Honestly, it makes his savaging of Tom Friedman look like a walk in the park.
Go read.
Category: Donald Trump
Understanding the Trump Voter
In 2004, Mark Ames wrote about the “Spite Voter”, and it is the best explanation of the Trump appeal.
Here is a sample paragraph:
Spite voting is not just an American problem; it’s a flaw in democracies everywhere. When I lived in Kosovo in the late summer of 2000, I asked my Serb friends there if they thought Milosevic was going to win the upcoming Serbian presidential elections. Most were pessimistic. They told me of friends, young people even, who voted for Milosevic “just out of spite.” The Serbian spite voters believed that if the opposition got their way and Serbia became as tame and civilized as Luxembourg, all those college-educated Otpor protestors and pro-Western intellectuals would simply take the privileges enjoyed by Milosevic’s cronies for themselves. They didn’t want caste-based happiness and its accompanying propaganda, so they voted for Milosevic precisely because he was wrong, because he was a vote against hope. Under Milosevic, nearly every Serb was f%$#ed equally, and that suited some people, particularly some Serbian males, just fine. But if you’re a failure under two completely different regimes, then the inescapable conclusion would be that it’s your own damn fault. Better to keep the villain in, and the young ambitious go-getters out.
(%$# mine)
Read the rest. It’s long, but well worth reading.
F%$# Me, I Agree with Donald Trump
Trump wins Twitter today:
How can Ted Cruz be an Evangelical Christian when he lies so much and is so dishonest?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 12, 2016
The Trump and Sanders Campaigns Have Something Very Important in Common
Both of the campaigns are joyous, in contrast to the dour campaigns of the rest of the candidates.
Of course, the joy of the Trump campaign is the joy that one might find amongst the residents of Bedlam.
Even at their most effusive, the other candidates seem to have a stick up their ass.
Of Course He Handled Losing Graciously. He’s Gone Bankrupt 3 4 Times. He Knows How to Do This.
Donald Trump gave a remarkably magnanimous in acknowledging his 2nd place finish in Iowa:
Donald Trump, who no one thought was a viable candidate for President just 6 short months ago, managed to come in a solid second place in today’s Iowa caucuses. For some, the fact that he didn’t come in first was shocking, for other’s, it was a relief.
Throughout the entire election season thus far, Trump has been the voice of xenophobic hate talk, blathering about building walls, deporting immigrants, ridiculing disabled reporters and offending pretty much everyone except white Americans. The fact that he was poised to come in first in Iowa terrified many. Although, having Tea Party favorite, Ted Cruz, come in first may actually be more terrible in the long run.
Regardless, Trump took his narrow loss with grace and gave a fairly humble and short speech.
It’s almost classy.
Trump: 1 — Fox News: 0
I think that Donald Trump’s beef with Megyn Kelly is stupid, and his promised boycott of the next debate because she will be a moderator is more about tactics than any real sense of offense.
It’s a win-win for Donald.
He is clearly would be the one on stage with the most to lose, and by standing up to Fox, he reinforces the image that he wishes to cultivate: That he is beholden to no one, because he is dissing what is arguably the kingmaker of Republican Presidential politics:
Instead of attending the debate, “We’ll have an event here in Iowa, with potentially another network, to raise money for wounded warriors,” campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said. “And Fox will go from probably having 24 million viewers to about 2 million.”
The fracas escalated quickly on Tuesday, but was the culmination of months of tension between the GOP frontrunner and the Fox News host Megyn Kelly.
………
Trump’s apparent decision changes the dynamic for Thursday’s event, which is the last GOP debate before the all-important Iowa caucuses.
Without Trump, Ted Cruz will take center stage. Cruz also challenged Trump to go mano a mano.
………
The disagreement came to a head on Tuesday afternoon. Around 1 p.m. Trump polled his fans on Twitter, asking, “Should I do the GOP debate?”
The poll suggested a real reluctance to attend, perhaps because Trump, as the frontrunner, arguably has the most to lose on Thursday night. The respondents were evenly split, with about half saying he should skip it.
In an Instagram video that coincided with his poll, Trump said, “Megyn Kelly’s really biased against me. She knows that, I know that, everybody knows that. Do you really think she can be fair at a debate?”
The other winner here is Ms. Kelly, a phony journalist who can use this incident to better pretend that she is a real journalist.
My prediction* is that Trump wins Iowa and New Hampshire, and the then runs the table to become the Republican nominee.
