New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was interviewed by Brian Williams and Nicole Wallace on MSNBC, and he said this about the modern Republican Party.
“Right now, it’s the party of Trump. He’s the Republican nominee for president of the United States and gotten more votes than any Republican candidate for president in our history, and with 16 opponents. So, it’s the party of Trump.”
By now, we’re familiar with some of what that means. For example, it means scenes like this one at a recent rally in Asheville, North Carolina where a 69 year old woman with an oxygen tank was punched in the face for telling Trump supporters to learn Russian.
I don’t know if you’re fully familiar, however, with Trump’s philosophy for how to deal with rivals and opponents.
To me, that is more reminiscent of a scene from The Untouchables than anything else.
Eliot Ness: I want to get Capone! I don’t know how to do it.
Jimmy Malone: You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way! And that’s how you get Capone.
Maybe it takes a New York real estate developer to realize that to deal with mafiosi you have to behave like a mafioso.
This is something that has been reported in a more straightforward way, for example, most recently by the (hardly liberal) Wall Street Journal. And, in fairness, it wasn’t possible to build tall buildings in Manhattan or casinos in Atlantic City without having to interact with the Sicilian mob. Trump has acknowledged this even as he’s been much less than forthcoming about the extent of his mob ties.
What I think is more important than the fact that he got his hands dirty over the years is that he learned to operate just like the gangsters he was lavishing with “$1.65 million via gifts of expensive cars quickly converted into cash.”
And, he actually had a piece of wisdom about these dealings that the American voter should take to heart:
“When you have those relationships, in the end, you lose,” Trump told the Journal. “You can solve some problems short term, but long term, you’ve got a disaster.”
So far, Trump seems to prefer lawyers and lawsuits to knives and guns as his weapons of choice. But, how exactly would a president screw the people who “mess with him” fifteen times harder? How would President Trump go about “showing people who are watching what will happen to them” if they cross him?
Instead of high-priced lawyers, he’d have the entire Justice Department and the FBI at his disposal. And that’s just for starters. Nixon discovered that he could utilize the IRS, authorize black-bag jobs, break-ins, and even arson, compile an enemies list and hire former CIA officers to carry out the missions.
So, is this really what the GOP is now? The party of small government and civil liberties is going to rally behind a Godfather that operates with all the nuance and subtlety of John Gotti and that embraces an ethic of not hesitating to go for the jugular?
I mean, sometimes these disastrous leaders tell you what they intend to do in their books and you look back later on, after all the carnage, and you wonder why no one took what they wrote seriously.
I think Trump has told us how he intends to operate as president. The only question is whether the American public will understand this sufficiently before they vote.
Trump sure is bad! I agree!
40% of the electorate do not. Hence, some carping on the matter might be in order.
I agree! And I’m sure this will change their minds!
Bah. I can’t keep up the fake chirpiness. I just don’t understand the intended function of anti-Trump articles on liberal news and analysis sites. We are not the 40% of the electorate who support him. And that 40% are not swayed by logical argumentations or factual projections.
So … what’s the point?
Since the Breitbart guy and Conway came onboard Trump has been a lot more disciplined so this is basically the legendary pivot. Will it stick? Hell if I know.
The point is, I think, to peel away the fence-sitters, if possible, and if not, depress turnout. This election cycle will not be won on the high road, I’m afraid.
Multiple reasons.
I’d wager that 80% or more of the daily readers of this blog and the comments underneath the blog, don’t comment themselves. Perhaps they don’t have an interest in commenting, or aren’t as prolific in formulating thoughts on politics.
So, first, perhaps this blog and the commenters here can give them ideas or ways to frame issues, whether to family, friends, or co-workers, who are undecided or don’t normally vote. Believe it or not, there really are undecided and non-voters who can be persuaded, depending on the persuader and the argument they bring.
Second, even for commenters here who do read and follow politics, hearing different viewpoints and ideas can hone their own political thoughts and arguments, which can then help the first group mentioned above.
Third, while Strongman Trump may just be a carnival barker, or the lesser evil considering neoliberal neocon Killery Clinton, there are more appropriate sites to go to discuss how imperative it is to discuss known knowns, such as Hillary Clinton being a neoliberal neocon centrist.
Fourth, the author of this blog, who pays money to keep the server up and the domain name pointing to it, wants to have this conversation. Fortunately, no one is, as far as I know, forcing you to come here.
I don’t run a blog but my thinking is that it’s probably more productive to aim fire at a target of revulsion in the run-up to an election rather than write articles that tend to create friendly fire. None of that makes any difference if one’s preferred candidate doesn’t win.
