The journalistic low hanging fruit of the summer is overwrought "Who are Trump supporters?" pieces, sometimes using that exact phrase as a title in a truly impressive feat of laziness. The format varies only rarely. Attend a Trump rally, interview a bunch of morons, interview one or two people who seem nice and sincere albeit misinformed and weird (for balance), and make sweeping generalizations about how everything is now Different in some way that nobody can quantify.
If this all feels strangely familiar, that's because it's almost identical to all of the "Who are the Tea Party?" pieces from 2010. Some of these articles read like the authors did little more than ctrl-F those pieces and replace the proper nouns to reflect 2016. If you're a journalist and you're reading this (I know, I know. Just pretend they might be.) let me save you the trouble and point out that Trump supporters are the same as the Tea Party enthusiasts, and in both cases the question "Who are they?" has a very simple answer: They're Republicans.
We already sat through years of rampant speculation about the Tea Party. Are they blue collar disaffected Democrats? Working class poor people fed up with ineffective government? Previously apolitical people being brought into the political process by economic difficulties? A nonpartisan social movement with no historical antecedent? Well, it turned out that Tea Partiers were Republicans. Old, white Republicans. The angriest, loudest, least informed portion of the Republican base. Oh, and a good number of them seemed more than a little put off by the idea of having a black president.
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When all of the survey data is collected, political scientists will plow through the numbers dutifully and show, once again, that this is the profile of a Trump supporter. They're Republicans. Perhaps they will skew a bit younger than the Tea Partiers did – finding someone under 55 at a TP rally was nearly impossible, suffering children under 10 notwithstanding – but the magical diversity and "newness" that journalists and pundits are desperate to read into the Trump phenomenon simply isn't going to be found. They're not Democrats. They're not "independents." They're not people who do not regularly participate in electoral politics. They're Republicans. Far-right, really angry Republicans who have obvious issues with people who do not look, act, and believe like they do.
I understand the impulse to write the story. What journalist could resist the temptation of seeing the shitshow that is Trump 2016 firsthand?
The story practically writes itself and is guaranteed to generate clicks. But understand that there is no real story here, there is no real question that can't be answered. Trump supporters are Tea Partiers, and both are simply the part of the party that the Republican establishment has tried very, very hard to keep away from public view for a long time.
carrstone says:
I guess you keep going for Trump because you've got nothing good to say about Clinton, hmm?
Brian M says:
Sadly, Carrstone does have a (tiny) point here. It's hard to get excited about Hillary. But still…racist demagogue manchild with no experience and questionable honesty and competence versus boring mainstream servant of Wall Street and the MIC, as bad a choice as that is, is still an obvious choice.
Carrstone, of course, loves himself Il Douche, but his choice is not mine.
chautauqua says:
Driftglass' take on the Tea Party:
In the past, I have repeatedly written of the Teabaggers that they:
… seem to be little more than Republicans who are fleeing the scene of their crime, but at the same time still desperately want believe in the inerrant wisdom of Rush Limbaugh. They are completely incapable of facing the horrifying reality that they have gotten every single major political opinion and decision of their adult lives completely wrong, so instead they double-down on their hatred of women and/or gays and/or brown people and/or Liberals, and blame them for the miserable fuckpit their leaders and their policies have made of their live and futures.
Like German soldiers after the fall of Berlin, they have stopped running away from the catastrophe they created only long enough to burn their uniforms.
…
Swellsman says:
Was making some of the same points a few months ago to my (Rush listening, Fox watching) brother-in-law when he asked me what I made of Trump's apparent (then) popularity. I told him that Trump's followers seemed to be made up of extremely angry people, but the CW that they were angry at being left behind economically was in error. Exit polls during the primaries indicate that his voters have a median income about $20,000 higher than that of the general American population, although a much fewer percentage had college degrees (which is why they get classed as "working-class").
"I'm guessing that what they're really angry about is cultural, not economic, in nature," I told him. "I think these are people are get absolutely steamed when they're given the option to 'hit 2 for Spanish.' I think these are people who are pissed off that 'Scandal' and 'Empire' are hit TV shows. They're mad that Beyonce is the queen of American pop. And they absolutely can't stand that some dude named Barack Hussein Obama has been squatting in the White House for the past seven-plus years."
