Nate Silver gives Donald Trump a 20% chance of winning the Republican nomination and tells the rest of us to stop freaking out. And, as usual, Silver brings some data to the table to support his assessment. Here’s something he doesn’t spend enough time considering.
George H.W. Bush was the sitting vice-president when he won the nomination in 1988, and he had also come in second place in the 1980 contest.
Bob Dole had served ran for vice-president during the Ford administration and had come in second place eight years earlier when he won the nomination in 1996.
George W. Bush was the son of the most recent Republican president and also the governor of the biggest red state in the country.
John McCain had come in second place eight years earlier when he won the nomination in 2008.
Mitt Romney had come in second place four years earlier when he won the nomination in 2012.
All of these candidates were predicted to win, and all of them had the support of the Republican Establishment.
We haven’t had a situation since President Ford where the Republican nominee had never run for the office before. Even Ronald Reagan warmed up for his 1980 victory by coming in a strong second place in 1976.
It’s fine to point out that Rudy Giuliani and Rick Perry were once polling favorites, but the situation we have here is quite a bit different. For starters, it’s the Democrats who behave like this. They briefly fell in love with the idea of Teddy Kennedy in 1975, Jesse Jackson in 1987, and Mario Cuomo in 1991, and no one can forget the Howard Dean boomlet in 2003. Setting Cuomo aside, these may not have been the most electable candidates at the time, and eventually the head replaced the heart for Democratic voters. Until the last couple of elections cycles, Republicans tended to acquiesce to the Establishment choice without too much fuss (Patrick Buchanan notwithstanding).
Poppy, Dole, and Dubya shrugged off the few setbacks they encountered, and even McCain soldiered through once he reset his campaign, despite being deeply unpopular with much of the Republican base. It wasn’t until Romney came along that the Republicans developed an allergy to their anointed nominee and flirted with literally every other option on the menu.
This time looks similar, but also different. It looks similar because the GOP base definitely is turning its nose up at Jeb Bush, John Kasich and Chris Christie. Scott Walker is already gone. The Establishment choices are being rejected en masse. What’s different is that there isn’t a Mitt Romney left standing to pick up the pieces when the voters really start to get engaged in the process. What’s also different is that Trump’s lead has been persistent. It’s not like when the voters went for Perry and then to Bachmann and then to Cain and then to Gingrich and then to Santorum.
Put it this way. It’s one thing for Silver to point out that no one is paying attention and that most people make up their minds much closer to the actual caucuses and primaries, but it’s another to say that Trump will inevitably fade in much the same way that prior frontrunners have faded. Who is the candidate that will step in to sop up the mess when Trump implodes?
Ben Carson is as implausible as Trump, and Ted Cruz is, if anything, more unpopular with the Establishment than Trump.
Marco Rubio might seem like a plausible answer, but he’s the poster boy for amnesty and that’s the issue that has animated the base more than any other so far in this campaign.
If you want to still predict that Jeb or Christie or Kasich will rise from the ashes to save this thing for the GOP Establishment, that’s fine. But one reason that Trump looks like more than a flash in the pan is that his opponents are nearly as flawed as he is.
To suggest that Trump will inevitably falter when people start paying attention, you have to have a theory of the case. When Giuliani faded, McCain was there to pick up the pieces. When the seven dwarfs of 2012 flamed out, Romney was left standing.
So, another way of putting this is that even if Silver is right and Trump only has a 20% chance of winning the nomination, what are the chances that either he, Carson or Cruz will win? And, given the likely answer to that question, why should we all stop freaking out?
I think the situation absolutely warrants a good long panic attack.
Bob Dole was never VP– he was on the losing ticket when Ford ran.
I just don’t see a way that the Republicans DON’T end up with one of the fascist embracing candidates as the nominee. This is one of those once-in-a-100 year set of circumstances in American politics where the planets line up for a viable hard-right candidate. And not just hard right, but one who is actually embracing a fascist worldview, and openly encouraging violence. Panic? I’m slowly shitting my pants more and more every day, as it seems like the Trump movement balloons and is turning into this century’s iteration of the Brownshirts.
