[Copyeditorial aside]
Some of them are a distaff faction of the Tea Party
I’d bet dollars to donuts that was (some typo’d version of) “disaffected” in the original text, inadvertently spill-chunked to “distaff”.
Either that, or the author has no idea what ‘distaff’ means. Literally or metaphorically. (-:
[/Copyeditorial aside]
So strange to think that Lincoln and Marx were contemporaries.
Try now
Marx’ letter is great
The workingmen of Europe felt instinctively that the star-spangled banner carried the destiny of their class.Much has changed in the last 150 years, both Lincoln and Marx would be WTFed by the state of contemporary GOP and Dems.
Most of the polls you see in regards to trump are pretty limited by state polls of likely republican primary voters with pretty small sample sizes (I think the last one I saw was 600 people). One of the issues with “likely primary voters”, particularly on the republican side, is they tend to skew older and be far more ideological and engaged than the general population. And even likely voters in general. These sorts of polls are known to be a poor indicator of primary outcomes, and don’t indicate much in regards to the general. Apparently they’re heavily skewed by media attention, and Trump is the news topic of the moment.
From what I’ve seen he doesn’t do nearly as well when likely republican voters for the general are polled. And he does horribly when all voters are polled across parties. So while these numbers give an easy metric to hang all this media hand wringing on. They really don’t mean much. And certainly don’t point to broad support among all republicans. All they really indicate is that a minority share (he was polling at around 30% last I paid attention) of the most ideological, most rabid, most crazy chasing subset of the GOP supports him for now.
It’s a little weird that that much larger part of the republican base that hates the guy doesn’t seem to care about coalescing around some one not insane. But the GOP base is more that a little wack at this point. Frankly I’m more concerned that the media is content to wonder what it all means rather than re-reporting all the heinous shit Trump has done over the years. There’s plenty of stuff already on public record that shows just how unfit he is to be allowed near people. None the less serve as president. If he somehow holds out long enough to take the nom, the GOP just handed the white house to the Dems.
Well, Lee Atwater’s “win at all costs” tactic was successful in establishing a welcomingly racist party and there’s been no attempts to divorce the party from its rotten demographics since.
Funny enough. Occupy was also taken over by rightwing AnCaps.
Tbh better Republicans would enable better Dems, so I am legitimately sad.
Schadenfreude - it tastes like …
“Make America h8 again!”
They also spent generations telling Americans that “politicians have no idea what they’re doing,” so it’s no surprise that some people took them at their word.
Therefore somebody who (in terms of policy, diplomacy, all relevant issues) has absolutely no idea what they’re doing is the platonic ideal of a politician
In my own experiences, I’ve observed a mix-bag. Some of it is, indeed, cognitive dissonance while there’s also a large of amount of disingenuous punditry that’s utilizing contrived FUD to promote various agendas.
Anecdotally (for what it’s worth), I worked behind the scenes in Washington D.C. political circles and with Fortune 500 companies. I’ve heard what politicians, business leaders and pundits say when they’re off the record. Many of them most certainly do not privately believe their own public bullshit. That goes for both Democrats and Republicans. And, yes, I’ve also been surprised how hilarious some of the Republican politicians are (intentionally and otherwise) when they feel safe from scrutiny.
Trump? Frankly, he’s difficult for me to read. Part of me thinks his run is a sort of stunt, then sometimes I think he’s fairly serious about derailing the Republican party, and other times I think he’s simply riding the hubristic crazy train that comes with his obvious megalomania disorder. He’s a wild card in my view and perhaps even Trump doesn’t know WTF he’s doing right now.
He’s deriving pleasure from the cheers and jeers, as he always has. Just now on a larger stage than ever before. Narcissistic megalomania. He will crash and burn, but I kinda hope he won’t, because it would make the rest of what needs to happen easier.
Sure. If your entire Party gains supporters by implying that they are aresholes without fully admitting it, then eventually someone will just say “I’m an open, gaping, Arsehole. I am who you really want.”
There is some concern here on my part. I think Trump is a looney as well, but…
Real lunatics on the ground where I live (and I suspect the rest of you live), don’t seem to be able to keep their shit together.
You look at what Trump was given, and it dwarfs any inheritance any of us will ever receive by a margin of probably 100x.
He made a lot of money on top of that, and cultivated a place in the public consciousness as well.
I could be wrong, but handlers can only do so much. I’m guessing he knows precisely the brand of crazy he is selling, which actually is way worse. We should be afraid, and perhaps ashamed. 
I worry that a Genie has been unleashed from its bottle.
For a while, in Australia at least, both sides of Politics had some moral boundaries. You didn’t go full Horrible Bigot to get votes. But now it’s leaking out again. Fringe Politicians do it, then more mainstream pollies find it okay to go there, and then we are on our way to marking the doors of our Enemies with paint. A gradual journey downwards for society.
I gather this is the progression seen since Nixon here. I wasn’t alive, or aware for a lot of it, but that is my understanding.
Seems like Nixon is on the hook for a lot more than just Watergate. Indeed, he was instrumental in creating Fox News.
Anyways, Watergate is kittens compared to some of the things Obama is involved with…
You haven’t event considered the possibility that he’s blaming this on women, have you?
In Canada we got out of a fairly corrupt Liberal government into an unrepentantly corrupt Conservative government. As one commentator I read recently said, the difference between the Liberals and the Conservatives is that the Liberals at least had some table manners - there was some perceived limit to what they could get away with. The Conservatives, on the other hand, have literally changed laws when their allies are in jeopardy of being charged under them. It’s so over the top.
Full Socialism now?
Laffo
Hey, maybe it’s no big deal to you, or maybe you have only been reading BB sporadically for the last 5 years and missed it.
The administration assassinated a 16 year old American citizen because of who his father was. Then they made it legal to do so.
I realize we probably have different values, but you tell me: is that worse than Watergate?
Because that is really, really bad. And I voted for the guy! Twice!
