy you broke
Republicans didn't protect Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, nor did Republicans refuse to prosecute ANYBODY involved in the corruption that led to the crash.
Note: Bush DID prosecute the Enron execs. Obama didn't prosecute anybody in high finance --- who also gave heavily to his campaign.
you haven't reduced the debt in 36 years (except when Democrats Clinton and Carter were in office, you push low-growth austerity measures in crises to punish the working class even though stimulus is superior.
We've done "stimulus" for most of Obama's administration. Those years with no budgets? The budget that included the "stimulus" was just repeated for years and years.
It didn't seem to accomplish much. Even you admit as much. The middle class has been raped.
And why are large cities such shitholes for inequality? You certainly cannot blame Republicans for the plight of blacks in Chicago. Or Baltimore. Or any large city. Those have been Democrat bastions for decades. And they are unmitigated shitholes.
BTW, how does it feel to watch Bernie Sanders sell the fuck out so badly? He has sold out beyond all rational definition of the word.
Because Socialism, as always, screws over the workers and protects the government hacks. Sanders knew where to go to get his slice of the pie and he has it now.
Blogger Sydney said...
The wealth of America's middle class has been transferred to insurance companies.
That was the idea all along. The Affordable Care Act was never about helping people. The Affordable Care Act was all about controlling people. You do not know where your best interests lay so you need to directed to your best interests. All based on lies and deception. The State is my shepherd. I shall always want.
" It's important for the RNC to have people on the lower and middle rungs of the economic ladder like you arguing against your own economic interests."
This is an interesting statement. The left often uses it. What does it mean exactly? What are the economic interests of the middle class that the democrats want to protect? Why can't the middle class understand their own interests? Seriously asking.
The problem the drive by media has with Trump is that the public has all of the information about him that they have.
He started his campaign with large rallies that were televised in their entirety. There weren't any small events with hidden recordings like "bitterly clinging to religion" that the media could hide or reveal.
Except for the NYT editor meeting, everything that he has said, he has said to all of us.
We can look at it with our own eyes and analyse it without media filters.
All they can do is Opine and predict how horrible he will be from their point of view, which is not the point of view of all of the country.
Nice job, Republicans … Never before could Democrats get the crazy, anti-communist Cubans on board. But this time it's different. I wonder why.
About the Democrats getting those “crazy, anti-communist Cubans on board” :
Trump leads among white voters 49 to 33 percent, but trails with African Americans 68 to 20 percent, as well as Hispanics 50 to 40 percent. “The race between Clinton and Trump among Hispanics in Florida is closer than it is nationally,” said Monica Escaleras, Ph.D., director of the BEPI. “Some of that is probably the Cuban vote. Trump’s support among Latinos in Florida is helping him stay competitive.”
The above is a quote from one of the latest polls in Florida with a large sample(1200 likely voters).
http://tinyurl.com/z97hrdg
You have to read past the spin: What I see here is that Trump is getting 20% of the African American vote. That’s significantly above MSM-dictated expectations; just yesterday I saw a MSNBC talking head chuckling because Trump was going to get “close to zero” black votes. Summing up, Trump & Hillary are tied in Florida with Trump getting more black votes than expected and polling strongly with the “Cuban vote[40%].”
The RCP average has them tied overall, too.
http://tinyurl.com/jjosp5r
Yesterday I also saw a pollster refer to their poll as “based on 2012 voting patterns.” That’s something I’ve never heard any other pollster mention. I’m wondering how valid polling is that is based on the usual Democrat/MSM drubbing of the GOP POTUS nominee, the colorless, timid and overwhelmed Romney. One thing this election ain’t is usual.
In 2012 the exit polls indicated that Romney got 27% of the Latino votes nationwide – so Trump is out-performing Romney’s nationwide results by 13 points with Hispanics in Florida. Interesting.
http://tinyurl.com/pq6lzsw
Rhythm and Balls is one really hateful person. I hope R & B never has a position of power, because his/her ideology would justify anything. If one wants a perfect example of hate, read Rhythm and Balls' posts.
Rhythm and Balls is one really hateful person. I hope R & B never has a position of power, because his/her ideology would justify anything. If one wants a perfect example of hate, read Rhythm and Balls' posts.
I don't find him hateful. Wrong on issues, but I do think he's genuine and he does seem to feel that his beliefs will improve things.
He isn't Hillary.
I can respect R & B and Cook quite a lot since they seem consistent in their beliefs.
Alex wrote: "National polls are useless for determining who is going to win. The gold standard for modern elections is Nate Silver..."
Sorry Alex but the gold standard for prediction goes to Barack Hussein Obama, who in seven years and counting has gotten nothing right. He's supporting Clinton so you have to assume from past performance that she's toast. It is one of the ways I have been able to keep my cool in this absolute, Summer of Hate.
Trump 2016! Ivanka 2024!
I can respect R & B and Cook quite a lot since they seem consistent in their beliefs.
You know who else was consistent in his beliefs?
PolPot
The Left is always accusing others of being racists and haters, but as far as I can see most of the racism and hatred comes from them.
imho, a lot or projection going on; they think others are as bad as they know but cannot admit they, themselves, are.
I realize I'm repeating what I wrote in previous posts, but it's worth repeating here, and will be worth repeating as long as the "liberal" Hive continues its Orwellian distortion of language: nowadays, as used by the "liberals," "hate" (as in "hate speech." "preaching hate," etc., etc.) means simply "that which opposes the Hive." The subtext being, of course, that Statism=Love. Big Brother loves you!
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