It’s fair to wonder if this is a one-person effort. Even former CIA official Robert Baer, no friend of Trump, said as much in an early confab on CNN with Brooke Baldwin... "This is a couple of people. It isn’t just one.... You know, my guess, it’s a palace coup against Trump. And who knows what else they know at this point."...Too dumb? A jackass who got elected basically by accident?
The current “scandal” is a caricature version of such episodes. Imagine the mania on the airwaves if Donald Trump were to have his Justice Department arrest the “whistleblower” and charge him with 35 years of offenses, as Thomas Drake faced. ...
Trump almost certainly is not going to do that, however, as the man is too dumb to realize he’s the titular commander of an executive branch that has been jailing people for talking too much for over a decade. On the off chance that he does try it, don’t hold your breath waiting for news networks to tell you he’s just following an established pattern.
I have a lot of qualms about impeachment/“Ukrainegate,” beginning with this headline premise of the lone, conscience-stricken defender of democracy arrayed against the mighty Trump. I don’t see it. Donald Trump is a jackass who got elected basically by accident, campaigning against a political establishment too blind to its own unpopularity to see what was coming....
October 7, 2019
"If you spend a career in the CIA, you see all kinds of subterfuge and lies and crime. This person went through a whole career and this is the thing he objects to?"
Said John Kirakou, "a former CIA Counterterrorism official who blew the whistle on the agency’s torture program," quoted in "The ‘Whistleblower’ Probably Isn’t/It’s an insult to real whistleblowers to use the term with the Ukrainegate protagonist" (by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone). Here's Taibbi:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
130 comments:
Too dumb? A good description of the Acela anointed.
Taibbi has always made sure to not give too much to the normals, but I am SO glad he has the Leftie credibility to get away with speaking some reality to their lawfare and hysteria.
Remember Pompeo's observation that he had been indoctrinated into West Point's Cadet Honor Code: That cadet Officers would not lie, cheat or steal, or tolerate those who do.
But when he became CIA Director, he had to learn to do the exact opposite duty. Lying,cheating and stealing is all that the CIA does 24/7.
A friend of mine stated Trump was like a 12 year old with Twitter. I'm not a confrontational guy, but I thought to myself every time that "12 year old" tweets, he shapes the national narrative for days or weeks. And he pays zero for all this coverage, he even gets his opponents to retweet everything he wants.
But yeah, call him a moron, jackass, dumbass,etc.
Alignment of the Planets happen by accident too.
i.e till Newton explained
Trump has allowed me to dust off an observation from the Bush presidency--how many times does he have to outmaneuver his opponents before they realize that when they call him dumb, they are saying something much worse about themselves?
Is "dumb" really the only reason Taibbi can think of for Trump to not arrest the "whistle blower"? That would be odd considering that in the very next sentence, Taibbi gives a fairly obvious alternative reason.
That is very consistent. Every one on the left has underestimated Trump's intelligence since before the election and it's why they consistently lose. You have to know who your enemy is to win
So, for Taibbi, it's personal. Is it the man, perhaps breaking the progressive liberal ideological circle, or the policies, not limited to exposing the social justice campaigns, immigration reform (e.g. anti-nativism), foreign and domestic, environmental and labor arbitrage and graft schemes by the Green industrial complex and Apple, Nike et al, keeping the abortion chambers, summary judgments, age discrimination, and torture, unfunded and in the public view, and, of course, the multi-trimester witch hunts and warlock trials that have captured one too many judges and hunters.
Just a spoonful of "dumb Trump" helps the medicine go down.
The only piece of dumb luck Trump had was to run against Hillary Clinton. Except he was smart enough to have taken that into account before he rode down that escalator.
History starts anew at sunrise.
Trumps an idiot, and occupies a space and time, by chance.
Nobody remembers the last three Republican idiots to occupy the oval office.Specifically, Ronald Reagan. A dunce B grade actor. (This was before being Gov of California was proof of you intelligence)
Reagan communicated with the voters directly. Hmm...a person of experience and success communicating ideas.
Sure they're idiots of good luck.
The “too dumb” is too dumb. But give Taibbi credit for his criticism, which is sharp and effective. This looks like a coordinated sham.
Yeah, the whole "Trump is dumb" undermines what might have been a pretty good argument. I'm not convinced that Trump is exactly brilliant in the traditional sense, but he sure as hell isn't "dumb".
I find Trump a bit too cavalier with language at times, and he can undermine himself as a result. He has an informal and sometimes impulsive way of going about certain things. But over these past few years I believe he's demostrated far more shrewdness than most Trump haters would give him credit for.
Taibbi's managed to work in a very uncrowded area of journalism. Good for him for recognizing the opportunity.
Sorry you missed the real Trump story, though. Dumb and accidental President is either bad journalism or make up for not going along with the rest of hoax cabal...
Trump's response was to release the transcript, the full text, making the "whistleblower" complaint not worth reading and wrecking their timing and depriving them of the arguments they might have made — the speculation about what was in the call, the charges of coverup.
I should add my "Trump's genius" tag. Part of the genius is giving his antagonists room to think he's an idiot.
Trump has a lot of people nominally working under him who are actively working against him. He's been too slow to get that cleaned up. Not because he's dumb, but because he made some bad hires (Sessions, Tillerson and few others) and underestimated just how awful the Deep State actors really are.
The intelligence agencies are a freaking disaster. Heracles himself would have had trouble with that Augean stable.
