It’s not too strong to say that Jeb Bush and the dynasty he represents were humiliated by Donald Trump, so it’s really not a surprise that neither his father nor his brother will be making the trek to Cleveland to watch The Donald’s coronation as the head of the party. In retrospect, Jeb probably wishes he hadn’t abased himself further by endorsing Ted Cruz. Considering what Trump has said about Mitt Romney and John McCain, it’s not surprising that they won’t be in Cleveland, either. Of the last five Republican nominees, only Bob Dole plans to attend the convention, and that’s probably because he decided the greater evil was Ted Cruz.
All of that astonishing shunning pales in comparison to the spectacle of the Speaker of the House and the presiding officer of the Cleveland convention refusing to endorse his own party’s nominee.
On Wednesday morning, not even 24 hours after Donald Trump effectively clinched the Republican nomination, Paul Ryan convened his top advisers for a call. With Congress out of session, Ryan was bouncing between multiple states, raising the piles of money needed to keep House Republicans in the majority. But Donald Trump was on his mind. The speaker could not — at least at this point — support him. And he wanted to talk through how to proceed.
Ryan never expected Trump to lock up the nomination so quickly. He didn’t think Texas Sen. Ted Cruz would drop out of the race in May. In fact, Ryan’s orbit was preparing for a contested convention in Cleveland, where he is slated to serve as chairman, effectively the emcee of the Trump coronation.
The decision was made quickly. The next day, he would go on CNN and make it official, in no uncertain terms.
You can watch the video here of Speaker Paul Ryan telling Jake Tapper of CNN that he cannot endorse Donald Trump at this time.
Then Trump fired back at Ryan, issuing a statement:
“I am not ready to support Speaker Ryan’s agenda. Perhaps in the future we can work together and come to an agreement about what is best for the American people. They have been treated so badly for so long that it is about time for politicians to put them first!”
I see a lot of progressive commentary in posts and comments that assumes that the Republicans will unify around Trump because they don’t like Hillary Clinton and they always unite after grumbling at the end primary season. But this isn’t remotely like anything that has happened in the past. The world has tilted on its axis and we’re going to have to adjust to a new reality where Republicans and conservatives do not behave the way we’ve come to expect that they will.
Paul Ryan isn’t just refusing to endorse Trump; he’s not just giving permission for his entire House Republican caucus to not endorse Trump; he’s actually putting pressure on his colleagues to keep their distance if they want to protect their conservative credentials.
George McGovern had problems with union leaders and urban bosses, but he never had to endure disrespect on this level. Speaker Carl Albert didn’t refuse to endorse him or lead a revolt against his nomination in the House. He’d seen enough of party disunity as chairman of the 1968 convention in Chicago.
You may recall that I’ve been raising the prospect for a long time that this election would not be another where the floor for each party is 45% and the whole thing is a fight over turnout. I’ve been raising the prospect that one side or the other would decisively win the argument and that we were headed for a landslide. Most often, I’ve predicted that the landslide would favor the Democrats, but I was less confident in that than in the prediction that things would have to snap in one direction or another because the gridlock could not hold.
I think we know that’s going to be true, now, and it still looks like the Democrats are going to be the winners.
What struck me about Ryan’s comment is that it betrays a strong conviction that the Donald will lose in November. If he thought Trump likely to win, he’d be more careful. With this gobbel-de-gook statement, he’s trying to have it both ways with rank-and-file Republicans. He doesn’t want to piss off Trump supporters so he’s not closing the door completely.
But Trump’s not gonna change. He’s not gonna “put the interests of Republican party first (whatever that means) blah blah blah blah.” That’s bullshit. Ryan just wants to remain standing so he can be the guy who picks up whatever’s left of the party post-Trump and leads it to the promised land.
I agree. That’s how it looks to me, at least at this time. Ryan appears to be a doofus – well and he is in many ways – but he’s, uh, “maturing” as a politician and has already gone through some rings of fire within his own party. I think he’s trying to strike a balance here of, as said, not slamming the door on a significant portion of the base, while also not endorsing Trump, what he’s doing and what he stands for.
Only time will tell if Ryan blinks at some point. I seriously doubt that Trump will blink under any circumstances. Trump has much less to lose.
Ryan has always been a doofus (Ayn Rand?!) but he’s been a reliable megaphone for the logic-free policy papers slipped him from the plutocrats’ dark satanic foundation mills.
The Bushes are none too bright (as Dubya and Jeb have demonstrated all too well) but, like Ryan, they’re reliable gofers for the same interests.
There’s a lot of attention and press paid to the quarterback on the field but the owners and coaches are the ones really in charge. And they like loyalty, reliability, and following the playbook, not smarts.
If I’m reading this right, in addition to what you say here, Ryan is literally telling Trump, if you’re the nominee, you need to get with the program.”
That’s the part that interests me the most, because I can’t imagine Trump responding in any other way than to double down.
And that’s just going to be a food fight.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3954847.stm
The problem for Ryan is that “the program” is a loser and Trump has been exposing some of “the program” for what it is — a steaming pile of offal. Ryan has also put himself out there when he has no suits to hide behind and it looks as the “The Freedom Caucus” is setting up to make gains in November at the expense of those that put Ryan in the Speaker’s position.
I don’t doubt Ryan has a problem, but he at least knows what it is. Trump has a problem too, but he doesn’t know it. When it’s all over, Trump will cry all the way to the bank.
My prediction is that Trump, in the end, will lose, the party will be a smouldering ruin, but the forces Ryan represents will have reestablished their control. That’s really what this is about, and that’s why it’s a fight to the death.
Terribly unfair to Offal, Marie ! Offal, properly prepared, spiced, seasoned and sauced can be delightful.
http://offalgood.com/2006/07/required-offal-reading/
Trumplish cuisine, however, is quite another kettle.
The Trumpenproletariat is no one new, these people have been around forever, they’re just more visible now. Trump is not yesterday’s politics, so yesterday’s rules don’t work so well, and this is what caught the cognoscenti off guard. GOK what he will do next, but if he decides to take it seriously and listen to good advice, he can etch-a-sketch it if anyone can.