I think Nate is being much too blase in his outlook.
All of the Republican candidates represent fascism in one form or another. Corporate control of the government is the order of the day, from Jim Gilmore all the way to Ben Carson. All Trump is doing is making sure the strong man demagoguery gets turn up past the usual greed is good white-noise (Trade Mark).
I get tired of observing aggrieved people (see too, white republicans) blame Barack Obama for every contemporary event they don’t like, but in this case his reelection in 2012 is surely the root of this virulent strain of hate. I loath watching it as much as everyone else here at the pond, but I remain hopeful we are watching the beginning of the fever burn itself off.
Was Romney really the “establishment candidate”? They may have come to embrace him when he was inevitable, but it didn’t start out that way did it?
Why is Trump not the “establishment candidate”then? Because the GOP brain trust didn’t elevate him and because he doesn’t need donors? OK, but given that Republican voters emphatically prefer him to the other useless dipshits seems like a clear feature of 2015-2016 and not a bug.
This is about the GOP voters and NOT the candidates in some kind of Fantasy Candidate League.
Trump will be the nominee. Or run as an Independent and beat the nominee from the GOP.
If Trump runs independent, it will suck, because we’ll have to spend the next four/eight years hearing about how Hillary isn’t “really” President because she wasn’t “really” elected — just like Bill Clinton was considered “illegitimate” because of Perot. (Of course, the logic only goes in one direction: Nader doesn’t make Bush “illegitimate.”)
Trump running as an independent is a gambit to throw the election into the House of Representatives. Hillary will have to defeat two candidates at once with a majority….Unless Trump graciously concedes on election night.
So much of the right-wing strategy looks like a replay of 1876.
more likely that neither he nor the Republican nominee can’t win either state because they split the conservative vote
Dems might spike that notion with a promise to vote for Trump.
I was four years too early predicting Bachmann…I figured 2012 would be the year we saw what we are presently seeing; her fundraising was good, and she did well in the debates. Plus she has her finger on the pulse of the true believers.
This time around I’ll go ahead and say Cruz will be there to pick up the pieces. Which yeah, doesn’t exactly make me happy. Especially in this fascist environment, where I have ostensible people of the left as friends who are fully embracing fascism because “Muslims”.
~Sam Harris
Bachmann was never going to be the nominee. As nutso as Palin but not as ignorant nor stupid; however, she lacked Palin’s charisma (didn’t hear guys saying they would totally “do” Bachmann) and the GOP stamp of approval that Palin got by virtue of being nominated for VP.
I’m not sure that has to do with charisma so much as straight attractiveness. I know back in 2007/2008 there was a discussion on a pro-Obama board about the most attractive pols on either side and Palin came up. This was before anyone knew anything about her.
I knew it was a long shot, but I didn’t think Romney would pull it off and the others had no organizing strategy or money. As terrible as the current field is, 2012 was worse in terms of raw political talent. So that left Bachmann, who I thought won at least one debate outright, and put a stake in Tim Pawlenty’s career (not that she needed help; he was just awful).
Also keep in mind that I made this call before the debates and before the merry-go-round of “everyone gets a turn at not Romney!”
Objectively, Palin and Bachmann equally attractive, but Palin pushes the buttons for sexy, a common component of fundie women. Bachmann is more out of the Schafly rightwing, religious camp — and Phyllis never won an election.
Bachmann did win that first debate, but she couldn’t capitalize on that. In part because her assumed fundie base is sexist and in part because GOP primary voters couldn’t see her as competitive against Obama.
What we’ve seen in the last three GOP primaries is the intra-party divide that has long existed has deeper and wider ruptures on the right side as the middle and left side have sunk into oblivion. When the base is nuts, but divided in their particularly nutty variant, they demand equally nutty but more vocal candidates.
Bachmann’s a woman. I just don’t believe they’d nominate a woman, even if she’s as anti-woman as Bachmann is.