"Donald Trump is a jackass who got elected basically by accident, campaigning against a political establishment too blind to its own unpopularity to see what was coming....”
He’s not entirely wrong. Trump is their punishment for selling out to the Clintons on all of their purported values. A nice guy wasn’t going to beat Hillary and her entrenched machine.
Taibbi has become insufferably smug, he was once an interesting read; now he's just mouths the echo chamber line.
What the hell happened to our writers? The arts have suffered a similar fate, mostly mediocrity all the way down. There be no giants among them.
All those billionaires explaining how dumb Trump is.
Oh wait...
The Left and their allies in the media live in a fog of delusion and dishonesty. They've lost the ability to write a straight news story or report both sides of an issue.
Matt Taibbi, however, has somehow, some way escaped this fog of delusion and on occasion writes some good stuff. Yes, he's a liberal and may even support Bernie. But just to puncture the delusional Leftwing Fog is a revolutionary act. So, good for him.
"It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong."
That was Richard Feynman talking about science, but it sort of works in politics. Here theory comprises the competing narratives; the experiment is policy playing out, and its results, in the real world.
Back in 2016 I thought Trump was a substance-free blowhard, running for the sheer self-aggrandizing fun of it. Then he beat out sixteen candidates, most of whom I liked better, for the Republican nomination. Then he beat the Democrat most of the smart people knew would trounce him. That's when I thought maybe I should reexamine some of my assumptions about him.
Too dumb? A jackass who got elected basically by accident?
Just like some others I could mention, the Democrats can never admit that they were wrong, or that they lost.
Taibbi makes the convincing point that your treatment is all a matter of whose whistle you are blowing.
Want to call someone dumb? Liz Warren is dumb. If she rises to the top it will be a major political issue for her...
Everyone else has to be an idiot because the far left has made "progressivism = intelligence" a core part of their identity. Progressivism are smart people and smart people are progressive. If you accept that conservatives are intelligent, then you have to consider the possibility that their beliefs are the result of rational, intelligent analysis of the facts.
Yes, I remember accidentally selecting Trump over Hillary. It was an accident.
And Hillary's winning the Democrat nomination that year- that was also an accident.
And Obama's winning a Nobel Peace Prize before he had even learned to walk- that was an accident, too.
Let's face it. There have been a lot of accidents over the past decade. We must be more careful.
Yeah Trump is so dumb he has outmaneuvered his detractors foreign and domestic at every turn.
It's absolutely crazy how dumb he is.
No one is more impressed by Matt Taibbi than Matt Taibbi.
"Trump is a dumbass" shouted the same folks who thought Hillary was the smartest woman in the world...
Russia gate discredited the FBI.
Now the intel agencies.
Good news for our country is the attacks against Trump, rebound on the Democrats and exposes the deep state to the greatest disinfectant, sunlight.
Impeachment is Built on a Trap That Obama Created for Romney
A weapon against a Romney administration gets used against Trump. Daniel Greenfield
I don't think it's just Trump's genius that gives him the advantage of being thought of as an idiot. That comes from the arrogant stupidity of his detractors, all of whom wish they could have accomplished what he has, but for some reason weren't smart enough. I too once thought myself to be smarter than Trump, but my definition of intelligence is really "practical intelligence", which is the ability to accomplish goals using the resources available to you. I started with far less, but he still has accomplished unprecedented things in the last 3 years, even for someone given what he was.
When Taibbi looks in the mirror, he sees Hunter Thompson. Kinda embarrassing.
Can an idiot be reelected by accident?
Donald Trump is a jackass who got elected basically by accident, campaigning against a political establishment too blind to its own unpopularity to see what was coming....
That basically sums up my view. I don't see Trump as a brilliant genius playing 4-D political chess. He's playing a crude game of checkers with opponents that can't even find the board. That's what you get when the established class gets fat and lazy.
The "Trump is dumb" thing is a combination of arrogance and fear. I've seen people do something similar where they talk about what a "terrible" job Trump has done as President. NOT "Trump is so bad, I don't care what else he does" but literally pretty that the economy ISN'T doing well, that Trump HASN'T negotiated new trades deals, or signed significant legislation into law. Rod Dreher does it all the time and he admits Trump is on his side.
It's an ego and self-image thing. People see themselves as part of the ruling class, even if they are just some random on a blog comment thread. Trump is not part of that class and acknowledging ANYTHING positive about him threatens the status and legitimacy of that ruling class.
Mike
I have always believed in the existence of the deep state, but I never thought it was as deep, and treasonous as the election of Trump has exposed it to be.
My vote for Trump was most definitely NOT accidental.
These people are frightened by what will be detailed in the report resulting from the Horowitz/Durham/Barr investigation. The other shoe will drop.
There was no treason, bribery, extortion, or illegal foreign campaign contribution. This is a continuation of the witch hunt with an objective of removing a duly elected president from office.
Mr Wibble said...Everyone else has to be an idiot because the far left has made "progressivism = intelligence" a core part of their identity.
Bingo! Progressive also = good.
Which is why progressives never learn, never change, never grow. They can't change their opinion when new information comes in because that would suggest they were wrong.
They can't step out of their bubble, they can't learn from others because anyone who doesn't agree with them is stupid and evil and nothing good can come of granting any kind of good will to people who are stupid and evil.
I think a few are missing the second half of the sentence: "campaigning against a political establishment too blind to its own unpopularity to see what was coming."
I think that is a fair assessment.
Taibbi: "Donald Trump is a jackass who got elected basically by accident, campaigning against a political establishment too blind to its own unpopularity to see what was coming."