What does everyone think of Mark Sumner’s Daily Kos take (link below) on the strategery of Ryan v. Trump as a down ballot protector? Seems plausible and possibly effective (also to help Ryan’s 2020 chances), but is that overthinking the Repubs’ ability to play 11-D chess?
http://m.dailykos.com/stories/1523792
And do you think Trump is in on the plan? He is a big WWE fan after all. Gotta have a good guy and a bad guy for the plan to work? They both benefit from seeming independent of the other.
Interesting, but … I don’t think Trump is a chess player at all. He’s just great at squash.
If any of the stuff at that link is right, and some may be, I’m not sure it’s as smooth as it seems. If Trump goes down in defeat, and Ryan never supported him, the Trumperians will resent him forever. That’s their superpower, resentment.
It would have the reverse effect. A third-party “true conservative” or “sane conservative” would help Republican turnout but an open split in the party would depress turnout and increase the rate of ticket-splitter defections (Trumpies voting against Ryan faction members, and Ryan supporters voting against Trump).
This may actually endanger Ryan’s own seat. His district is only mildly republican and it wouldn’t take much of a swing to get him out, if his election gets “nationalized”. Having Trump bad-mouth him could easily provide the swing all by itself.
I hope that the Republicans turn their back on Trump, resulting in a landslide, but I see this (as others have noted) as Ryan holding-out on any commitment for a while while he checks which way the wind blows. If Trump looks like a disaster, he can distance himself and at least some of the Party from that disaster.
However, what I think is more likely is that this will be nothing more than a process by which the Republicans can claim that they gave due consideration to Trump’s flaws, but ultimately concluded that he’s acceptable and, in any event, better than Hillary.
Cheer all you want for the breakup of the Republican party and certain victory for the Democratic candidate… but frankly I’m horrified that Trump will be the Republican nominee. Really such a sad commentary on what’s left of our democracy. And unfortunately, even a potential landslide loss puts him too close to the presidency for my taste.
I’m pessimistic enough to believe that Hillary Clinton would be a weak enough candidate that it wouldn’t take much to flip things around to give Trump a shot at it. Also, odds are good that Trump won’t suffer a “historic” loss- and I’m not sure anything less than that changes much in the Republican party other than the nutcases finally get to run the asylum, but we have been seeing that coming for years.
If Trump wins or loses it won’t be “historic,” Spiny. Maybe histrionic, but not historic.
Why?
Because nothing in the political history of the country has prepared us for this situation.The media has essentially been taken over due to its its own greed, controlled by a master manipulator who has no absolutely no recommendations for the presidency other than his own talent at media manipulation.
It’s a whole new ballgame, now.
The media steroid era.
AG
I don’t see it that way, Arthur. Trump is nothing more than a hypertrophied businessman who doesn’t care how politics is “supposed” to be played. The only difference with him is that he does a good “fuck the system” act.
Ultimately he’s not going to bring any changes into said system. It’s fun to watch him tear up the GOP, but he’s at least as much of an asshole as the rest of them.
You write:
I disagree. He’s a bigger, smarter asshole. Stronger, too.
That’s why he’s going to win.
AG
Mafiosi are capitalists, not anarchists.
Right. We’re talking ORGANIZED crime here.
Booman writes:
Or…this Ryan act will be taken by voters who are totally disgusted with the whole PermaGov bi-partisan fix in same manner as I suggested they would react in my recent post here:
Both Former Presidents Bush Won’t Endorse Trump. Trump Wins Again!!!
A diss by the party elite…either party elite…will be taken as an endorsement!!!
If this happens and a large turnout of non-habitual voters appears at the same time?
UH oh!!!
Bet on it.
AG
Democrats almost never understand the deep fissures that now exist in the GOP. I don’t really understand them either, but at least I see they are there. I do not believe Ryan’s move is really an “act”, except in the sense that politicians do like to dramatize what they do. Ryan is a disciple of Jack Kemp and Mitt Romney. He represents the wing of the party that really hates Trump.
Act, belief, whatever…
It doesn’t much matter once the hoi polloi begin to realize that it’s not working.
“Act, schmact!!!” is what they are going to say. “I want my country back!!!”
Watch.
AG
It’s not 1976 any more, and these guys (white, working class) are an increasingly small share of the electorate.
Those are the guys who are screaming about “wanting their country back.”
For a lot of people, it’ll always be 1980 in Macomb County, Michigan.
You write:
Historically? Yes. In the future? Maybe, maybe not. Now? They are going to vote in heretofore never imagined droves!!! Why? Because they:
1-Feel betrayed by the Permanent Government
2-Fear that they are going to be a “minority” within 10 or 15 years
and
3-Trump is actually speaking to them!!! (Unheard of since maybe Harry Truman, who also came up big despite the pundits’
expectorations…errr, ahhh…expectations.)And what is he saying?
He is saying…whether it’s all bullshit of not…he is publicly and loudly saying “Yup. You guys are right. They’ve been screwing you for a couple of generations, and I’m gonna stop it!!!”
There is no useful historical predictor for what is about to happen here. You are going to see some blue states go red and you are going to see voting numbers and percentages that are off the charts!!!
And…sadly, I am afraid that you are going to see a further split between the white vote and the various minority votes, with Trump coming out on top.
Watch.
AG
What about the votes of women? You keep on pounding the table about white men, but you fail to account for the fact that many more women vote than men in the United States, and Trump meets with their supreme disapproval.
You can’t win a general election when your approval rating with 53% of the total Presidential electorate is at 23%:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/190403/seven-women-unfavorable-opinion-trump.aspx
Here’s the gender split in 2012:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/158588/gender-gap-2012-vote-largest-gallup-history.aspx
How’d that election turn out?
Trump will not improve on Obama’s electoral performance with women, and if Trump will turn out white men to vote for him, he will also turn out all women to vote against him.
He’s extreme, and he will receive an extreme response from the general electorate.
They used to be “Reagan Democrats”. Now they’re called “Republicans”. Are you suggesting a bunch more are just lurking around?
Are you suggesting that they are not?