I need to update my f%$#ing passport.
*With the obvious caveat that Saroff electoral predictions have frequently been very, very wrong.
How Utterly Proper
This really shouldn’t be a surprise.
Palin has been feeling persecuted by the Republican establishment since 2009 or so, and unlike Ted Cruz, Trump does know how to be charming when he wants to close a deal, so there is a twisted internal logic to her endorsement of Donald Trump:
Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 vice-presidential nominee who became a Tea Party sensation and a favorite of grass-roots conservatives, endorsed Donald J. Trump in Iowa on Tuesday, providing him with a potentially significant boost just 13 days before the state’s caucuses.
“Are you ready for the leader to make America great again?” Mrs. Palin said with Mr. Trump by her side at a rally at Iowa State University. “Are you ready to stump for Trump? I’m here to support the next president of the United States — Donald Trump.”
Her support is the highest-profile backing for a Republican so far. It came the same day that Iowa’s Republican governor, Terry Branstad, said he hoped that Senator Ted Cruz would be defeated in Iowa. The Feb. 1 caucuses are a must-win for the Texas senator, who is running neck-and-neck with Mr. Trump in state polls.
The endorsement came as Mr. Trump was bearing down in the state, holding multiple campaign events and raising expectations about his performance in the nation’s first nominating contest.
As Mrs. Palin announced her backing, Mr. Trump stood wearing a satisfied smile as she scolded mainstream Republicans as sellouts and praised how Mr. Trump had shaken up the party. “He’s been going rogue left and right,” Mrs. Palin said of Mr. Trump, using one of her signature phrases. “That’s why he’s doing so well. He’s been able to tear the veil off this idea of the system.”
In literally related news, the son of Alaska’s mom of the year, “Track Palin, Got Drunk And Beated Up A Lady With His Gun, Allegedly.”
What a busy day for the Palin family! Sarah’s in Iowa making drunk faces about Makin’ America Great Again for Donald Trump, Bristol’s sitting at home COVERED in out-of-wedlock baby poo and “writing” internet letters about what a dick Ted Cruz is and OH LOL GUESS WHAT, Track Palin had to go to court, because he was arrested Monday night for beating up a lady, interfering with a domestic violence report, and also too brandishing a weapon while intoxicated.
Put in more Regular American talk, Track Palin was arrested for being a common drunk-brawlin’ Palin.
Allegedly.
Whoa if true, though, and we hope she’s OK. Here’s your press release from the Wasilla po-po’s office:
On 01/18/2016 at approximately 2204 hours, Wasilla Police responded to a residence for a disturbance. An investigation revealed Track Palin had committed a domestic violence assault on a female, interfered with her ability to report a crime of domestic violence, and possessed a firearm while intoxicated. Palin was arrested and charges of assault in the fourth degree (domestic violence), interfering with a domestic violence report, and misconduct involving weapons in the fourth degree were forwarded to the District Attorney’s Office. Palin was held without bail until arraignment.
UH-OH! We are so shocked by this behavior, young man.
As the saying says, “First as tragedy, then as farce”.
I believe that this farce is called “The Wasilla Hillbillies.”
This Is Some Class A Trolling
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has invited Donald Trump to visit a London Mosque with him:
Britain’s opposition leader invited U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who sparked an outcry by calling for a ban on Muslims from entering the United States, to join him on a visit to a London mosque.
The comments from Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a socialist who represents a multi-ethnic district of north London, come a day before the British parliament debates a motion calling for a ban on half-Scottish Trump from visiting the country.
“I decided to invite Donald Trump on his visit to Britain to come with me to my constituency because he has problems with Mexicans and he has problems with Muslims,” Corbyn told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.
“As you know my wife is Mexican and my constituency is very, very multi-cultural so what I was going to do was go down to the mosque with him and let him talk to people there,” he said.
This is some truly epic trolling.
Labour made the right choice when they elected him party leader.
Headline of the Day
Ted Cruz Accidentally Proves Donald Trump Is Human
I’m not a fan of Donald Trump, but his response to Cruz’ “New York values” jibe is a thing of beauty:
First, he corrected Cruz—Manhattan produces conservatives, he said, “including William F. Buckley and others” (and what kind of Democrat would name-drop William F. Buckley?), and then he seemed to stand up taller.
“He insulted a lot of people,” Trump said of Cruz. “New York is a great place. It’s got great people, it’s got loving people, wonderful people. When the World Trade Center came down, I saw something that no place on Earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York.”
