Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

[walrus]

Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

I think Calgary Ted is setting himself up for 2020. Rubio is boring and being propped up by the media. Cruz is thriving even with the presence of Trump and a GOP + media establishment that hates him.
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Doesn't the GOP Establishment hate both of them? Think that would tell the powers to be something about their party but............

[BassAle]

Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

Doesn't the GOP Establishment hate both of them? Think that would tell the powers to be something about their party but............

yeah, that their party is full of nut-jobs

[Rover]

Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

Doesn't the GOP Establishment hate both of them? Think that would tell the powers to be something about their party but............

GOP Establishment is dead. They're on their knees praying at this point and talking themselves into Rubio. Funny how we keep hearing you can't elect a first term Senator in such a dangerous world, and 2 out of the party's top 3 candidates are.....first term Senators.

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

GOP Establishment is dead.

How do you murder an insurgency?

Surrender. Let it govern. Let it deal with basic quotidian functions. And of course let it deal with all the splinter insurgencies that immediately separate from and challenge it because they didn't appreciate the slice of pie they got. Without logistical competence popular support evaporates; without popular support an insurgency evaporates.

The Republicans could destroy the Tea Party if they wrote off one election cycle and dumped all their support behind TP candidates and positions, promoted them to the hilt, and led them to the abattoir of the voting box.

Either way the RNC would win -- a victory, and even though Andrew Jackson is riding his horse up the White House steps he still needs tens of thousands of apparatchiks to fill all the policy slots and has nowhere to go but back to the party. A loss, and whether or not the fever breaks the (accurate) claim by the Tea Party that they are being held back from within is removed. A calamitous loss and the TP burns off as another one of the fringe movements that litter US political history.

But this continuing slow pull of the duct tape off the hairy chest of the right is just prolonging and deepening their agony.

[Rover]

Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

How do you murder an insurgency?

Surrender. Let it govern. Let it deal with basic quotidian functions. And of course let it deal with all the splinter insurgencies that immediately separate from and challenge it because they didn't appreciate the slice of pie they got. Without logistical competence popular support evaporates; without popular support an insurgency evaporates.

The Republicans could destroy the Tea Party if they wrote off one election cycle and dumped all their support behind TP candidates and positions, promoted them to the hilt, and led them to the abattoir of the voting box.

Either way the RNC would win -- a victory, and even though Andrew Jackson is riding his horse up the White House steps he still needs tens of thousands of apparatchiks to fill all the policy slots and has nowhere to go but back to the party. A loss, and whether or not the fever breaks the (accurate) claim by the Tea Party that they are being held back from within is removed. A calamitous loss and the TP burns off as another one of the fringe movements that litter US political history.

But this continuing slow pull of the duct tape off the hairy chest of the right is just prolonging and deepening their agony.

The issue I have with this theory is the Law of Unintended Consequences. What if, as shocking as this might be, the Tea Party/Trump/Cruz/etc DO in fact speak for the majority of their party, and then the remaining establishment crowd just goes along for the ride? Then instead of confining these nutters to the fringes, they actually become one of the two major parties in the US???

Unfortunately I find that scenario more plausible than a return to Country Club Republicanism as epitomized by the Bush family.

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

The issue I have with this theory is the Law of Unintended Consequences. What if, as shocking as this might be, the Tea Party/Trump/Cruz/etc DO in fact speak for the majority of their party

My argument would be that for as long as Fool and the Gang are prominent in the GOP they will represent a majority of the party's membership, because the party will continue to shrink in accommodating them. There is an inflection point where the number of loyal (but older) votes the Republicans lose by moderating their policies falls below the number of new (and younger) votes they gain. The instant the party hits that point it pivots, because parties are nothing but vote-eating machines.

I have been fond of mapping the GOP against the Democrats' fall.

1976 / 2004 -- One Last Win before the Looming Disaster
1978 / 2006 -- Canary in the Coalmine Midterm
1980 / 2008 -- Judgement Day
1982 / 2010 -- Regression Breeds Denial
1984 / 2012 -- The Smart Guys Wake Up
1986 / 2014 -- Regression Masks Deepening Crisis
1988 / 2016 -- Rock Bottom

Once you hit rock bottom everybody ought to wake up, the denial stops, and the aircraft carrier finally, grudgingly, starts to turn. There's an infusion of new people at many levels and the old guard adapts or dies.

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

Very good article summarizing the GOP's recent history, its internal revolt, and its choices in dealing with it.

However, in reading it one thing really jumped out at me. Frum's angry middle American white male is a lot closer to Bernie Sanders than he is to the GOP Elites. That is something Frum ought to address, but it is beyond the scope of this piece.

[geezer]

Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

Very good article summarizing the GOP's recent history, its internal revolt, and its choices in dealing with it.

However, in reading it one thing really jumped out at me. Frum's angry middle American white male is a lot closer to Bernie Sanders than he is to the GOP Elites. That is something Frum ought to address, but it is beyond the scope of this piece.

I also enjoyed that story. You could be right about Bernie in many ways, but how does the hot streak of libertarianism (aka guns) that these voters hold dear figure into it?

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

I also enjoyed that story. You could be right about Bernie in many ways, but how does the hot streak of libertarianism (aka guns) that these voters hold dear figure into it?

