* Trump is going to be the fall guy. The house of cards is about to collapse and who better to take the blame than the guy voted into office by old racist white men. This is a role that Trump was handpicked to play. Establishment and media pretend to be overwhelmed by Trump so that when the bottom falls out and the baby boomers don’t get their social security/medicaid/private pension, they get to say “I told you so” and look like the responsible adults they never were. They get to blame democracy and claim voters are too stupid to know what’s good for them. Especially racist white voters. It’s all a matter of who gets left holding the bag, taking the blame. We are beyond reform. There is no set of policies that is going to un-eff this situation. Let the establishment and democratic socialism take the fall. Not racist old white men who voted for Trump.
* I support Trump mainly for the things he says. He wants to fight the media and stand up to the media. He has already done that and continues to do that. No matter what he really thinks or believes or will do in the future, he has already provided great value.
He has spoken of minorities and immigrants in a way, and with a phrasing that disrespects the unspoken codes and taboos set down by the media for speaking about minorities and immigrants. And he don’t care. That has great value.
Trump is a propaganda weapon for the majority. His words have great value for the white working class majority in america. It doesn’t really matter whether he believes what he says. He may be hustling in the sense that he does not believe what he says. But he says these things. And those things he is saying have great value in this propaganda-based society we live in.
* People who have nothing to lose generally don’t need to worry much about getting hustled. Describe to me the scenario in which supporting Trump hurts me. Don’t describe the scenario in which supporting Trump turns out to be pointless; I can imagine that. But even then, I find Trump amusing and would feel that I got my money’s worth from the entertainment value alone. No, you will need to convince me that supporting Trump could actually make things worse. Sadly, that doesn’t seem possible at this point.
* If Trump wins the nomination he’ll beat Hillary like a red-headed stepchild in the general. She is unbelievably weak and vulnerable on so many fronts, and her advantages (political machine, donors, and media support) can be turned into liabilities by Trump’s antifragile campaign (i.e., media and other establishment attacks actually make Trump stronger by reinforcing his status as the anti-establishment, anti-status-quo candidate that Americans overwhelmingly crave).
Trump, the only candidate not controlled by donors, is not limited to the conventional topics and avenues of attack. He’s free to attack Hillary from the left as well as the right, and her record of incompetence and extreme corruption will give him a near unlimited supply of ammo, which he’s proved to be adept at using to pigeonhole and crush well-heeled establishment opponents.
Jeb Bush is actually a stronger opponent than Hillary, given their respective records and the fact that Hillary is one of the few people on Earth that make Jeb look charismatic and likeable. And look at how easily Trump put Jeb in a low-energy box and wiped the floor with him, despite Bush’s connections, respectable record, and massive war chest.
Look for Trump to peel off a huge amount of the Dems’ white working class base, and to capture record numbers of blacks for a Republican. He’ll also win a higher share of the single female vote than any other Republican could hope for due to his genuine alpha male personality.
Lastly, Hillary is an uninspiring candidate, so a lot of minority and millennial voters who drank the Obama Kool Aid will stay home, while Trump will galvanize conservative and independent voters who had lost faith in the system and didn’t show up for Romney or McCain (I know a lot of people like this, and I am one myself). The enthusiasm and dedication of Trump supporters continues to be underestimated.
* Anyone have a take on how Trump’s trying to raise the birther issue with regard to Cruz is working out?
My sense is that it is a mistake: brings back memories of Trump’s birther thing with Obama, which did not work out that well.
On the other hand, every time in the last six months that I thought Trump was blowing it, he pulled it off.
* I have to imagine that many religious conservatives secretly welcome a Trump Presidency because it will allow them to get out of the trap they are in. Abortion is not just a political loser but it has smothered and held hostage all the other religious and morally conservative issues that they hold dear. Like a revanchist pipe dream, they have held on so tightly for so long now that there is no other way out.
* If the media gave great attention to the extent of black criminality in this country, and the viciousness of black-on-white crime, I’m sure they would find a large audience for it. Crimes like the Wichita massacre, the Knoxville horror, the Yahweh cult killings, and the Zebra murders are tailor-made for tabloid TV, and yet they’re swept under the rug. So it’s about the agenda, not about attracting viewers.
* Rick Santorum has a really sound immigration plan, which he seems to understand even better than Trump does his, and what good did it do him? The messenger counts at least as much as the message.
* But have you noticed that the Overton Window is also getting pushed wider on the left side as well? Clinton has publicly purged the term “illegal alien” from her vocabulary (not that she was using it anyway) and has promised to go beyond Obama in executive orders to amnesty illegal immigrants. BLM rhetoric is now a staple on the Democratic side. And the protestors, even though they’re a miserable little bunch, keep winning every confrontation on campus.
* I doubt anyone supporting Donald now thinks he’s a saint. We all know his flaws. But a commenter here put it best: “He’s an asshole, but he’s my asshole.”
Warren Harding was no great shakes as a man– basically a Clinton-with-consent– but by signing an immigration bill within days of his inauguration he served his country as well as any president ever has. Trump could do the same. Like Reagan, he scares all the right people, and has the same “unelectability” that worked so well for Reagan, Nixon, and Johnson.
He won’t make America great again, but he just might allow us to.
Sessions is kind of a clean version of Newt Gingrich. His function is to draw up policy and see it enacted. Newt was a stellar strategist but a most unappealing front man, which is why he could capture the House but then waste the opportunity. Jeff is much more palatable, but doesn’t see his place at the front of the movement. Give him credit for that, at least.
* It wouldn’t surprise me if Steve Sailer has an higher IQ than most people would expect. I wouldn’t guarantee it, but his output & life pattern has many of the fingerprints of such a scenario. I mean, he’s figured out how to live a singularly unusual, interesting/stimulating, and comfortable life far outside the bounds of social expectations basically doing what the f**K he likes while implicitly/explicitly shooting the bird to the dead weight of social expectations, PC, respectability, etc. That is not an easy problem to solve, lots harder than some math proof.
Though he isn’t boastful about it, he obviously has intimates/associates who are recognized as world class brainwaves or achievers. Dollars to doughnuts, more than one of them has told him, or at least thinks, that he is one of the smartest people they’ve ever met.
* The media tells us Trump is the weakest potential GOP nominee, precisely because he is the strongest. There are polls that show him losing to Hillary, and ones that show him beating her. The media only pays attention to the former. But all those polls are largely irrelevant; Trump is going to do the work of defeating Hillary after he’s secured the nomination. He’s barely started on her, and she’ll be lucky to win as many electoral votes as Dukakis got in 1988.