I’m genuinely curious as to why you’re perplexed about this because it’s certainly not out of the ordinary. I’m guessing we could go back in the archives and find numerous articles critical of McCain/Palin in the weeks prior to election day 2008 or similar ones about Romney’s business philosophy and attitude towards the 47% in 2012.
What’s your take on that? What would you rather see posted?
The difference, to my mind, is that Romney and McCain were both at least theoretically competent to serve as president. They would’ve been shitty presidents, but identifiably presidents. Both held public office. Both held policy approaches. They were within the historical bounds of ‘presidential candidate’.
Trump is not. It’s like ‘Vermin Supreme’ became a major party candidate. He’s blatantly unqualified. He’s a buffoon. He appeals only to snake-oil-salesmen, rubes, and nihilists. And watching intelligent lefties try to talk s-o-s, rubes, and nihilists around to the obvious face that Trump is unqualified gives me a migraine. It’s like watching my favorite author in a comment section, engaging with trolls.
And I find it deeply depressing that bright people here actually believe that we’re going to ‘formulate arguments’ which will persuade undecided voters. Partly because … no. One thing I’ll say for Trump, he’s been completely clear about what he is such that every thinking person (who is not a nihilist or conman) understands precisely what he represents; anyone who is not now opposed to him cannot be convinced with fancy wordages and logicalicities. And partly because it’s so smugly self-important. I’m going to marshal the watertight argument that will swing voters! $200 million and 100 professions in the Clinton campaign are struggling, but I’l handle this.
Also, I just cannot believe that he has a chance of winning. If Donald Trump–or the Octomom, or Tim Tebow–have a real chance of winning the presidency, we’ve already lost. For my own psychological well-being, I can’t face that.
Steggles, multiple regular commentors on this blog have said directly that they will not be voting for Hillary. This is a direct statement by them that they would be fine with a Trump Presidency. It’s the most important statement a person can make, how they will vote.
Many also have written that they do not take Trump’s policy proposals seriously. In fact, a couple of regular commentors in our “progressive community” have proclaimed Hillary more dangerous on policy.
So, sadly and unfortunately, this community is not a monolith on the Presidential campaign.
Anyone here who won’t vote for Clinton in a state where a vote matters is either a dupe or a nihilist. And–this is my point–THEY WILL NOT BE CONVINCED. You can’t convince dupes and nihilists, and even if you could, this isn’t the place.
We can maybe, maybe, move the needle on the media’s freakish acceptance of Trump about one millionth of a millimeter. I’d rather focus on that. Just repeating ‘Trump is bad’ for the thousandth time is the definition of ‘doing the same thing over and over against and expecting a different result.’
All votes matter in every State.
If Clinton wins with less than 50% of the vote, people have already been raising the bar by claiming she would not have a mandate and her Presidency would be a failure.
The writers and pundits who claim this are carelessly avoiding the fact that our fates are tied to our Presidents’. Anyone who declares that a Presidency would be a failure before it begins is a person who attacks the American idea in doing so.
” not have a mandate and her Presidency would be a failure.”
This will happen in any case.
I don’t know how we fix anything with a media this broken. I wish that were the focus. Maybe I’ll try to make it mine.
I disagree. I’ll fight to make Clinton’s Presidency as successful as possible. I wish you would join me.
Yeah, that’s why I don’t get it. We should be realistic about the situation. Trump is the only other candidate who can win and he had a very good shot at winning.
You would prefer a Trump-free existence on liberal blogs in the run-up to the election, for your own psychological well-being, when there’s a reasonable chance that he’s going to the President for the next 4 years. Imagine what the liberal blogs will covering during that time.
You write:
Hmmmmm…
Indeed. Maybe you might be right.
HMMMMMmmm…
I would be interested to hear from you exactly who the “mafiosi” of which you speak might be.
AG
It’s extensive:
Read more:
Oh yes…I know about all of those. What I was asking was who the entities might be w/whom he would be “dealing like a mafioso” who were not identifiably mafiosi themselves.
Or even were, for that matter.
Like dat.
AG
More interested in the Newsweek conflict of interest business ties myself.
http://www.newsweek.com/2016/09/23/donald-trump-foreign-business-deals-national-security-498081.html
Trump’s mob associations (which which are not the subject of criminal allegations, though there are lots of other reasons for thinking he might be a criminal) are pretty well known.
Are you asking people to be politically correct? Bringing a knife to a knife fight is politically correct. So many seem tired of that. Blow them out of the water sound so cool.
