Tag: politics

Trumpslide: 292 and counting

The Trumpslide cometh:

UPI/CVoter state polls: Donald Trump ahead of Hillary Clinton in Electoral College

Donald Trump would earn enough votes to win the presidency in the Electoral College based on UPI/CVoter’s state tracking poll released Monday.

Trump would amass 292 votes and Clinton would get 246 with 270 needed to secure the oval office.

But the candidates’ leads are narrow enough — 5 percent or less — in 12 states to classify them as swing states, meaning 156 electoral votes could be up for grabs.

So do the TRUMPSL!DE t-shirts from Dark Lord Designs, by the way. Among others. Meanwhile, Politico reports that the Clinton campaign is in disarray over Florida:


Clinton campaign in ‘panic mode’ over Florida black voters

First Trump-Clinton debate takes

The Democratic line, courtesy of the Cajun Rattlesnake himself, James Carville:

I can’t imagine that after what we saw tonight the needle doesn’t move some.

He was just bad.

I’ve talked to a lot of people that have done a lot of research and these sort of instant things, these dial groups. I think what you hear around this panel is pretty much shared by the research that I’ve seen tonight.

Yeah, she was prepared, she was solid, she did a good job. He just kind of — as he went further into it… He just — the further they went, the worse it got. They almost wanted to throw the towel in after 90 minutes. That’s enough.

The Neocon take, as per Charles Krauthammer:

It was not exactly the knock out fight that we thought. It was a spirited fight. I think in the end it was something like a draw. But I do believe that the draw goes to the challenger in the sense that Trump did not go over the line. And the very fact he could go 90 minutes on the same stage ultimately elevates the challenger, that’s just automatic for any debate of that support.

I think he did allow himself to get very defensive and she exploited that. She kept coming back for things where he wasted a lot of time on taxes, on some of the other issues he felt personally about, and, as a result, he missed a lot of opportunities. She presented herself as she always does. Solid, solid, knows her stuff, not terribly exciting but reliable. I think that is the best she can do. Likable, she couldn’t but that is not something within her reach.

He contained himself in the sense that I don’t think he committed any gaffes but he allowed himself — she could find out something personal about him that would make him down rabbit holes at a time when he had wide openings to go after her on e-mails and other items, and let them go.

The Master Persuader impression, from Scott Adams

Trump only had to solve one problem at the debate: Seem less scary. He did. Think about it. Clinton won the debate on points but looked like a recently turned zombie learning to smile for the first time. Trump was Trump. Tie.

My perspective, which should be largely discounted because, as is my habit, I did not watch a single moment of it. Partly because it’s not worth staying up for, but also because I think I get a better take on the reaction to the debate by not having any personal impression to discount.

My verdict: a minor Trump victory that will not get in the way of the polls continuing to gradually move in his favor towards the predicted Trumpslide. 

This is a testable conclusion. If I am correct, the polls will continue to move modestly Trumpward. A minor Hillary win will arrest the polls at the virtual tie point that was reported pre-debate. A big Hillary win would start gradually reversing them, and a big Trump win would trigger the preference cascade and see Trump rapidly move into an unassailable lead.

The important thing to remember is that the substance of the debate, the actual words, the stuff that the media discusses, is only about one-third of the effect of the debate. Hillary clearly won the words portion thanks to Trump allowing himself to be distracted and failing to take advantage of the numerous openings she gave him. But with the non-verbal aspect, the candidates each had to meet a separate objective. Trump had to appear convincingly presidential and look as he merited being on the stage. Hillary had to appear healthy and sane.

Trump did the former. While Hillary didn’t collapse, go on a coughing jag, or go into full bobblehead mode, words such as “creepy” and “zombie” and “weird”and “Nixon” appeared often enough in reactions to the debate that it is clear she failed the optics element.