Typical of liberals who try to escape from the Delusional Fog, they get some things right and some things wrong. Taibbi's conclusion is wrong (Trump won by accident), although his premise is basically right (political establishment blind to its own unpopularity).
Trump campaigned hard. He leveraged all that free media. He hit Hillary hard, when other GOP candidates shied away. No other GOP candidate besides Trump would have beaten Hillary.
No accident, he earned it. But, yes, the establishment was 'blind to its own unpopularity" (a good phrase).
All we need to know is that the Clintons and the Bidens can do whatever they want.
Trump - He cannot speak freely. The Deep STate(D) is listening in.
He beat all those Republicans first, then he defeated the smartest woman in the world with the media and the government establishment behind her, along with most Republicans. What an idiot. It might be true, but it's a tough argument to show that he won because all those people together were just stupid. Like I said though, it might be true.
He said the right things, he campaigned in the right places, he picked the right issues and fights, and he won spending far less money. Pretty lucky idiot.
"Back in 2016 I thought Trump was a substance-free blowhard, running for the sheer self-aggrandizing fun of it. Then he beat out sixteen candidates, most of whom I liked better, for the Republican nomination. Then he beat the Democrat most of the smart people knew would trounce him. That's when I thought maybe I should reexamine some of my assumptions about him."
Or, perhaps your original assumptions were correct. Consider the possibility that the other sixteen candidates you liked better were also substance-free blowhards, but less charismatic than Trump, an experienced reality-show performer. (Face it, most politicians are stiffs.) Trump is expert at purveying what much of the public has been taught to like and want: artifice and spectacle, sharply polarized black and white opinions, emotionalism over analysis, insults over dialogue, noise and fury over thought.
Of course, the Democrats have disgraced themselves over the past many years, so it's no wonder Trump appealed to so many voters. His victory was an accident, as Taibbi says, given that Clinton won a clear majority of the popular vote. The accident was one of location, location, location: though Trump had fewer votes overall, they were, crucially, located in the states with more Electoral votes, thus making Trump the rightful victor.
Schumer is right; the "intelligence community" has a thousand ways for getting back at you. This "whistleblower" thing is a coordinated attack, not a revolt by a "concerned citizen."
And I would hold it a bit about the lauding of Trump as a political genius. The second phase of "the Ukraine phone call" appears to be the revelation that it was occasioned by some Texas buddies of Rick Perry prevailing on him to trick Trump into helping them replace the Bidens in that Ukrainian energy firm and he fell for it.
So now who is the worst of the worst?
My vote for Trump was most definitely NOT accidental.
Mine either. I've never qualified my discussion of Trump with any well I had my doubts or he was my last choice of a bad bunch language either.
The jackass involved is named Taibbi
"Can an idiot be reelected by accident?"
No, but in America, he can be reelected on purpose.
"When Taibbi looks in the mirror, he sees Hunter Thompson. Kinda embarrassing."
Nah. Taibbi is better than Thompson.
Democrats and the media (BIRM) think the best defense is going on offense.
They mistake offensive for an offense.
When the vote came down to one district in PA, yeah, it's essentially accidental Trump got elected. He may have a lot of talent, but he didn't win by a landslide and any little factor, like the weather being different on election day 2016, could have resulted in a different outcome.
That being said, Trump IS the President, just as much as JFK was after the 1960 election or George W. Bush after 2000.
I think Trump gets too much credit for being some sort of amazing chess master. His results don't reflect it. So far, it's hard to point at any one thing and say that it would never have happened if anyone else were president. The Supreme Court picks would have happened with any other Republican, for instance. The tax cuts were fairly generic Republican ideas as well.
The only things I can think of which have changed as a result of Trump IN PARTICULAR are the trade war with China, and a modest increase in immigration enforcement (Trump has been unsuccessful in curbing immigration as much as he'd like to.) A generic Republican in the mold of Mitt Romney or George W. Bush would not have done either.
In foreign policy, there are no major successes. The North Korea deal has done nothing to change their behavior, and Iran is still working on nukes. The most one can say is there's a wide dovish streak in Trump's foreign policy. "No new wars" seems to be his guiding principle. There's much to be said for that.
I'm convinced the Dems are now at the point where any Republican President, even a relatively mainstream one, will be reviled as a criminal and dictator. It doesn't matter who they are or what their policies are. Listening to liberals praise Mitt Romney in the last few days only brings forth memories of what they were saying about him a few years ago. It's all hypocrisy.
Tabbi is like all Democrats, he can't criticize Democrats or the Liberals without ALSO making it clear that Trump and the Republicans are even worse. Of course, the "Whistleblower" got help. The whole WB complaint looks like a legal brief, that was obvious when I first read it. And if obvious to me, Joe Six pack, then it should be obvious to everyone else.
The whole WB complaint was a joke. He has no first hand knowledge, he's been proven wrong about dates, times, and conversations, and he went to the Democrat Committee before the CIA IG. He's now trying to stay anonymous and hide behind the WB act. He should be outed and when he is, we'll find out he's a partisan hack with some very liberal friends.
Big Mike said...
The only piece of dumb luck Trump had was to run against Hillary Clinton. Except he was smart enough to have taken that into account before he rode down that escalator.
______
Since he knew Hillary - His thought more than likely - "I believe I need to do this for my children's chidren"
I don't share Taibbi's affection for Chelsea Manning, but I see his point. A leak within the CIA can do tremendous damage to his own side, endangering programs that affect our nation's security. We still want to protect whistleblowers because the CIA itself can be a danger to our nation. It's a balance we make (even though Taibbi himself is way over on one side of it).