Who do you suppose the people are who have been packing Trump’s rallies in every state in the country?
Retired schoolteachers?
Please.
AG
I’m suggesting they’re not, because the polls say they’re not.
You’re saying there are on grounds of the voices in your head.
I get that in your strange little mind there’s an ocean of delusional white people just waiting to vote against the all-powerful and all-knowing PermaGovTM that, just a week or two ago, you were saying couldn’t make up its mind between Hillary and the Sentient Balloon Animal Smothered in Nacho Cheese.
The people packing Trump rallies are uneducated, yet fairly well-off, racist Republicans. He successfully motivated a bunch of them who don’t normally vote in primaries, but do vote in November, to show up for primaries because they’ve lost their shit over the black guy in the White House…giving them health care and not shooting all the Mexicans, basically.
There’s no great mystery here. There’s no great uprising. There’s no revolution in the making. The bigot vote is simply really angry right now, and Trump tapped into it.
Bet on it.
Whaddayou, kiddin’ me or what?
Those same polls? Many of which said up until the night of the vote count that Romney was going to beat Obama in 2008?
C’mon…you don’t need any strange, delusionary little mind like the one that you think I’ve got to distrust any and all polls and pollsters. They are all either guesswork all wrapped up in pseudo-statistical science or consciously intended as flat-out media disinformation. Or both.
Remember Nate Silver , the blue-eyed boy pollster who did baseball statistics and then hit it big by guessing right about Obama in 2008?
Here he is now:
POLLS!!!???
Give yourself a break. Turn your clomp-clomp-clomping little centrist mid completely of and go to a baseball game. This game is simply too much for you.
AG
You’re simply wrong about the poll consensus in 2008, and in 2012, which is when Rmoney was in the general, BTW. Only conservative pollsters with poor records like Rasmussen thought the Republican POTUS candidates were in good shape on election eve.
If your claim was accurate, there wouldn’t have been all that notorious nonsense from wishful-thinking conservatives about the need to “unskew the polls.”
OK, let’s grant your claim that polls are worthless this year. Then tell us what you are basing your claim of a Trump landslide on.
If you tell me, well, I just get that vibe as I drive around the northeast to my various musical gigs, then I’m going to tell you about my 25 year old household member who’s still convinced Sanders is going to be the nominee because he obsessively watches Sanders rallies on the Internet and sees how jazzed the crowds are.
What’s the reason for your prediction, AG?
The basic reason?
OK.
Trump is a professional celebrity. He is one of the best in the business at that job.
HRC is a professional politician. She is one of the best in the business at that job.
The candidate who is the best at what a celebrity does…look good, say witty and/or at least memorable things in memorable ways…has won every presidential election since JFK/Nixon with the possible exception of Jimmy Carter, who could only hang on for one term. And maybe Nixon himself, who only manged to last 5 years and profited mightily from his opponents,
Humbert Humbert…errr, ahhh…Hubert Humphrey, a totally non-charismatic hump of a man and George Wallce, who was an entirely regional candidate and came across as a mean-tempered, KKK-allied bigot.That’s why. Trump has the “it” factor. Clinton does not. Simple as that. Presidential politics in the U.S. has become a popularity contest. Not enough people “like” Hillary Clinton and evidently huge numbers of people “like” Trump. So it goes. History? Policies? They mean nothing in a nationwide election. Watch.
Further…Trump can hire professional political managers. He says that he is good at hiring managers and such, and it appears that he is telling the truth about that. Paul Manafort has done a very good job for him over quite a short time. When Manafort was hired the RatPub hierarchy was busily conspiring to steal the nomination from Trump. Now Trump is the presumptive nominee. I expect that Trump will run an effective campaign, that he will hire people who can get the job done. And…Trump is a pro at what he does, which is hustle the rubes.
Hillary Clinton is, as I said, a professional back room politician. In closed rooms with the powerful she does very well. But…she has zero charisma. Bill provided that for her, which is why she managed him up from being a coke-snorting, lecherous Arkansas barfly lawyer…that segment of his life reminds me of some character out of the TV series “Better Call Saul”…all the way to the White House. Electoral politics is a shell game. Trump can hire pros to run the organizational aspects of his campaign, but HRC cannot hire someone who will provide her with charisma.
Ergo, Trump wins.
And…yes, I keep my ear to the ground in any number of ways. I travel a great deal…not just in the northeast…and I pay attention to what I hear and see. I have been saying for decades that the first presidential candidate to talk street to the people of the U.S. would win. Trump…God help us…is that candidate. Barring a serious scandal or some kind of…ahem…”accident,” I think that he will win and win big.
You asked; I answered.
Go contemplate your polls.
Later…
AG
P.S. Hiring Paul Manafort, besides apparently being a good hire politically, was also a sign to the people who do bad things to candidates that they do not trust. Here’s the scoop on him:
I could go on, but why. Manafort is a civilian spook. He’s connected with the underworld of the Permanent Government…deeply connected…and his presence on the Trump team is a signal to the bad boys that Trump is indeed an establishment goodfella, that he’ll play ball with whoever offers him something he wants.
This election is going to be a contest between the two dominant factions of the Permanent Government. The Obama/Clinton faction…the “kinder, gentler/hopey feely” crooks… had its 8 years and things got worse here. Now the bad boys are going to try to take over again.
They have a good horse to ride in Trump.
Watch.
What a great post AG. You had me rolling in the floor with your description of the early political relationship between Bill and Hillary:
“Bill provided that (charisma) for her, which is why she managed him up from being a coke-snorting, lecherous Arkansas barfly lawyer…that segment of his life reminds me of some character out of the TV series “Better Call Saul”…all the way to the White House.”
That Paul Manafort article in Slate is a must read for any small minded centrist who thinks for one minute that Hillary has a even a slight chance to win the general against Trump let alone in a landslide considering how weak of a candidate she is, her weak political staff and compliant DNC that has succeeded in splitting the Democratic Party in half.
On the other hand, these people would have their work cut out for them running against Bernie and a base more energized than ever with the prize of a political revolution. Trump could not steal Bernie’s issues because Bernie is the real deal. Bernie would beat Trump like a rented mule but my daughter reminded me that was not a very nice thing to say about mules, the animal lover she is.