Remember, people’s reactions are cemented at distinct and unique moments that vary considerably from one person to the next. I was both mystified and amused by the reactions of some people to my debate with Robert Murphy; I couldn’t relate to their perceptions of either party and I was not only there, I was one of them! So, don’t make the mistake of thinking that it’s even possible to isolate two, or three, or ten factors that will trigger the decision response in a viewer, as it could be a weird smile, a convincing phrase, or a momentary look of confusion that does it.

Peter Grant wasn’t impressed with either candidate’s performance, but noted a substantive distinction between the two:

What did strike me was the contrast between the candidates’ approaches to the rest of the world.  Donald Trump was emphatic about protecting American jobs and our national economy, if necessary by renegotiating international trade agreements, restricting immigration, etc.  Hillary Clinton was much more globalist in orientation, looking to admit more refugees, work together with other nations (whatever that means), and so on.  She basically saw the United States as just one nation among many, whereas Donald Trump saw it as the ‘first among equals’ with the right to put its own interests first.

And Scott Adams’s considered conclusion:

The most interesting question has to do with what problem both of them were trying to solve with the debate. Clinton tried to look healthy, and as I mentioned, I don’t think she completely succeeded. But Trump needed to solve exactly one problem: Look less scary. Trump needed to counter Clinton’s successful branding of him as having a bad temperament to the point of being dangerous to the country. Trump accomplished exactly that…by…losing the debate.

Trump was defensive, and debated poorly at points, but he did not look crazy. And pundits noticed that he intentionally avoided using his strongest attacks regarding Bill Clinton’s scandals. In other words, he showed control. He stayed in the presidential zone under pressure. And in so doing, he solved for his only remaining problem. He looked safer.

Trump wins Florida requested ballots

Trump takes at least 43.2 percent of the ballots requested for Florida early voting to Hillary’s 37.3 percent. This election IS NOT GOING TO BE CLOSE. It’s going to be a Trumpslide, as predicted. Republicans had never previously requested more early ballots in Florida than Democrats.

In 2012, Democrats dominated early voting in Florida. In 2016, that domination has been reversed, as Donald Trump is now poised to carry the critical battleground state. Check out the numbers below, and remember, Trump also dominates the share of Independent votes as well, meaning he likely already has a 200,00+ vote lead over Hillary in Florida.

The key statistic isn’t the increase in Republicans requests from 40 percent to 43.2 percent, but rather, the massive decline in Democrats from 43 percent to 37.3 percent. While there is genuine enthusiasm for Trump, what will turn a victory into a Trumpslide is the fact that Democrats have no enthusiasm for Hillary whatsoever.

Scott Adams endorses Donald Trump

Scott Adams demonstrates his courage and his willingness to put his life on the line for America in endorsing Donald Trump for President:

As most of you know, I had been endorsing Hillary Clinton for president, for my personal safety, because I live in California. It isn’t safe to be a Trump supporter where I live. And it’s bad for business too. But recently I switched my endorsement to Trump, and I owe you an explanation. So here it goes.

1. Things I Don’t Know: There are many things I don’t know. For example, I don’t know the best way to defeat ISIS. Neither do you. I don’t know the best way to negotiate trade policies. Neither do you. I don’t know the best tax policy to lift all boats. Neither do you. My opinion on abortion is that men should follow the lead of women on that topic because doing so produces the most credible laws. So on most political topics, I don’t know enough to make a decision. Neither do you, but you probably think you do.

Given the uncertainty about each candidate – at least in my own mind – I have been saying I am not smart enough to know who would be the best president. That neutrality changed when Clinton proposed raising estate taxes. I understand that issue and I view it as robbery by government.

I’ll say more about that, plus some other issues I do understand, below.

2. Confiscation of Property: Clinton proposed a new top Estate Tax of 65% on people with net worth over $500 million. Her website goes to great length to obscure the actual policy details, including the fact that taxes would increase on lower value estates as well. See the total lack of transparency here, where the text simply refers to going back to 2009 rates. It is clear that the intent of the page is to mislead, not inform.

