I remember catching part of one of the early GOP debates and realizing that Marco Rubio scared the hell out me. He was too electable, and he could take big bites out of a potential Democratic majority in just the right places (e.g. Florida, New Mexico, Colorado and Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania) to give the GOP enough electoral votes in November. I breathed a sigh of relief, though, as he was stumbling and obviously wasn’t in this for the long haul this year. I said–either in a Facebook post or on my blog, I can’t remember–that the threat of Rubio won’t be this year, but in four years, or eight. Now he comes in second in South Carolina (after a weak fourth place finish in new Hampshire) and is obviously here to stay for a while. Two thirds of Republicans in South Carolina voted against Donald Trump. Rubio, Cruz and three losers split that two thirds. One of the losers, Bush, a hundred million bucks in the hole, drops out and his supporters despise Trump. Kasich can’t stay in much longer and it’s hard to see his supporters flocking to Trump either. Carson’s supporters I don’t know about. But as this race goes along, and as Trump still leads in polls nearly every upcoming race through the end of March, I’m wondering if half of that two thirds of Republicans will shrug and follow Trump, giving him the numbers he needs to win the nomination, or will they wait till Cruz and Rubio battle to the death and throw all their support to the winner. If either can hold on, and begin to win primaries by the end of March, then they could beat Trump. And we might be left with Marco Rubio, and I think Democrats who laugh at him underestimate his potential appeal to lots and lots of people who otherwise would vote for a Democrat. Cruz is not a genuine threat. He’s too doctrinaire, roo mean, too strident, and too unlikeable. Trump is not a genuine threat, he’s just loathed by too many people. Rubio, though, might have a Reaganesque appeal, in which case we Democrats have positioned ourselves too far to the left to win. If Rubio could appeal to moderate independents, a Democrat, any Democrat, could lose. A conservative Republican president is not something I like to think about. Hence Marco Rubio is the biggest threat to Democrats, liberals and progressives that the Republicans currently have. Let’s hope Trump keeps winning.
Category Archives: Donald Trump
Two huge universes full of people who would like to punch each other in the face
(February, 2016)
Since everyone so long ago unfriended everyone whose politics differs from their own, right now you have millions of passionate Trump devotees–the kind who would not object, he says, if he shot someone in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue–and millions of passionate supporters of Bernie Sanders, and yet each could scarcely name a handful of people they know personally, I bet, who are supporters of each others candidate. Maybe in real life they could, guys at work, or family members they never agreed with anyway, but on Facebook they see none of each other’s posts, memes, blog articles, and puff pieces. Two huge universes full of people who would like to punch each other in the face if they ever met on Facebook, but they don’t. Instead both are surrounded overwhelmingly by people who feel exactly like they do, who all like the same memes, agree with the same bloggers, believe the same conspiracies. And each side, the Trump people and the Bernie people, is convinced that most people in America, the good people of America, think like they do, and support their candidate. Each sees itself in a revolution, an overwhelming tide of history that will sweep their enemies before them. And each sees a vast media conspiracy to deride their candidate and spread lies because the media is in the hands of the establishment. Continue reading
Trump hating
The very same people who are demanding that the media quit running stories about Donald Trump are the same people who can’t seem to stop reading and sharing and commenting on all those stories about Donald Trump. The audience for Donald Trump stories consists of two basic demographics….the conservatives who really, really like Donald Trump and the progressives who really, really hate him. As there are more Americans who can’t stand Trump (including me, actually) than there are those who like him, it’s the Trump haters who are driving most of the media frenzy. After all, Trump lovers are mostly following him on FoxNews. Trump haters are following him across a wide spectrum of news media. If those Trump haters would stop obsessively following his campaign, stop commenting in such vast numbers on the stories, and stop the incessant sharing and posting of everything Trump on Facebook and Twitter…then the monetary value of Trump news would plummet…less ad revenue, less page hits, less fundraising value on public radio and television. Right now, though, you have to be nuts to not cover Trump as much as possible, especially since Trump haters are by far the most high value advertising demographic. Trump lovers, on the other hand, are a relatively low value advertising demographic, if only because they make so much less money than Trump haters. It’s Trump haters that are driving this media explosion because every time television news, public radio, newspapers, news weeklies, blogs or news sites run a Donald Trump story it draws the very audience that pays the bills…Trump haters. Only FoxNews is the exception to this. Which means the only way to end the Trump media frenzy is if the very people who demand the media stop running Trump stories stop watching or reading those stories. But they can’t, because they are as addicted to Donald Trump as they were to Mad Men. And it’s hard to tell right now where the political news ends and entertainment begins, and how many people now can tell the difference.