So…the voices in your head.
Put it this way:
White people left the Democratic Party because of civil rights. We have data on that. Exodus never happened. We have a mountain of evidence contradicting all of it. Biblical Jesus never existed and probably didn’t fulfill the nonexistent prophesy of the Messiah being born in the city of David. Incredible numbers of people believe otherwise — but, as they say, them’s the facts.
There’re polls, and there’re the voices in your head. There’s evidence, and there’s religion.
Don’t show me some bullshit rationale. Show me numbers.
Or is math just a tool of The EstablishmentTM now, too?
Romney ran in 2012, not 2008. And the polls said no such thing, dumbass.
Actually R-money ran both times, he just lost the primary to McCain in 2008 who then went on losing to Obama.
You’re right. I was thinking in terms of nominees.
They want their country back. Whatever “their country” is. But anyway, a lot of people, including me, want our country back too. We’re not going to get it back through Trump.
Yes, but…
Do you really think that you going to get “your country” back by voting for the woman who was in the position of being Bill Clinton’s Cheney when he sold said country down the Internationalist River so that the .01%…the Clinton’s owners, bet on it…could get much cheaper labor?
Really?
AG
Did I say that?
No, you said that you were not going to vote for Trump. Me neither. Nor am I going to vote for HRC. Are you going to sit this one out too?
AG
We’ll see.
With all the handwringing these days the corporatists are actually sitting pretty. They can spend the bulk of their money on House and Senate races and still get an ally in the White House.
If only sentiment translated into votes.
This year will be one of the most major electoral fraud in history. Greater than Florida in 2000. We have already seen hints in the primaries of how it will go down by shunting minorities to provisional ballots and then disqualifying those ballots. Of unequal provision of polling places. Ballots that never appear or just as suddenly run out.
Also, a landslide victory predicted now is more cause for complacency.
The real battle is in the Congress and always was this year. Congress can support the President or be a firewall against foolishness–exactly the opposite of what the Congress has been for the past seven years. But that requires a different Congress, one without the Steve Kings, Louie Goehmerts, Joe Wilsons, and Trey Gowdys (to name only a few) that bedevil the current Congress. A landslide victory either sweeps away those folks or makes them the irrelevant and silent backbenchers they once were.
Your giddiness over seeing your prediction of Republican self-destruction appear to come true is getting a bit out of hand. Wait until the second week of November to pop the champagne cork.
All I see is a Clinton manueuver to ensure that she never needs the “democratic wing of the Democratic Party”, never needs labor, and never needs young activists to vote for her because she holds the establishment core of the Republican Party. It’s a fusion around exactly the wrong principles because it’s a fusion around a failed status quo.
It preserves us from a rush to folly only by slow walking us to a more moderate folly.
It is a coalition that spells the end of Social Security and Medicare, one that cuts taxes for the rich more, and despite current positions, ships more jobs overseas.
We have a choice between a fast disintegration and a slow one. A slow grinding global war and a spectacularly youge possibly nuclear one. In the midst of a strikingly rapid and catastrophic climate change.
But we broke the Repubs. Yay team!
Well said. In many ways the new Democratic Party could wind up looking like the old Republican Party.
That’s why, if Bernie’s not going to win, he needs to solidify his forces in every possible way, including down ticket candidates. Tim Canova, for one example. Please send him a few nickels, folks, he’s running against Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. And he’s a really good guy.
Let’s pay attention to what the whole 2016 campaign is really about.
Every month like clockwork. Don’t know if he has a chance, but, if anything, I hate DWS more than HRC. HRC is corrupt and DWS is the stooge of a corrupt politician.
This is what DNC neglect of state elections has wrought.
A one party state. Wrap your head around that for a while and see how it feels. A one party state.
the best model using a combination of Presidential Approval, GDP growth and incumbency predicts Trump winning 51.4 to 48.6
I always have taken these models with a grain of salt, but Abramowitz knows his stiff.
The difficulty with this election is they are so many cross-currents. I think he is going to get killed and this is a reply of 1964.
But if there is a terrorist attack…
Which voters who are not currently supporting Trump will move into his column if there’s at terrorist attack? I mean, I kinda thing that it’ll happen, but I’m having a hard time envisioning the voter who right now thinks, “This is a racist blowhard know-nothing buffoon of a reality TV star” and after an attack thinks, “this blowhard buffoon TV star will keep me safer than a hawkish ex-Secretary of State!”
All down to gender and talking about nukes, I guess. But … doesn’t Trump already have those voters?
To understand the Trump campaign, you have to understand Kayfabe.
Just like to understand Obama, you had to understand poker.
Both operate from indirection and mind games instead of from a mechanical strategy, like chess. Both are improvised rather than planned extensively.
One is quieter and the other is flamboyant.
Do not underestimate Trump.
The people who like Trump also like rasslin.
And MMA and football. And baseball too. And hockey.
Listen to sports radio if you want to hear Trump voters.
AG
What is a “landslide election?” I’ve asked this in the past and have never gotten much of an answer. Which Presidential elections in the past hundred years are commonly considered “landslide elections?” An additional question — once “landslide election” is defined — what do such elections mean and how good are they for the winners and how bad for the losers?
I would say that by all criteria, 1920 was a landslide election and that it was also a “natural” landslide. By “natural,” I mean that it was a response to the performance of the existing administration and the affiliated members of Congress. It wasn’t contaminated by a weak or unlikable opposition ticket or in fashion social issues (either pro or con) of the day. Women could vote and Prohibition was a fact (passed over Wilson’s veto). Or standard election rigging and fraud (such as voter suppression that changes the outcome — not that AAs were allowed to vote, but had they been, that would have increased the margin for the winner). The results:
Turnout – 25 million
Harding 60.3%
House – D -61 (131 seats won) R (303 seats won)
Senate D -10 (37 seats won) R (59 seats won)
Harding was sort of like Trump in his day. He probably wouldn’t have survived the corruption scandals of his administration, but he was dead before that stuff became public.