So don’t fall for the claim that Clinton has plenty of policy details on her website. She does, but it is organized to mislead, not to inform. That’s far worse than having no details.

The bottom line is that under Clinton’s plan, estate taxes would be higher for anyone with estates over $5 million(ish). I call this a confiscation tax because income taxes have already been paid on this money. In my case, a dollar I earn today will be taxed at about 50% by various government entities, collectively. With Clinton’s plan, my remaining 50 cents will be taxed again at 50% when I die. So the government would take 75% of my earnings from now on.

Yes, I can do clever things with trusts to avoid estate taxes. But that is just welfare for lawyers. If the impact of the estate tax is nothing but higher fees for my attorney, and hassle for me, that isn’t good news either.

You can argue whether an estate tax is fair or unfair, but fairness is an argument for idiots and children. Fairness isn’t an objective quality of the universe. I oppose the estate tax because I was born to modest means and worked 7-days a week for most of my life to be in my current position. (I’m working today, Sunday, as per usual.) And I don’t want to give 75% of my earnings to the government. (Would you?)

3. Party or Wake: It seems to me that Trump supporters are planning for the world’s biggest party on election night whereas Clinton supporters seem to be preparing for a funeral. I want to be invited to the event that doesn’t involve crying and moving to Canada. (This issue isn’t my biggest reason.)

4. Clinton’s Health: To my untrained eyes and ears, Hillary Clinton doesn’t look sufficiently healthy – mentally or otherwise – to be leading the country. If you disagree, take a look at the now-famous “Why aren’t I 50 points ahead” video clip. Likewise, Bill Clinton seems to be in bad shape too, and Hillary wouldn’t be much use to the country if she is taking care of a dying husband on the side.

5. Pacing and Leading: Trump always takes the extreme position on matters of safety and security for the country, even if those positions are unconstitutional, impractical, evil, or something that the military would refuse to do. Normal people see this as a dangerous situation. Trained persuaders like me see this as something called pacing and leading. Trump “paces” the public – meaning he matches them in their emotional state, and then some. He does that with his extreme responses on immigration, fighting ISIS, stop-and-frisk, etc. Once Trump has established himself as the biggest bad-ass on the topic, he is free to “lead,” which we see him do by softening his deportation stand, limiting his stop-and-frisk comment to Chicago, reversing his first answer on penalties for abortion, and so on. If you are not trained in persuasion, Trump look scary. If you understand pacing and leading, you might see him as the safest candidate who has ever gotten this close to the presidency. That’s how I see him.

So brave. Thank you for this, Scott. Scott Adams is a true American hero.

When Hillary loses

Democrats are likely to be in trouble, because whites are being eradicated from the party leadership:

The shock for Democrats if Clinton loses will likely be more severe than for Republicans if Trump loses.

One option for Democrats would be to moderate their policies, as the New Democrats urged in the 1980s and Bill Clinton did in the 1990s. After all, that proved pretty successful.

Two decades ago, lots of self-described moderates and even conservatives voted in Democratic primaries. Not so these days. The slump in Democratic primary and caucus turnout, from 38 million in 2008 to 31 million in 2016, was due to a sharp decline in turnout by self-described moderates.

Hillary Clinton’s move from her husband’s 1990s triangulation to her near-total acceptance this year of Bernie Sanders’ left-wing platform was a rational response to changes in the Democratic primary electorate.

One lesson of recent presidential primaries is that Democratic voters are transfixed by identity politics, having elected the first black president and chosen the first female presidential nominee. Another is that there’s a large constituency for left-wing candidates.

What they haven’t been interested in is cisgendered white male liberals. The largely forgotten John Edwards fell by the wayside quickly in 2008, and Martin O’Malley, with credentials similar to those of Bill Clinton and Michael Dukakis, attracted zero support in 2016.

That leaves them with no obvious choices if Clinton loses this year. Their most visible and attractive left-wingers, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, will be over 70 in 2020. Prominent black and Hispanic officeholders tend to represent overwhelmingly Democratic constituencies and have made few of the bows to moderation that made Barack Obama a plausible national candidate in 2008.

