How long will it be before it’s common knowledge that Donald Trump is the dog who caught the car?
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Depends
GOP members – election night after he loses, remember Rove on Fox with Romney.
Independents- already know.
Dems- Should know and force a high voter turnout or some Dems try to shoot Hillary in the foot to slow her down out of spite.
This election is for the Democratic party to blow it and lose.
>>This election is for the Democratic party to blow it and lose.
which is why we’re so worried. That’s arguably what the Democratic party is best at.
The last two Presidential elections argue vigorously against your claim here.
the last two presidential elections had a really remarkable candidate. The two before that were winnable if the dem candidate had been even competent, but were lost. And the midterm elections argue vigorously in my favor.
The current polling, especially the margins Sanders has on Trump versus what Hillary Clinton, shows what happens when you punt on youth.
The HRC camp made a fatal miscalculation that they could punt on the youth vote if they kept the racial minority vote and picked up moderates (especially moderate women) disenchanted by the GOP. One of the miscalculations is excusable; I don’t think anyone expected Trump to consolidate the traditional GOP base that quickly.
The other is not. Repeat after me: you cannot sustain a multiracial coalition if you lose the youth vote.
Democratic Party partisans: this is what elections will for the next 4-12 years look like, racial demographic browning aside, if youth vote % and turnout regress to 2004 Kerry levels — or worse — 2000 Gore levels.
And don’t fool yourselves into thinking that all you have to do to juice the youth vote is highlight how bad the Republican Party is. 2012 Obama vs. 2008 Obama didn’t lose any voting demographic by more than 2% except when you include the youth vote. Whereupon he saw no increase in support with Asians/Latinos (despite getting 10% more of the vote overall), an 11% drop with white Millenials and a 14% drop with black male Millenials. And this was against Mitt fucking Romney, so don’t believe for a second that just because you’re up against Trump you don’t have to do anything other than bleat ‘you’re a bunch of Naderites if you don’t vote Hillary’ to stop that slide.
Democratic Party: You have been warned.
The youth are voting for Bernie because they prefer him to Hillary, head to head. This reflects well on them and their judgement of the Clintonite Democratic party.
Now, if the youth look at Trump vs Hillary and decide to vote Trump then that will also be because they prefer Trump and his policies. I think you’ll find that the youth will be fairly pragmatic and not vote purely out of spite.
Take Sanders polling in the General with a HUGE grain of salt. According to the L.A. Times, there has not been even ONE negative ad run against Sanders this whole primary season. None. Zero. Nada. None by Hillary. None by O’Malley. None by the GOPers. No one is spending any money slicing and dicing him. That’s why he polls better.
The most important ‘poll’ is the one taking place right now…in actual polling places.
Sanders lost that one. He’s not getting a second chance to lose the general.
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So according to you Sanders lost. Glee! So what. Now you’re stuck with Hillary Clinton and she is absolutely the problem, maybe even one of the main reasons why Bernie Sanders has done so well among Democrats: 40 %, not bad. Now stop gloating about the situation and tell us positively how you’re going to transform the Old Lady into someone the young people will look to for leadership instead of overpriced trinkets.
Legalize marijuana? I can’t think of anything else that might work. Isn’t there a hearing on its Schedule coming up fairly soon–before the election?
You ever think that the reason why no one spends their money like that is because there’s no good angle to attack him from?
At any case, the more basic implication that Bernie Sanders hasn’t been attacked is downright false. Where do you think Berniebros came from? Where do you think the concentrated slurs of high-visibility 2nd-wave feminists calling his supporters boy-crazy and horny came from? What do you call the debates constantly bringing up his socialism, over topics like poverty and unionism? What about the MSM lying about violence at Trump protests and caucuses? What about people blaming his pro-gun proliferation stance on Sandy Hook? There may not be an explicit advertising campaign in that direction, but a lot of anti-Sanders signal boosting has been happening since October.
It’s not really clear that the attacks Bernie Sanders has been enduring now would be much different than what he’d be getting in September. The only things I can think that the GOP would do different that the Democratic centrists wouldn’t do is yell ‘SOCIALISM!’ a few thousand more times.