Bring a grenade to a fist fight.
But Booman, there are commenters here telling us regularly that Trump is a “huckster”, a “carnival barker”, and that people who take his words seriously are “delusional”.
I understand your impulse to constantly mock commenters who you see as wrong or naive or stupid, but it’s not helping the culture of this place.
Alright.
After the recent encouraging polls for Trump, I’ve been playing with the New York Times decision tree.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/upshot/presidential-polls-forecast.html?_r=1#explore-paths
If you give Clinton only MI, WI, and CO, where she leads by 5.6, 5.3, and 9.6 respectively in a two-way race by the RCP averages… well, see for yourself. (A four-way race works against her in WI, for her in CO – no more than 1.3 points in either direction.)
We are reassured that the cameo appearances of Adolph Hitler in the references corroborate the integrity of this post. Thankfully we’re spared direct mention of such a man. I’d think that nowadays Vladimir Putin would have long taken the role of the arch-fiend.
Did Putin write books before he took office?
I doubt it, but I’d be interested to see what he had to say if he did.
Wasn’t there a little guy with a mustache who decided he shouldn’t have to pay taxes and so fixed it so he didn’t? You can be sure Trump will scam the government to enrich himself, and there is no doubt he will attack his enemies every way he can.
This is serious business. And if folks can’t see him for what he is now, how will they ever? I get really down when I see Clinton down by five points in Ohio, and some on the left can only say how evil she is. Blind men looking for Valhalla in Jill Stein and the beast is stalking them. Great fun.
Elizabeth Warren Asks Newly-Chatty FBI Director to Explain Why DOJ Didn’t Prosecute Banksters (linky courtesy atrios)
It was very unusual for DOJ to release attorney work product regarding Clinton. I THINK the DOJ was thinking this shouldn’t be prosecuted, but the public should know the fact and make their own decision.
The bankers are not running for public office.
God help us if Prosecutors start releasing work product on cases that are not pursued.
It’s a terrible precedent, and I am sure Warren knows it. But then so was the decision not to prosecute anyone.
and I think you’re right about significant downsides to routinely following that new precedent Comey set by releasing the investigative info re: Clinton’s e-mail server practices.
OTOH, I find Warren’s reasoning unassailable (and the political savvy behind it impeccable). The syllogism looks roughly like this to me:
“Intense” public interest in the matter was your stated reason to justify breaking existing precedent (and thereby establishing new precedent) re: release of FBI investigative details.
There is “intense” public interest in why DOJ didn’t prosecute individuals and institutions referred for potential federal-crime prosecutions by FCIC.
Ergo, by the same standards, the analogous investigative details and reasoning underlying that no-prosecute call should likewise be released.
QED
The basic idea against releasing the work product is that it avoids the destruction of reputation with no real ability to respond.
It is inimical to the idea of innocent until proven guilty.
The standard you propose would suggest that media interest should given the application of that rule, which I think is wrong.
But I see Warren’s point.
any standard.
As you noted (and I agree), Warren is probably fully aware of the downsides of making the new precedent Comey set for the Clinton e-mail server investigation into SOP.
I think what she’s up to here is primarily a sort of (very effective, imo) public shaming.
(It occurred to me since starting this subthread that her minority-party position is crucial in limiting her to that. If Dems held Senate — and especially if she occupied the right Committee chair — she would probably instead be grilling Comey publicly, in person, before that committee with the same line of questioning.
And, in contrast to Gowdy’s Benghazi! Benghazi! Benghazi! idiocy, that would be a very good and valid thing.)
I don’t think she really wants it released. I think she is making a political point and a reasonable one.
Except the word you are looking for is “effective” and not “reasonable”.
Warren knows the DOJ is not going to reverse all past practice on this but doesn’t and SHOULDN’T hesitate to put the boot in on Comey purely to score points.
Not all games are “fun and games”, some are not funny at all. And the game that is on against Trump is one of those. And it doesn’t bother me that Senator Warren can play the game like an old-style linebacker and make sure the tackle stings. As is “hurts right to the bone”.
(For example I think the single best shot she has taken in the game to date is the “losing to a girl” one. THAT left a mark.)
Perhaps it’s fun to zero in on Trump’s dealings with mob characters and he may be alive, literally, today because he worked with them, but that’s not why he’s standing tall today. It’s the banksters that have propped him up for decades, the politicians that he’s wined/dined/bought, and the media that can’t get enough of the guy (either love or hate him). In this instance, the “media” includes lefty publications and blogs that for over a year haven’t been able to stop talking about the guy. And when you get right down to it, there’s not that much to the guy and all the coverage is a repetition of a a few decent articles written by last September.