The crowd applauded and, as if to admit defeat, so did Cruz.
“Everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers, and I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made.”
“You had two 110-story buildings come crashing down, thousands of people killed, and the cleanup started the next day, and it was the most horrific cleanup probably in the history of doing this, and in construction. I was down there,” Trump said.
“I’ve never seen anything like it, and the people in New York fought and fought and fought, and we saw more death and even the smell of death—nobody understood it, and it was with us for months. The smell, the air. And we rebuilt downtown Manhattan, and everybody in the world watched, and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers, and I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made.”
Cruz just looked at the camera with a nervous smile. Suddenly his suit seemed too tight.
I really think that we saw some honest emotion from the Donald here.
Even if it was a preplanned comeback, he just force fed Ted Cruz his own shit.
It was brilliant.
Awww ……… Bernie is Picking on Donald
When Bernie Sanders speaks, Donald Trump listens:
Donald Trump, billionaire Republican presidential frontrunner, has changed his mind about wages: Americans aren’t earning enough. He’s also not keen on Wall Street. The shift has Trump on a collision course with Democrat Bernie Sanders – while oddly agreeing with many of his points.
“Wages in are [sic] country are too low, good jobs are too few, and people have lost faith in our leaders. We need smart and strong leadership now!” Trump tweeted on Monday.
The opinion appeared to reverse what the Republican frontrunner said in November during the fourth Republican debate. Asked if he was sympathetic to the protesters demanding a $15-an-hour minimum wage, Trump said: “I can’t be.”
“[T]axes too high, wages too high, we’re not going to be able to compete against the world. I hate to say it, but we have to leave [the minimum wage] the way it is,” Trump said at the time. “People have to go out, they have to work really hard and have to get into that upper stratum. But we cannot do this if we are going to compete with the rest of the world. We just can’t do it.”
Sanders, a senator from Vermont and self-described socialist, used those comments to criticize Trump while appearing on CBS Face the Nation on Sunday.
………
In his Monday morning tweets, Trump touched on these topics – noting that wages had barely grown in the past few years.
“The middle-class has worked so hard, are not getting the kind of jobs that they have long dreamed of – and no effective raise in years. BAD,” Trump tweeted. “Many of the great jobs that the people of our country want are long gone, shipped to other countries. We now are part time, sad! I WILL FIX!”
………
Trump’s recent comments on wages come as he has also stepped up his disparagement of Wall Street – characterizing hedge funds as “getting away with murder”. His comments have drawn puzzlement from bankers familiar with the financing of the presidential candidate’s business empire.
Well, now we know who, and what, scares Donald Trump.
Putin Wins Troll of the Day Award
It is now confirmed Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is just f%$#ing with us:
Vladimir Putin handed out a couple of ringing—if not entirely official—endorsements to two of this year’s most notorious men: Donald Trump and suspended FIFA President Sepp Blatter. During his annual press conference on Thursday, the Russian president praised Donald Trump, calling the frontrunner in the Republican primary race a “bright and talented person,” according to the Associated Press. He also welcomed Trump’s calls for improved U.S-Russia relations.
A recurring theme among GOP presidential candidates is whether they possess the negotiating chops to deal with the Russian strongman. It appears Trump and Putin would be bosom buddies. (Trump has previously said he thinks he’d get along with Putin “very well.”)
Putin also handed out praise to Sepp Blatter, who’s facing a criminal investigation in Switzerland for allegations of corruption. Blatter, Putin said, is “a very well respected person.”
“He has always tried to treat football not as a sport but as an element of cooperation between countries and peoples,” Putin added. “He is the one who must be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”
Seriously, he is just poking us with a stick for his personal amusement.
Antonin Scalia is Too Extreme for ……… Donald Trump?
This is strange beyond belief:
GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump says he does not agree with comments from Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia questioning the efficacy of affirmative action.
“I don’t like what he said, no, I don’t like what he said. I heard him, I was like, ‘Let me read it again,’ because I actually read it in print, and I’m going, I read a lot of stuff, and I’m going, ‘Woah,’ ” Trump said in an interview televised Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
The billionaire said he thought Scalia’s comments were “very tough to the African-American community.”
Trump, who has supported affirmative action in the past but declined to say whether he was in favor of it today, said he has great friendships with black people.