For all the thumbsuckers asking "who are the Trump voters?" that I've read since that conversation, I've yet to see anything to make me question that assessment.
swkellogg says:
And here I thought the were morans looking to protect libety from tranny.
Dial Tone says:
The best look into the mind of a Trump or Tea Party supporter that I've found has been Bob Altemeyer's – The Authoritarians. If you don't read all the footnotes, it's a fairly quick read.
https://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
There's a shorter paper on Tea Party supporters at that link as well.
RP says:
"If you're a journalist and you're reading this (I know, I know. Just pretend they might be.)"
You mean they might be a journalist?
Emerson Dameron says:
I really like George Saunders. The best excuse I can make for his Trump rally piece is that I guess it jibes with his background in writing about made-up amusement parks.
I owe a debt to you, Marc Cooper, and even Michael Kinsley for calling BS on the Tea Party early on – otherwise it would have been torture to watch months' worth of the Serious Media desperately struggling to be nice. Turns it out wasn't much like pseudo-libertarian Woodstock after all.
Emerson Dameron says:
@carrstone:
You've been here for, what, six years now?
Zach says:
"I guess you keep going for Trump because you've got nothing good to say about Clinton, hmm?"
If you have nothing good to say about her, that beats having a million bad things to say about Cheeto Mussolini.
scott says:
"Sadly, Carrstone does have a (tiny) point here. It's hard to get excited about Hillary."
Middle-aged, lower middle-class, straight white married male here to say: I'm fucking stoked about the prospect of President Hillary Clinton. Will she be nearly as far left as I'd like? I seriously doubt it, since neither her husband nor President Obama (the greatest president since WWII) were nearly as far left as I'd like. But a competent, capable, intelligent, thoughtful, educated, tough as nails president who'll keep this country on as correct a track as possible, and who just so happens to be our first female president?
FUCK YEAH.
duquesne_pdx says:
"I guess you keep going for Trump because you've got nothing good to say about Clinton, hmm?"
Lemme see… good things to say about Clinton, in no particular order:
1. She's a professional.
2. She studies issues and makes her plans based on knowledge and not knee-jerk reactions.
3. She has policies and plans in place, not just wishful thinking and fairy dust.
4. She surrounds herself with competent people.
5. She has a filter between her id and her mouth.
6. She's rather experienced in the way that the US government works.
7. She isn't going to push the big red button if another country asserts its own greatness/calls the US the great Satan/does something she doesn't like.
8. She says things that are true most of the time. (Hey, she's a politician. I will take half the loaf.)
9. She has weathered 25 years of Republican attempts to crucify her for imaginary shit and come out unbowed and unbroken.
10. She won't turn the US economy into a dumpster fire that makes 2007 – 2008 look like a good alternative.
11. She won't destroy our alliances and relationships with other countries.
12. She won't appoint reactionary morons to the SCOTUS.
13. She does not motivate through fear and anger.
14. She studies issues before making decisions.
15. She won't tank the ACA and kill insurance coverage for 20M Americans.
And last, but certainly not least, she drives wingnuts into frothing madness.
I don't want to hog all of the fun. Let's all do comparison and contrast between Cheeto Jesus and Hillary Clinton!
duquesne_pdx says:
Oops, 14 is a duplicate. Though, given the contrast between them, it might be worth counting twice!
Robert says:
After Clinton's primary win here in California, I heard some grumbling about 'how is this possible? Look at the crowds who showed up to the Sanders rallies, and she didn't have anywhere near those numbers!'
My take? Most prospective Clinton voters didn't want to go to a rally, they just wanted her to win. Me, I don't mind that she seems to be a not entirely nice person; the last recognizably nice President we've had was Carter, and look how much good it did him. Also, I'm starting to enjoy how unreasonably provoked cholmondeleys like Carrstone get by her.