So here we have a leak that doesn't endanger our nation's security. But it seems to be at least as big a danger in the other direction; we don't want a CIA that is a Praetorian Guard that picks and unpicks presidents.
Some progressives aren't quite willing to toss to the side all the stuff they believed and argued for in the past. It has amused me watching the Left defend the CIA in all their machinations against Trump. Perhaps this was a hill Taibbi wasn't willing to die on or cash in his integrity.
Just for the record, since Althouse didn't mention it, John Kirakou, was prosecuted by the Obama Administration over 5 years after the Bush Administration had declined prosecution. I just mention this so that you know just how much to believe the Left when they claim how much they care for whistleblowers.
Meh, this is just the sugar coating lefty writers have to give, so their audience can hear some unpleasant truths. I am impressed at Taibbi's other efforts to try to keep his brethren for putting all of their chips on the Mueller report and Trump "collusion".
He has been consistent in reminding everyone that it is foolish in the extreme to now suddenly accept CIA and FBI interference as good and noble given their checkered historys with toppling governments and spying on anyone they see fit. The left used to understand that.
One of my Engineering Professors was talking about how he gave a speech to construction company executives on efficient scheduling techniques for major projects. Per the Professor, the feedback was negative. He said "I thought to myself, these guys aren't too bright". Then he noted he was warming up his Toyota while the not bright guys left in their Mercedes and Cadillac vehicles.
Somebody in this room is Double D - Duuuuuuumb. Can't be us! So it MUST be Trump.
I agree that Trump was elected by accident. Trump ‘accidentally’ beat the Obama, Clinton, and Bush political machines, plus the Deep State and interference from several foreign powers. Yuge accident, for sure!!
I heard a lot of "Scott Walker is an idiot" comments as well in Madison not too long ago. It's like the only people who are elected with majorities, advocating policies you disagree with, are stupid. I don't buy it.
Democrats are horribly bad losers.
Well releasing the transcript had the effect of lancing the Schiffster's "whistleblower" boil before it would have otherwise erupted. That slowed the Schiff Pelosi Posse down somewhat.
And yes Whistlebower #1 had no "direct knowledge". Now to bolster the Posse's effort, Whistleblower #2 is supposed to have "direct" or at least closer knowledge. Both of the blowers are slithering in the swamp and as yet unidentified. Although they've got lawyers!
Ask Stormy Daniels how Michael Avenatti worked out for her.
Like maybe 51% of the populace, Ms. Althouse believes--or at least seems to believe--that the transcript released by Trump was accurate.
Out here in The Schiffster's district, there are people who think that the transcript was (a) not accurate, (b) was doctored and (c) that there is a real accurate transcript or tape recording buried some place. And if the Schiffster can just find (c) Trump will fall.
I'm not making that last paragraph up; I've spoken to such people. Belief that Trump is an evil monster dies hard in some quarters.
Trump won on four main points: immigration reform (e.g. anti-nativism, elective wars, here and abroad), progressive prices/redistributive change (e.g. Obamacare), social justice adventurism, and labor and environmental arbitrage that put lives and environment at risk.
Mr Wibble said...Everyone else has to be an idiot because the far left has made "progressivism = intelligence" a core part of their identity.
Monotonic change with earned, unearned, and deceptive social attributions of positive qualities.
but I never thought it was as deep, and treasonous as the election of Trump has exposed it to be.
The deep state ran wild for eight years under Obama. I wondered at the time what the long term effects of that subversion of the Constitution would be. Obama was pretty successful in remaking America and laying a new foundation. Trump is smart in his own way, but so was Obama. Who will win? I think it is too early to call.
Bingo! Progressive also = good.
Progressive = monotonic. Liberal = or "=" tolerant, or, correctly, divergent. Conservative = moderate. Principles matter.
Good and complete description of the ongoing coup attempt. from Powerline.
Ann: I should add my "Trump's genius" tag. Part of the genius is giving his antagonists room to think he's an idiot.
Yep. And a good part is not *caring* that his enemies think he's an idiot. That's a major part of why many folks voted for him.
We the People are supposed to be cowed into submission by the crushing weight of elite consensus. But Trump clearly isn't. The "experts" get played every time he uses their disapproval to make them look effete and out of touch.
If another Republican had gotten the 2016 nomination and been elected, would the Democrats and their “deep state” allies have treated him more fairly than they’ve treated Trump? Would that hypothetical Republican President have handled that challenge better than Trump has? Explain your answer and show your work.
they gathered 90 foreign policy poohbahs, including brennan, clapper, lefty professor rosa brooks, Richard Clarke's pal, rand beers, (who ran the middle level of dhs in the Obama years, castro lover Roberta Jacobsen, to defend the 'gossiper'
will hurd on 60 minutes, proves category error,
some perspective,
https://libertyunyielding.com/2019/10/07/quicklook-trumps-statement-on-turkey-and-the-kurdish-safe-zone-in-syria/
Byron York wonders why all these interviews, including that of Volker and Atkinson are secret,
BleachBit-and-Hammers said...All we need to know is that the Clintons and the Bidens can do whatever they want.
This is because Clinton/Biden are better gravy train engineers -- all aboard!
Casey Jones you better watch your speed!
These people are frightened by what will be detailed in the report resulting from the Horowitz/Durham/Barr investigation. The other shoe will drop.