“I have great African-American friendships,” he said. “I have just amazing relationships. And so many positive things have happened.”
We f%$#ing live in f%$#ing Bizarro World.
I think that this was an authentic statement from Trump, but honestly, I’m not sure when he is sincere, and when he is just trolling.
F%$# Donald Trump for Making Boris Johnson Look Wise
The fact that Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, who can best be described as little more than a life support system for his hair, can appear wise when talking about Donald Trump is an indication of just how wrong and disturbing the whole phenomenon of Trump’s political ascendance is:
London’s mayor, the conservative politician Boris Johnson, also chimed in.
“As a city where more than 300 languages are spoken, London has a proud history of tolerance and diversity and to suggest there are areas where police officers cannot go because of radicalization is simply ridiculous,” he said.
“The only reason I wouldn’t go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump,” Johnson quipped.
We live in Bizarro World.
Be Afraid. Be Very, Very Afraid
Over at the Washington Post, Paul Schwartzman and Jenna Johnson look at the Trump Campaign, and they discover that there is actually a very sophisticated and measured messaging process, not the shoot from the lip perception of “The Donald”:
He referred to Mexicans as “rapists,” questioned Sen. John McCain’s status as a war hero, ridiculed the physical appearance of his opponents, falsely claimed that “thousands” in New Jersey cheered as the World Trade Center fell and, this week, called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States.
Despite predictions that such searing, divisive rhetoric and the resulting outcry would cripple his campaign, Donald Trump’s insults and controversial proposals have propelled him to the forefront of the 2016 presidential race — and kept him there.
And while it may seem like a lurching, chaotic campaign, Trump is, for the most part, a disciplined and methodical candidate, according to a Washington Post review of the businessman’s speeches, interviews and thousands of tweets and retweets over the past six months.
Trump delivers scores of promises, diatribes and insults at breakneck speed. He attacks a regular cast of villains including undocumented immigrants, Muslims, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, his GOP rivals and the media. He keeps the narrative arc of each controversy alive with an endless stream of statements, an unwillingness to back down even when he has misstated the facts — and a string of attacks against those who criticize him.
All the while, his supporters see a truth-talking problem solver unlike the traditional politicians who have let them down. Spending remarkably little, he dominates yet another news cycle, and his Republican rivals languish in his shadow.
………
The Post’s analysis found several qualities to Trump’s approach. First is a pattern of experimentation that suggests that he is testing his insults and attacks as he goes along. Like a team of corporate marketers, Trump understands the value of message-testing — but he appears to do it spontaneously, behind the lectern and on live television.
It appears that there is a method to this madness.
To me this is a hell of a lot scarier than him being some loud mouth who accidentally captured the Zeitgeist of the Republican Party, because it means that the next time, it could be worse.
Of Course, Jeb(!) Bush Floats a Conspiracy Theory. That’s All He Has Left.
It appears that in an attempt to regain relevance, Jeb(!) Bush has made the accusation that Trump’s campaign is a rat-f%$#ing orchestrated by Hillary Clinton:
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush responded to a poll promoted by Donald Trump — which showed the billionaire holding on to 68 percent of his supporters if he ran as an independent — by floating the theory that the GOP frontrunner’s candidacy might be a false flag operation planted by Hillary Clinton.
The tweet may have been in jest, and otherwise Bush has been one of the more vocal critics among the 2016 field of Trump’s hardline stances that including banning Muslims from entering the U.S. (Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus — who persuaded Trump to sign a loyalty pledge to the GOP — said he didn’t agree with the Muslim ban, but refused to criticize Trump further.)Maybe Donald negotiated a deal with his buddy @HillaryClinton. Continuing this path will put her in the White House. https://t.co/AlvByiSrMn— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) December 8, 2015
Hillary and her Evil Minions™ aren’t that smart.
More importantly, they are not tight lipped enough to pull it off.
If Clinton had done this, someone in her campaign would have already gone to the press claiming that they were the genius behind this.
Don’t Get J.K Rowling Angry. You Wouldn’t Like Her When She’s Angry.
It appears that the author of the Harry Potter series has taken umbrage at everyone comparing Voldemort to Donald Trump:
Harry Potter author JK Rowling has rejected the comparison of US presidential candidate Donald Trump to the villain in her seven-part book series, saying on Twitter that “Voldemort was nowhere near as bad”.