Italy lived through the Berlusconi era… and he was strongly against the Libyan intervention and regime change. Muammar Gaddafi was his friend and they had a deal to prevent migrants traveling to Lampedusa.
○ British MPs deliver damning verdict on David Cameron’s Libya intervention
Preparing the White House for Hillary Clinton …
○ Obama slams Trump’s appearance on RT, compares Putin to Saddam Hussein
US Presidential election used to be popularity, or beauty contests of imagery and perception … in this decade with social media and vulgarity, it’s – street talk – barroom debate – and populist speeches. Get used to it, the old days ain’t coming back anytime soon.
Globalisation, deterioration of human rights, big(ger) corporations, waste and a start for green energy decennia too late.
TTIP – GLOBAL – BAYER/MONSANTO – GREAT PACIFIC GARBAGE PATCH– UK-CHINA DEAL HICKLEY POINT NUCLEAR STATION
I’m unaware that Berlusconi ever talked about building a border wall, deporting 11 million people, or claimed that climate science was a fraud and a hoax. That’s for starters. So what’s the point here?
Ever hear of Berlusconi’s partner Umberto Bossi to govern Italy …
In April 2008 the Italian regionalist populist party Lega Nord entered a governing centre-right coalition led by Silvio Berlusconi for the fourth time. Since then, the party has been able to thrive thanks to its holding of key ministries and its consolidation of ‘issue ownership’ over the key themes of federal reform and immigration/law and order. Moreover, the party’s performance in government has brought electoral rewards, as seen in the 2009 European Parliament elections.
Lega Nord on Immigration – comparable to Austria
○ Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution and the Exodus from Africa – April 2011
Cameron’s egregious abuse of UN Responsibility to Protect as the fig leaf for their Libyan aggression is particularly worrying, given the Neocon’s particular fondness for that tool. They are giving it a bad name.
Do you happen to believe that Trump is against intervention and regime change? I’m confused about the Berlusconi reference.
Trump just hired James Woolsey as a senior adviser. I’m sure you’re aware of his worldview.
I swore off replying directly to Marie3, and will keep that promise, but what she writes still raises questions for me. Here’s one: have those lefty blogs that she mentions as being preoccupied with Trump also been preoccupied with anyone else in the presidential race?
Wonkette can’t seem to resist taking any opportune jab at Jill Stein – even though Gary Johnson has vastly more support.
Yes. They’ve been this way for 22 years. They have just decided to turn to a professional to further their nefarious, fascist aims.
Right? Would “Tailgunner” Ted Cruz have been any different re: his supposed enemies? Except Cruz had an overtly religious bent to his. It’s what the GOP is now and has been for a while.
I get the sense that pundits on our side think there is some magic bullet that will make Trump be seen for who he is, and as a result the country rise up and reject him.
It’s kind of idealistic in a way: if a bad man can be shown to be bad then he will be rejected
Almost like something out of a Capra movie.
But I think people know he is a lair and racist and all many of other things. But they are so cynical they think everyone in public life is.
So I am starting to think it doesn’t matter.
How does that square with your… hmm, roughly positive poll assessments at DKos? (I saw your comment in one of the FP poll diaries)
Also I think it’s important to remember that absent the mass media, this is basically how human leadership functioned for the majority of human history. Of course leaders would enrich themselves and their allies and use those allies to strengthen their power, of course they would use the power they had to lay low enemies foreign and domestic (to the extent that existed). How many people do the same thing today whenever they can? It’s not unnatural human psychology ESPECIALLY in times of reduced stability and dysfunction which is what GOP gridlock + Arab Spring gave us.
I still think we win by 10.
I am having my doubts though. I said in that FP diary also that someone I trust told me we have an enthusiasm problem in Florida.
In my crackpot thinking, there are in any moment two campaign realities. There are the atmospherics. Some call it the narrative, but it is what is dominating the public discussion.
And then there are the numbers, and what they say. Often they are contradictory, but sometimes one influences the other.
Trump dominates the media – he sets the agenda. He controls the atmospherics and we can’t seem to get it back.
And then there are the cold numbers – and what I see in the under 34 vote.
The atmospherics right now are terrible. The numbers less so, but the numbers seem to be responding to the atmospherics. If forced to guess, I think the demographic realities will mean the numbers revert to where they were on August 15th.
