"Interesting" doesn't even begin to describe this incredible U.S. political year. For example, one of the statistical mavens at Five-Thirty-Eight points out that Marco Rubio's best path to thwarting Donald Trump's coronation march is to concentrate a lot of attention on blue states (those that award GOP delegates winner take all) or on blue-urban-college-educated districts. One of the richest potential troves, for example, would be districts along the California and Washington coasts!
How can this be? In zones where democrats outnumber republicans, it turns out the fewer and better educated GOP voters have outsized ability to choose Republican convention delegates. Wow.
Of course this weirdness was deliberate... it gave Romney & McCain advantages in past years and it now seems the establishment's last hope. But the party masters who designed the current rules dug a pit for themselves, as Trump keeps winning districts by mere 35% pluralities yet getting all of each district's delegates. That is why he swept the boards in S.Carolina, despite getting only a third of the votes. Well, well, cheaters eventually are hoist by their own petard.
Okay so here's the stop-Trump path, a narrow one. If Cruz, Rubio and Kasich all three take their own winner-takes-all home states - perhaps by urging Texas, Florida and Ohio voters to pick "favorite sons" - then there's a chance for some momentum shift. But then, in that case, none of the three will drop out! Next, divide up the rich upper midwest, Michigan etc. And somehow get those educated republicans in blue districts, who are staring in horror at this train wreck, to actually come out en masse. Then, a brokered convention.
No I haven't forgotten the potential end game if Trump falls short of a convention majority. The "white knight" of that scenario - House Speaker Paul Ryan - would act very very coy and reluctant. Still, he's laying down polemical points either way, hedging his bets in case Trump wins, by saying that Republicans can "fix the country's problems" with "whoever the Republican president is."
Let's see. The GOP had the presidency 20 of the last 30-some years. They have had Congress vastly more often than the Dems. Indeed, they held all three branches of government simultaneously from 2001-2007, able to pass anything... anything at all... that they wanted. So, why didn't they "solve the country's problems" then?
Let's be clear, aside from huge tax cuts for the rich and loosening banking/Wall Street regulation - and wars - they did zilch across those 6 years of absolute power. They canceled no programs or agencies, reformed no entitlements and in fact created Medicare Part D without any way to pay for it. They did nothing about abortion or immigration or any other part of the Fox-rant agenda.
That period of absolute power-lock was the laziest six year congressional period in US history. All whining and no action. (Oh, and actual outcomes from periods of republican rule were spectacularly negative.)
Um... "fix the country's problems"? Even if you are a radical right winger, why should you believe Ryan, this time?
== Out in right field ==
My reading of Ted Cruz led to a crackpot theory that his aim, all along, given his Nixonian unlike-ability, was to emulate Nixon and go for the VP slot as a stepping stone. That would have happened if Walker or Jeb or Perry were the nominee. Now? The earlier bro-mance between Trump & Cruz (which fit my theory to a T) is now over amid a huge mud-slinging fest.
No it's time to peer ahead to Tump's likely running mate. Sure, Nikki Haley was set up by the GOP masters to be the obvious choice. For example, she'd cancel some of the "Trump's a racist" stuff and give the establishment some hope Prez Donald won't last 4 years. But I tell you it all depends. She's the right choice if he stays the Donald we've come to know, so far -- a raving Mussolini. In other words, the act he's been putting on, to win the nomination.
Only... he's not a Mussolini. Will Donald - the day after he's nominated - drop all his confederate shiboleths and charge at full gallop for the American Center?
I'd bet 3:1 odds that's what he'll do, suddenly channeling Bernie Sanders in his anti-oligarch schticks! Raise taxes on the rich! Regulate Wall Street and break up big banks! He'll jiu jitsu Hillary by out radicalizing her reformist agenda! She'll be left stammering in amazement... unless she gets ready first.
If this center-veer happens, then Don'll need a Veep who can keep the Confederates and Southern Baptists from feeling betrayed.
If it ain't Cruz, then my money is on Mike Huckabee. Not Palin... nono. Not Sarah Palin. Huck scares me more in logical terms. But Palin is... just too... er... entertaining. An overdose. Watch the hilariously scary flick IRON SKY.
== The other Trump we glimpsed ==
You think I am exaggerating Trump's ability to do sudden, brilliant veers?
Ted Cruz had reasons for baiting Donald Trump into defending New York. They are battling for the… shall we say the “red vote”? It is a more accurate term than “religious conservative” or rural or tea-party or neo-confederate or any of the other categories that pundits apply. Hatred not just of city folk, but of all smartypants types like scientists, schoolteachers, medical doctors, law professionals, and so on.
Sure, Trump stood up for the spirit and gumption and skill that New Yorkers showed, both during 9/11 and for years of rebuilding. Indeed, standing on the rubble, New Yorkers turned east – toward the co-owners of Fox News whose cousins and sons hijacked those planes – and shouted: “Is that all you got?”