She was my rep for years. A living troll who did almost nothing (constituents poured into Franken and Klobuchar’s offices for services)
SC has a first generation Indian-American, woman GOP governor. Democrats/liberals always overestimate the depth and breadth of racism and sexism within the GOP.
That Sam Harris is quite a thinker!
Wait for the spectacle of the Repub “establishment” backing Candada Cruz over Trump. Hard to tell much difference, frankly.
While we (unenthusiastically) push forward 90s leftovers…
Oy.
Regardless of what happens to the GOP, I have a hard time seeing how the genie gets put back into the bottle. The forces that have driven the Conservative Movement crazy are not going to go away. Fox News, talk radio, and the rest of rightwing media are not going to stop lying about everything and spewing hate, division, and sedition. It’s a very profitable business model. Trump and his ilk are not driving this. They’re just tapping into it. It’ll still be with us long after they’re gone.
“Panicking”? I don’t understand. Don’t we want him to be the nominee?
Carson would be even better for the Democrats.
You may be right. I’m not sure. Carson doesn’t make people want to explosively vomit the way Trump does.
Evangelicals won’t like it. They might stay home. They’ll never vote for Hillary. Hillary might be enough of a lightning rod that all Republicans will come out regardless of how they feel about the nominee, just to stop her.
having a Democrat on the ballot is enough for all Republicans to come out to vote, like they do every election
Will there be a new face (or faces) on the stage when the January Republican Debate has a fast date? i bet there will be.
Who? Seems as if they’ve exhausted their bench. They couldn’t even field a woman with some political creds. To jump in at such a late stage and win, they’ll need someone that is dynamic and gets a pass from the party elites and a major chunk of the money boys.
Ryan. Losing a Presidential election is still more fun than being Speaker of the Loony Bin.
Too soon after he was a dud on the national stage in 2012. Expect he’ll always be a dud, like Bob Dole. Plus, the leap from the House to the White is too big unless fate catapults one to the top as happened for Ford.
Dole was a dud and won the nomination, though. And Ryan had to be begged by party members to become Speaker. Why? Because he was the only guy with a hope of uniting the party, i.e. exactly what they’re looking for in a presidential candidate.
Plenty of duds win the nomination, but the only ones that win the GE are those that have the good luck to be less of a dud than the other party nominates. Plus, neither party has been inclined to nominate a dud for a second attempt since 1956. (Much to Romney’s disappointment.)
Teddy Kennedy didn’t run in ’76, Jesse Jackson was competitive in ’88, and Cuomo declined to run in ’92.
Note that Silver declines to state the odds for the other candidates. Preferring to list them from 1 to 5 with Trump at 5, Carson 4, Cruz 3, Rubio 2, and other others at 1. A meaningless ranking because other than having Cruz and Rubio tied as pollsters have those two, he gives Cruz an extra point for some undefined reason.
The next six to eight weeks are usually cruel when there’s a large field of candidates. What current polling suggests is that Trump, Carson, Rubio, and Cruz get most of the gains as any of the others dropout, but the second choice splits among them and therefore, doesn’t change the rankings. Carson out would divide among the remaining three.
Cruz gets the extra point because he’s the smartest among those candidates.
His reputation is that he’s really smart — but aggressive people, particularly those that relish a fight, tend to be perceived as smarter than they are.
(If I were team Bush, I’d spend some of that big bank looking more closely at the Cruz family because there remains a certain amount of fuzziness that suggests it is possible that he is really Canadian Cruz.)
I do not believe, and current polling supports this: that either Trump or Carson can win a two way race.
Because so many of the primaries post Super Tuesday are winner take all the establishment is in better shape than people think. Iowa and New Hampshire are going to clear the field for the establishment. Right now it looks like Rubio survives, but in reality the campaign in NH and IA has really just begun.
The problem for the establishment is Cruz is in the process of clearing the field on the right in a way that hasn’t happened in a GOP primary in a very long time. Usually the right splits in IA and NH – example in ’88 Kemp, Robertson and Dupont split 42% in Iowa, and 32% in New Hampshire.