Scout says:
#16 – Has spent her entire life in Public Service. While she isn't exactly poor, she hasn't forwarded the causes of women, children and health care for monetary benefit to herself.
#17 – Lawyer, First Lady, Senator, Secretary of State… that's an impressive resume.
FDChief says:
Given the likely outcome of November having "good things to say about Hillary" is kind of like praising the vocal stylings of Marcel Marceau. It doesn't matter what she is or wants to accomplish; none of that's going to happen except perhaps a smidge or three on the far fringes of her policy. The GOP monkeyHouse will ensure that no Democratic policies get enacted, no matter how moderate. Or sane, for that matter.
As Cato the Elder used to end all of his orations: "…and, furthermore, the GOP must be destroyed".
carrstone says:
@duquesne_pdx
What a great list of hopes and wishes; no actual achievements, though. If I recall, she was so incompetent that her fellow incompetent wouldn't have her around during his second term.
You forgot one more: she's extremely capable in pulling the wool over progressive eyes but then, she had a good teacher for that.
The saddest part is, of course, that neither candidate is worth leaving home for on November 8. But that's not their fault. That's down to the stupidity of an electorate who love nothing more than being being stroked and free stuff.
J. Dryden says:
With all due respect, Carrstone, there is a difference between "incompetent" and "unsuccessful." It is entirely possible to be the latter without being the former, as anyone who studies the history of, say, abolitionism in America can tell you.
There is also a difference between "incompetent" and "successfully achieved a goal that I do not agree with."
I leave it to you to determine which alternative definition applies to, for instance, her efforts to insure underprivileged children. Also, she left the Obama administration because she was going to run for president at the end of his second term, and needed that time to build up her infrastructure (and to distance herself from him for purposes of self-definition, should his numbers fall too low. Which may strike you as cold-blooded, but strikes me as just what good politics demands.)
And the "free stuff" line is tiresome, inasmuch as it depends on the kind of negative stereotyping that, when it is applied to conservatives such as yourself, you rightly call out as offensive.
Whether or not one regards either candidate as worth voting for is entirely subjective. But voting isn't–and in a country this size, probably shouldn't be–only personal.
I don't consider the wool pulled over my eyes. I'm perfectly aware of Clinton's biography, voting record, and activities in the private sector. I have decided that while some of that history contains elements that displease me (the hawkishness, primarily), there is enough there to persuade me that she has every desire to excel at the job, has the discipline and intelligence to do so, and is guided by a set of priorities that, while they may not be truly progressive, nevertheless are reflective of inclusive social values and a general sense of collective well-being.
That would, in most years, be enough for me to vote for her. Because from a President, I don't want revolution. That way lies totalitarianism. I want progress from the Congress, where it will be the product of multiple points of view, thus watering down the likelihood of tyranny. I'm a liberal, but from my president, I don't expect much beyond a solid hand at the wheel. And I think Clinton can give me that.
I want, in short, someone who will be very, very boring. Because that's what it's like to live in comfort and security.
Given this desire of mine, and given what Trump offers as an alternative, I don't see my decision to vote for her with conviction and good cheer to be the result of blindness or entitlement. I just want to get through the next 4 to 8 years without waking up in a country that's gone the way of Venezuela. I think Clinton can do that. That's all.
geoff says:
I had to go out earlier and saw Trump signs in a very affluent neighborhood along the way. Also tend to see his stickers on well-maintained, newish, expensive SUVs. I wish that I could say from personal observation that Trump supporters were economically aggrieved working class folk (they'd at least have some excuse to want to blow up the status quo), but down here in my Deep Red State, it looks to be the winners that are displaying their love of the Giant Evil Baby. Which baffles me– maybe it IS all about race.
carrstone says:
@J. Dryden
Nice distinction, but I think I'll stick with my original comment. It'd be a waste of time trying to convince someone who's unlikely, for partisan reasons, to agree with my observations/interpretations of her despicable behavior.
When you say that you don't want 'revolution' from a president, does that mean you didn't vote for Obama in 2008?
One good thing will come out of this election – Obama won't be borrowing any more money. However, if the money-printing presses stop, there'll be hardship, if they don't, there'll be hardship of a worse kind in due course.