Difficult not also to assign a natural “landslide election” label to 1928.
turnout 36 million
Hoover 58.2%
House – D -30 (164) R (270)
Senate – D -7 (39) R (56)
There have been a few more since then. But many were weak and/or unnatural and didn’t turn out so well.
The first of these was the proximate cause of the prolonged post-World War I agricultural depression.
The second was the proximate cause of the Great Depression that grew out of the unchecked agricultural depression.
Landslide elections tend to ratify conventional wisdom instead provoke new solutions. Unless the country is desperate for a new direction (1932). But then there is the failure of 1936 when conventional wisdom returned.
The first of these was the proximate cause of the prolonged post-World War I agricultural depression.
Pardon but WWI ended 11/18; so, the 1920 election wasn’t a response to a prolonged agricultural depression. That came later along with droughts and was severe a few years before 1928. Still, Hoover won in a landslide.
1936 was a Democratic landslide election.
You may be right but as soon as the war ended price supports were withdrawn. Meanwhile, farmers had borrowed heavily for the good times in the war. Some say the agricultural stresses ultimately led to the depression. Business products were sold to farm families but farmers were in bad times. And hence all business was affected. Agriculture really didn’t recover until WW2. So I would suggest there were stresses on agriculture following the war that got increasingly worse. It does make one wonder why people would vote for Harding. Guess he also has the Trump magic.
More curious is why, as the agricultural economy continued to worsen (and the Teapot Dome scandal came to light), Hoover also won in a landslide. Have to remember that at that time, and to some extent to this day, farmers outside the south were Republicans.
It takes a little time for the war boom to disappear and austerity to wreak its havoc. The 1920 election wasn’t a response to depression; it was a cause of depression. The economic policies of the Republicans were not oriented toward farmers’ welfare but manufacturers and especially finance.
And 1936 was the point at which FDR tried to back off of the Keynesian policies he had been forced to enact in desperation and unemployment increased to the point that industrial unions went on major strikes. Labor unrest continued North and South until the strikes that gained labor peace for wartime in 1942. So 1936 by returning to conventional wisdom to pull back on the New Deal policies was a bit of a catastrophe in that it created more serious labor unrest.
Hoover’s winning 1928 in a landslide set the stage for the 1929 Crash and the half-hearted attempt to privatize one’s way out of the resulting Depression.
Landslides typically cause catastrophes. And then there is 1964 in which the Vietnam War nearly unglued the country and resulted in military force to restore order. Not to mention the retrenchment to defeat the War on Poverty.
More interested in describing what constitutes a landslide election, the nature of them, and general trends than the more specific and generally unique variables of each of them and if any of that has any relevance to this election. So yeah, when a war ends, governments close the pocketbook and there’s less money floating around for people and they vote accordingly but more is involved in landslide elections.
Hoover’s election didn’t “set the stage for the crash.” The conditions for it predated his election and real people were experiencing financial distress before ’28. Hoover winning in ’28 isn’t odd, it’s that he won in a landslide. Not too dissimilar conditions existed in ’88, and not only did GHWB not win in a landslide but the GOP, already in the minority, lost a couple more seats in Congress.
FDR and his team were running a national experiment — simple enough for you and others to say that cutting spending was a huge mistake but you have the benefit of knowledge from decades of Keynesian economics and they didn’t. And half or more of Congress always hates deficit spending and taxes. Whatever decisions FDR made in regard to the economy in 1936, the election reflected what had been done in the prior four years and ’36 was his landslide election.
Electoral landslides don’t cause catastrophes; although they are usually misread and lead the winners to over-rate the popularity of themselves and their policies and in turn give them license to be both more reckless and complacent. (Correlation not causality.) However, they also give a president and the party an opportunity to do bold things that are just and right. (And LBJ used the opportunity to do a lot of that.)
LBJ’s landslide wasn’t what I consider a natural one. His opponent was extreme for the GOP in ’64 and Goldwater exudes a nasty persona as well. Then their was the factor the honoring the recently assassinated and young President. A JFK-Rockefeller election in ’64 wouldn’t have resulted in a landslide for JFK but he would probably have won easily enough.
Okay, that leaves two more ’72 and ’84 to consider.
My assertion was that landslide elections confirm the conventional wisdom and that confirmation leads to catastrophe.
I pointed to certain examples of landslide elections where doubled-down conventional wisdom led to catastrophes.
It is understandable that in crises, doubling down on conventional wisdom is somewhat reflexive.
But if there is a crisis, it’s often the result of that conventional wisdom itself.
In the current case, that conventional wisdom is austerity economics and aggressive “exceptional” foreign policy.
The rest should be clear.
The 64 landslide was anything but a disaster! We got civil rights and Medicare out of that one – an awful lot of good for the bad of the Vietnam war. Likewise 1932 and 1936 were anti-disasters as well. Actually, I’d say the rule is “Republican landslides lead to disaster, Democratic landslides lead to major steps forward.”
And Richard Nixon, the 1968 Convention and one hell of a long time in the wilderness. And neoliberalism and neoconservatism. And labor throwing away its power because of flagwaving.
The slowness of recovery after 1932 started a round of strikes that were substantial and brutal. The Southern textile workers strike resulted goons killing strikers in places near where I grew up (a little bit of hidden history). After 1936 the intensity of the strikes increased, most famously River Rouge. Conventional wisdom for Democrats and Republicans said call out the state home guards (predecessors of the National Guard) to put down the strikes. That was catastrophic.
The catastrophe after 1972 was Watergate, right? And after ’84 was…Iran-Contra or the S&L thing or both?
Yes. But the deeds that led to those scandals were done before the landslide wins.
The catastrophe after 1972 was the failure to purge the conventional thinking that resulted in Watergate and the Church Commission and gave us the Watergate retreads of the Bush II administration. Landslides double down on conventional wisdom, in this case “conservatism” and “tough foreign policy for its own sake”. It also lost Vietnam in such a way that it generated it own Dolchstoßlegende, which has beat down on contrary opinions of how to do foreign policy. And by absorbing working class ethnics and white Southerners into the Republican party, it sapped the strength of the labor movement and allowed he decline of wages that persists until today. We are still living that catastrophe.