It’s amusing that everyone is focused on the changes that identity politics will make to the Republicans, when the much more serious change is taking place in the Democratic Party. Just like in local Minnesota politics, where the bigamist Somali woman pushed out the long-serving Jewish representative, there isn’t going to be any more white Democratic leadership.

And that’s when even the most stauch white liberals will start to drift Republicanward.

“Self-righteous Churchian Pharisaism”

Scott Morefield annihilates the feeble anti-Trump arguments of the Republican Party’s Prince of Cucks, Erick Erickson on WND:

Erick doubles down on the insanity as the column devolves into self-righteous Churchian Pharisaism while ultimately rejecting both of the choices God Himself has obviously put before us.

And the logic he uses to do so is horribly, fatally flawed.

Erickson contrasts Clinton’s “tyranny of the minority” with Trump’s “tyranny of the majority” and his “corrupting the virtuous and fostering hatred, racism, and dangerous strains of nationalism.”

Since when, Erick, is putting America and Americans above globalist interests a “dangerous strain of nationalism”?

Trumpism, the movement Trump represents, can essentially be defined as taking our country back from foreign, globalist, corporate and establishment interests by securing our border and limiting immigration, establishing a fair, sensible trade policy that protects American jobs, and limiting foreign interventions overseas, among other things.

What could possibly be wrong with that?

By constantly bringing up the “racist” canard, people like Erickson not only lose credibility – because there is not one single shred of evidence that Donald Trump is a racist – but they insult, like Hillary Clinton did, the millions of Americans who passionately support Trump. It’s tired, old and increasingly ineffective, and yet just like the left, who see a “raaacist” behind every tree, hand-wringers like Erickson continue to deploy it to serve their rhetorical ends.

Further, the attacks on the supposed hypocrisy of prominent Christian theologian Wayne Grudem are beyond the pale, especially given the fact that Grudem made it clear that he did not support Trump in the primaries, just as he didn’t support Giuliani in 2012. However, he most certainly would have supported Giuliani over Obama had he won the primaries, just as he is supporting Trump now, with good reason.

Erickson uses the fact that a fellow parishioner at his church tried to make the argument for Trump based on other flawed men in the Bible God has used, like David, Abraham and Samson, as evidence that Trump has “poisoned” the church from within. He believes that while Clinton will do “long-term damage to the country,” Trump will “do far more damage to the church.”

Ironically, Erickson later writes of the church, “But Christ has already risen, so the true church is in no danger of falling. The gates of hell shall not prevail.”

So, which is it, Erick? If you believe that Christ will protect and keep His church, surely you aren’t worried about a mortal human like Donald Trump wrecking it, are you?

You see, unlike our country, the church IS, at root, a spiritual institution impervious to the machinations of man.

It’s really remarkable what a horrible, and horribly dishonest individual Erick Erickson is. It does not speak well of those Christians who insist on continuing to pay attention to the man and his incessant posturing.

Better late than never

Ted Cruz endorses Donald Trump:

This election is unlike any other in our nation’s history. Like many other voters, I have struggled to determine the right course of action in this general election.

In Cleveland, I urged voters, “please, don’t stay home in November. Stand, and speak, and vote your conscience, vote for candidates up and down the ticket whom you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the Constitution.”

After many months of careful consideration, of prayer and searching my own conscience, I have decided that on Election Day, I will vote for the Republican nominee, Donald Trump.

I’ve made this decision for two reasons. First, last year, I promised to support the Republican nominee. And I intend to keep my word.

One can imagine the tear tracks being carved through the Cheetohs grime covering Glenn Beck’s face. I wonder how long it will take the cuckiest of cucks, Erick Erickson, to follow Cruz’s lead and reverse course considering that he just planted his flag again earlier today.