Carson’s collapse, Jindal’s withdrawl and the inability of Huckabee and Santorum to get traction on the right means Cruz is the best positioned candidate on the right in a GOP primary season since Reagan.
And Cruz has money – something neither Santorum or Huckabee had.
A month ago when I suggested Cruz was a serious player for the nomination the writer of this article was quite clear that he thought that was ridiculous, and suggested I knew nothing about politics as a result.
I point out that out not to say I was right and he was very clearly wrong (ok, not entirely), but that people tend to be way too confident about their ability to predict what will happen.
It has been a very long time since a non-establishment candidate has won the Presidency. Obama and Clinton, while not well known generally both were well connected within the establishment when they ran. Both Bushes were establishment politicians, and even Reagan had been on the national stage for over a decade when he became President.
The real exception to the rule is Carter in
76.
As I see it now:
Cruz wins IA, essentially ending Carson, Huckabee and Santorum
The fight in IA is between Rubio and Trump. If Rubio beats Trump, Rubio likely wins New Hampshire a week later. If Trump holds him off, then the scramble will be on between Rubio, Trump, Kasich, Bush and even Christie in New Hampshire. Cruz’s ceiling in New Hampshire may be as low as the high 20’s, so he probably doesn’t win New Hampshire. If Trump is able to hold on in New Hampshire, there are three tickets to South Carolina: Cruz, Trump and the next highest finisher in NH (Kasich,Bush,Rubio etc).
For the establishment the key is for their candidate to be second to Cruz in SC, damaging Trump in the process heading into the winner take all primaries on the 15th.
So in this scenario the establishment still probably wins the nomination, because I think Cruz will struggle in head to head fights in winner take all primaries that dominate the calendar later in the primary process.
But Cruz is far closer to this nomination than any of previous right wing candidates have been.
So the Repub establishment is now Rubio?
This is the weakest reed they have ever relied on in my lifetime.
W
True — except W had Poppy’s shadow backing him up and by then Poppy didn’t seem like such a bad choice.
He did to me! If the Constitution had allowed Bill Clinton to run for a third term I would have voted for him over Bush. And yes, I did vote for Al Gore, not Nader, whom I despise.
Was so looking forward to the end of the Clinton era. (Too much drama and too much damage.) But like a bad penny they just keep coming back.
GHWB wasn’t the worst modern GOP POTUS, but he that’s not the same as being a good one and he had his two dirty wars. There were a couple of reasons to keep him around. He had no coattails and therefore, DEMs would continue to hold the majority in Congress. And there would good reasons to project that the majority would never ago along with Poppy’s NAFTA and capital gains tax reduction agenda.
At his worst, it’s difficult to imagine that Gore could have come close to being the disaster that GWB was and could easily have been projected to be. A majority of Americans not on the Supreme Court agreed. (That last bit was like a black swan that nobody outside the bowels of the GOP could have predicated.)
Agree. Dems remember they are dems over trade issues only when Republicans propose them. It took BC to get NAFTA passed.
NAFTA was just the beginning. (And if I had wanted GHWB’s agenda, I would have voted for him.) I honestly don’t think most Democrats get how destructive Clinton was to their well-being. Reagan would have thought he’d died and gone to heaven if he could have gotten all the crap through Congress that Clinton did.
Hope you didn’t hate Clinton enough to vote for Bush. Nader wasn’t my cup of tea, but unlike many others here, I felt he was a legitimate choice, just not mine. That’s one of the problems with politics. People get so personally committed that they hate others who choose differently. Starting to see it now with all the backhanded remarks about Howard Dean. Notwithstanding anything else, Howard Dean galvanized Progressives and got them off their butts and out ringing doors. I suppose everyone was supposed to just wallow in self-pity until rescued by Hillary the Archangel. Or were we stupid to believe him when he said “You have the power!” and really it’s the Koch’s and Walton’s who have the power.
In ’92 I barely knew who Clinton was and always voted DEM. If I had known then, what I know now, I would have voted for GHWB in ’92. OTOH, Clinton probably didn’t know much better than I did that his DEM roots were so shallow that the Wall St boys could easily turn his head.