The numbers in the end usually win.
Don’t know if that makes sense, but it is how I think about elections.
When compared to someone as status quo as HRC who the media also dislikes and who is so consistently secretive she appears furtive, there’s no surprise that HRC cannot change the atmosphere. Especially when compared to the man she seeks to succeed. The most disliked candidate ever, except for Trump. Disliked more than losers like McCain, Romney or Gore.
I think that’s the root of all the problems she’s having and it’s not something she can actually fix because she actually IS unlikable in any setting but small-group as far as I can determine.
Trump, for all of his warts, does interviews. He is visible. He is on Twitter.
Clinton is running the old style risk adverse campaign. Don’t make mistakes. Keep the press away. Don’t answer questions.
Trump dominates the media because he is IN IT.
I think we largely agree.
It’s a good observation, but I don’t think it is entirely pointless. Given our red/blue polarization, 40% of the population is going to vote for Trump no matter what. They might acknowledge all the bad things about him, but they will convince themselves that Hilary Clinton is worse somehow. But there are some Republicans who won’t be able to stomach Trump, and some Democrats who might be inclined to not come out or vote third party. These are the people who make the difference between a 1 point loss and a 4 point win, and those are the people who need to be reminded of how much Trump sucks, again and again.
But I agree that we aren’t going to get a wholesale rejection of Trump, much as he might deserve it.
It is really a question of who is left who might change, and what persuades them.
In my judgement who is left is young.
I think that means asking why Bernie appealed to them, and learning from that.
But I have no hard data on why: I think free public education was a big part of that – but I hope Brooklyn has hard data.
I think there’s really no downside, short-term anyway, to putting Bernie out there and embracing the best parts of his platform. It’s the only one out there that’s appealing to the young and the working class.
This is reminding me of the Brexit vote. The Lords of London forgot about the Hobbits out there in The Shire. They had seen their lot fall for years and their needs ignored. Wages are stagnant and the rich keep getting richer, really richer. So along comes the Orange Man to represent them. His programs are unimportant. He tells us he will cut taxes and make us all great again. The neoliberal kingdom maybe shattering. Maybe it is not all profits and trade and stock options and conquest. What are the polls today in Ohio? Be well Hillary.
Somehow it seems that people like to be lied to. The item that Booman posted recently about Youngstown, Ohio brought this home to me. Do the folks talking about how Trump would negotiate tough trade deals seriously believe that that would bring back the steel industry to their region? Apparently they’ve convinced themselves of that, as silly as it sounds.
The other key point of Booman’s Youngstown item is that we’re talking about people with very deep roots in their region–families that go back many generations. They do not want to pack up and move anywhere. Here in the Pacific Northwest, we have a shorter history of white settlement, but we also have towns where, until 20-some years ago, successive generations went to work in the mills–here that means sawmills. Coastal towns have their fishing fleets, and again successive generations who went out to sea. The Puget Sound area has a reasonably long history of aircraft manufacturing as a source of high paying jobs for the working class.
Those of us who are pointy headed intellectuals (or however you wish to phrase it) are likely to have moved around, perhaps quite a bit. I suggest we’re less likely to feel rooted to a place than those folks in Youngstown.
So the attachment to place is a key factor that leads people to believe Trump’s lies instead of Democratic proposals that make no promises about a phoenix-like renaissance of the steel industry…that make no promises that nobody will wind up moving to get a new job.
I should add, the factor that has turned Oregon and Washington into reliably blue states would seem to be that major cities, especially Seattle and Portland, have received big influxes of young people.
More generally, there seems to be a strong correlation between parts of the US that are magnets for in-migration (and ethnic diversification) and parts of the US that are trending blue.
Exactly correct.
See: Georgia generally, vs. Atlanta.
Outside of metro Atlanta, Georgia is essentially Mississippi. But because Atlanta is about 50% of Georgia’s population, Georgia is red but trending purple. Atlanta is basically the capital of the South East, and attracts young, diverse, liberal people.
It’d be interesting to see the population trends of the rest of the South East, compared to Atlanta, and where Atlanta draws people from (such as myself and half the people I know who aren’t from Atlanta or Georgia).
Isn’t this true of urban North Carolina as well?
Probably a lot of places in red states. It’s just that Atlanta sticks out because it has almost half of the entire state’s population in the metro area, and I live here and have firsthand experience with it, and not-Atlanta, Georgia. I originally lived in Cincinnati Ohio, which tends to be a Republican-leaning metro area compared to the other cities in Ohio which turn Ohio blue.