The polling has drawn ever closer. More and more people wonder if those of us who are NeverTrump should finally yield knowing that we can beat Hillary Clinton. I am in an odd position. I am mindful that should Trump win, the Republican establishment will blame people like me for giving rise to Trump. Likewise, I know if Trump loses, the Republican establishment will blame people like me for giving rise to Trump and Trump supporters will blame people like me for his loss. I suppose I should say not that I’m in an odd position, but that I am in a no-win position.

With Donald Trump’s rise in the polls and the increasingly competitive nature of the race, it is time to reconsider my opposition to Trump. After all, I view Hillary Clinton’s candidacy as anti-American….

I think Hillary Clinton will do lasting damage to the country. I cannot vote for her.

Having reconsidered my opposition to Trump, I think Donald Trump will do lasting damage to the witness of the Church in America and I therefore cannot vote for him.

I am without a candidate. I just cannot vote for either one. Whichever is elected, it is God’s will and as his holy and inerrant scripture commands, I will pray for my President as I pray for the current President. But I will not harm my witness nor risk Trump’s soul to serve my political desires.

The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. I do not believe a vote for either candidate glorifies God and I am certain neither advances his kingdom.

Dude, you voted for Captain Underoos. You voted for a bloody MORMON. You don’t get to play the “oh, I’m an evangelical, I’m too holy to care about my country, I’m voting for God” card after that. What the fuck is “the witness of the Church in America” anyhow? Lesbian Unitarians performing gay marriages while the gay Catholic seminarians chase the altar boys and women talk about their mutually submitted husbands in the pulpits of the Protestant churches as the only male pastors left are too busy apologizing for slavery to preach the Gospel?

Erick Erickson is exactly the sort of Christian that gave me an allergy to Christianity growing up. All that passive-aggressive, faux-righteous babble designed to justify himself reminds me of every smarmy high school guy who was going to a Bible college to pursue a career in youth ministry because it was the only way he could hang around high school girls.

Let the pools begin!

There are going to be betting pools all over the country on this one. I call the 40-minute nark for her first extended coughing jag that interrupts the debate. From the Drudge Report:

If presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton slips into a coughing fit or any other medical crisis during Monday’s high-stakes debate, she will have to power through, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned!

“There are no commercial breaks,” a commission source explains. “Period.”

Debate moderator Lester Holt does not have the authority to cut away from the stage during the epic 90-minute showdown. And microphone audio for either of the candidates is not to be manipulated.

The interesting thing is how heavily her handlers are going to drug her. On the one hand, they’ve got to settle her down, keep her anxiety in check, and suppress her coughing, on the other, they don’t want her going out there wild-eyed, manic, and more hyped up than a coke-addled New York Met from the 1980s.

White Democrats move to Trump

Identity always trumps ideology, if you’ll excuse an obvious pun:

On Como Street in Struthers, where CBS News spent a recent weekend knocking on every door on the block, Skook was in the minority. All around her, the community was ditching their Democratic roots and flocking to Trump.

Paul Sracic, who has lived in the area for years and is chair of the department of politics and international relations at Youngstown University, described Trump’s “blue-collar billionaire” identity as the perfect cocktail to attract onetime Democrats here.

“They know he’s not really a Republican, and that Mitt Romney hates him, so that helps,” Psaric said of the voters in his community. “So instead it’s like, ‘I’m not becoming a country club Republican, I’m a part of Trump’s party.’”

The story of these defections goes back to March when over 6,171 registered Democrats voted in the GOP primary that was a showdown between Trump and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Even the Democratic mayor of Struthers was caught with a Trump For President sign in his front yard.

But the Democrats here have not come back home. Instead, many of them are still looking to Trump.

I note that Donald Trump has gained 11 points in the battleground state of North Carolina, going from -9 to +2 and taking the lead in the RCP state average. It’s too soon to confirm it, but all the indicators of the coming Trumpslide are sliding into place.

I doubt the Charlotte “riots” are hurting Trump any either.