So is an asshole.
An asshole expels vile waste. Trump holds it in.
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AKA the Holy Fucking Shit Nigger principle:
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Good point.
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My personal experience with several languages suggests that is either a gross generalization or completely inaccurate.
I suspect the relationship between Trump and the GOP is pretty close to what the relationship would be between a Chavez-like figure and the Democrats would be (if the Democrat leadership was every weak enough to allow a Trump-like loose cannon to win the nomination).
Sure, you could have this Chavez-a-like executing policy that much of the party has been nominally about for the last several years. He’d be attacking all the right targets while ignoring laws that prevented justice from being done. And the Democrat leadership would be terrified to say anything knowing that any attack on him is an attack on Democrats everywhere…
And honestly, do you think I and much of the left would be attacking perhaps the only chance we might ever have to see actual left-wing policies enacted? Or would we simply hold on tight and pray he (or she) wouldn’t go full autocrat?
The GOP may have created Trump. He may be moving in the way they nominally approve of. But I suspect most of the Republican elites are doing a lot of praying. After all, they can’t get rid of him without repudiating everything the party stands for, at the same time as they’re as aware as everyone else that they’ve accidentally hitched their trailer to a narcissistic sociopath.
In summary, I don’t think the GOP elite is cackling all the way to the bank. While the world has four years of waiting to see if Trump blows up the world, the GOP elite has four years of waiting to see if Trump’s actions merely end up leaving a large crater where the GOP used to be. Their worry is self-inflicted and well-deserved, but I don’t think it’s absent. Nobody (except the politically disengaged) is going to be sleeping well for four years.
(Again, as I said, I can’t see the Democrat leadership ever losing control of the nominee the way the GOP has.)
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and has been told what to do since the beginning.
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Trump may be a rambling dangerous idiot, but being Venezuelan i can’t say using Chavez as a point of comparison for the democrats is a good one. Chavez never hid his political, social, and personal inclinations. He wanted to destroy and rewrite Venezuela and put himself above everyone. He wasn’t part of a political party… he made his own. Even went as far as trying to rewrite our past history and inserting himself along with it. And was able to very quickly get his way by appealing to people’s naked greed by bribing everyone.
Trust me, Trump or any politician in the US is not on the same level of egomania of Chavez.
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Hell, I’m surprised Fox News would even do that. I figured they would say “You’re right, all the other news channels are fake! Only we have the truth!!”
Might be some hope there…not much, but some.
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I have no sympathy for them. They created this, they should own it even if it destroys their whole rotten party.
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Thanks, I appreciate the correction.
I used Chavez as an example of a possible left wing version of populism. Honestly, I don’t think it inconceivable that if right-wing populism keeps working, we turn to populists ourselves who promise rough justice for those who have triumphed under the right.
Sure, the elites would be appalled, but I could see it appealing to a mass of very angry voters, especially after four years of right-wing populism. (Although I think the Democrats could block the nomination, no matter how much the base wanted him.)
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Benjamin Bergen and John McWhorter studied this phenomenon.
IIRC I first heard about it on bOINGbOING.
@FFabian is generalizing but largely correct.
Well I’ve only got one thing to say; haista vittu.
Offered as example, not insult.
Yep. I like Scalzi’s comment of Trump being the platonic ideal of the Republican party.
Now they reap what they’ve sown.
Sadly, so do the rest of us.
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Talk to certain flavors of Sanders supporters, and this is pretty much the story you’ll hear.
Well, if you could have FOX enthuse about Mar-A-Lago South, that would be great. As long as they land in a made-up island south of the Keys, it should be a critical win. I’m picturing a tour of Targon Labs’ Pummelo Accelerator Facility, Sandida Labs’ Quince Ertl Fusion, FOX handling cameos by animated Christian Slader?
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It’s not going to destroy their party. It’s completing their party. Trump is giving them everything they want. If anything untoward does happen, they’ll just blame the Democrats for their “obstructionism” or that Democrats created all these “inherited” problems. “I inherited a mess.”
Sure, Trump steps out of line in minor ways (eg, anti-TPP, spending on infrastructure), but on the “important” things he falls right into line. Recall how Trump, surprisingly, said complimentary things about Planned Parenthood? That’s all gone now: Planned Parenthood = Abortions = Evil. Pence, Preibus & Co. will always be near to guide Trump on ideology and ideologically pure staffing appointments (the people who make the actual policy implementation decisions).
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“Only Nixon could go to China.”
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which is why Reince looked so surprised…Chris,we aren’t supposed to talk about the secret deal remember?
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Yes, it’s vital to the survival of mammals. Of course, most of our organs are vital to our survival.
You really wanna be pedantic about that particular detail, seriously?
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