How horrible. Voldemort was nowhere near as bad. https://t.co/hFO0XmOpPH— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 8, 2015
The author was tweeting in response to a BBC report on the number of tweets comparing the Republican politician with the Dark Lord.
Trump made headlines on Tuesday when he called for a “total and complete shutdown” of US borders to Muslims, in the wake of the San Bernardino terrorist attack. Trump has targeted Muslims in previous speeches, calling for surveillance of mosques across America and claiming Muslims in New Jersey cheered the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a claim he refused to retract despite fact-checkers debunking it.
We live in Bizarro World.
Well, This Is One F%$# of a Campaign Slogan………
Seriously, it is a complete mindf%$# that the Donald has plumbed depths that Dick Cheney recoils from in horror:
Former Vice President Dick Cheney is joining a chorus of voices slamming GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump’s proposal to bar Muslims from entering the U.S.
“I think this whole notion that somehow we can just say no more Muslims, just ban a whole religion, goes against everything we stand for and believe in,” Cheney told radio host Hugh Hewitt.
“I mean, religious freedom has been a very important part of our history and where we came from,” Cheney added during Monday’s interview.
This is so wrong, and so weird, that I am at a complete loss for words.
The New York Times Uses the “L” Word
By the “L” word, I mean that the Times is calling Donald Trump a liar, and they are actually using that word:
America has just lived through another presidential campaign week dominated by Donald Trump’s racist lies. Here’s a partial list of false statements: The United States is about to take in 250,000 Syrian refugees; African-Americans are responsible for most white homicides; and during the 9/11 attacks, “thousands and thousands” of people in an unnamed “Arab” community in New Jersey “were cheering as that building was coming down.”
In the Republican field, Mr. Trump has distinguished himself as fastest to dive to the bottom. If it’s a lie too vile to utter aloud, count on Mr. Trump to say it, often. It wins him airtime, and retweets through the roof.
It’s nice that they are calling a lie a lie, but there are a lot of other cases where the word, “lie”is completely justified.
It be a real public service if they were to call other liars out in no uncertain terms.
Not This Sh%$ AGain!
Once again, after seeing the continued popularity of Donald Trump amongst the Republican party base, the punditry reach into their bag, and pull out Willard Mitt Rmoney. Give me a f%$#ing break:
Huge congratulations to Suffolk University and the Boston Globe for crafting a poll in New Hampshire that actually offers an interesting bit of news. The story of the Republican primary in the state has largely been the same for months, with Donald Trump holding a steady and robust lead. In the Real Clear Politics polling average, he’s up 15 points. In Suffolk’s new poll, he’s up 10 — but with a healthy-sized number of undecideds.
But then Suffolk and the Globe added something to the mix. If we added Mitt Romney to the list, they asked, would you switch to him? For 30 percent of respondents, the answer was “yes.” Romney leads all other Republicans by a two-to-one margin. Trump loses a third of his support.
Seriously, can we give this a rest?
Rmoney is popular because He is Not Running., and as soon as he joined the race, he would be forced to fall into lockstep with the batsh%$ insane wing of the party base, and we would be back to where we started.
The depressing thing about this is that on the other side of the aisle, the favored candidate of the pundit class, Hillary Clinton is the weakest candidate against “The Donald.” (Yes, the polling shows that O’Malley even though a cipher to most voters polls slightly better against Trump.)
So, it’s “insane” to nominate Donald trump, but the only sane thing for the Democrats to do is nominate the candidate that he is most likely to beat.
Could the pundit class please go Cheney themselves?
And Another One Bites the Dust
Bobby Jindal has left the building:
Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, a onetime rising Republican star whose popularity has plummeted in his own state, abruptly dropped out of the presidential race on Tuesday, conceding that he was unable to find any traction.
“This is not my time,” he said on Fox News.
Mr. Jindal unveiled a series of policy proposals, ferociously attacked Donald J. Trump and spent considerable time courting conservatives in Iowa, which begins the presidential nominating process. None of it worked. He raised little money, did not rise high enough in the polls to appear on the prime-time debate stage and was overshadowed by unconventional candidates such as Mr. Trump and Ben Carson.
He’s not out because he, “Was overshadowed by unconventional candidates such as Mr. Trump and Ben Carson,” he’s out because he is Bobby Jindal.
He was clearly never ready for prime time, and this has been evident since his disastrous response to Obama’s first speech to Congress.
Both Jindal and Palin faced reality in the same week.
Hoodathunkit?
Buy-Bye.