City folk are the ones with terror targets on their backs, yet they get on with life, while the rural folk who are screaming loudest about terrorism are mostly safe.
How can this be? In zones where democrats outnumber republicans, it turns out the fewer and better educated GOP voters have outsized ability to choose Republican convention delegates. Wow.
Of course this weirdness was deliberate... it gave Romney & McCain advantages in past years and it now seems the establishment's last hope. But the party masters who designed the current rules dug a pit for themselves, as Trump keeps winning districts by mere 35% pluralities yet getting all of each district's delegates. That is why he swept the boards in S.Carolina, despite getting only a third of the votes. Well, well, cheaters eventually are hoist by their own petard.
Okay so here's the stop-Trump path, a narrow one. If Cruz, Rubio and Kasich all three take their own winner-takes-all home states - perhaps by urging Texas, Florida and Ohio voters to pick "favorite sons" - then there's a chance for some momentum shift. But then, in that case, none of the three will drop out! Next, divide up the rich upper midwest, Michigan etc. And somehow get those educated republicans in blue districts, who are staring in horror at this train wreck, to actually come out en masse. Then, a brokered convention.No I haven't forgotten the potential end game if Trump falls short of a convention majority. The "white knight" of that scenario - House Speaker Paul Ryan - would act very very coy and reluctant. Still, he's laying down polemical points either way, hedging his bets in case Trump wins, by saying that Republicans can "fix the country's problems" with "whoever the Republican president is."
Let's see. The GOP had the presidency 20 of the last 30-some years. They have had Congress vastly more often than the Dems. Indeed, they held all three branches of government simultaneously from 2001-2007, able to pass anything... anything at all... that they wanted. So, why didn't they "solve the country's problems" then?
Let's be clear, aside from huge tax cuts for the rich and loosening banking/Wall Street regulation - and wars - they did zilch across those 6 years of absolute power. They canceled no programs or agencies, reformed no entitlements and in fact created Medicare Part D without any way to pay for it. They did nothing about abortion or immigration or any other part of the Fox-rant agenda.
That period of absolute power-lock was the laziest six year congressional period in US history. All whining and no action. (Oh, and actual outcomes from periods of republican rule were spectacularly negative.)
Um... "fix the country's problems"? Even if you are a radical right winger, why should you believe Ryan, this time?
== Out in right field ==
No it's time to peer ahead to Tump's likely running mate. Sure, Nikki Haley was set up by the GOP masters to be the obvious choice. For example, she'd cancel some of the "Trump's a racist" stuff and give the establishment some hope Prez Donald won't last 4 years. But I tell you it all depends. She's the right choice if he stays the Donald we've come to know, so far -- a raving Mussolini. In other words, the act he's been putting on, to win the nomination.
Only... he's not a Mussolini. Will Donald - the day after he's nominated - drop all his confederate shiboleths and charge at full gallop for the American Center?
I'd bet 3:1 odds that's what he'll do, suddenly channeling Bernie Sanders in his anti-oligarch schticks! Raise taxes on the rich! Regulate Wall Street and break up big banks! He'll jiu jitsu Hillary by out radicalizing her reformist agenda! She'll be left stammering in amazement... unless she gets ready first.
If this center-veer happens, then Don'll need a Veep who can keep the Confederates and Southern Baptists from feeling betrayed.
If it ain't Cruz, then my money is on Mike Huckabee. Not Palin... nono. Not Sarah Palin. Huck scares me more in logical terms. But Palin is... just too... er... entertaining. An overdose. Watch the hilariously scary flick IRON SKY.
== The other Trump we glimpsed ==
You think I am exaggerating Trump's ability to do sudden, brilliant veers?
Ted Cruz had reasons for baiting Donald Trump into defending New York. They are battling for the… shall we say the “red vote”? It is a more accurate term than “religious conservative” or rural or tea-party or neo-confederate or any of the other categories that pundits apply. Hatred not just of city folk, but of all smartypants types like scientists, schoolteachers, medical doctors, law professionals, and so on.
City folk are the ones with terror targets on their backs, yet they get on with life, while the rural folk who are screaming loudest about terrorism are mostly safe.
(To be quite clear, not all or even most rural folk are “rednecks,” by far! Just as most city folk are not marching PC activists. But when it comes to GOP primaries and caucuses, it is the most vociferous in both parties who show up.)
Of course, Donald doesn’t dare point out the rest of the story. That “New York values” – portrayed as depraved by the radio shock jocks – actually have vastly better outcomes, when compared to practical measures of morality in Red America. Putting aside Utah… and some sections of Chicago etc… the comparison between Blue “values” and Red are pretty clear, with Red America surging way ahead in rates of teen sex, teen pregnancy, STDs, domestic violence, divorce, dropout rates, gambling and a myriad other areas of gross immorality like addiction, alcoholism, drug use, and even obesity... this in an area that screams shrilly and aggressively that it knows better how lives should be lived.