I was okay with Gore in ’00. Probably shouldn’t have been as okay as I was with him and far less okay with Lieberman. But GWB was so clearly a smart-assed doofus that any DEM would have been better than him.
All the post-2004 carping about Dean completely misses the point as to why he was worth supporting. He has an everyman quality. Authentically and not like the fake version that GWB managed to display in public appearances. It was a key component of his ability to get close enough to steal the 2000 election and had served him well as the ’04 election cycle began. That along with being the only DEM candidate that could credibly distance himself from Bush’s war meant that he had the best chance to defeat GWB.
A difference I perceive between Dean and Kerry is that Dean’s impulses are conservative but facts and logic play a larger role in his decision making; whereas Kerry’s impulses are liberalish but he doesn’t trust them and can convince himself of the merits of a conservative course. Kerry is also an elitist and fully identifies with it.
Excellent observations of Dean & Kerry! Dean, conservative? Surprisingly, yes, but NOT the GOP type of Conservative, but in the old sense of the word i.e. traditionalist. At the meet-ups there were a surprising number of old Goldwater voters. I’d say about 10% Usually someone had to confess before the others would admit it. I doubt if you would have had that many in SF, but this was in the Deep Red far Western Chicago Suburbs. Our Northernmost spot was on Algonquin road which later would be peppered with Joe Walsh posters.
P.S. I hope mentioning Goldwater and Walsh hasn’t ruined your Thanksgiving appetite. I just checked in because I’m perusing nutrition facts to find something I can eat at the Restaurant that won’t blow my arteries! Would you believe 4360 mg Sodium in a bowl of sausage and peppers rigatoni?
So far, cannoli. Cannoli and red wine, Hmmm! Sounds like a meal to me!
Restaurant and pre-packaged foods are generally high in sodium. Maybe there’s a side salad with vinaigrette dressing, a grilled chicken breast, and steamed vegetables on the menu. But if that’s a real cannoli — stuffed with ricotta, bits of chocolate and dried fruit — I wouldn’t pass on that. (Have never found a good one on the west coast, but tend not to pass on a not bad one.)
Wouldn’t put Walsh and Goldwater in the same category b/c Walsh is nuttier and lacks any sort of ethics. I can get why some Goldwater voters would have found Dean attractive. There is something in many of us that I’d call rational conservation. Don’t waster; don’t plunder the environment. Attempted to explain to DEM in 2003 why Dean would play well in the mountain states. It was a personal quality that he shares with Schweitzer and Goldwater that had nothing to do with the turf staked out by the political party elites.
Re Cannoli: That’s one advantage of living in New York. I haven’t tried it in New Jersey, but it might be Jersey’s saving grace!
There are several groceries and bakeries within five miles of me with excellent cannoli. It must be very bad for me because it tastes so good.
New York is the only place where I’ve had a good cannoli and they likely exist in Jersey as well. What I suspect is key is that the shell has to be no more than a few hours old. After that it begins to turn into cardboard. Local bakeries (like everything else local) are dying out.
Nothing deep fried is healthful, but if only indulged in every once in a while, should be okay.
The groceries near me that have good cannoli (and more) have in store bakeries. One of them, part of small regional chain, caters to the Mexican and Indian trade with specialty items right as you enter. (Demographically smart) They also have pre-spiced Mexican meat entrees in the butcher section. They also have a great in-store Italian bakery and wonderful produce at reasonable prices. It would seem that immigrants aren’t addicted to frozen vegetables and/or a totally meat diet like the USA-born.
On the negative side they seem to have a lot of fish labeled “Country of origin – China”. We mostly buy the fruits and vegetables and baked goods. Not always Italian either. I have a fondness for Mexican bread and rolls. I hope that isn’t because of high sodium levels. The sweeter Mexican peppers are nice too.
The Mexican bread and rolls might have bit more sugar in them than most US breads (Challah excepted).
At a Chicago diner was surprised to see chorizo and eggs on the breakfast menu. So, of course I ordered it as did my local and white business colleague. They were damn fine.
