[Mezla PigDog]

I quote enjoyed this article yesterday: http://www.theguardi...cus-voter-anger

It feels to me like it laid out some of the issues for the reasons why the "poorly educated" of the western world seem to be making their voices heard more at the ballot box these days. And also why the established media can't seem to get a grasp on it. It's not saying anything you don't know but it sums it up quite succinctly.

Quote

Anger is pretty easy to miss when it's something pretty difficult to feel. When you sit at the center of the world and are unlikely to ever lack for the basic materials of self-sufficiency, the idea of blind, gnawing resentment – let alone of feeding that resentment even with irrational aims – is ineluctably beyond your ken.

It's harder still to understand that there are millions of people in America whose ambitions for a life of steadily improving conditions cratered sometime around nine years ago and have never recovered. If you can hardly imagine that you could follow the Horatio Alger script to the letter and still find yourself sinking in quicksand, you're never going to understand why someone would be so contemptuous of the pieties of a system that only pays attention to you when doing soft-focus interviews in search of a journalism award or a campaign ad.

[Terez]

In which Bernie is cleverly portrayed as a self-hating Jew:

https://newrepublic....rnies-complaint

[EmperorMagus]

This debate is better comedy than Deadpool was.
If Trump wins on march 1st after this, nothing will be able to stop him.

[amphibian]

Clinton's released statement in response to Ashley Williams interrupting her a couple days ago is a glimmer of a higher political gear. Well written, although it avoids any actual responsibility taking for the 94 changes.

[Terez]

amphibian, on 26 February 2016 - 04:08 AM, said:

Clinton's released statement in response to Ashley Williams interrupting her a couple days ago is a glimmer of a higher political gear. Well written, although it avoids any actual responsibility taking for the 94 changes.

In her mind, she has no responsibility because she believes that she was forced by "political realities" to propagandize the crime and welfare bills, to the point of maybe endangering friendships with people like Marian and Peter Edelman (the latter having resigned from the administration in protest). This mindset is, along with the ambition that justifies it, the overarching principle of Clintonian politics. Now, the "political realities" demand that she answer for this and many other things, a sure sign of a politician whose time is past. Hillary's chance was 2008. Maybe she will win this time, but even if she does, her time is past. We chose to take a step forward in 2008, and now she demands (simply by choosing to run) that we take two steps back.

[Abyss]

Briar King, on 25 February 2016 - 11:39 PM, said:

Ex Mex Pres: "Not going to pay for that Fucking Wall" haha

Cue Trump: We'll make them pay for it.




....looks like we have the next invasion.

[worry]

A little optimism from Jamelle Bouie: http://www.slate.com...ry_clinton.html

[Terez]

That's not optimism; that's stumping for Hillary.

[worry]

Same difference.

[Terez]

I suppose. Mr. Bouie liked one of my tweets the other day. That made me very happy.

[HoosierDaddy]

Christie as first main backer is surprising. What an opportunist.

[Terez]

HoosierDaddy, on 26 February 2016 - 10:15 PM, said:

Christie as first main backer is surprising. What an opportunist.

I'll just copy what I posted on Facebook, because I'm too lazy to come up with another way to say it:

Terez said:

Christie endorsement of Trump. This is funny but not really surprising. They are similar in many ways. They both have a tendency toward rudeness as theater. Christie is a blue state Republican, which means he has never been a conservative purist. Both were early favorites of the likes of Anne Coulter. Christie was probably under a lot of pressure to endorse Rubio or Kasich, and Christie doesn't like being pressured to do anything he doesn't want to do. Trump is the middle finger vote for lots of folks out there; why should the GOP's most notorious asshole be any different?

[worry]

I agree with you both! It was surprising, but also makes perfect sense. If he's aiming for VP he played it well all along.

Re: Bouie article, what I'm most pleased with is the affirmation -- though it was always pretty evident -- that the GOP has done virtually no real oppo research vs. Trump. It showed. And it's not a luxury he'll have in the general. The goal should be to decimate him, humiliate him in a way is not recoverable. And that isn't impossible, since he's a lifelong failure with a background of shady dealings and abuse. He has to be exposed not as a boor, but as a fraud.

[Terez]

Zoolanderis Derake, on 26 February 2016 - 10:29 PM, said:

I agree with you both! It was surprising, but also makes perfect sense. If he's aiming for VP he played it well all along.

It's tempting to grant Christie that kind of clairvoyance, but it was pretty obvious that he wanted to be president and that New Hampshire gave him a big sad. His strategy with Rubio was to ignore the stragglers and take on the low-hanging fruit above him. He saw Rubio as being the weakest and easiest to target, so he went for Rubio. It worked in NH, but even with Rubio's fall to 5th place, Christie was still below him by more than 3%. Rubio got delegates, and he didn't.

I wouldn't be surprised if Christie does some debate coaching with Trump, but I also wouldn't be surprised if Trump is arrogant enough to think he doesn't need it.

PS: Today is the big day for Hillary vs Bernie in South Carolina. Polls will be opening in about an hour, I think, and they'll close probably 12 hours later. I haven't looked up the times. Anyway, Hillary is expected to win by about 20 points, basically the mirror image of New Hampshire.

PPS: As I said before, Christie was under pressure to endorse an "establishment" candidate, and he doesn't like being pressured to do anything. Especially by this little punk:

This post has been edited by Terez: 27 February 2016 - 03:52 PM

[HoosierDaddy]

The Republican debate has gone officially fucking insane. They are literally attacking each others physical characteristics. Is this fucking middle school?

Holy Christ.

[Terez]

I am enjoying it.

Marco Rubio said:

So here's the one tweet he put out, he put out a picture of me having makeup put on me at the debate, which is amazing me to me, that the guy with the worst spray tan in America is attacking me for putting on makeup. Donald Trump likes to sue people; he should sue whoever did that to his face.

[Terez]

Networks called the SC primary for Hillary as soon as polls closed, as expected.

This post has been edited by Terez: 28 February 2016 - 12:01 AM

[worry]

Terez, on 26 February 2016 - 10:14 PM, said:

I suppose. Mr. Bouie liked one of my tweets the other day. That made me very happy.

I might follow you in ~1 year's time once I'm done with WoT. Then I can read back through your election tweets w/ nostalgia just before the world ends.

The thing about the middle school insults and stuff is kinda entertaining, but at the same time, if there's a big "hold-your-nose-and-vote-Trump" thing w/ Republicans in general it gets less funny. There was just a KKK rally in So-Cal that ended in multiple stabbings. One KKK dude stabbed a counter-protester with the sharp end of his flagpole! If this stuff doesn't drive people to vote anti-Trump, I dunno what will.

[Terez]

Someone on Twitter just suggested a great solution for our Trump problem: Hillary can run as the Republican and Bernie as the Democrat.

[worry]

That would be a blessing (and a truer representation of what the parties SHOULD be in the modern world).

I'm hearing a lot of mixed messages about evangelicals and Trump. Lots of talk about how much they're supporting him in surprising amounts -- I suppose this might be an easy evangelicals-as-hypocrites media narrative, but I'm pretty sure the not-actually-in-church-on-Sunday-but-self-defined evangelical contingent is as big as it is in other religions. In other words, the casuals. What I'm more surprised about is that the racism stuff is trumping even abortion, even as anti-choice fervor is at another crest. Like it's there, it's important now more than it has been since probably 2000, and people are still flocking toward Trump instead of the others.