Well sure. But one can hope that a newcomer will keep his campaign promises. With Reagan’s background as governor, the complete disconnect between Reagan’s record and his promises was on display for everyone to see.
Reagan campaigned for President on getting rid of the deficit and on lowering taxes. But as governor, he was the biggest California spender of the previous half century. Under Reagan, state spending leaped 177%. And he set records for raising taxes.
I’m not so sure Jeb supporters will move to Trump. They are simply too different. Maybe Rubio, but not Trump.
Trump’s the rage candidate for every Republican who isn’t happy with the Party’s current incarnation. I’d consider voting for him in the primaries myself, if I wasn’t too scared that he might actually get elected. Hell, I already voted for a completely insane candidate (Christine O’Donnell) in 2010’s primary, just to help force Castle out of office, and I don’t regret it… even though Chris Coons has been a big disappointment.
Anyway, speaking as a registered Republican (who would very much like Sanders if he wasn’t so damn old) I have this to say to my party’s apparatchiks:
Maybe if the Republican leadership would actually field a candidate who was a champion for pre-Nixon Republican values like racial equality, equal opportunity, freedom of religion, individual responsibility, personal honor, a fair market not just a free market, etc., &etc, instead of the freak show of bigots, losers and fascists they’ve been running ever since Reagan dialed the phonebook, the party could reinvent itself and have a viable future.
So you’re saying the republicans should draft Clinton?
He’s not much older than Clinton. Vote Sanders… it really is the only sane choice at this point.
But you’re right about why some republicans are pissed off. They’re crazy, though if they think pointing for Trump is going to help the situation.
Stop voting for shitty Republican policies that work based on trickle down economics?
Slightly OT, but the magazine Le Point used to refer to the FN as the “partie Lepéniste”, also translatable as “Party of the dicks”. Looking at the candidates, the parallel is even more striking. Though Marin Le Pen actually makes more sense and comes over as less extreme than Palin or Bachmann.
Oh man, I wish this approach would work, but there’s no way in hell that it could. You are overestimating the impact that rational argument can have. Ever wonder why the cable news channels report on the election the way they do? It’s because that’s what the audience responds to. Personality differences seem to matter far more than policy differences.
Aw, c’mon. Reagan’s permanent tax holiday for the rich should be trickling down to the middle class Any Day Now.
The Israeli right wing is a product of the US right wing. Without Adelson’s backing, would Netanyahu have got anywhere?
The right have apparently been advancing since 1990, but to a certain degree howls of rage have always been their preferred communication mechanism and the Internet has facilitated it, perhaps letting their success rate be perceived as higher than it really is. The big news is the rise of China, and that is a different political phenomenon altogether - the rise of secular confucianism?
I think you’re ignoring Israeli agency here. I agree they are tightly linked, but events on the ground had a fair amount to do with his rise to power too.
The lack of need to strike a moderate tone, given a perceived threat of the Soviet Union really did help, though. It released the right wing id because the fall of the Soviet bloc told them they were right in the first place. It also ended the need to reach out to the moderate left.
FTFY. You’re welcome.
Turn billionaires upside down and shake till their pockets empty?
I meant that their policies work based on tricke down, not that their policies actually work or that trickle down actually does. 
Shitty trickle down Republican policies?
but doesn’t that amount to the same thing? 
Oh, wait. If the aim is simply to garner votes - rather than fix the economy or anything foolish like that - then they really are working 
[quote=“beschizza, post:1, topic:74075”]
Trump isn’t consistently right-wing, after all.
[/quote]Trump isn’t consistently anything except “reality-TV-show star”. He’ll say whatever he thinks, in the moment, will help keep him from getting voted off the island.
He’s all about the applause lines.
As far as I can tell, he has no actual political principles at all.
I very much dislike the manifestation it has chosen; but it’s hard to summon much sympathy for the various party hacks who assumed that the ‘advance plutocratic interests, thump minimally salient culture war nonsense to appease the voters on the losing end’ model would work forever.
Trump is willing to dog-whistle as hard as anyone(when he feels the need to be that covert about it); and he is working from the advantageous position of being able to criticize some of the nastier economic pain points because, unlike his rivals, he isn’t in favor of attempting to expand and accelerate them.
Sure, Trump is batshit crazy and a nasty piece of work in a variety of respects; but ‘Mr. Moderate’ Rubio advances the just-slightly-notable plan to tax capital gains at 0%; Cruz basically wants to cut all state activity that isn’t military or establishment clause violations. He’s the most boorish of the lot; but it’s chillingly unclear that he’s actually the most radical of the lot; and he’s certainly the closest thing on the Republican side of the field to somebody who at least pays lip service to the idea that the economic disaster that has pretty much finished chewing up the poor and started work on the middle class is, in fact, a bad thing; and probably one that you can’t just Club For Growth your way out of with some additional tax cuts.
(Lest my portrait be seen as unduly sympathetic, please note that I am comparing him to his competitors in the primary, not to people in general. Against that group, he stacks up rather less favorably.)
Oh, you’re a bad, bad man. But I like your C.R.E.E.P. button. I have an original one of these:
Every once and a while I wear it, just so I have an excuse to explain the “Southern Strategy” to people.