Ah yes! Our plant cafeteria had them. Loved their breakfast burrito too, but it was huge and probably had two days calories. Surprisingly for a plant cafeteria, the food was good.
When I lived in Boston’s North End, there were several little bake shops with wonderful cannolis, thanks to the neighborhood’s heavily Italian population. It’s gotten a good bit yuppified in the decades since I moved away, though; don’t know how many of those places still survive.
I agree – he is a sign of desperation in many ways. I think they believe he can be educated in ways that Trump, Carson and Cruz cannot.
But he is far more electable than any of the top tier right now.
He also has that amiable idiot air that W had. Some voters like that.
Kind of depends on how Trump decides to vent. If he is attacked successfully by the Party will he turn his back and run as an Independent thus taking his awful base wit him and leaving the next guy only the well heeled voters? Or will he get his dander up and just stay on stage?
Trump may seem like the unthinkable but that doesn’t make him a loser. He has the capacity to not only destroy the Rep machine but to do some damage to the whole system. That’s the only way I can look at him, at how much damage he can do.
He may run as an independent, but his support will dry up when his base realizes that voting for Trump elects Hillary.
Yeah, the question is, how is the other 980% allocated?
I was a Cruz man for a while, but I’m switching back to Bush.
Look at the filing deadlines for the states. What is the drop-deadline for the Great Rescuer of the GOP? Who with some experience could offer himself/herself(?) and pick up a rapid groundswell?
No, I can’t think of anyone either.
Does this help?
Pastor Who Hosted GOP: Paris Victims Were `Devil-Worshippers’. The Daily Beast report.(Cruz, Jindal, and Huckabee were the only ones that attended the suckup festivities.)
As a godless fornicator I object!
Objecting won’t absolve you of responsibility for natural disasters in the eyes of this “man of god” and his like minded followers.
The Democratic Establishment is the replacement for conservatives since they are after conservatives. We are ready to elect our very own Margaret Thatcher and the Democratic base led by the DNC is ready for a nap once again. I would say that maybe the Republicans are so bad that we are saved for the moment but saved for what?
I’d list the 500 ways that HIllary is better than any republican alternative on policy after policy after policy, but why bother…the “they’re all the same” folks never listen.
I like Bernie’s policies better (for the most part), but blurring Hillary with the current GOP field is like blurring a mild-mannered donkey with one of Ridley Scott’s aliens.
When given a choice between two professionals or products that are obviously better than all the other options, I always go with the one that’s “good enough” over the the one that’s the best. Actually, I don’t. Even if the best costs a bit more. But I’m a value sort of consumer and very rarely is “you get what you pay for” not operative.
Does Trump have a ground organization in Iowa or NH? That seems like it might be important. You still have to get people to show up on caucus night.
He has. And he is putting together teams for the other states.
No – though he has grass roots support.
People confuse ground organization with grass roots support – they are not the same thing. Trump may try to buy one – but that tends not to work in Iowa.
Unlike the Iowa DEM caucuses, grassroots support in the GOP caucus can result in a win. Santorum did that with no money, no organization, and no grassroots. Noting but the “not Romney” candidate.
Somewhat, but not all that much, different in NH and SC. That’s where large ad buys can make a difference if there’s some “natural” base of support. The candidate from MA always has an edge in NH. Newt took SC for the obvious reason. Trump is leading in all three states but hitting on different cylinders in each of them.
Is the hairdo getting any endorsements?
No, but the ridicule he gets for it may be less than what a toupee would garner. Plus “too bland” isn’t an asset for ambitious celebrities or politicians.
But, you have all forgotten about the billion dollar war chest. Does anyone believe they will support The Donald?
Trump is leading in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada. Then it is SuperTuesday and Trump is leading in Florida, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Oklahoma. Carson is leading in Virginia. Can’t find polling on Alaska, Tennessee, and Vermont. Given Trump’s 40% support in Massachusetts I suspect he is also leading in Vermont.