Thank God Donald Trump came to the rescue
After the Paris attacks the GOP conveniently went after Syrian refugees which allowed the American Left to turn the debate of Islamic terrorism into a part of the 2016 presidential election contest. It became part of the classic battle between the Democratic party’s multi-culturalism and the Republican Party’s resurgent racist nativism. In the process the threat of real live Islamic terrorism was ignored, even belittled. I wondered, a month ago, how we on the Left would react when American Islamic terrorists, inspired by ISIS, would attack. Continue reading
The polls and Donald Trump, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Mixed Up Republicans
I keep hearing that Donald Trump is sweeping America. A lot of Democrats are freaking out. There’s no reason to. You just need to remember that while Trump is leading the Republican candidates with–by far–the most support, that support is still just a minority of Republican voters. Let’s look at some numbers:
There are about 170 million registered voters in the United States. About 55 million of them are registered as Republicans, 72 million as Democrats and 42 million as independents. The latter don’t count right now, because they are not included in the polling during the primaries. Well, they do count in those theoretical match ups (Trump v Hillary, Carson v Sanders, Stassen v McCarthy) but those are so hypothetical, and there is so much time before November of 2016, that they are pretty meaningless. The only polls that have any significance now–and even that is pretty weak–are polls showing the percentage of party member who say they will vote for a certain candidate. And there are two types of those. There are the polls of registered voters by party nationwide, and polls of registered voters by state. The national polls give a general idea of how a candidate is doing, the state polls give an idea of how a state’s primary or caucus vote would break down were the primary election or caucus held today. Caucuses, though, are so obscure and complex and unrepresentative that accurate polling of their results is almost worthless. You can poll Iowa and get an idea of which candidate people prefer, but that does not mean that is how the caucus results will turn out. Any of the polls you see on Iowa may or may not have any relation to the outcome on caucus night. Iowa caucuses are notoriously surprising. (Personally, I think Bernie Sanders will win. No clue on the Republican side.) Polls in New Hampshire and South Carolina will be more accurate, but still, you have to see a series of polls to see if they compare. If they trend one way or the other, you’ll get an idea of how the primary results might well turn out. Continue reading
Democrats and Donald Trump, or how social media is changing the way you think and act and fear
I cannot figure out what the hell it is that makes Democrats want to obsess over Donald Trump, but I think now might be a good time to ask yourself just how much of your fears and fascinations are being driven by Facebook, Twitter and cable news. Because if you are a Democrat then Donald Trump doesn’t mean a goddamn thing. He is running for the REPUBLICAN PARTY NOMINATION. And unless you are Republican, then what the hell are you doing wasting time even thinking about him.
Stop being a victim of viral campaigns. What’s worse is that these are not even being directed by anyone. It is just social media changing the way you think and act and fear. I can never remember seeing people’s thought processes so controlled by the Internet before. If you take a step back and look and listen, this is some really creepy shit. People have lost control of the medium. It is taking over. It is feeding on your emotions, paranoia, and hatred. When all you Democrats were watching the Republican debate like it was the most important thing in the world I felt something crack.
You might want to step back and take a deep breath.
Brick's Politics 