I don’t have any interest in repeating the statements and actions—in both his public and private lives—for which Sen. Sanders’ opponents could attack him. But can we agree not to fool ourselves into thinking that they don’t exist?
Actually, who is taking seriously ” the statements and actions—in both his public and private lives—for which” HRC should be attacked for?
It’s not really worth the time because, you know, he’s not going to be the he nominee, but like this
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I looked at your link and that’s some seriously weak tea in there.
A lot of stuff in Bernie Sanders’ record is genuinely problematic. While he’s much better than most liberals on his international politics, there are still areas of ideological weakness. But, you know, everything that Bernie Sanders is bad on (support for violent militia groups, race relations, questionable votes) HRC is considerably worse on. And I seriously don’t know how the tax issue angle will play out.
But that other stuff… uh, again, that might play well in the Very Serious Civility Politics echo chamber, but to the voting public as a whole? Are you kidding me? Do you think that Sanders being on unemployment or getting paltry sums from Boeing or the NRA is going to hurt him? I know where this impulse comes from, because the DNC no-shit according to the NYT trial-ballooned two attacks that would A.) portray Donald Trump not-as-rich as he said and B.) portray “Dangerous Donald” as hanging out with the mafia.
I know that’s a pretty flip summary, that’s a pretty long gish gallop there. And all of my replies except for the tax issue fall into the categories of ‘true, but no one in the general election will care outside of the fainting couch pundit frauds’ and/or ‘true, that would hurt him from the left except for the fact that HRC/Trump/Generic Democrat was or would be worse on that issue’. If you want to discuss specific angles of attack, I’m game, though.
“I remember it, you remember it!”
I do not remember it.
COOPER: Senator Sanders. A Gallup poll says half the country would not put a socialist in the White House. You call yourself a democratic socialist. How can any kind of socialist win a general election in the United States?
COOPER: The Republican attack ad against you in a general election — it writes itself. You supported the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. You honeymooned in the Soviet Union. And just this weekend, you said you’re not a capitalist.
COOPER: You don’t consider yourself a capitalist, though?
COOPER: Just let me just be clear. Is there anybody else on the stage who is not a capitalist?
. . . about violence at Trump protests and caucuses?”
Also too, what about them inventing “chair-throwing” and “violence” by Sanders supporters at NV convention for which no corroborating evidence exists, then proceeding to treat them as established fact? [h/t mino for that link]
How many millennials would even see those attack ads? Aren’t they almost exclusively alt media? Are Republicans even using that?
Kindly name a single election won by “the youth vote.” Gene McCarthy? George McGovern?
If Democrats had to rely on “the youth vote,” we’d be commiserating over 36 years of continuous Republican presidential rule.
“The youth vote” exists until the day after graduation day. Then it becomes the “How much do I have to pay for this?” vote. If we must rely on a bunch of self-important slackers who don’t pay anything, including taxes, now, then we might just as well all become Greens.
“The youth vote.” That’s rich. How many rallies of 27,000!, no 40,000! youthful voters did we see in New York? Bernie got his ass kicked anyway.
In four years, today’s “youth vote” will be trying to come up with the rent and the car payments and all those bucks it costs to pay Starbucks, and Bernie will be a distant, quaint memory.
Great ideas on how to further shrink the party ya gots there ……..;)
1976 Carter. 1992 Clinton. 2012 Obama. With very little extrapolation required, 2000 Gore lost because of his historically below-average showing with the youth vote, which is conspicuous when you compare well Clinton, Kerry, and Obama did.
You can wet your whistle here: http://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls/us-elections/how-groups-voted/how-groups-voted-1976/ Rest of the exit polls are on that website.
At any rate, because Obama and Hillary Clinton are explicitly embracing a coalition of white urbanites + college-educated whites + racial minorities they’re dependent on the youth vote by default. No, seriously. Where did you think that the newly minted waves of brown voters were coming from? A small proportion will be immigrants (though not anymore; thanks Obama) but the vast majority of them will be kids from Generation Y and Z coming of-age.
Ha ha, goddamn are you bitter. I should’ve guessed that some ‘get off my lawn!’ sneering was coming when you led with the typical brainlessly applied political example McCarthy/McGovern.