Colorado has dropped out of Super Tuesday, making all their delegates to the GOP National Convention unpledged – meaning the GOP Party Establishment controls the delegates.
This is the time that McCain and Romney started their run to the nomination. But both men were nationally polling in the high teens and low twenties, not low teens (Rubio) and single digits (JEB!)
The folks referring to Hillary Clinton as the 2nd coming of Margaret Thatcher would be advised to actually look at what Thatcher said and did.
Enlighten us. Expand this thought into a diary.
TPP will pretty much do it.
Check it out. Kasich SuperPac has several anti-Trump ads
Freedom Matters
Trump’s Dangerous Rhetoric
Then there’s this:
What is your assessment of the quality and estimated projection of their effectiveness?
The only thing I know is that even if Trump runs as an (I) and splits the vote and Dem wins by a large margin the only ones on the first Sunday shows will be the R’s.
And Trump won’t split the House and Senate votes. The Republican/DLC coalition will continue to expand income inequality.
ot: The article in question:
The Rest of the story is at the link.
Lies always come back at the liar. I suspect that what happened was that in the course of this pursuit, emotion ran high. The Hunt. The Pursuit. At least a hint of danger. It raises the predatory instincts. Men in whom these instincts run high are attracted to police and military work. The expression “buck fever” applies. In buck fever a hunter is so emotionally keyed up that he starts shooting wildly, sometimes at the other hunters. Even if you accept this killing as a cold blooded murder, why would the murderer reload and continue firing. In cold blood, it makes no sense. If the police had come clean, admitted that the shooting was not justified, the cop could have been cleared as a matter of bad judgement, which would have left him and the police force civilly liable, and gotten him fired, there would have been no murder charge. Instead, we got lies and conspiracy, which raises a mistake to a criminal conspiracy, justifying second degree murder charges. I say second degree because proving that he set out to kill would be very hard. I don’t think it would pass “reasonable doubt” in at least one juror.
Dunno that this dude was even in the “chase”. He was late to the party, began shooting in less than a minute.
It is all very unclear, but every time I hear these extraordinary numbers of bullets I know something is wrong. Sixteen times and he was going to shoot more? Even allowing for low power street loads, no one is a danger after being pierced by bullets more than say four times and twice should be sufficient if the targeted person is not extraordinary. Once would do for most. Sixteen is buck fever.
Being hit by a slow bullet is like being stabbed with an ice pick.
How did this murder not garner more public attention and scrutiny at the time? One kid, several LEOs present at the scene before the shooting, and after the killing of Mike Brown and several other young black men by LEOs.
Laquan’s story didn’t begin on the night of his tragic death. Honor his life for a few minutes by reading Mitchell: More than police bullets killed Laquan McDonald. The $5 million wrongful death settlement was reasonable — the people of cities/counties/states must be held accountable for employing such terrible LEOs and money seems to be one of the few means we have of doing so — however, as in the case of Eric Garner, the beneficiaries should be identified by more than “the family.” In Laquan’s short life, there wasn’t much “family” that cared much for him much less did right by him.
ot:
american tribalism: road to rwanda redux
By zizi2 5 Comments
by @zizii2
I have been spooked these last 10 days by the insanity that erupted here in the US since the Paris terrorist attacks. I wanted to give words to my thoughts. But I froze. Then I rediscovered this piece I began writing in April 2013, but had abandoned for being too alarmist! If only I knew….
Here is the piece completed with a few edits…
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rwanda: a haunting lesson
April 6 marked the (21st) anniversary of the launch of the genocidal nightmare in the central African country of Rwanda that ended 100 days later with 800,000 people dead, and a nation scarred deeply. That was 11.4% of the total population of 7 million. Nearly three-quarters of those massacred were Tutsis who comprised 14% of the entire population.
The word “anniversary” seems inappropriate because although it is technically a neutral term it still invokes positive associations and anticipation. No one should anticipate a genocide nor look forward to marking milestones in its aftermath. Yet mark, we must. The lessons are not simply framed in dog-eared history tomes or award winning films about a bygone tragedy. The lessons are here. With us. Today.