Yeah, ya know what? I usually say this as my little joke to leftists but as we keep waiting and waiting and waiting for the other shoe to drop.
KEEP HOPE ALIVE.
Worse thing that happens to these crooks is 250,000 in laundered "Go Fund Me", a book deal and maybe a TV gig.
Wake me up when one of the conspirators gets five or ten years and goes broke paying for defense lawyers.
". . . basically by accident."
This is called hand-waving. Using the word "accident" implies an absence of intent. It was clearly the intent of nearly half of all voters to elect Trump. The strategy that resulted in his election was designed to take advantage of the way the electoral college differs from vote tallies.
Hillary's loss to Trump was negligent, not accidental. She spent an awful lot of time fund raising in California, which she knew she would win, when she was already far ahead of Trump in campaign spending.
Chris Hayes said ...
The first rule of anti-anti-Trumpism is that every last cognitive and emotional effort must be made at all times to interpret every Trump action and statement as charitably as possible.
It looks exhausting, frankly, and I understand why it renders its adherents so irritable.
He was also campaigning against a journalism establishment too blind to its own unpopularity to see what was coming....
Too dumb? A jackass who got elected basically by accident?"
Dumb and dumber. Trump maybe dumb, but his detractors and opponents so far are indisputably dumber.
JPS said...
"It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong."
That was Richard Feynman talking about science, but it sort of works in politics. Here theory comprises the competing narratives; the experiment is policy playing out, and its results, in the real world."
That's the beauty of Feynman's observation. On anything that is predictive and testable, it works.
All those employed people who can refinance their home loans and save 75-100 basis points, knowing that they can find a different job if they must, must certainly be upset about the "dumb" policies of this "dumb" President Trump. He's so "dumb" he has exposed the eGOP "asses" like Romney and Sasse and Amash.
They're definitely going to vote the "smart" Democrat candidate into office to raise taxes, give millionaires in big cities SALT tax cuts, favor union crooks, open the borders, and provide health insurance to anybody who can step a single foot onto US soil. Those "smart" policies will only ruin the economy.
Oh, and the regulations that strangle small business will be awesome too. "Smart" people assure me this is so.
JPS said...
"...Back in 2016 I thought Trump was a substance-free blowhard, running for the sheer self-aggrandizing fun of it. Then he beat out sixteen candidates, most of whom I liked better, for the Republican nomination. Then he beat the Democrat most of the smart people knew would trounce him. That's when I thought maybe I should reexamine some of my assumptions about him."
I still maintain that the only reason Trump won the Republican nomination was the complicity of the major media outlets with the DNCC in keeping his name out there until the nomination was a lock. Then came all the oppo research that was saved up for that stage of the race because the "smart ones" thought they had another Todd Akin. Instead they got Archie Bunker and like Norman Lear, they couldn't understand the appeal.
Why aren’t the Democrats interested in knowing if their future candidate is corrupt? Based on their last candidate it seems like they might want to know. Perhaps they already know and don’t care. Perhaps feature and not bug.
Ann Althouse said, "I should add my "Trump's genius" tag. Part of the genius is giving his antagonists room to think he's an idiot."
Donald Trump! Even more misunderestimated than George W Bush!
"it’s a palace coup against Trump."
Correct. As opposed to, or better: in addition to, the attempted DNC coup and the spook coup.
"the man is too dumb to realize he’s the titular commander of an executive branch that has been jailing people for talking too much for over a decade"
Wait, Trump is too dumb to act like the authoritarian ruler progs have been bitching abut since day one? Now they tell us?
"Donald Trump is a jackass who got elected basically by accident, campaigning against a political establishment too blind to its own unpopularity to see what was coming..."
Kernels of truth here. But the jackass had a point, and he ran against a corrupt member of the establishment. The PTB are still blind to their own unpopularity.
Cookie: "The accident was one of location, location, location: though Trump had fewer votes overall, they were, crucially, located in the states with more Electoral votes, thus making Trump the rightful victor."
There is nothing accidental about the electoral college and its rationale nor the Trump campaigns technology driven laser-like targeting of long time non-voters, blue collar democrats and disillusioned republicans (disillusioned by years of GOPe neglect) in key battleground states.
Only a moron marxist might think otherwise.
I see ARM has moved on from quoting fake conservative NeverTrumpers to quoting far left moron talking heads to "explain" the thinking and tactics of Trump supporters!
LOLOL
The left is incapable of learning and adapting.
Witness the recycling of the Kavanaugh playbook with hoax Russian Collusion/Hoax Ukraine abuse of office.
They literally dont know what else to do..so Schiff-ty just uses his own script!!
Its amazing to watch in real time.
Robert Cook said...His victory was an accident, as Taibbi says, given that Clinton won a clear majority of the popular vote.
Come on, Mr. Cook. You're smarter than that. You know there's no such thing as the "popular vote," that millions of people in non-competitive states stayed home or voted 3rd party because they knew their votes wouldn't matter.
It's silly to pretend you can divine what would have happened in a popular vote election by simply adding up all the votes that were cast in the state-by-state election, as though neither campaign strategy nor voter behavior would would change after such a vital rule change.
It's a position held by ignoramuses, which I'm pretty sure you are not.