Like you, I don't want to end up in a Venezuela-like economy although that's getting perilously close. I don't think either candidate knows what's around the corner.
OtherAndrew says:
In what way was Obama revolutionary?
carrstone says:
Why would you bother writing a comment like this? What do you think it'll achieve? Your friends in this thread already know you're a fuckwit, you don't need to confirm it.
carrstone says:
@OtherAndrew
What? Don't you remember his speeches about how he was going to get the water to subside? Or did he mean to say 'subsidize'?
Or were you still in your crib then?
duquesne_pdx says:
"What a great list of hopes and wishes; no actual achievements, though. If I recall, she was so incompetent that her fellow incompetent wouldn't have her around during his second term.
Incompetent. Assertions without evidence do very little to sway me. She had a nice run while Senator, given the make-up of Congress during her tenure. As Secretary of State, she did a great deal to repair the damage done by the idiots in the Bush crew, and was generally successful in her efforts. She's experienced in domestic and foreign policy, knows the players and is well considered by our allies. If that's incompetence, let's all just imagine what she'd be doing right now if she were actually competent.
"You forgot one more: she's extremely capable in pulling the wool over progressive eyes but then, she had a good teacher for that."
Actually, she seems to be much better at getting conservatives to go on snipe hunts with her, given how they never come home with the game.
Brian M says:
Also, I'm starting to enjoy how unreasonably provoked cholmondeleys like Carrstone get by her.
This IS a factor.
LOL.
I mean, I think the current system is unsustainable, but "revolutions" almost always suck and there is not going to be one from the direction I like anyway, so yeah, I will vote for Hillary.
Skepticalist says:
Like some other posters, I'm ready for a boring President. I'm not entirely convinced that she'll be all that boring though. Ike made himself boring deliberately. He knew the world had had enough excitement for the time. A steadier boring hand there never was.
carrstone's blather that by not going all gaga for Hillary on paper makes everything we say bullshit is as irrelevant as is he. Come to think of it, he's pretty boring.
Hillary though, does know how to play the game. She's also smart enough to learn from mistakes rather than stomp out of the room when everything doesn't quite work out. She's an adult.
We tend to take notice when enough learned politicos remind us that voting for a juvenile delinquent would result in a horror show. As I have said before, there is a healthy satisfaction of slamming down a lever against a fascist sociopath.
democommie says:
"With all due respect"?
Crudstain deserves no respect. He's an arrogant, clueless asshole who stil, confuses himself with someone who has original thought.
Bitter Scribe says:
When I read articles about Trump supporters of the kind Ed is referring to—the archetype may be that interminable thing in a recent New Yorker—it makes me think of that Reagan biographer who was driven nearly mad by trying, and failing, to understand who Reagan was, deep down.
What the guy couldn't understand, or accept, is that there was no deep down. Reagan really was as dumb as be seemed, just as the Tea Party/Trump supporters really are as dumb as they seem.
Skepticalist says:
We're told all the time that it's a chore identifying Trump voters. No it's not.
Tea partyer Republicans who pretend to be Libertarians rather than "me only" Libertarians, are a big part. So are angry white seniors that found out that they don't live next to Andy Hardy in a Norman Rockwell universe. They don't know what else to do.
mago says:
Tea party types are content to sit in each others' company and carp about shit that doesn't matter as long as the golf course is watered and maintained. When that goes, well . . .
Not hitting the polls myself, although I'm registered. (Won't go into it with anyone.) However, whatever the game may be you want pros in charge, especially when it come to the POTUS. So, yeah, hold your nose and go Clinton, if you're voting.
Carrstone is too easy a target, but he's not stupid. I'm not even going there anymore.
Thought provoking post and thread.
Mo says:
I still like "Gallstone" as the appropriate nick.
Tom says:
Scott says:
> President Obama (the greatest president since WWII)
Why do you feel this way? What does it mean to be a "great" president? What is the economic quantity he has maximised?
Major Kong says:
I love how carrstone likes to pretend he cares about the debt.