I don't think that's libertarianism -- not among the majority anyway. For example, they also tend to be anti-gay marriage and anti-drug legalization. And they are very concerned about losing their entitlements. Government is bad when it is taking from Us, the deserving, and giving to Them, who is undeserving, shiftless and likely dangerous. That isn't libertarianism, it's tribalism.

I think guns is partly real cultural heritage -- if you are rural a gun is just another tool -- and partly (and increasingly) that same fear. There is a narrative out there: we are rushing towards The Great Crash, which will be caused by debt, fiat currency, or loose morals. This time the government will be overwhelmed and the cities, which are not self-sufficient, will empty out into the countryside in the search for food. The government either won't help or won't exist, and they will be left to self-sufficiency, self-defense, and survivalism. This could last for a week or six months or forever, but in any case they must be ready to protect themselves.

This is a recurrent social anxiety, but because of terrorism and demographic and change currently it really hits a nerve right now. And so, it is heavily monetized and hawked relentlessly. They are torqued up on the (again, lucrative) theme that they are the life's blood of the Republic and everybody else is a parasite (not a "real American").

[Rover]

Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

Bernie is pitching a message of hope. Older white working class males are angry. He's not going to appeal to them by just railing against Wall St.

Trump is running a horrifically brilliant campaign. It boils down to anti-foreigners. Who's a foreigner? Simple: Anybody who doesn't look (or act) like you. The vagueness of that is its power. Voters themselves can tailor that message to mean what they want it to. Opposing Wall St sounds nice, but most denizens of Alabama, West Virginia or Kansas probably don't know too many hedge fund managers so its an abstract concept. Almost all of them DO know someone who doesn't look like them that they're annoyed with. Trump is speaking their language.

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

Turns out we are pikers when it comes to dirty politics.

[mookie1995]

Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

Look like them
Speak their language
Scare the chit outta them

(There are a number of qualifiers one can check)

And it's not just males. Old broads are batchit scared too. Wouldn't call the group "Reagan democrats" however. Stretching to label them "Goldwater dems " as well.

Entirely new breed popping up here.

Still think hilly's winning. But she needs turnout cause peeps are mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore.

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

Opposing Wall St sounds nice, but most denizens of Alabama, West Virginia or Kansas probably don't know too many hedge fund managers so its an abstract concept.

Everybody else taking a bath while about a thousand people on or in deep with Wall Street stole trillions made it a lot less abstract. Every one of them knows somebody who lost a home or a business or a retirement nest egg, and they know who benefited. For a while there they were fooled by the WSJ rearguard action that it was The Element, but the problem is they know those guys suffered too.

There was only one group who came out ahead. Huh.

Frum is describing my co-workers to a tee. They hate Big Bidness and Big Finance just as much as they hate Big Gubmint. The sole exception is Big Military, which they lurve.

[Rover]

Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

Everybody else taking a bath while about a thousand people on or in deep with Wall Street stole trillions made it a lot less abstract. Every one of them knows somebody who lost a home or a business or a retirement nest egg, and they know who benefited. For a while there they were fooled by the WSJ rearguard action that it was The Element, but the problem is they know those guys suffered too.

There was only one group who came out ahead. Huh.

Frum is describing my co-workers to a tee. They hate Big Bidness and Big Finance just as much as they hate Big Gubmint. The sole exception is Big Military, which they lurve.

Kep you're being too rational. Yes, I can easily see your co-workers upset at govt, business, etc. Problem is, someone not speaking English taking away jobs is a much more salient point. In polls I've seen of top concerns of GOP primary voters "Screwing Wall St" doesn't seem to show up much. Illegal immigration along with terrorism (the Islamic kind) are at the top.

Trump has nailed something I've also said about cons, which is they don't mind govt largesse as long as they're the ones receiving it. "America for Americans" and all that. He's also keeping it simple. You or I might like a 5 hour Bernie Sanders dissertation on the evils of unfettered capitalism. Joe Six Pack just wants to hear that he and his fellow whities will keep getting their Medicare and Social Security without illegals/foreigners/etc bankrupting it. Trump is telling them that loud, concise and clear.

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 - I'm Biden my time till I doctor the hearing.

Kep you're being too rational. Yes, I can easily see your co-workers upset at govt, business, etc. Problem is, someone not speaking English taking away jobs is a much more salient point. In polls I've seen of top concerns of GOP primary voters "Screwing Wall St" doesn't seem to show up much. Illegal immigration along with terrorism (the Islamic kind) are at the top.

Here's the thing, though. Bernie is closer to the populist side on immigration than any Democrat I can think of -- close enough that I find it a tad creepy and anachronistic. Bernie is not from the "What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love and Understanding?" crowd of college socialists who coo over anybody with an off-white skin hue, he's a throwback to the true red, white and blue collar Wobbly American socialists of the 30s who were none too pleased about labor wages being undercut by Fernurs. That's what ought to scare the living Bee-Jesus out of TPTB -- Bernie's channeling exactly what those dudes in the TP were on about at the very beginning when they were taking names, R and D, of anybody who signed up for TARP. And if a guy who looks, talks, and acts like Doc Emmett Brown can sit at 39% doing that, then a hairdo with an actor's range of expression from avuncular grin to steely resolve can win the whole shebang saying the same thing.

I'll bet John Edwards is kicking himself.