At any case, the decision is out of your hands. The Democratic Party has by implication gone all-in on the youth vote for now and the future, so it’s way to late to whinge about the young’uns. Look at Kerry and Obama’s exit polls. Then look at the cross-tabs of Hillary vs. Trump match-ups.
What makes you think the “youth vote” population isn’t already trying to make the rent, school tuition, books & supplies, car payments…? From my vantage point, most young voters have a better grasp on the economic future of American than the daughters of the two “heralded” candidates Clinton & Trump now or when they were “youths”.
This might be one reason why Clinton camp is re-evaluating…
Bernie Sanders is going down swinging.
Hillary Clinton is starting to pull away from the Vermont senator in polls of the Democratic primary. But as Sanders’s softer supporters migrate to Hillary, the resolve of hard-core Sandernistas has grown firmer. As the Upshot’s Nate Cohn observes, April’s polls showed Clinton winning between 71 and 82 percent of Sanders supporters in her head-to-heads with Trump. In the latest batch of surveys, that range is between 55 and 72 percent. In the most recent YouGov poll, 61 percent of Sanders backers voiced an unfavorable view of Clinton, while only 38 offered a favorable one — a record high and record low, respectively, in YouGov’s polling of the Democratic race.
[…]
Clinton supporters’ opposition to Obama in 2008 was categorically different from Berners’ antipathy for this year’s Democratic front-runner. The latter are disproportionately young, independent, and alienated from the Democratic Party. The Clinton-Obama race was primarily an argument about qualifications and competence; the Clinton-Sanders race is a referendum on the need for “revolutionary” change. Trump doesn’t need to win over the revolutionaries — he just needs to make them disgusted enough with the major-party offerings to stay home or go Green.
…May polls are historically inaccurate, but this year’s race is a special case. Ninety-seven percent of Americans already have an opinion of Clinton and Trump. …Clinton has always had trouble growing her support over the course of a campaign. Trump, in an admittedly limited sample, has enjoyed the opposite trajectory. This is a change election, and Hillary is a synecdoche for the last two decades of Establishment rule.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/05/why-is-clinton-suddenly-tied-with-trump.html
Oh, for God’s sakes…a little imperious, dontcha think?
In recent direct polling matchups, Hillary dominates the youth vote over Trump. As would be completely unsurprising to anyone honestly appraising the two and imagining how young people would respond to them and their agendas.
only establishment needs a communication team!! we will make our communication great again!
Maybe less communication and more acceptable content would do the trick, like do something substantial about the money and health care.
if we wait for media more significant than the Examiner to cover it, it could still be a long time. Deep down the media bosses are still Republican, and they are NEVER going to tell us that their emperor is naked.
Trump is possibly the most appallingly unqualified candidate ever to run for President, including the ones who were really only doing it as a joke. Do you think the NYT editorial page will ever say that?
Maybe the Times won’t, but CNN is front-paging the Trump University story right now, including the Donald’s intemperate remarks about Judge Curiel, and that jurist’s deliciously damaging procedural riposte:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/28/politics/trump-university-donald-trump-documents/index.html
That knowledge will be known long before The Donald discovers he is living in a glass house.
Depends on what they want to happen to the car.
Alt answer to your question: define “common”.
Lots of people don’t give a shit how incompetent Trump is, they will take a reality show “leader” over a woman or an old leftist. Eg, polls of military rank and file have trump ahead right now. Doesn’t matter that he is less qualified than Vermin Supreme. This summer is going to be a real shitfest.
“Lots of people don’t give a shit how incompetent Trump is … “
Hey, I think that’s already been proven a hundred times over. The point here, though, is that he’s SO incompetent that he’s not going to be able to parlay that advantage into a half-way competent campaign effort.
But yeah, this summer is going to be a real shitfest. It just might be a little more entertaining than we expected.
Why do Democrats keep lying to themselves like this? Trump, despite having a field operation a fraction of the size that his GOP rivals (and HRC for that matter) shattered previous turnout records when you account for the huge field.
Trump may be a freakshow, but there’s no indication that he’s incompetent. I’m sure that people addled by Very Serious Civility Politics think he’s incompetent, because he doesn’t play by their rules, but that’s just pure projection and hypocrisy from a class of people who have been increasingly proving their own incompetence bonafides for the past 5 decades.