Let's see. Trump wants a big tax cut and a big increase in military spending (where I have heard that before). Cutting food stamps isn't going to make up the difference by a long shot.
Trump's tax cut will add something like $12 trillion to the deficit over a decade.
It's not about the debt. It never was about the debt. It never will be about the debt.
It's about cutting programs that conservatives don't like.
HoosierPoli says:
I applied for my absentee ballot last week, and it feels good. I'm definitely holding my nose to vote for Hillary Clinton, but I've been warming to the idea, especially because of how it will make wingnuts react.
Berkeley '74 says:
I sure miss Hunter S. Thompson writing about times like this.
bad Jim says:
I've heard that Sanders' crowds were the same people following him around, listening to the same speech over and over. What annoyed me was the comparison to Deadheads. I used to be the sort of person who attended two nights of a five-night stand, and no two shows were ever the same.
I'm a fourth or fifth generation Democrat and I'll be as happy to vote for Clinton come November as I was to vote for Obama against her eight years ago. There may not have been a nickel's worth of difference then and there's not a dime's worth of difference now. They're as good as it gets in this country at this time.
Danson Singh says:
I don't know how future historians will judge Obama's presidency, but I am grateful to him for helping to drive a lot of bigots out of the undergrowth into the sunlight. A post-racial America would have been nice, but an America where the people who are filled with hate announce themselves openly is a step forward. I remain confident that there aren't enough of them to put Mr. Trump in the white house.
Jimcat says:
@Tom:
" What does it mean to be a "great" president? What is the economic quantity he has maximised?"
Some would say that you're asking the wrong question there.
mskitty says:
@democommie – just fyi, "with all due respect" is an insult: it means, precisely, "with all the respect that is due, and it's dam' little."
If you want to disagree with someone carefully, you say "with respect, sir …"
Burning River says:
I'm late to the party here, but, this article (which is about 2 years old) is a pretty reasonable accounting that ties a clean thread from Reconstruction-era Southerners to the Dixiecrats, States Rights Party and now to the Tea Party. Are there other 'grievances' that make up the Tea Party? Maybe. I'd argue that you could tie this thread right to the foot of the Trump campaign and have a pretty clear link:
https://weeklysift.com/2014/08/11/not-a-tea-party-a-confederate-party/
John Danley says:
The trumptards would be equally satisfied with Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso as POTUS. No retardation without representation.
JReed says:
@carrstone: I voted for Obama in 2008 knowing that he was essentially a moderate Republican, when such things existed (firmly to the right of Richard Nixon).
I never wanted anything revolutionary, and don't see painstakingly repairing the damage of (but also not addressing the root causes of) the Great Recession to be revolutionary. Nor wider access to health care (essentially a repackaged Republican proposal), which every conservative party in Europe also agrees with, is particularly revolutionary either.
Where I grew up, an almost purely Republican small town, politics generally meant you minded your own business and did your best to act fundamentally decent and not with active malice, and to make prudent decisions with good information to the best of your ability. I voted for Bush's father. I even voted for Perot, although I have since matured and realize the government is its own paradigm and should not actually be run like a business.
I don't particularly want a vicious, sadistic congress that is obsessed with the ladyparts or that hunts for ways to harm the helpless, or for the US to be a laughingstock or financially irresponsible. I believe that voting for Hillary is the best way to protect my traditional Republican values, even though the core of that party itself has been fleeing from those values at least since I've been old enough to watch it happen.
seniorscrub says:
carrstone 8/3 @5:02 :
Think you might have accidently sent your standard reply there, sparky.
carrstone says:
@JReed
Most noble, measured and sedate, I'm sure; just sorry you'll get no satisfaction from either side. I'd suggest you read some stuff from another perspective from time to time.
It's good to realize that the POTUS role isn't half as effective as candidates and incumbents like to think it is. If they really were to be able to realize what they promise, they would have done it, don't you think?