The catastrophe after 1984 was the tacking of the Democratic Party away from New Deal policies, the increase in money in politics, and the loss of the ethic of the Fairness Doctrine by the symbolic removal of the doctrine itself. It was the attitude that math doesn’t matter in budgets, and the military should get what it wants and more. It was the failure to end nuclear weapons when there was briefly the will between the leader of the US and the leader of the Soviet Union. It was the utter destruction and humiliation of not just the Soviet Union but the Russian people. It was the creation of a powerful neoconservative foreign policy establishment. It was the suppression of public labor unions. Iran-Contra and the Savings and Loan collapse were symptoms of a greater catastrophe, the collapse of a certain business ethic that had prevailed from the New Deal until that Old Guard were replaced with Boomers.
In both cases, all of that was implicit in the views of the people who won the landslide.
If indeed, this will be a Clinton landslide, what is the conventional wisdom that becomes dominant. Pardon me, but I see the vision of Lanny Davis and his vision of America writ large.
And if Trump wins, it will not be by a landslide. But the common visions of Trumpism and Clintonism (and there are common visions) will be the conventional wisdom. Look at it being dominant. Now run out the consequences of that.
I just quarrel with the inevitability of the outcome you paint here. Not just because I’m willing to observe the campaign Clinton is actually running, and am interested in pocketing the gains we have made, including, but not restricted to, getting Hillary to reject TPP, propose greater regulations of financial institutions, respond to the BLM movement and support the Iran nuclear deal. That is powerful evidence she can be influenced by liberal/progressive activists.
We also will be electing a Congress which can push her to the left and can refuse to cooperate with her if she strays.
I think those in our movement who make themselves believe that they would not be part of a Clinton electoral victory are delusional, to their and our detriment.
Right off the top of my head I can tell you 1932 was a landslide election for Roosevelt, and 1964 was a landslide election for Johnson.
Of all the landslides, I think that only 1932 was a mandate to do something differently. Or better said, allowed the flexibility to do something differently.
Here’s the problem I have, landslides as promulgated by candidates, parties, and the media are measured quantitatively. Thus, ’72 and ’84 are considered landslides because Nixon won with 60.7% of the vote and Reagan won with 58.8%.
If the year and the candidates aren’t identified, are these two results comparable landslides?
Yr x40 – GOP ticket 60.3%
House – D – 131 seats and R 303 seats
Senate D – 37 seats R 59 seats
Yr x30 – DEM ticket 57.4%
House – D 313 and R 117
Senate – D 59 and R 36
Does it matter if any congressional seats were won or some lost in that election if the presidential ticket gets 57+% of the vote?
Or consider the following — is it even a landslide?
Winner (W) 57.5% and loser(L) 43%
House – W 201 and L 234
Senate – W 47 and L 49
I would tend to say that Presidential landslides without Congressional movement tend to perpetuate gridlock, which can create its own catastrophes.
Is it preferable for a Presidential ticket to win by a smaller margin if there is no net change in the number congressional of seats held by the winner’s party?
If the winner’s party already had a strong majority in congress, a smaller margin of victory for the president isn’t going to matter. If the president’s party is relatively weak or minority, it’s a recipe for “centrism”, because in order to get anything done he will have to make a lot of compromises.
Although I tend to be skeptical of relying on this kind of reasoning in political analysis. I’m not sure about the value of formal regularities without detailed consideration of the particular historical context of each presidency. For example, the congressional voting rules in force. And some elections are more different than others. Like this one.
That’s what I’m trying to get at. Landslide wins are prized but barely defined as to conditions precedent, variables that contribute to or factor in a mega-win, and the subsequent outcomes of such wins. Thus, for example, if turnout is low and HRC gets 60% of the votes against an odious opponent but the GOP retains the majority in both houses is that a landslide? Will it even mean anything other than that Trump is more loathed than HRC?
They are prized because they nail the argument for the conventional wisdom about policies.
The 1932 election was a bit of the outlier except the conventional wisdom was that we had to do something differently or the public would seek a dictator.
the conventional wisdom was that we had to do something differently or the public would seek a dictator.
Whose conventional wisdom? Ludicrous to say that it was what moved (or was even in the minds of) ordinary voters in 1932. If wasn’t even CW among the GOP elites because a dictator serves their purposes even better than democratic elections (hence the coup plot to overthrow FDR). 1932 was the completion of the rejection of a GOP congress that had been in place since the 1918 midterms — going into the ’32 election, Democrats has a one seat majority in the House and were short one seat in the Senate (compared with the 164 to 270 House and 39 to 56 Senate majorities the GOP held after the 1928 election).
The congressional gains for Democrats were huge in 1930 and 1932, but they gained even more in 1934 and 1936. At the presidential level — FDR’s ’32 “landslide” (percentage of the popular vote) was no better than Ike’s in ’56. Not as large as Harding, Hoover, LBJ, Nixon, or Reagan’s.
The PTB remember the thirties all too well. 2008 was our 1929, but Obama was not our FDR, an Hillary is even less so.
The historical analogies from then to now are only approximate due to the timing differences of events and when scheduled elections occurred. 1928 would be more like 2004, a degree of economic distress among the electorate, but GWB was the incumbent and Hoover was running for an open seat and the third one for the GOP. GWB had a self-created disaster of a war and Hoover/GOP still had the advantage of their isolationist stance and the public’s memory of the costs to them of Wilson sending the country to war to rescue US banksters. (War didn’t sell so easily back then.)
The financial market collapse then came in the ninth year of GOP rule, after the third presidential election. Seemingly without warning or earlier perception by the electorate even though there were pockets of major economic distress by 2006. This time the collapse came in the eighth year of GOP rule and right before the third presidential election. But the foreshadow was more apparent this time; hence, the 2006 midterm GOP thumping. Take the Iraq War out of the equation and reset the market collapsed to September 2009, and the GOP would have retained Congress in 2006 and George Allen would have been elected to the third GOP term. Then 2010 would have been our 1930 and 2012 our 1932.
As it was Obama has been our Hoover.