"[Trump's] victory was an accident... given that Clinton won a clear majority of the popular vote. The accident was one of location, location, location: though Trump had fewer votes overall, they were, crucially, located in the states with more Electoral votes, thus making Trump the rightful victor." The first sentence is an irrelevancy. The second is the most unselfconsciously funny thing I've read on this blog today.
bryan dean wright has the link with the 90 political hacks, that defend the gossiper, unnamed,
tim maguire: "Come on, Mr. Cook. You're smarter than that. You know there's no such thing as the "popular vote," that millions of people in non-competitive states stayed home or voted 3rd party because they knew their votes wouldn't
matter."
To be a leftist you have to pretend not to know a great many things.
There is nothing accidental about the electoral college and its rationale
Lincoln played the electoral college game and got elected with 38% of the vote. Just an accident I'm sure.
John Lynch:
Trump got 304 electoral college votes, and PA has 20 — so how, exactly, did the election come down to one district in PA?
John Lynch wrote:
"I think Trump gets too much credit for being some sort of amazing chess master. His results don't reflect it. So far, it's hard to point at any one thing and say that it would never have happened if anyone else were president. The Supreme Court picks would have happened with any other Republican, for instance. The tax cuts were fairly generic Republican ideas as well."
I think this is most right, but here is actually key issue in my own mind- without Trump as the candidate for the Republican Party, Clinton would have won the election. So, there is no point in arguing that any other Republican as president would have accomplished the same two things above since only Trump could have won.
" So far, it's hard to point at any one thing and say that it would never have happened if anyone else were president."
I can point to a bunch. If any other candidate from either side had won, there would be no chance of changing all the terrible trade deals that were in place. Trade has changed with Mexico, Canada, China, and Europe, all for the better. NATO partners would still all be ripping us off on their defense. By now, a new military conflict likely would have developed. Our military would still be playing patty cake with ISIS. The inevitable showdown with China is being started non-violently before we are forced into it violently at their time of choosing. Our second biggest threat, Iran is now being severely weakened to a degree previously thought impossible, and all without firing a shot or risking any American lives. Our enimies are determined and patient and for once they are seeing that can work both ways, and we are in a stronger relative position than we have been for decades, and may ever be again.
The most important changes that Trump, and nobody else could have produced are 1) that people, both here and abroad, now think of all theses issues differently. They see that new unexplored options are possible and effective. And the second is that Trump has exposed the unlawful treasonous forces within our own government and their allies in the media. Trump has simply turned the entire game board over and showed a new world of possibilities, some good, some bad, but all now visible to everyone with an open mind. That's true leadership, and from a man I never would have expected, but I can admit my mistake, which was YUGE.
The Godfather asked:
"If another Republican had gotten the 2016 nomination and been elected, would the Democrats and their “deep state” allies have treated him more fairly than they’ve treated Trump? Would that hypothetical Republican President have handled that challenge better than Trump has? Explain your answer and show your work."
If Bill Barr is serious about digging out the corruption, I think we will eventually learn that Brennan and his allies were working to create the appearance of collusion for Rubio, Cruz, and Jeb Bush too, and only after it was clear that Trump would be the nominee, then and only then did it get sent over to the FBI and James Comey to open Crossfire Hurricane. In other words, I think it didn't matter who the nominee was- the game plan was always the same, but I think the only difference is that the other Republican candidates would have lost the election quite decisively in the electoral college, even if I think they might have done better in the popular vote than did Trump.
For more than three years - and still on-going - the entire leftist establishment has tried anything and everything to 'get' Trump. And he's still there.
But, yeah. He's the dumb one.
Similarly, the football team that gets the most yards, is not the winner, it's just one of the possible ways to get points, but points like electoral votes are what counts. If getting the most yards was how you won, the smart team would play very differently. Winning is more complicated than losers realize.
Well, Trump clearly is not "dumb." But, he is a "jackass," and as for getting elected "by accident," that is a bit of a stretch but the fact is there is no way the Democrats should have lost the 2016 election, so if accident includes the Dems nominating a terrible candidate who ran a terrible campaign, then... yeah.
John Lynch: "I think Trump gets too much credit for being some sort of amazing chess master. His results don't reflect it. So far, it's hard to point at any one thing and say that it would never have happened if anyone else were president."
Willful blindness.
There was no reason for Republicans to waste time in California “vote harvesting” according to a new law there that allowed Democrats to really run up the score. If it were a popular vote election, Trump’s vote in California would have been far higher. Why vote if you are an R in a state where your vote doesn’t matter? But if it mattered nationally, that would be a whole ‘nuther thing, and the Trump campaign would have spent money getting votes there, and running up the score in Texas too, and other red states the way the Democrats were already running up the score in California and Washington, where people just have their votes cast for them.... err I mean vote by mail.
Same with Upstate New York. A lot of Trump voters there stay home because their votes are overwhelmed by downstate.
Bagoh20
I have never met a lefty who did not in his heart of hearts think that he could have also been a billionaire if he had only wanted to.
"Come on, Mr. Cook. You're smarter than that. You know there's no such thing as the
'popular vote,' that millions of people in non-competitive states stayed home or voted 3rd party because they knew their votes wouldn't matter.
"It's silly to pretend you can divine what would have happened in a popular vote election by simply adding up all the votes that were cast in the state-by-state election, as though neither campaign strategy nor voter behavior would would change after such a vital rule change."
Uh, Tim...by "popular vote," I was simply using the vernacular to refer to the counted votes cast for each candidate. More voters did vote for Clinton than for Trump, so it is incorrect to say or imply Trump won because more voting Americans cast their ballots for him, (as some here seem to want to be true). I'm not trying to "divine" anything, but am simply describing the actual outcome of votes cast.