I live in the hope that the proliferation of guns within our borders will be as effective in quelling the pols hubristic ambitions as the FF hoped to make them when they were penning the Second Amendment – not so much in their use but certainly in their presence.
carrstone says:
Reading reactions to my comments in this blog is like being present at the DNC convention – the hissing, the boo-ing, the shouting, the irrelevancies, the missing skills …. It's wonderful entertainment and all for free.
Templar says:
JReed: It's been pretty well de-bunked that Nixon was a moderate or liberal. He just cared almost exclusively about foreign policy and had the good sense not to fight domestic legislation a liberal Congress sent to his desk. As far as Obama being a moderate Republican, I also don't think that is fair as his policies are in line with the activist federal government Democrats of earlier eras. Just go to any gathering of management-side employment lawyers and listen to the conversation about the changes the NLRB and DoL are making.
Skipper says:
It's important to distinguish between Trump supporters and Trump voters. While all Trump supporters are (will be) Trump voters, not all Trump voters could be classified as supporters. Their numbers may surprise you.
As an example, I voted for Bernie. I was not a Bernie "supporter." I sent him no money, went to no rallies, put no Bernie stickers on my car, didn't encourage anyone else to vote for him — but when push came to shove, I put the check mark next to his name.
Same with Hillary. I will vote for her in November — because the alternative is too awful to contemplate — but I am the furthest thing from a Hillary supporter.
The other thing to remember is that those of us discussing such things in detail could be called political nerds. When you can make a bullet point list of Hillary's "good qualities" or "accomplishments" you are a nerd. We represent about five percent of the population. Most other people just know what they read in the headlines or hear on teevee.
Go out in the street and stop passers-by. Ask them what Trump said last night, what he said yesterday, what he did the day before — and they can tell you. Ask them what Hillary did or said in the last week — crickets. She valiantly continued being "not Trump." And only her acolytes can tell you anything she said. That does not get out the vote.
Elections are media driven these days — in case anyone hasn't noticed. Trump is dominating every news cycle. As someone once said — maybe Trump — there's no such thing as bad publicity (although Chipotle may disagree). Who knows what non-rally going folks will do when they get behind the curtain?
@Skepticalist – -don't believe what the imagemakers have led you to believe about Ike. Behind the green curtain, he was far from boring. Boring was an act. A significant number of his staff members had connections to United Fruit and Ike was fine with destroying democracies in Central America to make the world safe for corporations. He was also onboard with the Dulles Brothers' worldwide assault on democracies in the name of beating back the "Red Menace." No amount of murder and mayhem was too much. They destroyed the Congo and got us involved in Vietnam (for which LBJ would later pay the price). And that was just the tip of the iceberg. All Ike demanded — and got — was plausible deniability.
Benny Lava says:
"It's been pretty well de-bunked that Nixon was a moderate or liberal. He just cared almost exclusively about foreign policy and had the good sense not to fight domestic legislation a liberal Congress sent to his desk"
Debunked by whom? The man himself said "we're all Keynesians now". That puts him to the left of the entire Republican Party. Also Nixon campaigned on environmental issues in 72. I'll file your statement under "lies conservatives have told me". I have a big file.
Skipper says:
@Benny Lava — exactly. And Nixon proposed a health-care plan that was far to the left of either Hillary Care or Obama Care. It was sabotaged by Democrats led by Ted Kennedy.
Totoro says:
Without our "useful idiot" giving us some idea of how the Trump supporters think this comment section would be a boring place. So feel free to correct his fallacies but please don't scare him off. I often wonder if Ed is paying him to post here.
Scout says:
One of any troll's most endearing characteristics is its smug, sneery self regard; as if it, and it alone, is a fount of wisdom and knowledge. The troll is sure that those it regards its lessers are eager to learn how lacking it deems them. Comment sections everywhere offer up many opportunities to observe the species and it is endlessly amusing.
And so.
I didn't start this election season a big fan of Hillary's, because my limited understanding of her was that she was an ambitious person who wanted to achieve power. Not necessarily for any nefarious reason, but power all the same. It wasn't until recently that I began to look more closely at where she came from, what she stands for and what exactly drives her to put herself out there. Learning that she approaches public service from a place of identifying needs of people who need an advocate, and then making a plan of action to effect change was a game changer in how I view her as a candidate. Even if El Douche wasn't the worst example of a sentient being ever, I would still vote for her. I'm old enough (1st POTUS I voted for was Carter) to know that she isn't perfect and that she'll do things I don't agree with, but she's going to be a steady hand on the wheel.