How many times have people declared this campaign cycle that Trump was dead/wasn’t going anywhere/would soon be dead? I can name at least 5: when he got smoked with the evangelical vote in Iowa, when he criticized John McCain, when he not only failed to do the Real Bucolic American politicking in Indiana but actively insulted their sports team, when people pointed out how his campaign apparatus was in shambles compared to Cruz/Kasich/Bush, and when he got into a spat with Megyn Kelly.
We shall see. Bernie could wipe the floor with him. And he will.
Attacking the Latina Republican governor of a state he needs to win doesn’t strike me as a particularly great strategic move:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/25/politics/susana-martinez-donald-trump-fight/?iid=ob_article_footer_exp
ansion
Donald Trump will pay for retaliating against GOP token Martinez for not kissing his ass by calling her incompetent, a welfare queen, and soft on terrorism as soon as he pays for slurring McCain as a phony vet.
I’m absolutely astounded at how poorly the Democratic Party is reading the Republican base this election. It’s like, ‘fuck you, our priors are not bad; the situation was bad. We’ll prove it to you by doubling-down on our priors’.
Thing is, I’m assuming Gov. Martinez controls to whatever degree the GOP party apparatus in her state and can slow-walk its GOTV efforts if she chooses to. This isn’t a matter so much of voter perceptions (other than offending Martinez’s fans among Republicans, and she’s got good favorable/un ratings) as it is the structural help or hindrance the state’s GOP apparatus can provide.
I mean, look at, for example, how many complaints there are in this blog about moribund Democratic state organizations blowing winnable elections through torpid incompetence. Look at how often the Sanders supporters claim that Bernie’s being cheated of votes by party shenanigans. What sort of damage do you think active malice could inflict on Trump? I’m sure the GOP apparatchiks expect to be in power long after Trump’s flash in the pan ascent fizzles out, and may well believe some vengeful sabotage is worth any risk.
None, for several reasons.
1.) GOPers with more independence and stature than Martinez pretty much rolled over for Trump Politburo style. Do you really think that a granny-starving token bootlicker like Martinez is going to show more courage than Rubio and Christie?
2.) Even if Martinez did have more spine than other GOP elders that Trump is bullying, why would she stick her neck out like that? The demographics of 2016 make New Mexico vitally important for Trump (and even though Obama made it out-of-reach, a more fractured candidate like Hillary could make it competitive again) but if he does lose the state by the barest of margins because of her intransigence who do you think is going to be on the hook for it?
3.) Organizational apparatuses only help on the margins. Trump has shown his ability to do well in elections even with significant institutional headwinds. If this was 2000 or 2004, when NM was barely won, then sure this might make the difference. But we’re talking about a 0.5% unless she’s actively trying to sabotage his campaign.
Disagree that NM is “vitally important to Trump.” Since 1988, only one GOP presidential candidate has won the state and that was in 2004 and only by 0.8%. It’s far less swingy than CO and NV.
Yes.
The only way this makes sense is if Trump either does not care about New Mexico in the general election, or does not think he can carry it. This was, first and foremost, a dog whistle to his die hard supporters, many of whom are white supremacists. Every event he picks a local latino/Latina, like in San Diego he picked on a local judge.
He has no chance in New Mexico, what with its demographics. He’s signed it off, because his plans are the battle ground states with better demographics. Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, etc.
Very much like like Pat Buchanan used to use a Jewish name to attack (the Rothschild’s were his favorite, European bankers ) in his speeches, Trump will do the same. He will tone down the attacks on groups, but use names as dog whistles. Unlike Buchanan, Trump will use locals in local speeches, but national names in national audiences.
His whole campaign is based on the republican position after Romney lost…’we just did not pull enough whites out to vote’.
90%+ African Americans will go for Clinton, 80%+ of Hispanics will go for Clinton, 55%+ of women will go for Clinton, because they will also hear the dog whistles.
He’s going to need a LOT of white racist males.
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He looks around from the car, observes a row of poodles going down to their knees in amazement, and he gets the confirmation. No one else is an Alpha Dog but him.
To answer your question Booman, perhaps about half way through his second term .