You’re taking the parallel so literally, I’m not sure you get what I’m saying. In order to understand me, just remember the old saying, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.”
2008 was a major financial crash, the biggest since 1929. Roosevelt came to the rescue in 1932. You can argue that Obama came to the rescue with his stimulus, it was probably the most he could do, etc., but whatever, it was not remotely comparable to 1932.
And the financial elites who caused and benefited from the 2008 meltdown? They knew their history. They weren’t going to allow another 1932. We literally watched them preventing it.
We’re still waiting for our 1932, and 2016 is not shaping up to be it.
I get what you’re saying, but the timing of elections in relationship to major market collapses plays a huge role in political outcomes. In ’29 the country was stuck with Hoover for three plus more years. The Congressional Democratic opposition had a full year to present themselves as the alternative, and at best it was pretty weak tea. Just strong enough to flip the House and get close to flipping the Senate. The big issue in that election (other than Hoover’s increasing unpopularity) was Smoot-Hawley. Otherwise, they weren’t offering anything new and went with opposition to Prohibition that had been a loser for them in the preceding five elections. (To their credit they did get that done before FDR took office.) Look at who the Democrats chose to be Speaker when they barely took of the House in the 1930 election:
FDR loathed the guy, but Garner was personally well-liked. It was a politically brilliant tactic to put Garner at the bottom of the ’32 ticket. He brought in votes and FDR moved him out of position of power.
FDR and his team had two years to put together a plan to win in ’32 and what they would attempt to do once in office.
We needed an FDR in ’08, but all that was available were Democrats like Garner. Technically, Bernie was correct, Obama should have been primaried in ’12, but like Garner, Democrats liked the guy too much. It would have been by total luck to get an FDR in ’08 because the speech would have been required during the primary and is unlikely to have resonated enough to have resulted in that person’s nomination. Plus, HRC as the “first viable woman” and BHO as the “first viable AA” sucked up all the oxygen in the race, and an authentic FDR type wouldn’t have lasted long enough that his/her words would have been remembered when the crash hit.
So, now we’re stuck. Regardless of what Trump says, he’s another corporatist (and probably not even as good at recognizing the needs of the people as Hoover). The majority of Democrats think the DLC/neoliberal/all-war-all-the-time formulation is just fine.
Notice that Hillary, Wall Street’s best friend, was lined up for 2016 from the get-go. Probably by agreement as early as 2008.
Lots and lots of things become more intelligible if HRC was given anything and everything she asked for right after the end of the primaries. I sort of thought that Obama took the VP slot off the table because having the Clintons look over his shoulder would have been uncomfortable. OTOH, recalling FDR and Garner, it would have been smarter for HRC to demand SOS and possibly a VP that wouldn’t run in ’16. The deal would have included support for her if she chose to run in ’16.
Had Obama known that McCain would choose an idiot running made, HRC would never have gotten such a sweet deal.
I don’t get what it would have to do with McCain or his running mate.
McCain was already behind Obama and Palin cost him a few more points. Whether gamed out or not, with HRC as VP, McCain wouldn’t have chosen Palin or any woman as a running mate. She was his hail Mary to pick up women disappointed that HRC didn’t win the nomination.
My point is that nominees have to be conservative in evaluating their general election chances when surveying the mid-June polling and the national mood. (IOW — ignore people like me that called both the nomination and general election for Obama in January.) By mid-June those factors are suggestive but not solidified enough to be predictive. If McCain had nailed the VP choice, Obama couldn’t take any chances in not getting 99% of HRC’s voters. Open seat Presidential elections tend are more often than not the closest contests.
“She was his hail Mary to pick up women disappointed that HRC didn’t win the nomination.”
If so, he must be even stupider than he seemed. The number of women who would vote for Palin in compensation for Hillary must be infinitesimal.
From everything I know Palin was chosen not because she was a woman but because she was the pick of the influential and extremely conservative Council for National Policy. McCain was talked into it, but she certainly wasn’t his idea.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/5/620629/-
Another brilliant idea from bloody bill if I remember.
Actually in the long, one of his least damaging ideas.
That’s why Billy Crystal is one of the greatest comedians of our time. Oh wait …
Awful lot of catastrophic electoral theory on this thread.
It’s in the water at the Frog Pond these days.
How about if we decide to keep on organizing, and think of ways to organize more effectively, instead of despairing and throwing in the towel? We’ve got a President and Congress to elect and influence.
If people decide in May that they will be powerless to influence them before and after November, then they will surely prove themselves correct. Doesn’t need to be that way, and I sure don’t plan on having it be that way.
That is exactly why I said that sentiment doesn’t translate into votes. Votes come from people organizing and getting other people to actually take the action of going and marking a ballot for the preferred candidate. Something that voters in the remaining primaries should take to heart if they expect their views to have some power.
And do again in November if they indeed do perceive a serious danger.
Check it out: Alternet How Opponents of UK Labour Leader Corbyn Advanced a Political Coup with Antisemitism Smears
The bit that might seem familiar to some on this side of the pond:
Those behind the smears and methods used are interesting and also familiar (except to those still deluded by the neoliberalcons).
Sort of like the impeachment of Dilma Roussef for corruption.
British Jews fleeing Labour Party
Antisemitism in UK Labour Party
A manufactured scandal?
http://mondoweiss.net/2016/03/the-occupation-of-the-american-mind-documented/
Perhaps Ryan gamed this out and figured that the outsider candidate can’t be seen (at least not yet) being endorsed by the highest elected Republican. Perhaps not and I’m thinking too much about this.
Your second thought seems closer to the mark.
He wants space between Trump and incumbents running for re-election. Especially those who depend on Latino votes.
Democrats for Nixon in 1972
The husband of Hillary Clinton is coming out of retirement: he popular among white blue collar workers. I’m sure he is.
“Actually existing Ryan has always been a con man — someone playing the part of Serious, Honest Conservative, but never doing a very good job of it. His budgets were always fraudulent in obvious ways, full of trillion-dollar magic asterisks and spectacular evasions. But he has consistently been portrayed in news reports and analysis as an earnest policy wonk. Why?