This story would be a nothingburger except for the fact El Douche has made ‘illegals’ one of the centerpieces of his campaign.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/melania-trump-immigration-donald-226648
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/was-melania-trump-an-illegal-also-argh
Skipper says:
@Totoro — maybe it IS Ed, just rattling our cages.
OtherAndrew says:
@carrstone: "What? Don't you remember his speeches about how he was going to get the water to subside? Or did he mean to say 'subsidize'?
Or were you still in your crib then?"
I remember Republicans mocking him for hopey-changey. Because it was clear they weren't listening to the words he said or reading his platform but instead reacting to the caricature in their minds.
I guess your recollection of that time has grown worse as your advancing age has set in.
OtherAndrew says:
@carrstone: "Reading reactions to my comments in this blog is like being present at the DNC convention – the hissing, the boo-ing, the shouting, the irrelevancies, the missing skills …. It's wonderful entertainment and all for free."
Man, you're the one that resorting to name-calling me immediately after I asked an innocuous question with no hint of a personal attack whatsoever.
I'd suggest you remove the log from your eye before you attack others for their specks.
Skepticalist says:
So I'll assume carrstone is a voter.
Evidently he's voting for Trump.
I'm voting for Hillary. A Democratic veto is important especially if the Republicans hold on to the Senate.
I try not to shoot myself in the foot.
Skipper says:
I just read Ted Rall's "Trump — a graphic biography." It's a pretty good explanation of Trump and how he ended up doing what he's doing, as well as what motivates the Trump voters. Despite being heavy on cartoons, the book doesn't reduce either Trump or his supporters to being cartoon characters, which seems to be what so many people on the left are doing — at their own peril.
Kaleberg says:
You can trace Trump's people back to the paralysis in the 1830s and 1840s in which the pre-Confederacy south held back railroads, western settlement, universities and just about everything that made America Great. The 1860s, when these folks weren't voting in Congress was a great progressive age. We wouldn't have had land grant universities or a transcontinental railroad with these guys in power. They are really nasty people.
I was in favor of Hilary Clinton back in '08, despite her war vote. She's actually been fighting the good fight for decades now, and it has been uphill all the way. I'm hoping she wins. She might not be as far left as I might like, but she can be pushed. It's like FDR who always reminded voters that he could only do for them that which they demanded.
Kaleberg says:
P.S. My favorite Eisenhower article:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1994/06/06/eisenhowers-folly/cb250c5d-ecdc-46a5-944d-7c2ca9caaf57/
democommie says:
@OtherAndrew:
There are a shitload of people who waste their time talking to fuckheads like Crapstandard. It is a completely useless practice. I say that incivility in the pursuit of getting such assholes to quit wasting the time of rational posters is not a vice.
Eau says:
@democommie: And fun, too!
Templar says:
Benny and Skipper: the heavy lifting in the debunking of the Nixon is a liberal idea was done by Bernstein's "Nixonland". I read Lawyers, Guns, and Money pretty regularly and they have been on this beat for a while:
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2015/07/today-in-dick-nixon-liberal-hero
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2014/02/to-noam-chomsky-and-everyone-else-richard-nixon-was-not-a-liberal
seniorscrub says:
Lewis Black, I believe, said one of the "problems with Hillary is she never went away."
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/05/18/lewis-black-hillary-clinton-s-problem-is-she-never-went-away.html
Tom says:
Never thought I would see shills like Kaleberg on Ed's blog. HRC really some some serious cash to burn.
Joe says:
Same answer to the question, "Who are the Libertarians?" They're Republicans.
Specifically, if they're old and rich then they are Republicans that want the "liberty" to pollute wherever they want and not pay taxes.
If they are young, then they are Republicans want the "liberty" to smoke pot.