If facts could convince - wherever abstinence-only is the preachified sex education course, the direct and nearly universal outcome is more, not less, teenage sex.
Here, we get again the core Fox Fact. What matters isn't what's true, but what’s “truthy” and ought to be so.
== The Rise of the Religious Right ==
Do you actually believe the radical Christian right’s rise had anything, fundamentally, to do with abortion? Try looking at the real history: The Real Origins of the Religious Right. Even years after Roe-v-Wade, even the Southern Baptists were yawning, calling abortion “a Catholic issue.” It was court decisions – and Nixon enforcement – banning tax-exempt status to fiercely segregated private schools that lit the torch firing up the movement we now see.
But PC-bullying is a hangnail irritant compared with the Entire Right’s plunge into madness, anti-science, anti-all-knowledge-professions, oligarch-loving, Earth-wrecking, economy-ruining troglodytic madness. Elsewhere I elucidate the true, underlying reasons for the abortion frenzy, as well.
Face it, this is the revived Confederacy, friends. There is no other explanation for why millions of lower middle class whites would support their class oppressors. This is phase 8 of the American Civil War.
Here, we get again the core Fox Fact. What matters isn't what's true, but what’s “truthy” and ought to be so.
== The Rise of the Religious Right ==
Do you actually believe the radical Christian right’s rise had anything, fundamentally, to do with abortion? Try looking at the real history: The Real Origins of the Religious Right. Even years after Roe-v-Wade, even the Southern Baptists were yawning, calling abortion “a Catholic issue.” It was court decisions – and Nixon enforcement – banning tax-exempt status to fiercely segregated private schools that lit the torch firing up the movement we now see.
What this article leaves out is the way far-right social conservatism benefited from a devastatingly stupid wound self-inflicted by the left –
-- the insane over-reach called Forced School Bussing of students away from their neighborhoods, in order to impose integration de facto, by force majeur.
That utopian-orwellian effort from the 1980s was senseless, cruel, distracting, ineffective, wasted vast resources and drove millions unnecessarily into the arms of fundie radicalism. Forced School Busing was absolute proof that the right does not hold a complete monopoly on dogma-driven stupidity, and that the far-left needs be watched, as well.
See the new book, Family Values and the Rise of the Christian Right, by Seth Dowland, which discusses the importance of gender issues and private Christian schools in shaping how "religious freedom" consolidated the religious right.
Sure, there’s no comparison at this moment. Some campus PC excess? That’s loony and rude. Watch: Monty Python’s John Cleese Blasts Orwellian, PC College Campuses.
-- the insane over-reach called Forced School Bussing of students away from their neighborhoods, in order to impose integration de facto, by force majeur.
That utopian-orwellian effort from the 1980s was senseless, cruel, distracting, ineffective, wasted vast resources and drove millions unnecessarily into the arms of fundie radicalism. Forced School Busing was absolute proof that the right does not hold a complete monopoly on dogma-driven stupidity, and that the far-left needs be watched, as well.
See the new book, Family Values and the Rise of the Christian Right, by Seth Dowland, which discusses the importance of gender issues and private Christian schools in shaping how "religious freedom" consolidated the religious right.
Sure, there’s no comparison at this moment. Some campus PC excess? That’s loony and rude. Watch: Monty Python’s John Cleese Blasts Orwellian, PC College Campuses.
But PC-bullying is a hangnail irritant compared with the Entire Right’s plunge into madness, anti-science, anti-all-knowledge-professions, oligarch-loving, Earth-wrecking, economy-ruining troglodytic madness. Elsewhere I elucidate the true, underlying reasons for the abortion frenzy, as well.
Face it, this is the revived Confederacy, friends. There is no other explanation for why millions of lower middle class whites would support their class oppressors. This is phase 8 of the American Civil War.
== the Bloomberg phenomenon? ==
Yes, yes, another East New York City billionaire is pondering his own run. Michael Bloomberg so far has generated little enthusiasm. But if Donald Trump gets the GOP nod, Bloomberg could draw a sudden effussion of support from several directions. Despairing "ostrich republicans" -- who have been in denial over the party's plummet into insanity -- might hurry to MB. As might establishment republicans seeking one goal, for Trump to lose so decisively they can get their firm hands back on the reins of the rampaging elephant that they spurred to madness, in the first place. May they get the first half of their wish.
== Finally - ==
Bernites: check this Al Franken endorsement. He's still funny and very smart and emphasizes that you have no need to get over-emotional. Leave that to the dissolving hysteria on the other side. The only times that the loyal, Union side wins these phases of recurring civil war is when Blue America stays calm, practical and fiercely determined.
I just wish Franken had mentioned science. There is one symptom of the current psychosis that has taken over U.S. conservatism that disqualifies it from holding a burnt match, let alone power.
Their war on science. And every other knowledge profession in American life.