“The answer, surely, is that in the media narrative the two parties must, simply must, be symmetric; if there are serious policy wonks turning out responsible proposals on the Democratic side, there must be comparable people on the Republican side. So someone like “Paul Ryan”, the mythical creature, has to exist — and when Paul Ryan, the real politician, decided to play that character, nobody wanted to do the numbers and point out his obvious fakery.
Krugman column on Ryan
Which makes Ryan pretty vulnerable to public scrutiny of his policy prescriptions.
“It is notable that House conservatives often derided Mr. Boehner for not ‘sticking to conservative principles’ in negotiating with Democrats on legislation, but now are chafing that Mr. Ryan, whose conservative principles have in many ways been rejected by Mr. Trump, is not getting behind the presumptive nominee.”
Ryan/Trump breach beyond repair?
What are the overs and unders for number of news cycles until Trump cleans Ryan’s clock? I have Ryan caving-in shamefully by Thursday. You could carve a better person from a banana.
Liar.
Go our separate ways? Sounds like a threat to me. Can someone explain to me how Ryan isn’t bluffing a pair of deuces? What juice has he got?
Wow…to be a fly on the wall at this meeting…
Good Lord, those Trump quotes re. Ryan are hilariously belligerent.
Thoughtful, calm, sensitive…
You can keep these quotes coming all day. A banquet of schaudenfreude.
Raking through the ashes of the former House of Bush.
Delicious! Trump, the Insult Comic Candidate.
One dish served cold for a famed Bush enabler:
“”I think Lindsey Graham is a disgrace, and I think you have one of the worst representatives of any representative in the United States, and I don’t think he should run,” Trump said about the South Carolina senator at a campaign event in front of the lawmaker’s home-state crowd. “I don’t think he could run for dog catcher in this state and win again. I really don’t. Other than that, I think he’s wonderful.”…
“His thinking,” Trump began. “He says, `I know so much.’ He knows about the military? I could push him over with a little thimble.”
Feed me MORE…
And the media is buying this crap by the cubic yard.
It’s only the GOP base that finds this fully media-enabled Trump Show acceptable. The rest of the electorate is giving him subterranean approval ratings.
Considering that both Democrats and Republicans have turned their back on what’s left of the middle class that we now call the white working class, Trump has brought them back in play because…Trump. The general could become a lot closer that you might think if Hillary is the nominee.
The only real hope Hillary has to pull away from her margin of error matchup polls against Trump is to unite the Democratic Party. That means bringing Bernie supporters into the process. As usual the DNC Chair is not the sharpest tool in the shed by doing this:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/sanders-dnc-letter-convention-committees
Already 30% of Bernie supporters say they will not vote for Hillary. Bernie supporters already account for 45% of Democratic voters. That’s 13.5% of the base not voting for Hillary. If those voters get even more pissed because of the DNC and decide to do some real damage, they could amplify their voice by not sitting out or voting Green but instead go all the way to vote for Trump. Now we are looking at 27% of your landslide base missing. So Martin, good luck on counting those landslide chickens.
I believe there is polling data from previous elections (say 2008) showing that only a small fraction of the people saying “I’ll never vote for SO-and-So” actually follow through on their intention.
Of course AG will tell me that this data is garbage….
One thing that was true in 2008 was that the DNC did not overturn the will of the people. I ask you, what about at the state level, overturning the will of those people? Seems you centrist DNC apologist just want to look at the national levels, not the state levels where the people live who you claim will vote for Hillary no matter the amount of breath taking corruption or that Hillary is the most disliked national candidate in history, except maybe Trump. Since my state of Colorado was overwhelming for Bernie, any Super Delegate voting for Hillary will NOT get my vote in the general. If a large number of people feel the way I do, this could be a disaster in usually close down ticket races.
Bernie is the kind of politician who the better you get to know him the more you like him. Hillary is just the opposite. Trump is going to let you get to know Hillary better than gentleman Bernie would ever do and it will stick. This could become the race of the unfavorables. The problem here is that the more they dislike Trump the more they vote for him. Maybe that has something to do with the Establishment.
Polls can be interesting. Here’s one from the NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/17/us/poll-shows-dukakis-leads-bush-many-reagan-backers-shift-sides.h
tml?pagewanted=all
[ Mr. Dukakis, the probable Democratic nominee, ran ahead of Mr. Bush, the almost certain Republican candidate, by 49 percent to 39 percent among 1,056 registered voters.]
[The survey, conducted May 9-12, represented a significant advance for Mr. Dukakis since a Times/CBS News Poll in March when Mr. Bush had 46 percent and Mr. Dukakis had 45 percent.]
[In the latest poll, Governor Dukakis of Massachusetts led in all regions, but he ran especially well in the Northeast and Middle West. The poll found Mr. Dukakis with very substantial advantages over Mr. Bush among women, union members, Roman Catholics and blacks.]
[Strikingly, 28 percent of those who said they voted for President Reagan in 1984 said they preferred Mr. Dukakis over Mr. Bush this time]
Driftglass:
Yeah, but welding goggles are recommended…
I do think a landslide is likely. If the head-to-head polls start to move decisively against Trump (or even stay at their current levels as we get closer to the general) – once people start to smell blood in the water it will be a mad rush to crucify this guy. People love a bombastic, bullying, hyper-confident figure, but they love to see one fall even more. And the ratings for his epic humiliation will be even better than the rating for his humiliation of Jeb, Marco et al. The media will be frantic – writers jumping all over each other to write of the demise of the demagogue … wall to wall Republicans jumping on the bandwagon and endorsing Hillary etc. I’m not saying it has to happen this way, but once the floodgates open it will get very ugly … hence, landslide probability greatly increased.
plus it will be good TV
Surely if the primaries demonstrated anything, it’s that Republican voters couldn’t care less what the party wants. Can you imagine anyone attracted to voting for Trump deciding, “Guess I better not. Paul Ryan doesn’t support him”?
The media is going to sell it as a horserace, so they’ll be propping up Trump (as they have been by giving him free coverage) while repeating the VincentFoster, WhiteWater Benghazi, Email stuff, over and over again.