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In societies wracked by mass economic, social and political faultlines the signs are always there for a Rwanda Redux, or a Srebrenica. Hate Radio. Divide and conquer. Nihilism. Opportunistic politicians and cultural loudmouths. Group resentment. Grievance. Silence and apathy from the majority population. Now, all of these do not a genocide trigger. But they exist to be manipulated if conditions ripen.
“The Rwandan genocide resulted from the conscious choice of the elite to promote hatred and fear to keep itself in power. This small, privileged group first set the majority against the minority to counter a growing political opposition within Rwanda. Then, faced with RPF success on the battlefield and at the negotiating table, these few power holders transformed the strategy of ethnic division into genocide. They believed that the extermination campaign would reinstate the solidarity of the Hutu under their leadership and help them win the war, or at least improve their chances of negotiating a favorable peace. They seized control of the state and used its authority to carry out the massacre. (UnitedHumanRights.Org)”
*
**
The images many of us remember from Rwanda in 1994 are the International News montages of decapitated bodies loaded onto construction trucks, machete-wielding “tribesmen” chanting death to their enemies, in-between commentary from western Reporters. To our glazed eyes, all we heard were “Hutu”, “Tutsi” “tribal conflict”, “United Nations”, “evacuating Westerners”.
What we never fathomed was how eerily familiar the political soundtrack in the run up to that horror would become for us here in the US two decades later. Sure, the United States and 1994 Rwanda are structurally and culturally different. We like to think the former possesses more resilient political institutions and robust public spaces for exercising dissenting opinion, than the latter. The point here is not whether the fear mongering being spewed by politicians and radio shock jocks will lead to Americans hacking each other down with machetes. It is about the capacity for unfiltered HATE to saturate the public sphere without consequence for the peddlers, to the point of being rewarded with political ascendancy. We naively thought those things belonged elsewhere or in history books.
http://theobamadiary.com/2015/11/25/american-tribalism-road-to-rwanda-redux/
Nate’s outside his area of expertise here. His reputation as an oracle is based on his ability to sift the polls, and he himself points out that polls aren’t all that meaningful at this stage. And he recognizes the other fundamental problem here:
… as is always a problem in analysis of presidential campaigns, we don’t have all that many data points, so unprecedented events can occur with some regularity.
My own analysis is based on two main points:
So I see no reason at all to assume the Establishment will prevail.
Several outright lunatics were nominated and won in 2014. Encouragement for the GOP base in 2016.
True. Another point against the Establishment.
On the one hand, the GOP nomination has always seemed almost arbitrary to me – in some states, there’s basicallly no real democratic process (though perhaps that has changed since 2012 when I observed this). So if that’s still true, then sure, some establishment guy could get the nod (no, Carly, they won’t pick you).
But this does feel different this year. Trump seems quite strong to me, and if there is some representation of actual GOP primary voters I don’t see how he or carson can’t win.
Either way, the GOP will be ripped apart, but 20% chance seems low to me.
Nate Silver is good at analyzing statistics that have some basis in fact. Trump is riding on fantasy fumes that probably defy any real-world analysis.
ot: What If Trump Wins?
Republicans may have another Goldwater on their hands.
BY JEET HEER
November 24, 2015
On Monday, the John Kasich campaign released a remarkable video in which one of the Ohio governor’s supporters, Colonel Tom Moe, a Vietnam veteran and former POW, speaks against Donald Trump by paraphrasing Martin Niemoller’s famous “First they came” speech about the dangers of apathy in the face of Nazism. “You might not care if Donald Trump says Muslims must register with their government because you are not one,” Moe says with Midwestern calm. “And you might not care if Donald Trump says he’s going to round up all the Hispanic immigrants, because you are not one. And you might not care if Donald Trump says it is okay to rough up black protesters, because you are not one. And you might not care if Donald Trump wants to suppress journalists, because you are not one. But think about this: If he keeps going, and he actually becomes president, he might just get around to you, and you better hope there is someone left to help you.”
https://newrepublic.com/article/124560/trump-wins