(I voted, but not for Trump or for Clinton.)
"Lincoln played the electoral college game and got elected with 38% of the vote. Just an accident I'm sure."
He did win a plurality of the popular vote, which Trump did not.
Based on results, I'd bet on an idiot's luck over an "expert's" intelligence. The empirical data for three years shows the idiot to be far superior and consistent. It has to make you wonder if the there might just be a mislabeling problem.
Robert Cook said...His victory was an accident, as Taibbi says, given that Clinton won a clear majority of the popular vote.IN CALIFORNIA
FIFY She lost the rest of the country by 2 million votes
"Same with Upstate New York. A lot of Trump voters there stay home because their votes are overwhelmed by downstate."
I don't know if people really think that way, but if they do, they're stupid, and not very committed to participating in selecting their representative(s) for office. It's not about voting only if you think your vote will be for someone who will (or can) win; it's about voting for someone you support for his or her views on the issues and proposed policy solutions to civic problems, even if you know he or she won't win. (And, if the "lot of Trump voters" who allegedly stayed home in upstate New York had voted, maybe they could have delivered the state for him.)
Robert, bull. Words have meaning and you know what "popular vote" means (and "vernacular" as well).
People use the term "popular vote" to mean that if it weren't for the electoral college, Hillary Clinton would be president. Don't try to pretend otherwise.
Michael K.: Rephrase the outcome to assuage your Trump-love, but if we had direct democratic voting in this country, that 2,000,000 votes IN CALIFORNIA would have put Clinton in office.
In short, she did receive more votes nationally by citizens who went to the polls that day than Trump did.
"He did win a plurality of the popular vote, which Trump did not."
So Trump did get a larger percentage of the popular vote. I thought that was what mattered to you. Those goal posts are on rails.
"So Trump did get a larger percentage of the popular vote. I thought that was what mattered to you. Those goal posts are on rails."
??????
No. What are you talking about? More votes were cast for Clinton than for Trump. Clinton won the popular vote.
"Robert, bull. Words have meaning and you know what 'popular vote' means (and 'vernacular' as well)."
What does "popular vote" mean other than: the votes cast by U.S. citizens going to the polls? There is the popular vote and the electoral vote. Clinton won the popular vote. Trump won the electoral vote, a fluke--or "accident"--that has happened only five times in our history, (counting Trump).
If you have another definition for "popular vote," please inform me.
Robert Cook said...
What does "popular vote" mean other than: the votes cast by U.S. citizens going to the polls? There is the popular vote and the electoral vote. Clinton won the popular vote. Trump won the electoral vote, a fluke--or "accident"--that has happened only five times in our history, (counting Trump).
If you have another definition for "popular vote," please inform me.
Yeah, no. For there to be a popular vote, there would have to be a single election that everyone participated in. As it was, there were 50+ different popular votes and Trump won enough of them to win the election. The closest thing to a popular vote was who won the most states. Trump won that popular vote.
The problem you're facing is that you keep trying to use the term as though it had some significant import (Hillary won the popular vote!), but when called on it, you play with games with meaning, insisting on a definition that has no implications. (If you add up all these different votes, the Dem got more of them than the Rep. So what?)
Cookie: "Trump won the electoral vote, a fluke--or "accident"--that has happened only five times in our history, (counting Trump)."
It is neither a fluke nor an accident.
No matter how many times you want to pretend it is.
The system has been operating precisely as it was designed to operate. If a candidate for Federal office is too stupid to compete in as many places as required to achieve the objective, electoral vote majority, than that candidate will lose.
Again, precisely as it was consciously designed.
Precisely.
But hey, that makes it harder for marxists like yourself to allow illegals santuary and hand them votes in massive numbers in few states and then leverage that corrupt advantage into a nationwide win.
Which is why the lefties like yourself are so very very keen on destroying the constitution. It stands in the way of your Brave New World and development of your New Soviet Man.
Okay, so if you're going to play semantic word games to arrive at a tortured meaning you want, by your unique definition, Trump "won"(your definition of) the popular vote. However, the meaning of "popular vote" that most of us understand--how many people across the nation voted for this candidate or that one--is the one that prevails. Under that meaning, Clinton won the popular vote.
Why argue such a silly point? Your guy won. Why must you also try to change reality to pretend more Americans wanted and voted for Trump than for Clinton?
(I'm appalled so many people were willing to vote for either of them. We really need a "Neither/None of the above" choice on our ballots, which, if marked by a sufficient percentage of the electorate, would nullify the election and require a new one to be held.)
People who would otherwise be Trump voters in places like CA or NY might have stayed home, or they might have voted for a 3rd party like I did. Of course you could say the same about the other side. If your preferred viable candidate is sure to win, you're free to stay at home or vote 3rd party. And if the winner were based on the nationwide popular vote, the candidates would run a different campaign. We'll never know how it would have turned out if we had different rules to the game, all we can say is that by the rules that have been in effect for the past 200 years, rules that were no secret to anyone, Trump was the winner.
KEEP HOPE ALIVE. Totally what FullMoon said, I'll believe it when I see it. As someone who had read Sundance and COnservative treehouse for over a year I've given up on the Great Pumpkin finally arriving to reign down justice on these shitheels. First it was Huber working on secret indictments, then Barr rode to the rescue and has now appointed Durham and they are flying to Italy on a european vacation. In the meantime the swamp leaks secure intel and continues to sabotage the trump administration with impunity. They clearly aren't worried and why should they be? It's just Trump manning the barricades while the republican party is nowhere to be found. We're screwed.
“In short, she did receive more votes nationally by citizens who went to the polls that day than Trump did”
No evidence of that. No checks were made that newly enrolled voters were citizens, their motor/voter registration form made signing up to vote by resident and illegal aliens alike the default (opt out). No attempt had been made to cleanup voter rolls, or afterwords to even quantify the amount of duplicative or otherwise illegal voting. Eleven counties had more votes than eligible voters. Etc. All that you can honestly say is that Crooked Hillary officially received 2 million more votes than Trump. How many of those votes were unique votes by live citizens is unknown, and likely, unknowable
And that is one of the big problems with the popular vote deciding Presidential elections. CA is a one party state, where that party almost controls the voting process. There was some cheating done most likely by the Dems in CA, in 2016. The unanswered (and probably unanswerable) question is how prevalent it was. There would be little trust of the Presidential election, in much of the rest of the country, if CA’s fraudulent votes swamped the winning margins of the opposing party across the country, esp in states that try hard to run honest elections, which CA most obviously does not.
To summarize, the popular vote movement has one primary goal, and that is to allow rampant cheating and illegal voting in large one party states, like CA, to steal Presidential elections. Everything else is a smoke screen.
“Yeah, no. For there to be a popular vote, there would have to be a single election that everyone participated in. As it was, there were 50+ different popular votes and Trump won enough of them to win the election. The closest thing to a popular vote was who won the most states. Trump won that popular vote.”
Moreover, you would have to have national, enforceable, registration and voting requirements. As noted above, CA effectively encouraged non citizens to register to vote, with an voting opt out driver’s license application, didn’t clean up voting roles, etc, and now allows unsupervised ballot harvesting.
"... if we had direct democratic voting in this country, that 2,000,000 votes IN CALIFORNIA would have put Clinton in office."
Yeah, if we had direct democratic voting we would have no taxes, abortion and gay marriage would be illegal, murderers would be executed within a week of conviction and crooked politicians like Clintons, Bidens, Pelosis and Obamas would be tarred and feathered.
If you are going to have a “popular vote” then both candidates need to be playing that game. You had one candidate, let’s call her the LOSER, who was running up the score in California, for example, when she could have ignored the state completely and still won, if she was going to win, and one candidate, let’s call him the WINNER, who focused on what he needed to do under the rules of the game as defined in the constitution.
The “Loser” was reputed to be the smartest woman in the world, too. It’s like pretending that your baseball team “really won” because they had the most hits, just not the most runs.
Funny Cookie is still so butt hurt that the war monger ("We came! We saw! He died! [Chortle, guffaw]”) lost the election that he can’t bring himself to understand simple arguments that make perfect sense, but don’t make her the winner.
"In short, she did receive more votes nationally by citizens who went to the polls that day than Trump did.”
There was a survey done and it asked people not only who they voted for, but if they were citizens. A higher percentage of “citizens” went for Trump.
In 2000, before everybody shut up about it when they found out it was a felony, more students at one university in Wisconsin admitted to voting multiple times than the margin by which Gore won the state. There is a reason for the electoral college. Otherwise California could just decide the outcome when they only pretend that non citizens are not allowed to vote, but in practice, their laws encourage just that, because that’s how the elected officials there who run things stay elected.
It’s funny too that Cookie can be so skeptical of the government of the United States, except for election officials who get results he likes. Then.... “Too good to check!"
"o how, exactly, did the election come down to one district in PA?”
One of the funniest things on election night was to watch them trying to find some possible way to not call PA for Trump.
“Skunk Hollow hasn’t reported yet! And we still haven’t got those votes in from Roaring Run or Big Pond!"
"t looks exhausting, frankly, and I understand why it renders its adherents so irritable.”
It’s actually a lot of fun pointing out your errors. On the other hand, you enjoy the argument so little that all you can do is cut and paste your mailed in responses from some other guys who made up their minds three years ago and have to keep writing the same shit to keep the lights on.
BTW, we aren’t the ones who have “Frayed nerve endings.” It’s you guys complaining about that. I don’t lay awake at night wondering what Trump is going to tweet next.
Democrats are horribly bad losers.
@MadMan, that’s because Democrats are horribly bad people.
@Cookie, I would not care to live in a country where the President was selected by a coalition of Nee York City and California. Especially if you’re an example of the average New Yawker.
The states ask people which candidate should get the votes of the Electoral College voters.
The only people who directly cast votes for president are members of the Electoral College.
Those voters cast more votes for Trump than Hillary.
Feel free to argue otherwise, Robert Cook.
I think one of the big issues with Cookie's repeated use of the phrase "won the popular vote" is the word "won".
Yes, you can add up all the individual states' vote totals, and come up with an aggregate figure, but there is only one way to win the election and it has nothing to do with that number per se.
Cookie's usage would be like some football commentator saying, over and over, "The Rams won on total yards gained", except nobody is actually stupid enough to say that.
Good grief, Robert--nobody here is saying something as remotely silly as "Trump won the popular vote"!
Instead, the point is there is no popular vote to win in the first place.
Why argue such a silly point? Your guy won. Why must you also try to change reality to pretend more Americans wanted and voted for Trump than for Clinton?
Why must your team try to make a big thing out of a popular vote that is unreliable. If we had a popular vote presidential election, we would get the winner something about a month after the inauguration. Did you learn nothing from 2000 ?
Don't bother to answer. I know the answer.
Post a Comment